Semitic language group. Meaning of "Semitic languages

Dictionary of linguistic terms

Semitic languages

(Semitic) languages. Languages ​​that form a number of groups that include dead languages ​​(Assyro-Babylonian, or Akkadian; Canaanite, or Hebrew-Phoenician; Aramaic; Assyrian, the descendant of which is modern Aysor), modern Arabic, Amharic (the language of the Abyssinians).

encyclopedic Dictionary

Semitic Languages

a branch of the Afrasian, or Semitic-Hamitic, macrofamily of languages. Consists of groups:

  1. north-peripheral, or eastern (extinct Akkadian with dialects of Assyrian and Babylonian);
  2. north-central, or north-western [living - Hebrew and New Aramaic dialects, united under the name of the Assyrian (New Syrian) languages; the dead - Eblaite, Amorite, Canaanite, Ugaritic, Phoenician-Punic, Hebrew and Aramaic dialects: Old Aramaic, Imperial Aramaic, West Aramaic: Palmyra, Nabatean, Palestinian; East Aramaic: Syrian, or Syrian, Babylonian-Talmudic, Mandaean]; 3) south-central [Arabic (with dialects) and Maltese]; 4) south-peripheral (living - mehri, shkhauri, sokotri, etc.; dead - Minea, Sabean, Kataban);
  3. Ethiosemite (living - tigers, tigers, or tigrinya, Amharic, argobba, etc.; dead - geez, or Ethiopian, hafat). The last three groups are often combined into one. The oldest monuments of the Semitic languages ​​are Akkadian cuneiform inscriptions, proper names and the names of the localities of Palestine in Egyptian inscriptions (3rd - 2nd millennium BC). There are monuments of writing in Akkadian, Hebrew, Syrian, Ethiopian, Arabic. Preserved inscriptions in Ugaritic, Phoenician-Punic, Menaic, Sabean, etc.

Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

Semitic languages

The common name for the languages ​​of Babylonian-Assyrian (dead), Hebrew-Phoenician (dead), Aramaic (almost extinct), Arabic and Ethiopian. It was introduced by Eichhorn ("Einleitung in das Alte Testament", Lpts., 1787, 2nd ed.) On the basis of the 10th chapter. Genesis became generally accepted, although the Bible is guided not by ethnographic, but by political and partly geographic considerations, and therefore the Phoenicians, who have long been subject to Egypt and easily assimilated Egyptian civilization, are counted among the descendants of Ham, and include the Lydians and Elamites among the descendants of Shem. The proximity of S. languages ​​to Indo-European cannot be proved (see Schleicher in "Beitr ä ge zur vergl. Sprachforsch.", 1861, II, 236; Neldecke in "Orient u. Occident", 1863, II, 375), but the nearest their relationship with the family of Hamitic languages ​​(Egyptian and others, see) is undeniable, although not established with complete accuracy (see Benfey. "Ueber das Verh ältniss der ä gypt. Sprache zum semit. Sprachstamm", Lpts., 1844; K. Abel, "Einleitung in ein ägyptisch-semitisch-indoeuropäisches Wurzelwö rterbuch", Lpc., 1887; "Ue her Wechselbeziehungen der ä gypt., Indoeurop. Und semit. Etymologie", Lpc. ", Lpts., 1890; Gommel," Ueber den Grad der Verwandtschaft d. Alt ä gypt. Md Semit. ", Lpts. 1892). The ancestral home of S. lang. before they were eagerly seen in Armenia, where an ark with Noah's family rested on the mountains of Ararat; however, in the Bible itself, the 11th chapter of Genesis brings multilingual nations out of Babylon. In the 70s. XIX century, on the basis of S. words relating to nature, climate and soil structure, the opinion was held that in the primitive abode of the Semites there were no palm trees and ostriches, there were no mountains, etc., and it was concluded that the presemitic cultural center there was the Mesopotamian lowland, where the Semites, however, could have been not autochthonous, but newcomers from the Central Asian plateau, from the sources of the Oxus and Yaxartes (Kremer), or from the south or southwest of the Caspian Sea (Gvidi). This was proved by A. von Kremer ("Semitische Culturentlehnungen aus dem Pflanzen- und Thierreiche", in "Ausland", 1875, No. 1 - 2), I. Gwidi ("Della sede primitiva dei popoli semitici", in the edition of "Accademia Reale dei Lincei ", Rome, 1878-79) and arguing with Kremer in particular Gommel (Hommel," Die Namen der S äugethiere bei den südsemit. Vö lkern ", Lpts., 1879, p. 406 et seq .;" Die semit . V ölk er u. Sprachen ", 1883, p. 63, etc.); the philological instability of their method was noted by T. Neldeke ("Die sem. Sprachen", Lpc. 1887, p. 12), and cultural-historical inconsistencies - in the speech of de Gue (De-Goeje: "Het Vaderland der semietische Volken", in "Jaar b oek des Ryks-Uuiversiteit te Leiden", 1881-82). The most generally accepted are considerations proving that the Semites' residence at the time of their ethnic unity was the North Arabian desert, the defenders of this opinion - Sprenger ("Das Leben u. Die Lehre des Mohammed", Berl., 1869, vol. I, 241 pp. .; "Alte Geogr. Arabiens", Bern, 1875, p. 293), Sayce (Sayce, "Assyrian Grammar for comparative purposes", 1872, p. 13), Schrader ("Die Abstammung d. Chald ä er und die Ursitze d. Semiten ", in" Zeitschrift d. deu tschen Morgenlä ndischen Gesellschaft ", 1873, pp. 397 - 424), de Gue (title speech), Wright (see; below). Bearing in mind the kinship of the Semites with the autochthonous Hamites of Africa, the anthropologist Gerland suggested that they were immigrants from Africa, where they were one more people with the Hamites ("Antropologische Beitr ä ge", Halle, 1874, p. 396 f .; "Atlas der Ethnographie" , Lpts. 1876, p. 40 of the text); the same opinion was repeated by the philologist Neldeke ("Die semit. Sprachen", 9); Smith, publishing "Lectures on the comparative grammar of the semit. Languages" Wright (Cambridge, 1890, p. 9), agreed with him, but noted that, having left Africa, the Semites still had to first live in Sowing. Arabia in the form of one ethnic whole, and from there to settle in other places. Asia. Comparative study of S. languages, as well as S. religions (see the works of Thiele) shows that the Prosemitic people did not immediately split into five branches, but at first only into two - southern and northern; then, in the northern branch, the languages ​​of Babylonian-Assyrian, Aramaic and Hebrew-Phoenician (Canaanite) emerged, and in the southern branch, Arabic and Ethiopian. Babylonian-Assyrian language (see), usually called simply Assyrian, flourished in the countries of the lower Euphrates and the Tigris. It was transmitted to us by a very inconvenient cuneiform system (see). The oldest Babylonian inscriptions date back to 3000 BC, but most of the surviving monuments date back to the period of the great Assyrian conquests, between 1000 and 500 BC; at that time in Babylonia the language of the people was already the Aramaic language, and Assyrian was the language of the government and the official language; with the fall of Assyria the Assyrian language. died out, but inscriptions on it continued to appear in the Persian period (for example, under Artaxerxes Mnemon, at the beginning of the 4th century BC) and even sometimes in the Greek (inscription of Antiochus I Soter, 269 BC. ). For the study of the Babylonian-Assyrian language, see the works of Menan (see; his "Syllabaire Assyrien", P., 1869-73), Smith (see), Oppert (see), Rawlinson (see), Ginks (see .), Norris ("Assyrian Dictionary", I - III, 1868-72), Haupt (see; also in "Americ. Journ. Of Philol.", 1887), Gommel (see), Schrader (esp. " Die Basis der Entzifferung d. Ass.-bab. Keilinschr. ", In" ZDMG "1869), Seis (" Assyr. Grammar for comparative purposes "1872;" Elem. Gramm. Of the Ass. Lang. "1875, 2- e ed. 1877, etc.), Lyon (Lyon, "Assyr. Manual", Chicago, 1886), Delitzsch (see; especially important are his "Assyr. Gramm.", 1889, and the huge "Assyr. Wörterbuch" , since 1888). Their research revealed that the Babylonian-Assyrian language is more closely related to the Hebrew-Phoenician than to the Aramaic; however, peculiar grammatical forms of the Babylonian-Assyrian language led researchers to the idea that it can be attributed not to the North Semitic group, but to a very special, East Semitic. Babylonian-Assyrian vocalism is archaic, but consonantism is far from being like that, and for this alone Seis's confidence that the Assyrian language will occupy the same position in S. philology as Sanskrit in Indo-European is unfounded; in addition, the reading of cuneiform is still not entirely accurate. Aramaic the Greeks called the Syrian country, the country of Aram - Syria (see Neldeke in "Hermes", 1871, p. 443, and in "Z. D. M. G." XXV, 113). They were originally spoken by the inhabitants of Aram Damascus (i.e., Damascus Syria) and Aram Mesopotamia (it is not known what area the Bible understands by this term - in Mesopotamia or between the Euphrates and Khabor). Gradually, the Aramaic language supplanted other northern S. languages ​​throughout Mesopotamia (where the Assyrian language remained only a government language), in all of Syria (with the non-Semitic region of the Hets), in Phenicia and Palestine. Under the Assyrians, it served for the ancient East as an organ of international relations, as is now the French language; in the Persian period of history the Aramaic language. turns out to be official for all countries west of the Euphrates and for Egypt. Having spread over such a vast territory, the Aramaic language was divided into dialects. There are three of them: a) central Aramaic , or Edesian (that is, northern Mesopotamian), which, due to its literary importance for other Aramaic, is called the Syrian language (see), or Syrian, mainly before others; b) West Aramaic (incorrectly referred to as Chaldean) is a dialect of Syria in proper sense and Palestine (where he supplanted the Hebrew language after the fall of the kingdom of the Jews, 586); it contains part of the book of Ezra (at the end of the 6th or beginning of the 5th century BC or even later), part of the book of Daniel, the biblical Targums (see), Onkelos and Jonathan (edited in Babylon already in the 4th century), Jerusalem Talmud (see) and others so called. biblical-Aramaic works, as well as Samaritan monuments (Samaritan Targum, liturgical books and hymns). Study guides - Biblical-Aramaic grammar of Couch (Lpts., 1884), Luzzatto (German translation by Kruger, Breslavl, 1873), Wiener, Petermann, Patience (Turpie); samarite. grammar Ulemann (LPC, 1837), Petermann (Berl., 1873), Nichols. Sub-dialects or varieties of Western Aramaic. branches: 1) Egyptian-Aramaic, known from the inscription of 482 BC (4th year of the reign of Xerxes) and from others, later (published in the "Oriental Series", "Revue Arché ologique", etc. .); 2) written Nabatean, from Pers. period before the 1st century according to R. Kh. (see; the Nabateans themselves were Arabs and only gradually became Arameanized, so that the word "Nabatean" means "Aramean" among the Arab writers); 3) common Palmyra, I - III centuries. according to R. Kh. (see; the aristocracy was Arab there; on the basis of the works of de Vogue: "Syrie Centrale, inscriptions s é mitiques", P., 1868-77, Neldecke wrote an article in "ZDMG", XXIV; see. also "ZDMG", XXXVII, 562 pages and XLII, 380 pages, where the literature of the subject is indicated); 4) the speech of Palestinian Christians, the monuments of which are translations of excerpts from Holy Scriptures. Scriptures, chants and theological compositions (the main monument was published by Gr. Miniscalchi-Erzzo, under an inconsistent title: "Evangeliarium Hiero s olymitanum", Verona, 1861, 64, although there is no reason to associate this subveron with Jerusalem; the rest are in the 4th volume " Anecdota Syriaca "Landa, Leid., 1875; gram. Neldecke, in" ZDMG ", XXII). All subverbs of Zap.-Aram. adverbs are extremely close to each other; in) East Aramaic the dialect was heard in the Assyrian mountains (but we do not know its history there), and in Chaldea, in the plains of Iraq; its most ancient monuments are the Aramaic part of the Babylonian Talmud, not alien, however, of Hebraisms, and the later, but free from Jewish admixtures, the sacred books of the Gnostic, semi-Christian, semi-pagan sect of Mandeans (see; Neldeke, "Mand ä ische Grammatik", Halle, 1875 ). From the Arab writers East-Aram. the dialect is called Nabatean because of the similarity with the speech of the Arameanized subjects of the Nabateans. Arab rule dealt a blow to the Aramaic language. In the west, it declined sharply in the 1st century of the Hydjra, and now it is spoken only by women and children of several villages of Anti-Lebanon (Ma lula), to the NER from Damascus (see Ferrett in Jour n. Of the Royal As. Soc. ", 1863, XX, 431 ff .; Neldecke in ZDMG XXI, 183 ff .; Guard in Journ. Asiat.", 1878, XII, 490 ff .; Duval in Journ. Asiat., 1879, XIII , 456 f.). The Edesian, or Syrian, dialect, adopted by the other (assimilated) Arameans as a sacred Christian literary language, was in the XI century. already incomprehensible to the Syrians themselves. Only the Eastern Aramaic dialects, although disappeared in Babylonia, still live in the mouths of the Christian and Jewish population of the Diabekr and Kurdistan mountains, north of Mosul, starting from Mâ rdin and Midiyad on the West and Lake. Urmia and Selmas at B; they are euphonic, because they have lost their common Semitic gutturalness, and by the efforts of European missionaries are turned into the organ of literature; seals they are known under the wrong name of the Novosirian language, but they are closer to the language of the Babylonian Talmud and the Mandean books than to the Syrian language. See Neldecke, "Grammat. D. Neusyrischen Sprache am Urmia-See und in Kurdistan", Lpc., 1868 and earlier gram. missionary Stoddard, London, 1865; Merckx, "Neusyr. Le s ebuch", Bresl., 1873; Prim (Prym) and Socin, "Der neu-aram. Dialect des Tur-Abd î n", Goett., 1881; Socin, "Die neu-aram. Dialecte von Urmia bis Mosul", Tubing., 1882, and Neldeke's article in "ZD M. G.", XXXVI, 669 ff .; Duval, "Les dialectes n éo-aram. D e. Salamas", P., 1883; Guidi, "Beitr äge zur Kenntniss d. Neu-aram. Fellîhî -Dialektes" in "Z. D. M. G.", XXXVII, 293 ff. Hebrew-Phoenician language , so called according to its two main representatives, contains: 1) the Canaanite adverbs (see), of which we know quite well only the Phoenician (see), and 2) the so-called adverbs. terakhites (i.e., the descendants of Terah, the father of Abraham), who, according to the Bible, came out of Ur of Babylon and were Aramaic (Deuteronomy XXVI, 5, Gen. XXV, 20; XXVIII, 5; XXXI, 20, 24). Of the Terahites, the descendants of Ismail completely merged with the Arabs, and the Edomites, Moabites and Ammonites (who settled around the Dead Sea) and Jews (who left for three hundred years to Egypt and returned to Canaan around 1340-1320) learned the speech of the defeated by them, but more cultural Canaanites (see; cf. P. Kokovtsov, "Book of Comparison of the Hebrew language. with Arabic." Ibn Barun, St. Petersburg, 1893). Arabic language (see) splits into the northern branch, or the proper Arabic language, and the southern branch, or the Sabean language. BUT) Arabic proper , the richest of all S. languages ​​and, since the time of Islam, the most widespread, manifested itself in a small number of monuments even before Islam. Long before R. Kh. Compiled in sowing. Hijaze short Arabic inscriptions, disassembled by Halevi and D. Müller and unsuccessfully called Famudian (the Nabataean famudites wrote in Aramaic); they are inscribed in the rudimentary Sabaean alphabet; presence of a Jewish member ha shows that they were written by a people who occupied the middle between Jews and Arabs, like the Ismailites, Midianites, or even the Edomites. At a later time, apparently by Arab newcomers from the south, extremely short, illegible inscriptions were made on the rocks of Safa near Damascus; their letters are similar to those of the Sabean (Hal évy, "Essai sur les inscriptions du Safa", "Journal. Asiat.", 1882). In the (Aramaic) Nabatean inscriptions of Hauran, Petra, Sinaisk. peninsula and el-Khedzhra in sowing. Arabia breaks through the native element of the Arab, like our Old Russian through the Church Slavonic shell, and shows that the speech of the Nabateans (approx. 1st century A.D.) was already very similar to the later, classical Arabic language; the embryo of the loss or incompleteness of the case endings is noticed, which can also be seen from the transcriptions of Arabic names in the (Aramaic) monuments of Palmyra (I-III c.) and Edesian (Neldeke, "Semit. Sprach.", 43 - 44). The most ancient Arab. monuments inscribed in Arabic script - the Arabic part of the Syro-Greek-Arab. difficult to read trilingual inscription Zabad, 512-513 A.D. (south-east of Aleppo; see Zachau, in "Monatsbericht d. Berl. Acad. d. Wiss.", 1891, Feb. 10, and in "ZDMG "XXXVI, 345 f.) And an Arab. part of a Greek-Arabic bilingual inscription of Harran, 568 (south of Damascus; ed. Le Bas and Waddington, no. 2464; "Z. D. M. G." XXXVIII, 530); from them it can be seen that the most sowing. Arabs even before Islam (Mohammed born ca 570-571), case inflections disappeared. About the language of Arabia in the era of Mohammed and even in the 6th century. we can confidently assert that over a vast area from the Hejaz to the Euphrates, it was a single speech, and the dialect of the Koreishites (see), on. which the Koran was pronounced (see), did not have any significant differences from the dialects of other, even the most distant parts of their own Arabia (Neldeke, "Die Semit. Sprachen", 44 - 50). The classical language of the Arabs was based on the language of pre-Islamic poetic works (see Moallaki, Hamas), the language of the Koran, which is identical with it, and colloquial speech Bedouins of the first centuries. hydzhra, which the townspeople considered a criterion for resolving controversial philological issues that could not be solved in a book way. This classic Arab. the language remains the common Arabic language of writing to the present time, but even in the 1st century. gidzhra he began to die in living speech and become incomprehensible to the common people, as, for example, the Church Slavonic language for the Russians (see Landberg, "Proverbes et dictons du peuple arabe", Leiden, 1883, p. XXIV f.); therefore, in many works - for example, historians, commentators, business writers - a simplified form of the literary language has been developed, in which the classical grammar is preserved, but obsolete words are avoided and words are generally understood. Colloquial adverbs into which the Arabic language was broken. after Islam: 1) Arabian (the most archaic), 2) Syrian-Mesopotamian (i.e., the group of dialects of Syria and Palestine and the group of dialects of East Mesopotamian), 3) Egyptian and 4) Maghrebi (or Western Moorish, barbarian, i.e. e. the dialects of Tripoli, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco); in the closest connection with the present Maghrebi is the disappeared Arabic-Spanish and Arab-Sicilian dialects, and Maltese also belongs to it - a rough mixture of the Arabic language. with Italian. About arab. for the adverb, see Wetztein in Z. D. M. G., XXII; Snouck Kurgronje, "Arab. Sprichwörter", in "Proceedings of the VII Congress of Orientalists in Vienna" 1886, and Landberg, "Critica arabica", Leid., 1887. About Syriac - Hartmann, "Arab. Sprachführer für die Reisenden", Llz ., 1881; Landberg, Proverbes et dictons, Leid. 1883; his, "Bâsim le forgeron", Leid., 1888; Barthélemy, in Journ. Asiat., VIII, X; Wezstein, in "Z. D. M. G.", passim; Huart, in "Journ. Asiat.", 1883, Jan., and rec. O. David in the same year; Oestrup, "Contos de Damas avec une esquisse de grammaire", Leid., 1897; Tallqvist, "Arab. Sprichwörter", Helsingf. and Lpts., 1897; Bauer, Lehrbuch, Epyc., 1897; Kelzi, "Russian-Arabic. Public Conversations", St. Petersburg, 1863; Krymsky, "Materials for the study of the languages. And ethnography. Syria" (published in the publishing house Lazar. Inst. Eastern.). About Mesopot. bunk bed (at Mosul and Mardin) - Sotsin's articles in "Z. D. M. G.", XXXVI - XXXVII; "Arab. Sprichwörter", Tubing., 1878; Zachau, "Arab. Volkslieder aus Mesopotamien", Berl., 1889. About Egyptian Nar. - Tantavi, "Traité de la langue ag. Vulg.", Lpts., 1848; Spitta Bay, "Gramm. D. Arab. Vulgärdialektes," Lpc., 1880, and "Contes arabes modernes," Leid., 1883; Dulac, in "Mém. De la mission archéol. Franc. En Egypte", 1881-84, and "Journ. Asiat. ", 1885, V; Vollers." Lehrbuch d. ägypto-arab. Umgangssprache ", Cairo, 1890; Haggenmacher," Gramm. d. aeg.-arab. Vulg.-dial. ", Cairo, 1892; Seidel," Prakt. Handbuch d. arab. Umgangssprache, mit Wörterh. ", Berl., 1894; Cameron," Modern egypt.- ar.-engl. vocabulary ", Lond., 1892; Wafâ-effendi," Mukaddime "(in Arabic), Bulak, 1310. On the Magrebin peoples of northern Africa - see also G. Stumme," Tunisische Märchen und Gedichte ", Lpc ., 1893: "Tripol.-Tunis. Beduinenlieder ", Lpc., 1894, French transl. Vagnon, Par., 1894;" Der Arab. Dial. d. Houwara in Marokko "(with Sotsin), in XV vol." Abhandl. d. rihuol.-hоst. Classe der königl. Cresellsch. d. Wissensch. ", Lpts., 1894. About Schilch's dialects in" Z. D. M. O. ", XLVIII;" Märchen d. Schluh von Tazerwalt ", Lpd., 1895;" Dichtkunst d. Schluh ", Lpts., 1895" Gramm. d. Schilli ", Lpts., 1895;" Neue tunis. Sammlungen, Z. für afrik. Sprach. ", Lpts., 1869, II;" Gramm, d. tunisisch. Arab. nehst Glossar ", Lpc., 1896: Märchen aus Tripoli", Lpc., 1898; Pihan, "Eléments de la langue Alger.", 1851; Belkasem ben Sedira, "Dictionnaire ar.-fr. et fr.-ar. d" Alger ", Algeria, 1882-86, and Dialogues fr.-arabes, 3rd ed., 1889; Le Suer," Nouv. méthode pour létude de Pidiome d "Alg.", Montauban, 1894; Fr. Lerchundi, "Eudimentos del arabe de Marruecos", Tangier, 1889 and "Vocahulario español-arab.", Tang., 1892; Meakin, "Introduction to thé arab. Of Marocco", London, 1891, Socin, "Zum arab. Dial. Von Marocco", Lpc., 1893; articles in "Mittheilungen" Berl. east seminary, 1898. About isp. bunk bed - gram. Peter of Alcalca 1505, reprint. Lagarde: "Pétri Hispani de lingua arab libri duo", Götting., 1883. About Sicilian. bunk bed S. Cusa, "I diplomi greci ed arabi di Sicilia", I, Palermo, 1868. About Maltese. bunk bed Vaesali, Grammat. Della lingua Malt., 2nd ed., 1827. Letard, "Nuova guida alla conversaz.", 5th ed., 1891. "Suirorogine della lingua malt." (Malta, 1899). About gram. and classical Arabic dictionaries. lang. see acc. article and also Socin, "Arab. Grammat.", ate. ed. 1899; Vernier, "Grammaire Arabe", Beirut, 1891-92; Sheikho and Durand, "Elementa Grammaticae arab. Cum chrestom. Et lexico," Beirut, 1896-97; White, "Cours prat. De la langue arab." Beir., 1896; Houdas, "Gramm. Ar.", P., 1897; Boldyrev, "Brief Arabic gram.", M., 1832; Navrotsky, "Experience of grammes, in ar. Language", St. Petersburg, 1867; Attaya, "A Practical Guide to the Study of the Arabic Language", Kazan, 1884 (2nd ed. Printed); dictionaries, ed. Beirut Jesuits: "Ar.-fr." (5th ed., 1898) and Fran.-ar., 1890, Arab.-eng., 1899, Habeish, Dict. fr.-ar. ", Cairo, 1890-91. Girgas," Dictionary to the Arab. Readers and the Koran ", Kazan, 1881; about the Aram. influence of Frenkel," Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im arabischen ", Leid., 1886; about the neologisms of the literary Arabic language - Washington-Serruys," L "arabe moderne dans les journaux", Beir ., 1897.B) South Arabic , otherwise Sabean (see), or (inaccurately) Himyarite (see), is the speech of ancient Yemen (Happy Arabia). Sabean inscriptions begin long before R. Kh. And continue until the 4th century. according to R. Kh .; in addition to Yemeni inscriptions there are (discovered by Eiting) inscriptions in sowing. Hijaze, where the Sabeans had trading posts. In the sub. lang. two planks: proper Sabean and Menaean; North Hijas inscriptions were compiled by the Menaian merchants. In many ways, the sub. the language is more archaic than North Arabic. Inscriptions ed. in "Corpus inscriptionum semiticaruni"; issled. J. Halevy, Dove. Müller (see), Gommel - "Südarabische Chrestomathie, minäo-sabäische Grammatik, Bibliographie, min. Inschriften, Glossar", Munich, 1893. Sab. language from the south was driven out by the Abyssinians, who invaded Yemen and in the VI century. owned it, and from the north influenced the language of their own. -Arabic and spread approx. 600 for the whole of Yemen, with the possible exception of some individual districts. On the east coast, from Shikhr and Magra to the inner desert, and on the island of Sokotor, they speak even now in a special speech, similar to both the Sabaean and, in part, the Ethiopian; Arab writers of the 10th century mention it. For its current position see Maltzan in Z. D. M. G., XXV and XXVII. Ethiopian language (see) - speech of Abyssinia and adjacent areas. It contains two dialects: 1) co-Ethiopian, geez, northeastern, in the Tigre region; it is still at the end of the 10th century. almost died out, but remained the church and written language of Abyssinia until recently; 2) Amharic, southwestern (see), which from the XIII century. turns out to be the language of the court and state, and since the 17th century. - even in the language of writing. Geez is close to the Sabean and contains less Hamitic elements than the Amharic dialect, which, moving further and further south and absorbing the Agave languages, forms new dialects that significantly distort the Semitic appearance, for example. gurâgvê (south of the Shoah) and Harrar; and in general the Amharians are apparently Semitized Hamites.

Characteristic S. language. S. languages ​​have several characteristic features that sharply distinguish them from other languages. To Indo-Europe. In languages, the roots undergo significant phonetic changes, and when we meet, for example, with the words "beginning", "end", "lawless", only after long philological research do we recognize a common root in them. On the contrary, S. roots (although they are also not exempt from phonetic laws) are extremely stable and stand out clearly in the word, especially since the suffixes of words are simple and not numerous, and the accumulation of affixes for affixes is not allowed. S. roots consist of consonant sounds, mainly three (moreover, the third consonant sound does not usually cause a significant difference in the sense: for example, roots nbr ,nbd ,nbx ,nbl ,nbt ,nb and so on, all contain one general idea and differ in its shades). Vowel sounds are not part of the root and everything alternates in it; through this alternation, a change in grammatical meaning is achieved. So, the vocalization of the root with two sounds but gives the past tense a real value (to but T but ba = he wrote), and vowel through at with i gives meaning passive (to at T i ba = was written; root - ktb). Conjugation forms are formed using connecting personal pronouns associated with the verb root. There are only two times: the past and the present-future. These main characteristic features immediately attract the attention of those who, knowing one S. language, begins to study another; in addition, between all S. languages ​​there is a great similarity in morphology, in personal pronouns, in vocabulary, in the syntax of a simple and complex sentence (the combination of sentences is dominant and the subordinate is reluctantly allowed), so that the difference between one S. language from another is hardly can be considered more than, for example, the difference between the Russian language and Polish and Serbian. That is why Jewish scholars have long had an idea of ​​the mutual relationship of S. language. (for example, at the beginning of the 10th century Yehuda ben Koreyt, whose op. was published by Barge and Goldberg under the title "Epistola de studii targum utilitate et de linguae chald., mishn., talmud., arab. convenientia cum hebraea". P. , 1857). The European Orientalists of the 16th century, like Gottinger, Bohart, Castel, Ludolph, realized the same long before the emergence of the Indo-Europeans. comparative philology. Of the S. languages, Arabic is the richest in sounds, archaic and closest to the type of Prosemitic language, which we can theoretically reconstruct by comparing the indications of individual S. languages. Neldecke sees the extreme in the views of J. Olshausen, who builds his excellent Jewish grammar (Braunschweig, 1861) on the position that the Arabic language is very close to the Prosemitic language; however, Neldecke also admits that "the comparative grammar of S. languages ​​should in any case come from the Arabic language, but in all isolated cases conform to the testimony of other S. languages."

Literature. Renan, "Histoire générale des langues sem." (2nd ed., P., 1858; brilliantly written, but outdated); Gommel, "Die sem. Völker u. Sprachen, Versuch einer Encycl." (I, Lpts., 1883); his, "Noten", "Nachträge" and "Register" to the previous. cit., LPts., 1883, unfinished. work; Wed also his "Aufsätze" and "Abhandlungen" (Munich, 1890); the results of semitology (almost, however, without bibliographic indications) are summed up by Neldeke ("Die sem. Sprachen", Lpts., 1887) and by Wright ("Lectures on the comparative grammar of the sem. languages", Camb., 1890) ... The old introduction to the Hebrews is helpful. gram. Ewald (Lpts., 1828; 8th ed., Gett., 1870); in general there is a lot of information about S. language. in the works of the Hebraists, old (Gesenius, Ewald and others) and new (Olshausen; Koenig, "Hist.-krit. Lehrgebäude d. hebr. Sprache", vol. I, Lpc., 1881, vol. II, Lpc., 1895, etc.). See also Lagarde, "Uebersicht über die im Agat., Arabisch, u. Hebr. Übliche Bildung der Nomina" (Gett., 1889), in volume XXXV "Abhandl. D. K. Ges. D. Wiss"; Register u. Nachtrage (Gett. 1891); Barth, "Die Nominalbildung in d. Sem. Spr." (Lpts., 1889-91; 2nd ed., 1894); his own, "Etymolog. Studien zum sem., insbesondere zum hebr. Lexicon" (Lpts., 1893, and articles in "Z. D. M. G."); Philip's article in "Z. D. M. G." per last years, esp. in 1894; "Die sem. Verbal-u. Nominalbildung", 1892. Comparison with other languages ​​in Schleicher ("Beitr. Z. Vergl. Sprachforsch.", 1881, II: "Sem. U. Indogerm."), Fr. Müller ("Grundriss d. Sprachwissenschaft", Vienna, 1876-1888, and in "Abn. D. Wien. Akad.", 1857-60), Gust. Oppert ("Classif. Of languages", Madras, 1879), Benfey, Delitzsch, Abel and others. Many particulars in "Journ. Asiat.", "Zeitsch. D. Deutsch. Morg. Gesellsch.", "Wiener Zeitschrift f. die Kunde d. Morg. "," Beiträge z. Assyriologie u. vergleich, sein. Sprachwiss. ". Lithographs are sometimes published in Russian. courses taught at univ., spirit. academies, Lazar. inst. east languages.

A. Krymsky.

Russian dictionaries

Written by Baruch Podolsky
Saturday, 18 December 2004
chapter from Dr. Baruch Podolsky's book "CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HEBREW AND ABOUT MANY OTHERS" (printed with the kind permission of the author) SEMITIAN LANGUAGES

We all generally know that Hebrew is considered a Semitic language. But very few people know what the Semitic language is, who the Semites are. In the Soviet Union, where we all came from, it was a very common occurrence: every student at the university knew what Anti-During was, but only a few knew who Dühring was. Likewise, everyone knows who the anti-Semites are, but few people know who the Semites are and why Hebrew is considered a Semitic language.

The term "Semitic languages" appeared a little over 200 years ago, at the end of the 18th century. The German historian Schlözer created this term based on the classification of peoples contained in the Bible.
Chapters 6-9 of Genesis - the first book of the Bible - describe the Great Flood, in which all mankind perished, with the exception of Noah and his three sons with families - Shem, Ham and Japheth. From them came people on earth, and in the 10th chapter there is a detailed listing: from Japhet such and such sons were born, from Ham such and such, and from Shem such and such sons were born. And they all became the ancestors of peoples on Earth. One of Shem's grandchildren was Ever, the progenitor of the Jews. From the name "Ever" is derived the very word "Jew" in Hebrew Hebrew.
Schlözer took this story as a basis and called by the name of Shema the peoples related to the Jews Semites, and those languages ​​that are related to Hebrew Semitic. Since then, the concept of "Semitic languages", "Semitic peoples" has appeared. (In Hebrew, Sim sounds like SHEM, therefore in Hebrew "Semitic language" is safa shemit שָׂפָה שֵמִית. In Latin this name is written SEM, hence "Semitic, Semitic").
What languages ​​are considered Semitic, and what peoples belong to the Semites? Most of them have been known since ancient times, many are known only in antiquity: these are the languages ​​spoken 3000 - 4000 years ago, and today nothing remains of them except written monuments.

AKKAD LANGUAGE

One of the most famous languages antiquity was the Akkadian language, which was spoken in Mesopotamia - in Mesopotamia, on the territory of present-day Iraq. They wrote in this language in a peculiar system - cuneiform, mainly on clay. It came down to us great amount clay bricks with embossed signs. When, back in the last century, scientists deciphered this writing, which, by the way, was very complex, they were surprised to find a Semitic language related to the well-known Hebrew and Arabic. This is one of the oldest Semitic languages ​​- Akkadian, or Assyro-Babylonian. This language existed in the second and first millennia BC and disappeared around the fourth century BC.
To the north of the Akkadian language regions, that is, in the region of northern Iraq and further to the west, in the territory of present-day Syria, numerous Aramaic tribes who spoke the Aramaic language roamed. This language deserves a separate discussion. In our Jewish history, a very peculiar relationship has developed between Jews, Hebrew and Aramaic.

In northwestern Syria, near the current border with Turkey, there was in ancient times, about 3500 years ago, a small city-state called Ugarit. This city was destroyed in antiquity; For thousands of years, no one knew about its existence, until at the beginning of the 20th century archaeologists excavated the Ras Shamra hill and found under it the remains of an ancient city and a large number of clay tablets with texts written in a peculiar script. Deciphering them showed that this language is closely related to Hebrew. Until now, new and new texts of a very different content are being discovered: among them there are economic, administrative, mythological and real literary texts, in which scientists find a lot of parallels with the Bible, because this language was spoken approximately at the time when the Bible was created. The language was closely related to Hebrew; naturally, there were general themes and general words, and even general phrases. This is the Ugaritic language.

From Phenicia to Moab

South of Ugarit, in what is now Lebanon, lived the Phoenicians or Phoenicians. This nation is the closest in language to the Jews. The Phoenician language was very close to Hebrew, much like Russian to Ukrainian. To read the ancient Phoenician inscription, it is enough to know Hebrew well. We hardly meet new words, new grammatical phenomena there. A person who knew Hebrew could freely communicate with the Phoenicians and understand them.
To the east of the Land of Israel, in the land of Moab (today's central and northern Jordan) lived tribes, also closely related to the Jews, the Moabites. Moab and the Moabites are mentioned many times in the Bible. Ruth (Ruth in Hebrew) - King David's great-grandmother - was from Moab. Several ancient Moabite inscriptions are known. This language is about as close to Hebrew as Phoenician.
Well, of course, Hebrew in the Land of Israel, about which we will talk a lot more. Then we go south with you. In the south of the Land of Israel, in the Negev, we meet with a people who were called "Nabateans" or "Nabateans". Anyone who has traveled in the Negev knows that there is the Nabatean city of Avdat. The famous Petra in southern Jordan was also a Nabataean city. The Nabataeans were most likely an Arab tribe, but they wrote in Aramaic in their peculiar script, and a large number of Nabatean inscriptions have come down to us.

ARABIC LANGUAGE

Now we come to the largest in terms of the number of speakers of all Semitic languages ​​- Arabic. The Arabic language, whose homeland is the Arabian Peninsula, spread along with Islam in all directions: northeast to Iraq, north to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, west to Egypt, Sudan and further to northern Africa; today it is spoken by over 130 million people. We have known it from the first centuries of our era, mainly from separate short inscriptions, as well as from several poems created even before the emergence of Islam.
Islam originated in 622 A.D. - this is the year when the founder of Islam, Mohammed, or Muhammad in Arabic, was forced to flee from Mecca to Medina. A new world religion, Islam, began in 622.
Although already two or three centuries before that texts in Arabic were known, even entire poems, the truly Arabic language is formed with Islam. The teachings that, according to legend, were spoken by Allah to Mohammed, constitute the Koran. Muhammad himself was illiterate. His disciples recorded these teachings. This is how the Koran appeared - the first major work in literary Arabic.
The history of the Arabic language developed very interestingly in the future. On the one hand, since it was the language of religion and culture, it was preserved in an almost unchanged form, and until now the literary Arabic language is the language of the Koran, enriched with modern concepts, terms, developed, but grammatically it is the same language.
However, no language can exist without change for many centuries, especially 1000-1300 years. Naturally, dialects arose in the Arabic language. As a matter of fact, dialects were already in the ancient Arabic language. Modern Arabic has a huge number of dialects that fall into two groups.
Eastern Arabic dialects - from Egypt and Sudan to the east ( Saudi Arabia, Yemen and further Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan) are one group of dialects. The Arabs clearly distinguish who is speaking - Egyptian, Iraqi or Syrian, but there is a free understanding between these dialects: it is easy for an Iraqi to come to an agreement with a Syrian and with an Egyptian. The language is essentially one.
But the dialects spoken by the Arabs west of Egypt - Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania - differ sharply from the eastern dialects. These are the so-called Maghreb dialects. “Maghrib” is Arabic for “west”, the same word as Maarav מַעֲרָב in Hebrew. And these dialects are so different from the Eastern dialects that mutual understanding is excluded between the Eastern and Western Arabs. A Syrian or Iraqi Arab, when he hears the Moroccan dialect, does not understand it in the same way as you and I do not understand it.

ISLAND OF MALTA

One of the Arabic dialects became independent language: This is the language of the island of Malta, or the Maltese language. Malta is located between Sicily and Tunisia, there are two or three islands that are inhabited by a Semitic people. But the Maltese have been associated with Italy in all respects, especially religiously and culturally, for many centuries. They are Catholics, they prayed in Latin and did not want to acknowledge their kinship with the Arab, predominantly Muslim world, although their language is essentially an Arabic dialect, closely related to the dialect of neighboring Tunisia. The Maltese write in Latin and pride themselves on the fact that they have their own separate language. Moreover, there have been attempts to trace the genealogy of the Maltese language to Phoenician, since its Semitic character is obvious to anyone who knows at least a little bit of what the Semitic language is.
The fact is that the Phoenicians, whom I have already mentioned, were excellent sailors and constantly roamed around Mediterranean Sea... Phoenician settlements were also on the territory of northern Africa. The most famous is, of course, Carthage. The very word Carthage is a distortion of two Phoenician words of Kart Hadasht, which are easily translated into Hebrew as "Kirya Hadasha" - New City. Naturally, people who have moved to a new place first of all build new town, hence Novgorod in Russia, Naples in Italy and many other cities with a similar name. The Maltese tried to trace their origin to the Phoenicians or Carthaginians, but the study of their language showed that it was not Phoenician, but Arabic dialect.

SABA AND THE TSARITSA SAVSKAYA

But let's continue our journey through the geography of the Semitic languages ​​and go even further south. In southern Arabia, in its southernmost part, in the territory partly Yemen, partly Oman, small so-called South Arabian tribes still live today: Mehri, Jibali, Shehri, and on the Socotra island - the Socotri people. Their languages ​​are very distinctive and not at all like Arabic. Let's just say they are no more Arabic than Hebrew. They are descendants of the ancient Semitic languages ​​of this region.
Ancient Yemen had at least four different Semitic languages, the name of one of which is well known - it is the Sabean language.
The Bible mentions the Queen of Sheba. The Queen of Sheba was the ruler of the state of Shva (in Hebrew), or Sava (in Russian), Saba (in Latin). This kingdom was located on the territory of present-day Yemen, and there lived a special Semitic people - the Sabeans. The Sabean language has survived in a large number of inscriptions.

About 1000 years BC, the migration of Semitic tribes from the Arabian Peninsula through the Red Sea to the African coast, to the territory of present-day Ethiopia, began. Over the centuries, there arose its own ancient Ethiopian language, the so-called Geez, which at first used the South Arabian script, the same script in which the Sabeans wrote. Later, in the fifth century AD, when the ancient Ethiopians adopted Christianity, they reformed this letter.
The ancient Semitic writing, like the modern Hebrew, did not mark vowels, only consonants were written. And today in Hebrew and Arabic are written mainly consonants, and vowels - only partially. In ancient texts, only consonants were written. And so, in Ethiopia, a letter reform took place. Some a wise man invented his own vocalization system. Unlike the Hebrew Nekudot system, which is written separately from the letter and is not required, Ethiopian vowel signs merge with the letter, that is, there is a slight change in the shape of the letter itself. You have to write the word completely: both consonants and vowels. There is no way to write like we do: instead of sefer - spr ספר. This was a very original reform, transforming the ancient writing without vowels into a letter that perfectly reflected the pronunciation. Ethiopian writing from the 5th century AD has remained practically unchanged to this day, and it is still used for several languages ​​of Ethiopia.
In ancient times, there was the ancient Ethiopian language Geez, which has survived to this day as a cult language. Ethiopians (both Christians and Ethiopian Jews) prayed and read the Bible in this language. But as a living language, of course, Geez has not survived. It has developed into a variety of modern Ethiopian Semitic languages.
True, not all peoples living in Ethiopia speak Semitic languages. There are three groups of languages ​​there: mainly along the western border of Ethiopia with Sudan there are purely Negro tribes speaking different Nilo-Saharan languages; there are in Ethiopia the so-called Kushite and Omot languages, which are very distantly related to the Semitic. And there are the Semitic languages ​​of Ethiopia, of which the Amharic language is best known today - official language Ethiopia, the language of the majority of the population. This, by the way, is the language of most Ethiopian Jews. On it in Israel radio RECA broadcasts are conducted, a magazine is published.
Amharians occupy mainly the central part of Ethiopia. To the north of them live the Tigray people, their Tigrinya language, which is the main language in northern Ethiopia and in Eritrea, is also Semitic. Some of the Jews of Ethiopia speak the Tigrinya language.
Farther north, in a narrow strip in Eritrea, the Tiger people live (please do not confuse: there are Tiger people who speak the Tigrinya language, and there are Tiger people who speak the Tiger language). Tigre is also a Semitic language. In addition, in the south of Ethiopia there are several more small Semitic languages, which are spoken, as a rule, by several tens of thousands of people. These include a whole group of Gurage languages ​​and dialects, as well as the Harari language, which is used only in one city of Harar.
This is the picture of the Semitic languages.


SEMYTSKY LANGUAGES - a group of languages ​​of the Middle East, which in different periods had a more or less extensive geographical distribution. Some of these languages ​​played the role of large cultural languages of global importance. To S. lang. include: Babylonian-Assyrian language. (see), which was for a number of centuries, starting from the IV millennium BC, the most important language of the Ancient East; Hebrew (cm.); Phoenician language. (cm.); Aramaic and dialects (see), which spread throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, starting from the X-IX centuries. BC. and who subsequently occupied the territory of the Babylonian-Assyrian and Hebrew languages; Syriac (see), Arabic. (see), which emerged as a world cultural language, starting from the VII century. AD, Semitic languages. Abyssinia (Amhara, Geez, etc.), ancient South Arabian language. and etc.
S. lang. form a rather close group, mutual ties and similarities between individual representatives of a cut appear quite clearly. Closeness of Arabic and Hebrew. was noted by the Hebrew grammars of the X century. (Ibn Quraish); the closeness of the Aramaic with the ancient Hebrew becomes even more obvious. The unity of this entire group of languages ​​was recognized by Western European Orientalists already in the 17th century, when this group was given the name S. lang. Especially much has been done for the comparative study of S. lang. in the 19th century, after the cuneiform monuments of Assyria and Babylonia and South Arabian and Phoenician inscriptions were deciphered.
In addition to more common roots S. lang. have a number of common grammatical and phonetic features. The main meaning of the root of words is associated in S. language. with consonants, and vowels play a service role, not being part of the root. So, in Arabic. from the root "ktb" with the help of different vowels, the following words are obtained: "kataba" - "he wrote", "kutiba" - "he was written", "katib-un" - "writing", "kitab-un" - "book "," Kutub-un "- books," katab-un "-" scripture "," a-ktubu "-" I write "," ma-ktub-un "-" letter "-" ma-ktab-un " - "the place where they write" (= school), etc. Most roots have three and only a small number have two or four consonants. Word formation and inflection occurs in excess of the just indicated " internal change vowels "using both suffixes and prefixes. There are two grammatical genders. The declension is poorly developed, and it is present only in the classical Arabic language, where there are three cases, in the other languages ​​there are only traces. The tenses are poorly developed in the verb: in the majority of S. languages. there are only two times - finished and unfinished. Various verb forms are highly developed to express intensification of action, transitivity, reciprocity, recurrence, repetition, compulsion, passivity, etc. Suffixing is quite developed for designating a direct object with verbs and an indirect object with prepositions. The syntax is dominated by the forms of writing sentences.
S. lang. have very close ties with the Kushite, Berber-Libyan languages ​​and with the ancient Egyptian language. All these languages ​​are united by most of the newest researchers into one Semitic-Hamitic group. Academician N.Ya. Marr proved the deep connections that exist between S. lang. and Japhetic. S. lang. are a newer transformation of the early historical or "Japhetic" state of speech of the peoples of the Mediterranean. Hence the convergence of S. yaz. with Japhetic, sometimes reaching the details. Bibliography:
Renan E., Histoire generale du systeme comparee des langues semitiques, P., 1855; Wright W., Lectures on the comparative grammar of the semitic languages, Cambridge, 1890; Zimmern H., Vergleichende Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen, Berlin, 1898; Noldecke Th., Die semitischen Sprachen, Eine Skizze, Lpz., Bd. I, Berlin, 1908, Bd. II, Berlin, 1912; Him, Kurzgefasste vergleich. Grammatik d. semitischen Sprachen, Berlin, 1908; Konig Ed., Herbaisch und semitisch. Prolegomena und Grundlinien einer Geschichte d. semit. Sprachen, Berlin, 1901; Dhorme B. P., Langues et ecritures semitiques, P., 1930; Cohen M., Langues chamitosemitiques, in Les langues du monde, Edited by A. Meillet et M. Cohen., P., 1924; Marr N. Ya., Preliminary report on the relationship of the Georgian language. with the Semitic, in his work "Basic tables for the grammar of the Old Georgian language.", St. Petersburg, 1908 (reprinted in his "Selected Works", vol. I, L., 1933); His, Japhetic approach to paleontology of Semitic languages, "Japhetic collection", vol. I, P., 1922; His, On the question of the origin of Arabic numerals, "Notes of the College of Orientalists", vol. V, L., 1931; Grande B., From the linguistic convergence of the Iberians of the Caucasus and Palestine, "Reports of the Academy of Sciences", 1931.

Literary encyclopedia. - In 11 volumes; Moscow: publishing house of the Communist Academy, Soviet encyclopedia, Fiction.Edited by V.M. Fritsche, A.V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939 .

Seven languages

—One of the branches of the Afrasian, or Semitic-Hamitic, macrofamily of languages ​​(see Afrasian languages). Distributed in Zap. Asia and Africa north of the Sahara. The number of speakers is 193 million. S. i. they are divided into groups: ce v. peripheral, or north-east (extinct Akkadian); north-central, or north-western [living languages: Hebrew in Israel and Joo-Aramaic dialects - western in Syria, eastern in Iraq, Iran, USSR, USA, Turkey, etc. are united under the name. Assyrian (New Syrian) language; dead: Eblaite, Amorite, Canaanite, Ugaritic, Phoenician-Punic, Old Hebrew (early form of Hebrew), I "Udi and Aramaic dialects - Old Aramaic, Imperial Aramaic, Western: Palmyrian, Nabatean, a subgroup of Palestinian Syriac, or Syrian, Babylonian-Talmudic, Mandaean]; yi - central (live: Arabic with many very different living dialects, Maltese in Malta); yi - peripheral [live: mehri, jibbali (shah- ri, shkhauri), Socotrian and some other minor languages ​​in the NDRY; dead: Menaic, Sabean, Kataban, combined as South Arabian epigraphic]; Ethiosemite (live: northern subgroup - tigrinya, or TPGran, and tiger; southern subgroup - Amharic, Argobba, Harari, a number of dialects conventionally combined under the name Gurage; recently extinct hafat; dead: Geez, or Ethiopian, belonging to the northern subgroup). and Ethio-Semitic.groups are often combined into one southern, or southwestern .. group ... Characteristic features of S. i .: a limited number of vowels (initially a, i, and in long and short versions; significantly more vowels in living dialects), the presence of three rows of consonants (voiced, voiceless and "emphatic" - tense velarized or glottalized) , the presence of pharyngeal consonants (h and ", the so-called" ain), uvular (h and y) and a laryngeal explosion "(so-called hamza, or" aleph). Sibilant affricates and lateral consonants were lost early, but, apparently, should be reconstructed for general Semites. proto-language. The root of a verb and verbal nouns usually consists of three consonants, carrying the DOS. dictionary meaning, while vowel, as well as suffixes, prefixes and infixes, clarify the meaning or convey grammatical. category, ex. Arab, kataba "he wrote", kutiba "written", "a-ktaba" made me write ", katib-" writer, scribe ", kitab-" letter, book ", ma-ktab" place, time of writing, school ". The nominal root has the form: CVC, CSC, CVCS, CVSC (S - sonant), but in the south, - Semite. languages ​​has the same character as the verbal root. In S. i. there is a category of statuses, or states of the name, depending on the syn-taxic. the role of the given name in each given case and differing morphonologically, but in different ways in different ways. S. I. There are 2 genders (male, unmarked, and female, usually marked with a special suffix; sometimes they differ only by agreement). In st.-akkad. lang. 6 cases (including the special case, or status marked with -о or -а for a name in the role of a predicate or outside a syntactic connection), in other Art.-Semitic, languages ​​3 cases (-and im., - i genus., -a wine.); alive S. i. no cases. There are doors. and many others. h; the latter in the South Semitic, languages ​​b. hours displaced by decomp. collect. nouns formed by changing the stem ("broken plural": bab- "door", plural "abuab" -; "alim" scientist ", plural" ulama "-; gurnal" journal ", plural garanll) Adjectives sometimes differ in specific suffixes (eg, "nisby", or adjectives in -П-, -ai-), but mainly in a different plural formation, as well as syntactically. ; a) independent personal (Arab, "ana" I "," anta "you" (male), "anti" you "(female), hQua" he ", hfia" she ", etc. .]; self-standing, personal pronouns in rye languages ​​are inclined, used to emphasize the face of the subject (in rye languages ​​- and the object), io are not required; b) independent possessive (archaic, rare); c) suffixal (with a name - possessive, with verbs - object indicators); usually for 1 st. -I or -ua, 2nd l. husband. kind -ka, wives. genus -ki, 3rd l. husband. kind -hu, wives. genus ¦hi / a (<*su, *si); г) вопросительные; д) относительные, нередко они же nota genitivi, т. е. элементы, связующие определение с определяющим; ср. Изафет. В глаголе находят отражение категории лица, числа, рода субъекта (объект действия может выражаться местоименным суффиксом), а также вида/времени, наклонения (только в мертвых С. я.), породы и залога (пассив вторичен, и б. ч. средства его выражения выработаны не полностью). Обычно существует 2 вида— совершенный (пунктивный) с суффиксальным спряжением (1-е л. ед. ч. -ku, -tu, 2-е л. муж. рода -ta, -ka, жен. рода ¦ti, -ki) и несовершенный (курсивный) с префиксальным спряжением (1-е л. "а-, 2-е л. ta-, 3-е л. -уа и т. д.); в аккад. яз. в глаголах действия префиксальное спряжение имеют оба вида (курсивный — с полногласием основы, пунктивный — с неполногласием или с инфиксом -t-; остатки этого явления — в юж.-периферийных и эфиосемитских языках). В дальнейшем сов. вид развивается в прош. время, не-сов. вид — в будущее (иврит, арамейский) или настоящее (арабский); в первом случае настоящее передается с помощью причастия, во втором случае будущее — с помощью спец. проклитики. Особенно характерно для С. я. наличие т. наз. пород. Породы (усилительная, застави-тельная, возвратная и мн. др.) модифицируют первичное значение глагола. Каждая порода имеет полную глагольную парадигму, передающую все выражаемые глаголом категории и все отглагольные имена. В С. я. существует сложная система словообразования с помощью аффиксов и гл. обр. изменения огласовки (образующих имена действия и состояния, места, орудия действия, единичности, собирательности, профессии и мн. др.). Большую роль играет именное определение в род. п., причем определяемое получает особую форму «сопряженного состояния (статуса)». Обычный порядок слов (кроме аккад. яз.): сказуемое, подлежащее, дополнение; определение всегда следует за определяемым. Древнейшие памятники С. я.— аккад. клинописные тексты Ирака и эблаитские— в Сирии (сер. 3-го тыс. до н. э.), а также собств. имена и назв. местностей Палестины, сохранившиеся в егип. надписях 3—2-го тыс. до и. э. Обширная письменность имеется на аккад. яз. (клинопись, 3-е тыс. до н. э. — 1 в. н. э.), др.-еврейском и иврите (с 12 в. до н. э., алфавит зап.-семитского, вероятно, финикийского, происхождения), на арамейских диалектах, особенно на сирийском (с 8 в. до н. э., алфавит того же происхождения), эфиопском (слоговое эфиопское письмо юж.-аравийского происхождения, с 4 по 20 вв.). Очень богата лит-ра на араб. яз. (алфавит арамейского происхождения — араб, письмо с 4 в.; см. Западносемитское письмо). Известны тексты на угаритском (уга-ритское письмо, 14 в. до н. э.), финикий-ско-пуническом (финикийское письмо, 13 в. до н. э. — 4 в. и. э.), мииейском, сабейском, катабанском и др. (юж.-аравийское эпиграфич. письмо, вероятно, финикийского или др. зап.-семит, происхождения, кон. 1-го тыс. до н. э.—7 в. н. э.). Свою письменность имеют языки тнграй, амхарский (на базе эфиоп, письма), мальтийский (латиница), в Крымский А. Е., Семит, явыки и народы (с включением двух статей Т. Нёльде-ке), 2 изд.. ч. 2—3, М., 1909 — 12; Гранде Б. М.. Курс араб, грамматики в сравнит.-ист. освещении, М., 1963; Дьяконов И. М., Семнтохамит. языки, М., 1965; его же. Языки древней Передней Азии, М., 1967; Brockelmann К., Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen, Bd 1 — 2. В., 1908—13; Bergstrasser G.. Einfuhrung in die semitischen Sprachen, Munch., 1928; CTL, v. 6, P., 1970; Diakonoff J. M., Afrasian languages, Moscow-. 1988. И. М. Дьяконов.

Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary. 2012

See also the interpretations, synonyms, meanings of the word and what the SEMIAN LANGUAGES are in Russian in dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books:

  • Seven languages in the Big Encyclopedic Dictionary:
  • Seven languages
    languages, one of the branches of the Afrasian, or Semitic-Hamitic, family of languages. Distributed in Arab countries (Iraq, Kuwait, states on the southern coast of the Persian ...
  • Seven languages in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron.
  • Seven languages
  • Seven languages in the Dictionary of Linguistic Terms:
    (Semitic) languages. Languages ​​that form a number of groups that include dead languages ​​(Assyro-Babylonian, or Akkadian; Canaanite, or Hebrew-Phoenician; Aramaic; Assyrian, a descendant of which ...
  • Seven languages in the Modern Explanatory Dictionary, TSB:
    a branch of the Afrasian, or Semitic-Hamitic, macrofamily of languages. Consists of groups: 1) north-peripheral, or eastern (extinct Akkadian with dialects of Assyrian and Babylonian); 2) north-central, ...
  • LANGUAGES
    WORKING LANGUAGES - see OFFICIAL AND WORKING LANGUAGES ...
  • LANGUAGES in the Dictionary of Economic Terms:
    OFFICIAL - see OFFICIAL AND WORKING LANGUAGES ...
  • LANGUAGES
    PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES, formal languages ​​for describing data (information) and an algorithm (program) for their processing on a computer. The basis of Ya.p. make up algorithmic languages ​​...
  • LANGUAGES in the Big Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD, languages ​​of peoples inhabiting (and previously inhabiting) the globe. The total number is from 2.5 to 5 thousand (set the exact figure ...
  • SEMITIAN in the Big Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    SEMETIC LANGUAGES, a branch of the Afrasian, or Semitic-Hamitic, macrofamily of languages. Consists of groups: north-peripheral, or east. (extinct Akkadian with dialects of Assyrian and ...
  • SEMITIAN in the New Dictionary of Foreign Words:
    , Semitic languages ​​(from the biblical name sim - one of the sons of the mythical Nov) a group of languages, including the eastern group (dead Akkadian ...
  • LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
    the world, the languages ​​of the peoples inhabiting (and inhabiting earlier) the globe. The total number of nuclear weapons is from 2500 to 5000 (the exact figure ...
  • SUDAN LANGUAGES
    - a classification term used in African studies in the 1st half. 20th century and defining the languages ​​spoken in the zone of geographic Sudan - ...
  • AFRASIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    (Afro-Asian languages; obsolete - Semitic-Hamitic, or Hamito-Semitic, languages) - macrofamily of languages ​​common in the north. parts of Africa from Atlantich. coast and Canary ...
  • ROMAN LANGUAGES in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
    languages ​​(from Latin romanus - Roman), a group of related languages ​​belonging to the Indo-European family (see Indo-European languages) and originating from Latin ...
  • LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia.
  • LANGUAGES OF THE PEOPLES OF THE USSR in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - the languages ​​spoken by the peoples living on the territory of the USSR. In the USSR, approx. 130 languages ​​of the indigenous peoples of the country living ...
  • LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary.
  • FINNO-UGORSKIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - a family of languages ​​that is part of a larger genetic association of languages ​​called the Uralic languages. Before it was proven genetic. kinship ...
  • URAL LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - a large genetic association of languages, including 2 families - Fiyio-Ugric (see Finno-Ugric languages) and Samoyed (see Samoyed languages; some scientists are considering ...
  • ROMAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - a group of languages ​​of the Indo-European family (see. Indo-European languages), related by a common origin from the Latin language, by common patterns of development and, therefore, by elements of structural ...
  • PALEOASIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - a conventionally defined linguistic community uniting genetically related Chukchi-Kamchatka languages, Eskimo-Aleutian languages, Yenisei languages, Yukagir-Chuvan languages ​​and ...
  • OCEAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - a part of the eastern "sub-branch" of the Malay-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages ​​(some scholars are considered as a subfamily of the Austronesian languages). Distributed in the districts of Oceania, located to the east ...
  • KUSHITIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - a branch of the Afrasian family of languages ​​(see Afrasian languages). Distributed to S.-V. and V. Africa. The total number of speakers is approx. 25.7 million people ...
  • ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - sign systems created for use in those areas where the use of a natural language is less effective or impossible. And I. differ ...
  • IRANIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - a group of languages ​​belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch (see. Indo-Iranian languages) of the Indo-European family of languages ​​(see. Indo-European languages). Distributed in Iran, Afghanistan, some ...
  • INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - one of the largest families of languages ​​in Eurasia, spread over the past five centuries also in North. and Yuzh. America, Australia and ...
  • AUSTRICIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    (Av-Stroaeiatskie languages) - a family of languages ​​spoken by a part of the population (about 84 million people) Southeast. and Yuzh. Asia, and also ...
  • AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    Is one of the largest language families. Distributed in the Malay arch. (Indonesia, Philippines), Malacca Peninsula, in the yek-ryh south. districts of Indochina, in ...
  • TURKISH LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
    - a family of languages ​​spoken by numerous peoples and peoples of the USSR, Turtsinn, part of the population of Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia ...
  • SEMYTIC, SEMYTIC LANGUAGES in the Dictionary of Foreign Expressions:
    [from the biblical name sim - one of the sons of the mythical Nov] a group of languages, including the eastern group (the dead Akkadian language of Assyria and ...
  • SYRIA in the Orthodox Encyclopedia Tree.
  • AKKAD MYTHOLOGY in the Handbook of Characters and Cult Objects of Greek Mythology:
    Babylonian-Assyrian mythology, the mythology of peoples who in ancient times inhabited the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Mesopotamia, Mesopotamia) and created large states - Babylonia ...
  • CRIMEAN AGAFANGEL EFIMOVICH in the Brief Biographical Encyclopedia:
    Krymsky Agafangel Efimovich is a writer. Born in 1871. He graduated from secondary education in the Kiev "Collegium of Pavel Galagan", where he became imbued with the Little Russians ...
  • NEGRIAN LANGUAGES in the Literary Encyclopedia:
    (Negro-African, African) - a general term for lang. black peoples of Africa (Spanish. negro - "black"). I. Classification of African languages. with them ...
  • INDIAN LANGUAGES. in the Literary Encyclopedia:
    The three hundred million population of India (not counting Burma and Baluchistan) speaks several dozen languages. If we discard several unwritten dialects ("munda" and ...
  • HEBREW in the Literary Encyclopedia:
    or ancient Israeli, which was spoken by the ancient Jews of Palestine of the 15th-14th centuries. BC, belongs to the system of Semitic languages ​​and is ...
  • GRAPHIC ARTS in the Literary Encyclopedia:
    DEFINITION OF THE CONCEPT. The set of systems of acoustic-articulatory signs of oral or spoken speech, denoted by the term phonetics, opposes G., as a set of systems of optical signs, ...
  • BABYLON-ASSYRIAN LANGUAGE, in the Literary Encyclopedia:
    also called Assyro-Babylonian, and sometimes Akkadian, is the oldest known Semitic language, the monuments of which date back to IV ...
  • ARAMAYAN LITERATURE in the Literary Encyclopedia:
    Among a number of ancient Semitic cultures, Aramaic culture occupies a middle position in terms of its development. Coming out in the middle of the XIV century. before …
  • ABYSSINIAN LANGUAGES in the Literary Encyclopedia:
    belong to the Semitic group of languages. (see), forming an independent branch, quite close to the Arabic (see). The most ancient language. is geez, or ...

The name "Semitic" languages, "Semitic" language, is conditional, i.e. is not associated with either the grammatical structure of these languages, nor with the place of their origin and distribution. The name of this family is borrowed from the genealogical classification of peoples given in the Bible (Gen. 10). Most of the peoples who spoke languages ​​related to Hebrew were numbered among the descendants of one of Noah's sons, Shem. From this proper name, the name "Semitic, Semitic" was produced. It was introduced into scientific use in the 18th century. German historian and philologist August Schlözer (1735-1809).

According to data from the late 1990s, the number of speakers of Semitic languages ​​exceeds 200 million (mainly due to the speakers of modern Arabic).

The family of Semitic languages ​​includes both living languages ​​and dead ones, which have become obsolete due to various historical conditions. Living Semitic languages ​​are spoken in the territory of Western Asia, on the Arabian Peninsula, in Northeast and North Africa. There are "islands" of the Arabic language in Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, "islands" of living Aramaic languages ​​- in the territories of Northern Iraq, Northwestern Iran, Eastern Turkey, and the Caucasus.

Among the dead Semitic languages ​​known to modern science are the following.

Akkadian the language (aka Assyro-Babylonian), known from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, fell out of use at the turn of our era, was spread on the territory of Mesopotamia (now - the territory of Iraq) ().

Eblaitic the language, or the language of Ebla, is the language of a cuneiform archive discovered by archaeologists in the 1970s in northwestern Syria. Cuneiform tablets date back to the second half of the 3rd millennium BC.

Amorean the language, known only by its own names recorded in the Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform texts, was widespread at the end of the 3rd - first half of the 2nd millennium BC. in Northwest Syria and Western Mesopotamia.

Ancient Canaanite the language, known by individual names and phrases from Akkadian and ancient Egyptian texts, was widespread in the 3rd-2nd millennia BC. in the territories of ancient Palestine (now Israel and Jordan) and ancient Phenicia (modern Lebanon).

Ugaritic the language, represented by a large archive of cuneiform clay tablets, was discovered by archaeologists in 1930 in northwestern Syria. Written monuments date back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the language was in use in the ancient city-state of Ugarit.

Phoenician the language is known from inscriptions from the second half of the 2nd millennium BC; the latest inscriptions date back to the 2nd century. AD It was distributed in Phenicia (the territory of modern Lebanon), as a result of colonization it spread throughout the Mediterranean Sea basin, along the shores of Cyprus, southern Italy, southern Spain and North Africa.

Hebrew the language is known from the monuments of the 12th – 3rd centuries. BC. (biblical Hebrew). Supposedly remained colloquial until the first centuries of our era. Until the 18th century. used in post-biblical form as a written language. It was distributed in the territory of ancient Palestine. It is still used as a cult language.

Aramaic language known since the 9th century. BC. as "ancient Aramaic", later represented by the languages ​​and dialects of the Middle Aramaic period, existed until about the 14th century. AD It was distributed in the territories of Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia up to Western Iran ().

The ancients South Arabian languages, otherwise called "epigraphic South Arabian" ( Sabaean, menean, kataban and hadhramaut), are known from written records from the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. until the middle of the 6th century. AD They were distributed in the territory of modern Yemen and in the adjacent territories of South Arabia, including Oman.

Ancient ethiopian language, or geez known for the oldest royal inscriptions of Aksum from the middle of the 4th century. AD; as a colloquial language it existed until about the 10th century. AD During this period, it was distributed on the territory of the ancient state of Aksum and in the adjacent northeastern regions of modern Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is still used as the cult language of the Ethiopian Christian Church.

Ancient arabic the language apparently existed as a collection of ancient tribal dialects of nomadic and sedentary inhabitants and is known from a small number of epigraphic texts dating back to the first centuries BC. and the first centuries A.D. In the pre-Islamic period, it was distributed in the territories of Central and Northern Arabia, and due to the migration of tribes at the beginning of our era. spread to Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia.

Living Semitic languages

are represented both by some descendants of the ancient Semitic languages ​​known to us, and by languages ​​that do not have their own written history.

Modern arabic the language, represented by a single literary form and a number of oral-colloquial forms (dialects), is widespread on the territory of Western Asia, Northeast and North Africa in all Arab states, as well as in some of their neighboring African countries. In terms of the number of speakers (according to various sources, from 190 to 250 million people), it is one of the largest languages ​​in the world.

Maltese the language (dating back to one of the Arabic dialects) is widespread on the island of Malta. According to 1990 data, the number of speakers of this language in Malta is 365 thousand, the total number of speakers in Maltese is about 500 thousand people.

Amharic language is the official written and spoken language of Ethiopia. The number of speakers, according to the 1980-1990s, is more than 15 million. The first known written evidence of the Amharic language dates back to the 14th century. As a literary language has been developing since the end of the 19th century. ().

Hebrew(or modern Hebrew) is a literary and spoken language, one of the two official languages ​​of the State of Israel. According to data from the late 1980s, the number of speakers is about 5 million.

New Aramaic languages ​​are currently represented by several groups of dialects: western (in three villages of Syria northeast of Damascus), eastern, common in southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran; as well as Mandean language common on the southern border between Iraq and Iran and Assyrian a language common as islands in northern Iran, northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, as well as among the Assyrian diaspora. The total number of speakers of the Assyrian language, according to 1990 data, is about 330 thousand people.

Modern South Arabian languages: mehri, harsushi, bathari, hobyot, jibbali(shahri) are common in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, in the territories of Yemen and Oman; language sokotri- on the island of Socotra. In general, the number of speakers of these languages, according to 1977 data, is about 200 thousand people.

Modern Ethiosemite languages ​​(besides Amharic) are represented by the northern and southern language groups.

The language belongs to the northern group tiger(or tigrinya), considered a descendant of the ancient Geez. Distributed in Eritrea and northern regions of Ethiopia. The number of speakers is, according to 1995 data, about 4 million people. Language tiger distributed in Eritrea and in the border regions of Sudan. According to the 1990s, the number of speakers is about 1 million.

The southern group (in addition to Amharic) includes argobba, harari and eastern gurage, northern and western gurage, hafat and a number of other closely related languages. Distributed in Ethiopia and neighboring countries. The number of speakers for each of the groups ranges from 500 thousand to several thousand.

According to the hypothesis expressed by A.Yu. Militarev in the early 1980s, the supposed ancestral home of the Semitic-speaking population was in the 5th millennium BC. in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The Semitic proto-language (language-base) in this distant era was hardly single; most likely, he represented a group of closely related tribal dialects.

In the history of the study of Semitic languages, many different principles have been proposed for the classification of Semitic languages ​​and, accordingly, the classifications themselves. Moreover, in the names of the main groups of Semitic languages, their territorial and geographical distribution is recorded.

The traditional classification of Semitic languages ​​is based on a set of the most indicative features of phonological and grammatical systems.

In Russian Semitology, the traditional classification of Semitic languages ​​has been modified in accordance with the degree of archaism of the phonological and morphological systems, or, on the contrary, the "advancement" of the changes that have occurred in them. So, according to I.M. Dyakonov, the genealogical classification of Semitic languages ​​is represented by the following scheme:

north-peripheral (north-east) group - Akkadian language with its own dialects;

north-central (northwestern) group - Eblaite, Amorite, Canaanite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew with a modern form - Hebrew, Aramaic (ancient and modern);

south-central group - Arabic classical, modern Arabic, Arabic dialects, Maltese;

southern-peripheral group - South Arabian epigraphic, modern South Arabian;

Ethiosemite group, subdivided into northern (Geez, Tigray, Tigre) and southern (Amharic, Gurage group and a number of other languages ​​and dialects) subgroups.

The last in time and most recognized in the 1990s was the classification of the American scientist Robert Hetzron, later supplemented by a number of Western Semitologists. Hetzron's approach is based on taking into account morphological and phonological innovations common to a particular group of languages. The resulting classification is as follows:

Eastern Semitic languages ​​- Akkadian, Eblaite;

Western Semitic languages:

central - Arabic;

northwestern - Ugaritic, Canaanite (Hebrew, Phoenician, etc.), Aramaic (and others);

southern semitic languages:

eastern - sokotri; mehri, kharsusi, jibbali (i.e. modern South Arabian);

Western - ancient South Arabian (i.e. South Arabian epigraphic);

Ethiosemite:

North Ethiopian - geez, tiger, tigray;

South Ethiopian - Amharic (and others).

When comparing the two classifications, it can be noted that in the second of them the Eblaite language is grouped with Akkadian, the Arabic language is grouped not with the southern, but with the Western Semitic, in relation to which it occupies a special - central - position. Within the western group, Arabic is opposed to the northwest, and together with the entire large “western” group, Arabic is opposed to the “eastern” and “southern” Semitic languages.

In recent years, in Russian Semitology, the glottochronology method has been used to classify Semitic languages ​​according to the chronology of their division, from the base language to the selection of languages ​​known to us. Below is the chronology of the division of the Semitic languages, developed by A.Yu. Militarev.

From the above glottochronological table, it follows that the earliest division of the Semitic proto-language occurs into northern and southern branches. At present, the southern branch is represented by its descendants: the languages ​​of Socotri, Mehri, Jibbali (Shahri), i.e. modern South Arabian. More divisions through some supposed linguistic communities over the course of five millennia are undergone by the northern branch, to which all other (dead and living) Semitic languages ​​ultimately go back. So, in the IV millennium BC. the northern branch is divided into two main branches: the north-western and the north-eastern. The northeastern branch in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC represented by the only group of Akkadian (with dialects). On the other hand, the northwestern branch is subdivided into central and peripheral groups, which in turn "branch off" most of the Semitic languages ​​we know. At the same time, the Ethiosemitic languages ​​go back directly to the northwestern branch, like the central group. The Arabic language goes back directly to the central group, as well as the entire group of the Ugaritic, Canaanite, Hebrew, Aramaic languages ​​(cf. R. Hetzron's genealogical classification).

Since the glottochronological classification is based on a lexical feature (i.e., the degree of preservation of the common basic vocabulary in each of the compared languages), this classification may not coincide with the classifications based on phonological and morphological features of languages.

In part, such discrepancies are due to the fact that each of the languages ​​develops in its own way (this is why the proto-language is divided). Features and differences can be laid in the depths of the primary closely related dialects of the proto-language (as mentioned above, hardly any proto-language was completely unified). On the other hand, the separation of languages ​​was associated with the separation-resettlement and migration of their speakers. This process took place not only in time, but also in a specific geographic space, which was filled with neighboring peoples and tribes who spoke other, in some cases, non-Semitic languages ​​altogether. Interlanguage contacts could have influenced the structure and vocabulary of each of the semitic languages ​​that had separated.

Until now, no definite traces of non-Semitic languages ​​have been found on the territory of the Arabian Peninsula, although it is assumed that the south and southeast of the peninsula in ancient times was inhabited by non-Semitic-speaking peoples. But even in such relatively “favorable” conditions, the dividing Semitic languages, together with their speakers, found themselves in mutual “secondary” contacts with their distant, previously separated relatives who lived and migrated in a single space.

There was an overlap of closely related influences, which further complicated the picture of the development and change of the Semitic languages.

So, if the hypothetical ancestral home of the Semitic-speaking population was in the V millennium BC. in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the first separated group of languages, whose descendants are located in the extreme south of the Arabian Peninsula and Socotra Island, had to make a long journey in the historical and geographical space of the Arabian Peninsula or its coast.

The ancestors of the Ethiosemitic and epigraphic South Arabian languages ​​had to travel no less a long way through time and space. And only the ancestors of the Arabic-speaking tribes occupied a not so distant territory - apparently, these were then still free territories of Central Arabia, suitable only for a nomadic way of life. The speakers of the "pre-Arabic" language (or dialects) turned out to be the middle link between the "Arabian" languages, which spread to the south, and their northwestern relatives. It is for this reason that in the system of the Arabic language one can find features that bring it closer to both the southern (phonological system, ways of forming the so-called "broken" plural), and with the northwestern, especially Aramaic: the endings of the suffixed plural of names, the system of personal endings of perfect (one of the species-tense verb forms).

The most general typological characteristic of Semitic languages ​​takes into account the way morphemes are combined in a word. On this basis, Semitic languages ​​are defined as inflectional-agglutinative. This definition was put forward back in the 19th century. F.F. Fortunatov. With a number of more detailed clarifications, this definition has been retained for the Semitic languages ​​to the present day.

On the contrary, different Semitic languages ​​are characterized in different ways by the way words are connected to each other in a phrase and a sentence. For example, even within the limits of the Arabic language, there is a typological discrepancy between its literary form and Arabic dialects. The structure of classical and modern literary Arabic is defined as synthetic, and the structure of modern Arabic dialects is defined as synthetic-analytical, i.e. with a shift towards the development of analytical constructs in syntax.

With the division of the Semitic languages ​​and their independent development, their particular typological characteristics also change.

The presemitic language represented the features of the inflectional-agglutinative system most fully: derivational and inflectional forms had a developed system of external morphemes (prefixes, suffixes, infixes, endings) and internal morphemes, traditionally called internal inflection (alternation of vowels at the base of the word, doubling of root consonants). The relationship between words in a sentence and a phrase was expressed by the forms of words: case endings, forms of agreement, endings of personal verb forms. The official words included only prepositions. Therefore, the original type of the Prosemitic language is assumed to be a synthetic type.

The phonological system of the Prosemitic language represented the type of regular consonant oppositions on the basis of "voiceless: voiced: emphatic (ie, glottalized or velarized)"; in addition, there was a consonant opposition on the basis of "lateral: non-lateral".

With the division of the Semitic languages ​​and their development in their own ways, changes in the initial typological structure occur in each of them. Some languages ​​retain a type close to the original, others are characterized by the reduction of the phonological system, the loss of ancient inflections and, at the same time, the development of new grammatical forms and methods, new syntactic constructions. Thus, some of the Semitic languages ​​we know retain a more archaic structure and typology, while others are characterized by typological innovations and strong changes in the syntactic structure.

On the basis of archaism / innovativeness, all Semitic languages ​​can be attributed to one of three main stages of development - such a classification was proposed in the 1970s by I.M. Dyakonov.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF SEMYTIC LANGUAGES BY ARCHAIC DEGREE

Stage of development

Group

Ethiosemite. South Central. North-West North-east
Ancient epigraphic: sabean, mi-neisky, etc.
I thousand BC - ser. 1st millennium AD
Old Arabic, Classical Arabic eblaite III thousand BC, Canaanitessky, ugaritic
II millennium BC
akkadian
III millennium BC
Average ancient ethiopian ski-geez (to the turn I – II millennium AD Himyarite language (before the 9th century AD) ancient Arabic dialects (epi graph. Arabian) Hebrew, Hebrew 10 in. BC. late Babylonian to early. AD
Late sowing. Ethiopian .: tigre, tigrinya (live), south. ethiopian: amharsky, gurage, etc. (live) modern south arabiasky: mehri, shahri, sokotri, etc. (live) Arabic dialects; maltese language (live) New Aramaic languages; let's lie. Hebrew (live)

It should be emphasized that this scheme classifies Semitic languages ​​according to the degree of development of their phonological and morphological structure, but does not at all indicate a greater or lesser degree of their genetic relationship. So, if the column "late stage" contains modern South Arabian languages, this does not mean that they are genetically closer to modern Arabic dialects or to New Aramaic languages.

This classification takes into account only the degree of difference between the structure of the language and the hypothetically original model of the common Semitic state (transverse graphs) and the approximate geographical location of ancient and modern languages. More closely related languages ​​may be at different stages of development, as is the case with literary Arabic and Arabic dialects.

As characteristics common to most Semitic languages, we can note: stable consonant composition of the root, the predominance of the three-consonant composition of the root, the presence of the so-called "root variants" (or "phonetic variants") of the consonant part of the root. The latter phenomenon is represented by the metathesis (permutation) of root consonants or by alternating one (or more) root consonant with a similar method and / or place of articulation without changing the basic meaning of the root (or with transparent modifications of this meaning).

Common Semitic structural and typological features can also include a single (mostly) type of word-formation and inflectional systems and, along with external affixation, the wide functioning of the method of internal inflection (according to another interpretation, the use of intermittent morphemes, or transfixes).

Most Semitic languages ​​are characterized by lexical-grammatical and grammatical categories of masculine and feminine gender, singular and plural (in some languages ​​the category of dual is also preserved); the case system in the historical perspective appears to be a dying category. Common to the verb system are the categories of person, number and gender. Species-time categories are in the process of forming different systems in different Semitic languages. A common Semitic feature is the lexico-grammatical category of the extended stems of the verb, the so-called "breeds": intensive, causative, directional, reflexive, etc.

For most Semitic languages, two possible syllable structures are characteristic - CV and CVC (C for a consonant, V for a vowel), as well as a prohibition on concatenation of consonants at the beginning of a syllable and a prohibition on concatenation of vowels. At the same time, in many living Semitic languages ​​(New Aramaic, some Arabic dialects, Hebrew), the destruction of the original Semitic restrictions on the structure of the syllable is noted. In many ways, this process is facilitated by the development of a weak stress into a strong one.

In the field of phonetic-phonological systems, with all the changes occurring in the Semitic languages ​​during the period known to us, it can be noted as a common feature the preservation of the triple opposition of some consonants: voiced - voiceless - "emphatic".

It should also be noted that some of the historical changes observed in a number of Semitic languages ​​follow a "general scenario": verbalization of participles and reduction of the case system in the field of morphology; reduction of the interdental, the fall of the explosive laryngeal - in the field of the phonetic-phonological system.

In general, we can say that in each of the living Semitic languages, albeit in their own way, there is a shift towards analyticism.

The history of the study of Semitic languages ​​begins with the emergence of the first national grammar schools among the speakers of these languages ​​( cm... NATIONAL LINGUISTIC TRADITIONS).

The Arab linguistic school and tradition was formed in the first centuries of Islam with the aim of preserving the sacred language of the Koran, normative processing and standardization of the written literary language. Its first representatives and authorities - ad-Douali (7th century), al-Khalil, Sibaveikhi, al-Kissai (8th century) laid the foundations of traditional grammatical and phonetic analysis. The development of the system was carried out by Arab philologists of the 10-13th centuries. The system of concepts and grammatical analysis developed by the Arab tradition has had and continues to exert a great influence on both modern Arabic linguistics and Western Arabic studies.

The Jewish language school also arises in connection with textual work and the preservation of the text of the Old Testament. From 10-12 centuries. the systematic study of the Hebrew language begins in the writings of Yehuda ben David Hayyuj, Merwan ibn Janah. At the beginning of the 12th century. Isaac ibn Barun in his work Book of Comparison of Hebrew to Arabic compares two related languages ​​in grammatical and lexical terms. Further popularizing work of representatives of the Jewish linguistic school also served as the basis for the development of Semitological studies in the West.

The study of the Syrian language (one of the Aramaic languages) also begins among the Syrian philologists who studied the texts of the Holy Scriptures. The works of Syrian grammarians of the 7th century are known. (Yakov Edessky), 11th century. (Ilya Tirkhansky), 12th century (Jacob Bar Ebrey).

In the West, attention to the languages ​​of sacred texts - Hebrew, Syrian, Arabic - arises and intensifies during the Renaissance. Subsequently, scientific advances in deciphering ancient Semitic inscriptions contributed to the expansion of Semitological research. Western Semitology from the 17th to the early 20th century. develops as a complex historical and philological science, which laid the material foundations of the future Semitic linguistics: deciphering and publication of written monuments, the study of Jewish and Arabic manuscripts of the medieval period. This trend is also characteristic of Russian Semitology in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

At the same time, the successes of comparative historical linguistics in the field of Indo-European languages ​​and other language families attract Semitologists to this direction. The development of Semitic comparative studies is also facilitated by new archaeological discoveries and decipherments: deciphering of ancient South Arabian epigraphy (M. Lidzbarsky, T. Nöldeke, F. Pretorius, D. Müller, I. Mordtmann, G. Reikmans, N. Rodokanakis), publication of written monuments of the ancient Ethiopian language (geeza) and their analysis (17th – 20th centuries), creation of the first Ethiopian dictionaries and grammars (August Dilman, 1823–1894), deciphering of Akkadian cuneiform in the middle of the 19th century. (Henry Rawlinson, Julius Oppert, William Talbot, Edward Hinks).

During the 18-19 centuries. the circle of knowledge about the Aramaic languages ​​is expanding. Grammars and dictionaries for the main Semitic languages ​​are published: the Arabic grammar of Sylvester de Sacy (early 19th century), the Arabic dictionaries of G. Freytag, A. Biberstein-Kazimirsky, E. Lane, R. Dozi (during the 19th century), works on Akkadian (J. Oppert, 19th century), ancient Ethiopian, epigraphic South Arabian languages. By the beginning of the 20th century. the first works on living Semitic languages ​​appear: Arabic and Aramaic dialects, Ethiosemite languages. All these prerequisites contributed to the appearance of the first consolidated fundamental work of Karl Brockelmann on the comparative grammar of the Semitic languages ​​(C. Brockelmann. Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen. Bd. I – II, Berlin, 1908–1913). The scientist draws on all the Semitic material available for his time. The initial position of this work was the hypothesis that it is the Arabic language that is the most ancient representative of the Semitic languages, and therefore the reconstruction of the most ancient state was guided by the Arabic language system. The further development of Semitic linguistics and the involvement of new materials of the Semitic languages ​​refutes this hypothesis. The Akkadian language is considered to be the prototype of the most ancient type of language.

20th century was marked by the discovery and deciphering of the monuments of the Ugaritic and Eblaitic languages, each of which makes its own adjustments to the idea of ​​the genetic connections of the Semitic languages. There are grammars, dictionaries, comparative historical and typological studies on individual Semitic languages ​​and dialects.

From the generalizing works of the 20th century. on Semitic languages ​​in the West should be mentioned Introduction to Comparative Grammar of Semitic Languages by the Italian semitologist Sabatino Moscati (1969), by Giovanni Garbini Semitic languages (1972), Dictionary of Semitic Roots by the French Semitologist David Cohen (1970-present), the final collective work on the Semitic languages, published by R. Hetzron (1997, see the list of references).

In Russian Semitology, the linguistic direction itself stands out in the 1920s. N.V. Yushmanov summarizes all the material of the Semitic languages ​​known by his time, uses the results of observations of the most authoritative representatives of the national Arabic grammar and Western Semitologists and puts forward his hypothesis about the formation of the Semitic root. The scientist analyzes the phenomenon of compatibility / incompatibility of root consonants, the phenomenon of root variants, identifies a system of class indicators for nominal roots. As a result, he puts forward hypotheses about the development of the Semitic three-consonant root from the two-consonant, about the development of the Semitic phonological system from a limited group of "diffuse" archiphonemes.

Fundamental problems of the structure and composition of the Semitic root, the features of Semitic consonantism remain in the focus of attention of Russian Semitologists throughout the entire 20th century. SSMaisel (1900–1952), based on the analysis of root variants found in various Semitic languages, hypothesizes that this phenomenon has become one of the ways to expand the root fund of Semitic languages. A.M. Gazov-Ginsberg offers an original hypothesis about the sound-visual character of Semitic consonantism and vocalism. The founder of the school of Moscow Semitologists BM Grande (1891-1974) develops the concept of a syllablephone as the minimum unit of a Semitic word. An unconventional approach to the structure of the Semitic word was developed by the Moscow Semitologist V.P. Starinin (1903–1973), who put forward the concept of a discontinuous morpheme.

From the middle of the 20th century. the Semitological school is actively developing in Tbilisi. Its representatives are G.V. Tsereteli, T.V. Gamkrelidze, A.S. Lekiashvili, V.G. Akhvlediani, K.G. Tsereteli, L.V. Tsotskhadze, N.Kh. Zhvania, M.N. Meparishvili , M.E. Nedospasova, G. Chikovani and many others - work on the problems of both individual Semitic languages ​​and general theoretical questions.

The range of semitological studies is also expanding in Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg). A cycle of scientific conferences is taking place, the materials of which are published in a series of collections "Semitic languages", a series of essays on individual Semitic languages ​​is being published. In the early 1990s, a volume from the series "Languages ​​of Asia and Africa", devoted to the Semitic languages, was published.

The renewal of Semitic comparative studies begins in the last quarter of the 20th century. the works of I.M.Dyakonov (1915-1999) and a group of his students and younger colleagues (A.Yu. Militarev, V.Ya. Porkhomovsky, OV Stolbova) in the field of not only Semitic, but also other languages ​​of the Afrasian macrofamily. Reconstruction of the Afrasian phonological system, the structure of the Afrasian root, the reconstruction of specific Afrasian roots - all this allows Semitologists to see the facts of the Semitic languages ​​against a broader Afrasian background.

The comparative historical direction in domestic Semitology continues in the works of A.Yu. Militarev, who develops fundamental issues of the genesis of Semitic languages: the problem of the ancestral home of the Semitic-speaking population, the problem of etymology and reconstruction of the basic Semitic root word, the chronology of the division of Semitic languages. Currently A.Yu. Militarev and L.E. Kogan prepared the first in world Semitology Semitic etymological dictionary(part 1). The first part of the dictionary contains more than four hundred reconstructed presemite roots related to human and animal anatomy. A continuation of this vocabulary on other topics is expected.

As a result of the research work of Semitologists by the end of the 20th century. Many "white" spots in the history of Semitic languages ​​began to disappear: their genetic connections were clarified, the possibility of deep reconstruction not only of the consonant part of the root, but also of the root vocalism opened up, the disappeared members of the phonological system, the primary structure of the root, the tendencies of linguistic changes were reconstructed. General typology and sociolinguistics continue to be enriched with adequate data on the Semitic languages ​​and their history.

Literature:

Semitic languages. Ed. G.Sh.Sharbatova. M., 1963
Starinin V.P. The structure of the Semitic word. M., 1963
Gazov-Ginsberg A.M. Was the language pictorial in its origins? M., 1965
Semitic languages. Materials of the first conf. in Semitic languages. Oct 1964. Ed. G.Sh.Sharbatova, parts 1–2. M., 1965
Gazov-Ginsberg A.M. The symbolism of the presemite inflection. M., 1974
Dyakonov I.M. Languages ​​of ancient Western Asia. M., 1976
Militarev A.Yu. Development of views on the Semitic root.- In the book: Eastern linguistics. M., 1976
Semitic languages. Sat. articles, no. 3. Ed. G.Sh.Sharbatova. M., 1976
Maisel S.S. Ways of development of the root fund of the Semitic languages... Resp. ed., compiler, author of the introductory article and additions A.Yu. Militarev. M., 1983
Semitic languages.- In the book: Languages ​​of Asia and Africa, vol. IV, book. 1. Afrasian languages. M., 1991
Grande B.M. An introduction to the comparative study of Semitic languages. M., 1972; 2nd ed. M., 1998
Yushmanov N.V. Selected Works. Works on general phonetics, Semitology and Arabic classical morphology. M., 1998