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Bible Encyclopedias
Semitic Languages
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or The general designation of a group of Asiatic and African languages, some living and some dead, namely Assyrian, Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopic, Mahri-Socotri. The name, which was introduced by Schlezer, is derived from the fact that most nations which speak or spoke these languages are descended, according to Genesis, from Shem, son of Noah.' But the classification of nations in Genesis x. is founded neither upon linguistic nor upon ethnographical principles: it is determined rather by geographical and political considerations. For this reason Elam and Lud are also included among the children of Shem; but neither the Elamites (in Susiana) nor the Lydians appear to have spoken a language connected with Hebrew. On the other hand, the Phoenicians (Canaanites), whose dialect closely resembled that of Israel, are not counted as children of Shem. Moreover, the compiler of the list in Genesis x. had no clear conceptions about the peoples of south Arabia and Ethiopia. Nevertheless it would be undesirable to give up the universally received terms "Semites" and "Semitic." The connexion of the Semitic languages with one another is somewhat close, in any case closer than that of the IndoEuropean languages. The more ancient Semitic tongues differ from one another scarcely more than do the various Teutonic dialects. Hence even in the 17th century such learned Orientalists as Hottinger, Bochart, Castell and Ludolf had a tolerably clear notion of the relationship between the different Semitic languages with which they were acquainted; indeed the same may be said of some Jewish scholars who lived many centuries earlier, as, for instance, Jehuda ben Koreish. It is not difficult to point out a series of characteristic marks common to these languages, the predominance of triconsonantal roots, or of roots formed after the analogy of such, similarity in the formation of nominal and verbal stems, a great resemblance in the forms of the personal pronouns and in their use for the purpose of verbal inflection, the two principal tenses, the importance attached to the change of vowels in the interior of words, and lastly, considerable agreement with regard to order and the construction of sentences. Yet even so ancient a Semitic language as the Assyrian appears to lack some of these features, and in certain modern dialects, such as New Syriac, Mahri and more particularly Amharic, many of the characteristics of older Semitic speech have disappeared. And the resemblance in vocabulary generally diminishes in proportion to the modernness of the dialects. Still we can trace the connexion between the modern and the ancient dialects, and show, at least approximately, how the former were developed out of the latter. Where a development of this kind can be proved to have taken place, there a relationship must exist, however much the individual features may have been effaced. The question here is not of logical categories but of organic groups.
' All these languages are descendants of a primitive Semitic language which has long been extinct. Of course this should not be taken literally as implying an absolute unity. If, in the strictest sense of the words, no two men ever speak the same language, it must apply with still greater force to any considerable mass of men not living in the closest conjunction; and as such we must conceive the ancient Semites, so soon as they had severed themselves from other races. As long as the primitive Semitic people occupied no great extent of territory, many linguistic differences existent in their midst might still be reconciled. Other differences, however, might even then have formed the germs of the subsequent dialectical distinction. Thus, if the gradual, or sudden, separation of individual sections of the people led to alienation on a large scale, their dialects must necessarily have developed decided lines of cleavage and become finally distinct languages. With all this, it is still possible that, even in that pre-historic era, peaceful or warlike intercourse may have exercised an influence tending to assimilate these languages once again. Within the limitations which we have intimated rather than discussed, the expression "proto-Semitic language" is thoroughly justifiable.
Many of its most important features may be reconstructed with at least tolerable certainty, but we must beware of attempting too much in this respect. When the various cognate languages of a group diverge in essential points, it is by no ' In Eichhorn's Repertorium, viii. 161 (1781). Universally accepted from Eichhorn's Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 2nd ed., i. 15 (Leipzig, 1787).
means always possible to determine which of them has retained the more primitive form. The history of the development of these tongues during the period anterior to the documents which we possess is often extremely obscure in its details. Even when several Semitic languages agree in important points of grammar we cannot always be sure that in these particulars we have what is primitive, since in many cases analogous changes may have taken place independently. To one who should assert the complete reconstruction of the primitive Semitic language to be possible, we might put the question, Would the man who is best acquainted with all the Romance languages be in a position to reconstruct their common mother, Latin, if the knowledge of it were lost ? And yet there are but few Semitic languages which we can know as accurately as the Romance languages are known. As far as the vocabulary is concerned, we may indeed maintain with certainty that a considerable number of words which have in various Semitic languages the form proper to each were a part of primitive Semitic speech. Nevertheless even then we are apt to be misled by independent but analogous formations and by words borrowed at a very remote period. 2 Each Semitic language or group of languages has, however, many words which we cannot point out in the others. Of such words a great number no doubt belonged to primitive Semitic speech, and either disappeared in some of these languages or else remained in use, but not so as to be recognizable by us. In the case of certain proto-Semitic words, we can even yet observe how they gradually recede from the foreground. So, for instance, in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic, the common designation of the lion, laith, has disappeared, almost before our eyes, in order to make room for other expressions. Yet many isolated words and roots may in very early times have been borrowed by the Hebrew, the Aramaic, the Ethiopic, &c., perhaps from wholly different languages, of which no trace is left. To what extent the separate languages created new roots is an extremely obscure problem.
The question which of the known Semitic dialects most resembles the primitive Semitic language is less important than one might at first suppose, since the question is one not of absolute but only of relative priority. After scholars had given up the notion (which, however, was not the fruit of scientific research) that all Semitic languages, and indeed all the languages in the world, were descendants of Hebrew or of Aramaic, it was long the fashion to maintain that Arabic bore a close resemblance to the primitive Semitic language. 3 But, just as it is now recognized with ever-increasing clearness that Sanskrit is far from having retained in such a degree as was even lately supposed the characteristics of primitive Indo-European speech, so in the domain of the Semitic tongues we can assign to Arabic only a relative antiquity. It is true that in Arabic very many features are preserved more faithfully than in the cognate languages, - for instance, nearly all the original abundance of consonants, the short vowels in open syllables, particularly in the interior of words, and many grammatical distinctions which in the other languages are more or less obscured. On the other hand, Arabic has coined, simply from analogy, a great number of forms which, owing to their extreme simplicity, seem at the first glance to be primitive, but which nevertheless are only modifications of the primitive forms; whilst perhaps the other Semitic languages exhibit modifications of a different kind. In spite of its great wealth, Arabic is characterized by a certain monotony, which can scarcely have existed from the beginning. Both Hebrew and even Aramaic are in many respects more ancient than Arabic. This would no doubt be far more apparent if we knew Hebrew more completely and according to the original pronunciation of its vowels, and if we could discover how Aramaic was pronounced about the 13th century before our era. It must always be borne in mind that we are far more fully and accurately 2 The more alike two languages are the more difficult it usually is to detect, as borrowed elements, those words which have passed from one language into the other.
3 This theory is carried to its extreme limit in Olshausen's very valuable Hebrew Grammar (Brunswick, 1861).
acquainted with Arabic than with the other Semitic languages of antiquity. The opinion sometimes maintained by certain over-zealous Assyriologists, that Assyrian is the "Sanskrit of the Semitic world," has not met with the approval even of the Assyriologists themselves, and is unworthy of a serious refutation.
A comparative grammar of the Semitic languages must of course be based upon Arabic, but must in every matter of detail take into consideration all the cognate languages, as far as they are known to us. In the reconstruction of the primitive Semitic tongue Hebrew might perhaps afford more assistance than Ethiopic; but Aramaic, Assyrian, and even the less known and the more modern dialects might furnish valuable materials.
The method by which these younger languages, especially the dialects of to-day, have received their present form, may be traced with tolerable comprehensiveness. Thus we gain valuable analogies for determining the genetic process in the older tongues. At the same time, a conscientious investigation forces upon us the conviction that there are many and important phenomena which we are powerless to explain; and this applies, in part, to cases where, at first, the solution appears perfectly simple. So, although we have seen that the main features of the correspondence between the Semitic languages have long been definitely established - years before Bopp scientifically demonstrated the connexion of the Indo-European tongues - still in our domain it is a task of extreme difficulty to create a comparative grammar which shall be minutely exact and yield permanent results. Only the most accomplished philologist could attempt the task, and it is very doubtful whether the time is yet ripe for such an attempt.' Much careful and minute investigation is still indispensable. One great obstacle lies in the fact, that, in most Semitic languages, the sounds are very inadequately transmitted. It would probably be easier to give a comparative presentment of Semitic syntax than of Semitic phonetics and the theory of Semitic forms.
It is not a formidable undertaking to describe in general terms the character of the Semitic mind, as has been done, for example, by Lassen (Indische Altertumskunde, i. 414 sq.) and by Renan in the introduction to his Histoire des langues semitiques. 2 But still there is a danger of assuming that the most important characteristics of particular Semitic peoples, especially of the Israelites and of the Arabs, are common to all Semites, and of ascribing to the influence of race certain striking features which are the result of the external conditions of life, and which, under similar circumstances, are also developed among non-Semitic races. And, though it is said, not without reason, that the Semites possess but little talent for political and military organization on a large scale, yet we have in the Phoenicians, especially the Carthaginians, in Hamilcar and in Hannibal, a proof that under altered conditions the Semites are not incapable of distinguishing themselves in these domains. It is a poor evasion to deny that the Phoenicians are genuine Semites, since even our scanty sources of information suffice to show that in the matter of religion, which among Semites is of such supreme importance, they bore a close resemblance to the ancient Hebrews and Aramaeans. In general descriptions of this kind it is easy to go too far. But to give in general terms a correct idea of the Semitic languages is a task of very much greater difficulty. Renan's brilliant and most interesting sketch is in many respects open to serious criticism. He cites, for example, as characteristic of the Semitic tongues, that they still retain the practice of expressing psychological processes by means of distinct imagery. In saying this he is taking scarcely any language but Hebrew into account. But the feature to which he here alludes is owing to the particular 1 By this we do not wish to call in question the merits of the following works: William Wright, Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (Cambridge, 1890, a posthumous work); O. E. Lindberg, Vergleichende Grammatik d. semitischen Sprachen (pt. 1, Goteborg, 1897); Heinr. Zimmern, Vergl. Gramm. d. semit. Sprachen (Berlin, 1898); C. Brockelmann, Semitische Sprachwissenschaft (Leipzig, 1906) and Grundriss der vergl. Gramm. d. semit. Sprachen, vol. i. (Berlin, 1908).
Cf. Th. Noldeke, Some Characteristics of the Semitic Races, in Sketches from Eastern History (London and Edinburgh, 1892), 1 ff.
stage of intellectual development that had been reached by the Israelites, is in part peculiar to the poetical style, and is to be found in like manner among wholly different races. That the Semitic languages are far from possessing the fixity which Renan attributes to them we shall see below. But, however this may be, certain grammatical peculiarities of the Semitic languages - above all, the predominance of triliteral roots - are so marked that it is scarcely possible to doubt whether any language with which we are tolerably well acquainted is or is not Semitic. Only when a Semitic language has been strongly influenced not only in vocabulary but also in grammar by some nonSemitic speech, as is the case with Amharic, can such a doubt be for a moment entertained.
Many attempts have been made, sometimes in a very superficial fashion and sometimes by the use of scientific methods, to establish a relationship between the Semitic languages and the Indo-European. It was very natural to suppose that the tongues of the two races families of which, with the single exceptions of the Egyptians and the Chinese, have formed and moulded human civilization, who have been near neighbours from the earliest times, and who, moreover, seem to bear a great physical resemblance to one another, can be nothing else than two descendants of the same parent speech. But all these endeavours have wholly failed. It is indeed probable that the languages, not only of the Semites and of the Indo-Europeans, but also those of other races, are derived from the same stock, but the separation must have taken place at so remote a period that the changes which these languages underwent in prehistoric times have completely effaced what features they possessed in common; if such features have sometimes been preserved, they are no longer recognizable. It must be remembered that it is only in exceptionally favourable circumstances that cognate languages are so preserved during long periods as to render it possible for scientific analysis to prove their relationship with one another.3 On the other hand, the Semitic languages bear so striking a resemblance in some respects to certain languages of northern Africa that we are forced to assume the existence of a tolerably close relationship between the two groups. We allude to the family of languages known in modern times as the "Hamitic," and composed of the Egyptian, Berber, Beja (Bishari, &c.), and a number of tongues spoken in Abyssinia and the neighbouring countries (Agaw, Galla, Dankali, &c.). It is remarkable that some of the most indispensable words in the Semitic vocabulary (as, for instance, "water," "mouth" and certain numerals) are found in Hamitic also, and that these words happen to be such as cannot well be derived from triliteral Semitic roots, and are more or less independent of the ordinary grammatical rules. We notice, too, important resemblances in grammar - for example, the formation of the feminine by means of a t prefixed or affixed, that of the causative by means of s, similarity in the suffixes and prefixes of the verbal tenses, and, generally, similarity in the personal pronouns, &c. It must be admitted that there is also much disagreement - for instance, the widest divergence in the mass of the vocabulary; and this applies to the Semitic languages as compared not only with those Hamitic languages that are gradually becoming known to us at the present day, but with the Egyptian, of which we possess documents dating from the fourth and perhaps fifth millennium before the Christian era. The question is here involved in great difficulties. Some isolated resemblances may, improbable as it appears, have been produced by the borrowing of words. Uncivilized races, as has been proved with certainty, sometimes borrow from others elements of speech in cases where we should deem such a thing impossible - for example, numerals and even personal suffixes. But the great resemblances in grammatical formation cannot be reasonably explained as due to borrowing on the part of the 3 The following is an instance of the manner in which we may be deceived by isolated cases. "Six" is in Hebrew shash, almost exactly like the Sanskrit and modern Persian shash, the Latin sex, &c. But the Indo-European root is sweks, or perhaps even ksweks, whereas the Semitic root is shidth, so that the resemblance is a purely accidental one, produced by phonetic change.
Hamites, more especially as these points of agreement are also found in the language of the Berbers, who are scattered over an enormous territory, and whose speech must have acquired its character long before they came into contact with the Semites. We are even now but imperfectly acquainted with the Hamitic languages; and the relation in which Egyptian stands to Berber on the one hand and to the south Hamitic languages on the other requires further elucidation. The attempt to write a comparative grammar of the Semitic and Hamitic languages would be, to say the least, very premature.' The connexion between the Semitic languages and the Hamitic appears to indicate that the primitive seat of the Semites is to be sought in Africa; for it can scarcely be supposed that the original Hamites, amongst whom there are gradual transitions seat of from an almost purely European type to that of the Negroes, are the children of any other land than "the dark continent." There seems, moreover, to be a considerable physical resemblance between the Hamites and the Semites, especially in the case of the southern Arabs; we need mention only the slight development of the calf of the leg, and the sporadic appearance amongst Semites of woolly hair and prominent jaws.' But both Semites and Hamites have been mingled to a large extent with foreign races, which process must have diminished their mutual similarity. All this, however, is offered not as a definite theory, but as a modest hypothesis.
It was once the custom to maintain that the Semites came originally from certain districts in Armenia. This supposition was founded on the book of Genesis, according to which several of the Semitic nations are descended from Arphaxad, i.e. .the eponym of the district of Arrapachitis, now called Albak, on the borders of Armenia and Kurdistan. It was also thought that this region was inhabited by the primitive race from which both the Semites and the IndoEuropeans derived their origin. But, as we saw above, this ancient relationship is a matter of some doubt; in any case, the separation does not date from a period so recent that the Semites can be supposed to have possessed any historical tradition concerning it. There cannot be a greater mistake than to imagine that nations have been able to preserve during long ages their recollection of the country whence their supposed ancestors are said to have emigrated. The fantastic notion once in vogue as to the permanence of historical memories among uncivilized races must be wholly abandoned. The period in which the Hebrews, the Arabs and the other Semitic nations together formed a single people is so distant that none of them can possibly have retained any tradition of it. The opinion that the Hebrews and the tribes most closely related to them were descendants of Arphaxad is apparently due to the legend that Noah's ark landed near this district. The notion has therefore a purely mythical origin. Moreover, in Genesis itself we find a totally different account of the matter, derived from another source, which represents all nations, and, therefore, the Semites among them, as having come from Babylon. Scarcely any man of science now believes in the northern origin of the Semites.
Some prominent scholars consider the birthplace of the Semitic race to have been in Arabia. There is much that appears to support this theory. History proves that from a very early period tribes from the deserts of Arabia settled on the cultivable lands which border them and adopted a purely agricultural mode of life. Various traces in the language seem to indicate that the Hebrews and the Arainaeans were originally nomads, and Arabia with its northern prolongation (the Syrian desert) is the true home of nomadic peoples. The Arabs are also supposed to display the Semitic character in its purest form, and their language is, on the whole, nearer the original Semitic than are the languages of the cognate races. To this last circumstance we should, however, attach little importance. It is by no means always the case that a language is most faithfully preserved in the country where it originated. The Romance dialect spoken in the south of Sardinia is far more primitive than that spoken at Rome; and of all living Teutonic languages the most ancient is the Icelandic. Besides, we cannot unreservedly admit that the Arabs display the Semitic character in its purest form; it would be more correct to say that, under the influence of a country indescribably monotonous and of a life ever changing yet ever the same, the inhabitants of the Arabian deserts have developed most exclusively certain of the principal traits of the Semitic race. All This of course applies yet more strongly to Benfey's work, Ober das Verhaltnis der cigyptischen Sprache zum semitischen Sprachstamm (Leipzig, 1844); but his book has the permanent merit of having for the first time examined the relationship in a scientific manner. The investigation of the relationship between Egyptian and Semitic has been greatly advanced by the distinguished Egyptologist Ad. Erman: cf. especially his treatise, "Die Flexion des agyptischen Verbums," in the Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften (1900), xix., especially p. 34 sq. See also Hamitic Languages.
2 Cf. G. Gerland, Atlas der Ethnographie (Leipzig, 1876), p. 40 of the text.
these considerations are indecisive; but we willingly admit that the theory which regards Arabia as the primitive seat of all Semites is by no means untenable.
Finally, one of the most eminent of contemporary Orientalists, Ignazio Guidi, 3 has attempted to prove that the home of the Semites is on the lower Euphrates. He contends that the geographical, botanical and zoological conceptions which are expressed in the various Semitic languages by the same words, preserved from the time of the dispersion, correspond to the natural characteristics of no country but the above-mentioned. Great as are the ingenuity and the caution which he displays, it is difficult to accept his conclusions. Several terms might be mentioned which are part of the common heritage of the northern and the southern Semites, but which can scarcely have been formed in the region of the Euphrates. Moreover, the vocabulary of most Semitic languages is but very imperfectly known, and each dialect has lost many primitive words in the course of time. It is therefore very unsafe to draw conclusions from the fact that the various Semitic tongues have no one common designation for many important local conceptions, such as "mountain." The ordinary words for "man," "old man," "boy," "tent," "block," "to beat," &c., are quite different in the various Semitic languages, and yet all these are ideas for which the primitive Semites must have had names.
It is not very easy to settle what is the precise connexion between the various Semitic languages, considered individually. In this matter one may easily be led to hasty conclusions by isolated peculiarities in vocabulary or grammar. Each of the older Semitic languages occasionally agrees in grammatical points with some other to which in most respects it bears no very close resemblance, while dialects much more nearly related to it are found to exhibit different formations. Each Semitic tongue also possesses features peculiar to itself. For instance, the Hebrew-Phoenician group and the Arabic have a prefixed definite article (the etymological identity of which is, however, not very probable); the dialect nearest to Arabic, the Sabaean, expresses the article by means of a suffixed n; the Aramaic, which in general more closely resembles Hebrew than does the Arabic group, expresses it by means of a suffixed a; whereas the Assyrian in the north and the Ethiopic in the south have no article at all. Of the termination n for the definite article there is no certain trace in either Arabic or Hebrew; the Sabaean, the Ethiopic, and the Aramaic employ it to give emphasis to demonstrative pronouns; and the very same usage has been detected in a single Phoenician inscription. 4 In this case, therefore, Hebrew and Arabic have, independently of one another, lost something which the languages most nearly related to them have preserved. In like manner, the strengthening of the pronoun of the third person by means of t (or tu ) is only found in Ethiopic, Sabaean and Phoenician and perhaps in some Arabic particles too. Aramaic alone has no certain trace of the reflexive conjugation formed with prefixed n; Hebrew alone has no certain trace of the causative with sha. 5 In several of the Semitic languages we can see how the formation of the passive by means of internal vocal change (as kullima, " he was addressed," as distinguished from kallama, " he addressed ) gradually dropped out of use; in Ethiopic this process was already complete when the language first became literary; in Aramaic it was not wholly so and in most modern Arabic dialects the old passive forms have nearly or totally disappeared. In a few cases phonetic resemblances have been the result of later growth. For example, the termination of the plural masculine of nouns is in Hebrew im, in Aramaic in, as in Arabic. But we know that Aramaic also originally had in, whereas the ancient Arabic forms have after the n an a, which appears to have been originally a long a (Una, ina); in this latter position (that is, between two vowels) the change of m into n is very improbable. 6 These two similar terminations were therefore originally distinct. We must indeed be very cautious in drawing conclusions from points of agreement between the vocabularies of the various Semitic tongues. The 3" Della sede primitiva dei popoli semitici,"in the Proceedings of the Accademia dei Lincei (1878-1879).
4 Viz. the great inscription of Bybliis, C.I.S., fasc. i. No. I.
5 Shalhebeth," flame,"is borrowed from Aramaic.
e Arabic seems to have transplanted the termination from the verb to the noun, or to have at least modified the substantival termination in accordance with the verbal.
Ethiopians and the Hebrews have the same word for many objects which the other Semites call by other names - for instance," stone," tree," enemy," enter," go out "; and the same may be said of Hebrew as compared with Sabaean. But to build theories upon such facts would be unsafe, since the words cited are either found, though with some change of meaning, in at least one of the cognate languages, or actually occur, perhaps quite exceptionally and in archaic writings, with the same signification. The sedentary habits of the Ethiopians and the Sabaeans may possibly have rendered it easier for them to retain in their vocabulary certain words which were used by the civilized Semites of the north, but which became obsolete amongst the Arabian nomads. To the same cause we may attribute the fact that in religion the Sabaeans seem to resemble the northern Semites more closely than do the tribes of central Arabia; but these considerations prove nothing in favour of a nearer linguistic affinity.
One thing at least is certain, that Arabic (with Sabaean, Mahri and Socotri) and Ethiopic stand in a comparatively close Northern relationship to one another, and compose a group by and themselves, as contrasted with the other Semitic Southern languages, Hebraeo-Phoenician, Aramaic and Assyrian.
groups. Only in these southern dialects do we find, and that under forms substantially identical, the important innovation known as the" broken plurals,"consisting in the employment of certain forms, denoting abstracts, for the expression of plurals. They agree, moreover, in employing a peculiar development of the verbal root, formed by inserting an a between the first and second radicals ( qatala, taqatala ), in using the vowel a before the third radical in all active perfects - for example, (h)aqtala, qattala, instead of the haqtil, qattil of the northern dialects - and in many other grammatical phenomena. This is not at all contradicted by the fact that certain aspirated dentals of Arabic ( th, dh, z ) are replaced in Ethiopic, as in Hebrew and Assyrian, by pure sibilants - that is, s (Hebrew and Assyrian sh ), z .- whereas in Aramaic they are replaced by simple dentals ( t, d, t ), which seem to come closer to the Arabic sounds. Still, after the separation of the northern and the southern groups, we suppose, the Semitic languages possessed all these sounds, as the Arabic does, but afterwards simplified them, for the most part, in one direction or the other. Hence there resulted, as it were by chance, occasional similarities. Even in many modern Arabic dialects tlt, dh become t, d.' Ethiopic, moreover, has kept d, the most peculiar of Arabic sounds, distinct from s, whereas Aramaic has confounded it with the guttural ain, and Hebrew and Assyrian with s. It is therefore evident that all these languages once possessed the consonant in question as a distinct one. One sound, sin, appears only in Hebrew, in Phoenician, and in the older Aramaic. It must originally have been pronounced very like sh, since it is represented in writing by the same character; in later times it was changed into an ordinary s. Assyrian does not distinguish it from sh. 2 The division of the Semitic languages into the northern group and the southern is therefore justified by facts. Even if we were to discover really important grammatical phenomena in which one of the southern dialects agreed with the northern, or vice versa, and that in cases where such phenomena could not be regarded either as remnants of primitive Semitic usage or as instances of parallel but independent development, we ought to remember that the division of the two groups was not necessarily a sudden and instantaneous occurrence, that even after the separation intercourse may have been carried on between the various tribes who spoke kindred dialects and were therefore still able to understand one another, and thatintermediate dialects may once have existed, perhaps such as were in use In words borrowed from the literary language, s, z, habitually appear in place of th, dh. 2 It is not quite certain whether all the Semitic languages originally had the hardest of the gutturals gh and kh in exactly the same places that they occupy in Arabic. In the case of kh we may assume so; since not only Arabic here agrees with Ethiopic, but Assyrian, also, has a particular guttural in roots which in Arabic have kh. But it would appear that in Hebrew and Aramaic the distinction between gh and ayin, between kh and I; was often different from what it is in Arabic.
amongst tribes who came into contact sometimes with the agricultural population of the north and sometimes with the nomads of the south (see below). All this is purely hypothetical, whereas the division between the northern and the southern Semitic languages is a recognized fact. It is perfectly certain, moreover, that Hebraeo-Phoenician and Aramaic are closely related with each other, and form a group of their own, distinct even from Assyrian. In fact, Assyrian seems to be so completely sui generis that we should be well advised to separate it from all the cognate languages, as an independent scion of proto-Semitic. We should classify these languages consequently in the following order: (I) Assyrian; (2) the remaining Semitic languages, viz.: A. Hebraeo-Phoenician and Aramaic, B. the southern Semitic tongues.
Although we cannot deny that there may formerly have existed Semitic languages quite distinct from those with which we are acquainted, yet that such was actually the case cannot be proved. Nor is there any reason to think that the domain of the Semitic languages ever extended very far beyond its present limits. Some time ago many scholars believed that they were once spoken in Asia Minor and even in Europe, but, except in the Phoenician colonies, this notion rested upon no solid proof. It cannot be argued with any great degree of plausibility that even the Cilicians, who from a very early period held constant intercourse with the Syrians and the Phoenicians, spoke a Semitic language.
Assyrian. Long before there existed any other Semitic culture, there flourished on the Lower Euphrates a sister language which has been preserved to us in the cuneiform inscriptions. It is usually called the Assyrian, after the name of the country where the first and most important excavations were made; but the term" Babylonian "would be more correct, as Babylon was the birthplace of this language and of the civilization to which it belonged. Certain Babylonian inscriptions go back to the fourth millennium before our era; but the great mass of these cuneiform inscriptions date from between woo and 500 B.C.
Assyrian differs in many respects from all the cognate languages. The ancient perfect has wholly disappeared, or left but few traces, and the gutturals, with the exception of the hard kh, Ass risn. have been smoothed down to a degree which is only ' paralleled in modern Aramaic dialects. So at least it would appear from the writing, or rather from the manner in which Assyriologists transcribe it. The Babylonian form bel (occurring in Isa. xlvi. i; Jer. 1.2 and li. 44 - passages all belonging to the 6th century B.C., and in many other ancient monuments), the name of the god who was originally called ba'l, is a confirmation of this; but, on the other hand, the name of the country where Babylon was situated, viz. Shin'ar, and that of a Babylonian god, `Anammelek (2 Kings xvii. 31), as well as those of the tribes Sho`a and Qo'a (Ezek. xxiii. 23) who inhabited the Assyrio-Babylonian territory, seem to militate against this theory, as they are spelt in the Old Testament with `ain. So, too, is the biblico-Aramaic word teem, (Warn," order," decree,"which is derived from the Assyrian; and we may also compare some Babylonian local names, e.g. 'Anat. H is found in the name of the town Hit, and in the name of a man, written in Aramaic characters but formed quite in the Babylonian manner, Hadadnadinakh. Thus the Babylonians may have pronounced some gutturals, though they did not write them, precisely as the Persian cuneiform inscriptions omit many h' s, which, no doubt, were audible. The Assyrian system of writing is so complicated, and, in spite of its vast apparatus, is so imperfect an instrument for the accurate representation of sounds, that we are hardly yet bound to regard the transcriptions of contemporary Assyriologists as being in all points of detail the final dictum of science. However this may be, the present writer does not feel able to speak at greater length upon Assyrian. Attention may, however, be called to the fact, that, as might have been expected from the important role played by the Babylonians and Assyrians in the history of civilization and of peoples, many words passed over from their language into Hebrew and, more especially, into Aramaic, some of which attained a still wider vogue.' (Compare the article Cuneiform.) Hebrew. Hebrew and Phoenician are but dialects of one and the same language. It is only as the language of the people of Israel that Hebrew can be known with any precision. Since in the Old So the Assyrian mashkenu was adopted into Hebrew and Aramaic as misken; from the Aramaic it was borrowed by Arabic and Ethiopic ( misken ), and from Arabic it found its way into the Romance languages (mesquinho, mezquino, meschino, mesquin). Lost Semitic languages. Testament a few of the neighbouring peoples are represented as being descended from Eber, the eponym of the Hebrews, that is, are regarded as nearly related to the latter, it was natural to suppose that they likewise spoke Hebrew - a supposition which, at least in the case of the Moabites, has been fully confirmed by the discovery of the Mesha inscription (date, soon after 900 B.C.). The language of this inscription scarcely differs from that of the Old Testament; the only important distinction is the occurrence of a reflexive form (with t after the first radical), which appears also in Arabic and Assyrian. We may remark in passing that the style of this inscription is quite that of the Old Testament, and enables us to maintain with certainty that a similar historical literature existed amongst the Moabites. But it must be remembered that ancient Semitic inscriptions exhibit, in a sense, nothing but the skeleton of the language, since they do not express the vowels at all, or do so only in certain cases; still less do they indicate other phonetic modifications, such as the doubling of consonants, &c. It is therefore very possible that to the ear the language of Moab seemed to differ considerably from that of the Judaeans.
The Mesha inscription is the only non-Israelite source from which any knowledge of ancient Hebrew can be obtained. Still several Hebrew words occur even in the Tellel-Amarna letters, dis- Anc covered in Egypt, and written in the Babylonian language by princes of Palestine during the second millennium B.C. They clearly show that the" Hebrew "language existed in Palestine even before the migration of the Israelites into Canaan. Some fragments in the Old Testament belong to the last centuries of the second millennium before our era - particularly the song of Deborah (Judges v.), a document which, in spite of its many obscurities in matters of detail, throws much light on the condition of the Israelites at the time when the Canaanites were still contending with them for the possession of the country. The first rise of an historical literature may very probably date from before the establishment of the monarchy. Various portions of the Old Testament belong to the time of the earlier kings; but it was under the later kings that a great part of extant Hebrew literature came into shape. To this age also belong the Gezer and the Siloam inscriptions and a daily increasing number of seals and gems bearing the names of Israelites.
The Hebrew language is thus known to us from a very ancient period. But we are far from being acquainted with its real phonetic condition in the time of David or Isaiah. For, much as. we owe to the labours of the later Jewish schools, which with infinite care fixed the pronunciation of the sacred text by adding vowels and other signs, it is evident that even at the best they could only represent the pronunciation of the language in its latest stage, not that of very early ages. Besides, their object was not to exhibit Hebrew simply as it was, but to show how it should be read in the solemn chant of the synagogue. Accordingly, the pronunciation of the older period may have differed considerably from that represented by the punctuation. Such differences are now and then indicated by the customary spelling of the ancient texts,' and sometimes the orthography is directly at variance with the punctuation.' In a few rare cases we may derive help from the somewhat older tradition contained in the representation of Hebrew words and proper names by Greek letters, especially in the ancient Alexandrine translation of the Bible` (the so-called Septuagint). It is of particular importance to remark that this older tradition still retains an original a in many cases where the punctuation has the later i or e. We have examined this point somewhat in detail, in order to contradict the false but ever-recurring notion that the ordinary text of the Bible represents without any essential modification the pronunciation of ancient Hebrew, whereas in reality it expresses (in a very instructive and careful manner, it is true) only its latest development, and that for the purpose of solemn public recitation. A clear trace of dialectal differences within Israel is found in Judges xii. 6, which shows that the ancient Ephraimites pronounced samek instead of shin. th The destruction of the Judaean kingdom dealt a heavy blow to e _Hebrew language. But it is going too far to suppose that it of was altogether banished from ordinary life at the time of the exile, and that Aramaic came into use among all the Jews. In the East even small communities, especially if they form a religious body, often cling persistently to their mother-tongue, though they may be surrounded by a population of alien speech; and such was probably the case with the Jews in Babylonia. See Hebrew Language. Even so late as the time of Ezra, Hebrew was in all probability the ordinary language of the new community. In Neh. xiii. 24 we find a complaint that the children of Jews by wives from Ashdod and other places spoke half in the" Jewish "language and half in the language of Ashdod, or whatever else may have been the tongue of their mothers. No one 1 For example, we may conclude with tolerable certainty, from the presence and absence of the vowel-letters y and w, that in older times the accented e and o were not pronounced long, and that, on the other hand, the diphthongs au and ai were used for the later 6 and e. ' The very first word of the Bible contains an Aleph ( spiritus lenis ), which is required by etymology and was once audible, but which the pronunciation represented by the point-system ignores.
can suppose that Nehemiah would have been particularly zealous that the children of Jews should speak an Aramaic dialect with correctness. He no doubt refers to Hebrew as it was then spoken - a stage in its development of which Nehemiah's own work gives a very fair idea.
After the time of Alexander large bodies of the Jewish population were settled in Alexandria and other western cities, and were very rapidly Hellenized. Meanwhile the principal language of Syria and the neighbouring countries, Aramaic, which p had already become the language of the older Jewish colonies in Egypt (see below), and the influence of which" A Y may be perceived even in some pre-exilic writings, began to spread more and more among the Jews of Palestine. Hebrew gradually ceased to be the .language of the people and became that of religion and the schools. The book of Daniel, written in 167 or 166 B.C., begins in Hebrew, then suddenly passes into Aramaic, and ends again in Hebrew. Similarly the redactor of Ezra (or more correctly of the Chronicles, of which Ezra and Nehemiah form the conclusion) borrows large portions from an Aramaic work, in most cases without translating them into Hebrew. No reason can be assigned for the use of Aramaic in Jewish works intended primarily for Jerusalem, unless it were already the dominant speech, whilst, on the other hand, it was very natural for a pious Jew to write in the ancient "holy" language even after it had ceased to be spoken. Esther, Ecclesiastes, and a few Psalms, which belong to the 3rd and 2nd centuries before our era, are indeed written in Hebrew, but are so strongly tinctured by the Aramaic influence as to prove that the writers usually spoke Aramaic. It is certain, of course, that there were still many Jews capable both of writing and speaking Hebrew. So the Book of Sirach, composed shortly after 200 B.C., was written in an almost absolutely pure Hebrew, as is proved by the portions of the original, amounting to about twothirds of the whole, which have come to light in our day. But we are not likely to be far wrong in saying that in the Maccabean age Hebrew had died out among the Jews as a current popular language, and there is nothing to show that it survived longer among any of the neighbouring peoples.
But in the last period of the history of Jerusalem, and still more after the destruction of the city by Titus, the Jewish schools played so important a part that the life of the Hebrew language was in a manner prolonged. The lectures and discussions of the learned were carried on in that tongue. We have very extensive specimens of this more modern Hebrew in the Mishnah and other works, and scattered pieces throughout both Talmuds. But, just as the "classical" Sanskrit, which has been spoken and written by the Brahmans during the last twenty-five centuries, differs considerably from the language which was once in use among the people, so this "language of the learned" diverges in many respects from the "holy language"; and this distinction is one of which the rabbis were perfectly conscious. The "language of the learned" borrows a great part of its vocabulary from Aramaic,' and this exercises a strong influence upon the grammatical forms. The grammar is. perceptibly modified by the peculiar style of these writings, which for the most part treat of legal and ritual questions in a strangely laconic and pointed manner. But, large as is the proportion of foreign words and artificial as this language is, it contains a considerable number of purely Hebrew elements which by chance do not appear in the Old Testament. Although we may generally assume, in the case of a word occurring in the Mishnah but not found in the Old Testament, that it is borrowed from Aramaic, there are several words of this class which, by their radical consonants, prove themselves to be genuine Hebrew. And even some grammatical phenomena of this language are to be regarded as a genuine development of Hebrew, though they are unknown_to earlier Hebrew speech.
From the beginning of the middle ages down to our own times the Jews have produced an enormous mass of writings in Hebrew, sometimes closely following the language of the Bible, sometimes that of the Mishnah, sometimes introducing in a perfectly inorganic manner a great quantity of Aramaic forms, and occasionally imitating the Arabic style. The study of these variations has but little interest for the linguist, since they are nothing but a purely artificial imitation, dependent upon the greater or less skill of the individual. The language of the Mishnah stands in much closer connexion with real life, and has a definite raison d'être; all later Hebrew is to be classed with medieval and modern Latin. The dream of some Zionists, that Hebrew - a would-be Hebrew, that is to say - will again become a living, popular language in Palestine, has still less prospect of realization than their vision of a restored Jewish empire in the Holy Land. Much Hebrew also was written in the middle ages by the hostile brethren of the Jews, the Samaritans; but for the student of language these productions have, at the most, the charm attaching to curiosities.
It is a characteristic feature that "my father" and "my mother" are here expressed by purely Aramaic forms. Even the learned did not wish to call their "papas" and "mammas" by. any other names than those to which they had been accustomed in infancy.
The ancient Hebrew language, especially in the matter of syntax, has an essentially primitive character. Parataxis of sentences Character prevails over hypotaxis to a greater extent than in any Characte ancient other literary Semitic language with which we are well o f ncie acquainted. The fa v ourite method is to link sentences together by means of a simple and. There is a great lack of particles to express with clearness the more subtle connexion of ideas. The use of the verbal tenses is in a great measure determined by the imagination, which regards things unaccomplished as accomplished, and the past as still present. There are but few words or inflexions to indicate slight modifications of meaning, though in ancient times the language may perhaps have distinguished certain moods of the verb somewhat more plainly than the present punctuation does. But in any case this language was far less suited for the definite expression of studied thought, and less suited still for the treatment of abstract subjects, than for poetry. We must remember, however, that as long as Hebrew was a living language it never had to be used for the expression of the abstract. Had it lived somewhat longer it might very possibly have learnt to adapt itself better to the formulating of systematic conceptions. The only book in the Old Testament which attempts to grapple with an abstract subject in plain prose - namely, Ecclesiastes - dates from a time when Hebrew was dying out or was already dead. That the gifted author does not always succeed in giving clear expression to his ideas is partly due to the fact that the language had never been employed for any scientific purposes whatsoever. With regard to grammatical forms, Hebrew has lost much that is still preserved in Arabic; but the greater richness of Arabic is in part the result of later development.
The vocabulary of the Hebrew language is, as we have said, known but imperfectly. The Old Testament is no very large work; Vocabu- it contains, moreover, many repetitions, and a great number of pieces which are of little use to the lexicoiary. grapher. On the other hand, much may be derived from certain poetical books, such as Job.' The numerous 6.71-a f A€yoµEva are a sufficient proof that many more words existed than appear in the Old Testament, the writers of which never had occasion to use them. Were we in possession of the whole Hebrew vocabulary in the time of Jeremiah, for example, we should be far better able to determine the relation in which Hebrew stands to the other Semitic languages, the Old Testament would be far more intelligible to us, and it would be very much easier to detect the numerous corrupt passages in our text.
Phoenician. The Phoenician dialect closely resembles Hebrew, and is known to us from only one authentic source, namely, inscriptions, some of Phoeni- which date from about boo B.C. or earlier; but the great mass of them begin with the end of the 5th century before ciao. our era. These inscriptions' we owe to the Phoenicians of the mother-country and the neighbouring regions (Cyprus, Egypt and Greece), as well as to the Phoenicians of Africa, especially Carthage. Inscriptions are, however, a very insufficient means for obtaining the knowledge of a language. The number of subjects treated in them is not large; many of the most important grammatical forms and many of the words most used in ordinary life do not occur. Moreover, the "lapidary style" is often very hard to understand. The repetition of obscure phrases, in the same connexion, in several inscriptions does not help to make them more intelligible. Of what use is it to us that, for instance, thousands of Carthaginian inscriptions begin with the very same incomprehensible dedication to two divinities? The difficulty of interpretation is greatly increased by the fact that single words are very seldom separated from one another, and that vowel-letters are used extremely sparingly. We therefore come but too often upon very ambiguous groups of letters. In spite of this, our knowledge of Phoenician has made considerable progress of late. Some assistance is also got from Greek and Latin writers, who cite not only many Phoenician proper names, but single Phoenician words: Plautus in particular inserts in the Poenulus whole passages in Punic, some of which are accompanied by a Latin translation. This source of information must, however, be used with great caution. It was not the object of Plautus to exhibit the Punic language with precision, a task for which the Latin alphabet is but ill adapted, but only to make the populace laugh at the jargon of the hated Carthaginians. Moreover, he had to force the Punic words into Latin senarii; and finally the text, being unintelligible to copyists, is terribly corrupt. Much ingenuity has been wasted on the Punic of Plautus; but the passage yields valuable results to cautious investigation which does not try to explain too much.' In its grammar Phoenician closely resembles Hebrew. In both dialects the consonants are the same, often in contrast to Aramaic ' The Siloam inscription affords us one new word, the original of Sirach some others. In the Gezer inscription there seem to be some new words of dubious interpretation.
2 The scattered materials are being collected in the Corpus inscriptionum Semiticarum of the Paris Academy.
See Gildemeister, in Ritschl's Plautus (vol. ii. fasc. v., Leipzig, 5884).
and other cognate languages.' As to vowels, Phoenician seems to diverge rather more from Hebrew. The connecting of clauses is scarcely carried farther in the former language than in the latter. A slight attempt to define the tenses more sharply appears once at least in the joining of lean (fuit) with a perfect, to express complete accomplishment (or the pluperfect). 5 One important difference is that the use of waw conversive with the imperfect - so common in Hebrew and in the inscription of Mesha - is wanting in Phoenician. The vocabulary of the language is very like that of Hebrew, but words rare in Hebrew are often common in Phoenician. For instance, "to do" is in Phoenician not `as a but pa'al (the Arabic fa`ala ), which in Hebrew occurs only in poetry and elevated language. "Gold" is not (zahab as in most Semitic languages), but liarii (Assyrian huras), which is used occasionally in Hebrew poetry. Traces of dialectical distinctions have been found in the great inscription of Byblus, the inhabitants of which seem to be distinguished from the rest of the Phoenicians in Josh. xiii. 5 (and I Kings v. 32? [A.V. v. 18]). It is probable that various differences between the language of the mother-country and that of the African colonies arose at an early date, but our materials do not enable us to come to any definite conclusion on this point. It is tolerably certain that the language of Carthage possessed many dull vowels which were strange to Greek and Latin, so that the manner in which they are reproduced in proper names by the Greeks and Romans shows great diversity. In the later African inscriptions there appear certain phonetic changes, especially in consequence of the softening of the gutturals - changes which show themselves yet more plainly in the so-called Neo-Punic inscriptions (beginning with the 1st, if not the 2nd, century before our era). In these the gutturals, which had lost their real sound, are frequently interchanged in writing; and other modifications may also be perceived. Unfortunately the Neo-Punic inscriptions are written in such a debased indistinct character that it is often impossible to discover with certainty the real form of the words. This dialect was still spoken about 400, and perhaps long afterwards, in those districts of North Africa which had once belonged to Carthage. It would seem that in the mother-country the Phoenician language withstood the encroachment of Greek on the one hand and of Aramaic on the other somewhat longer than Hebrew did.
Aramaic. Aramaic is nearly related to Hebraeo-Phoenician; but there is nevertheless a sharp line of demarcation between the two groups. Of its original home nothing certain is known. In the Old Testament "Aram" appears at an early period as a Geo- designation of certain districts in Syria ("Aram of graphical Damascus," &c.) and in Mesopotamia ("Aram of the Two of Rivers"). The language of the Aramaeans gradually Aramaic. spread far and wide, and occupied all Syria, both those regions which were before in the possession of the Kheta, probably a non-Semitic people, and those which were most likely inhabited by Canaanite tribes; last of all, Palestine became Aramaized. Towards the east this language was spoken on the Euphrates, and throughout the districts of the Tigris south and west of the Armenian and Kurdish mountains; the province in which the capitals of the Arsacids and the Sassanids were situated was called "the country of the Aramaeans." In Babylonia and Assyria a large, or perhaps the larger, portion of the population were most probably Aramaeans, even at a very early date, whilst Assyrian was the language of the government.
The oldest extant Aramaic documents consist of inscriptions on monuments and on seals, weights and gems. Latterly, a very remarkable inscription of a king of I.1amath s belonging to the 8th century B.C. has been found in Central Syria, and a few years before excavations in the extreme north of Syria (Zengirli and district; Nerab) brought to light some not less remarkable inscriptions which go back to the same century. The language of all these inscriptions is Aramaic, though in certain places it agrees with Hebrew. It is especially surprising that in the case of the Arabic sounds th, dh, z, they have not t, d, t, - as Aramaic generally has, - but sh, z, s, as is the rule in Hebrew and Assyrian. It is extremely strange, however, that, in place of the Arabic cl, 'ain does not appear, as elsewhere in Aramaic, nor yet s as in Hebrew and Assyrian, - and, in isolated cases, even in Aramaic, - but q. These phenomena may be observed on several smaller monuments. We have no entirely satisfactory explanation at our disposal: perhaps Assyrian influence has been at work. Individual monuments prove, however, that the phonetic system of general Aramaic was already in existence At an early period the Phoenician pronunciation may have distinguished a greater number of original consonants than are distinguished in writing. It is at least remarkable that the Greeks render the name of the city of Sur (Hebrew Sor), which must originally have been pronounced Thurr, with a T ( T y pos ), and the name of Sidon (where the radical s runs through all the Semitic languages, with a e (D.&w). Distinctions of this kind, justified by etymology, have perhaps been obscured in Hebrew by the imperfection of the alphabet. In the case of sin and shin this can be positively proved.
Kan nadar," had vowed," Idal. 5 (C.I.S. Phoen. No. 93).
The consonants of his name are ZKR; the pronunciation, perhaps, was Zakkur. in the period of our inscriptions: it would seem, therefore, that we must assume a dialectical cleavage, perhaps originated by the influence of Hebrew or Canaanean. Particularly remarkable is the use of the waw consecutivum in the inscriptions of the king of Hamath hitherto only known from Hebrew. Traces of the divergent phonetic treatment are found in the Hellenistic era, and - here and there - even later. Still, at the most, these can scarcely be more than conscious archaisms, - a view which is particularly corroborated by the fact, that, in certain Aramaic documents of the Persian period, both forms are used interchangeably, e.g. arga, " earth," and ar`a. The latter orthography doubtless represents the actual pronunciation of the writer. It is to be observed, however, that zi for di, held its ground with especial tenacity as a form of the relative pronoun and in other capacities. In the Persian period Aramaic was the official language of the provinces west of the Euphrates; and this explains the fact that coins which were struck by governors and vassal princes in Asia Minor, and of which the stamp was in some cases the work of skilled Greek artists, bear Aramaic inscriptions, whilst those of other coins are Greek. This, of course, does not prove that Aramaic was ever spoken in Asia Minor a.nd as far north as Sinope and the Hellespont. In Egypt some Aramaic inscriptions have been found of the Persian period, one bearing the date of the fourth year of Xerxes (482 B.C.). We possessed, even before this, a few official documents and other written pieces in Aramaic, inscribed upon papyrus, and dating from this period, but unfortunately in a very dilapidated condition. Latterly, however, we have had a whole series of similar documents of the 5th century B.C., in a very good state of preservation, bearing upon the affairs of Jewish colonists in the far south of Egypt. In that country, where the native writing was so formidable to the learner, the Aramaic language and script may well have appeared peculiarly serviceable. Thus they were employed, and frequently, even by indigenous Egyptians. But we need not doubt that, in Egypt, Aramaic was also spoken by many who had migrated from Syria; and this must be assumed to have been the case with the Jewish colonists mentioned. The fact is now established that these Jews who had come to Egypt before the Persian period were military colonists, and were often referred to in documents as "Aramaeans." According to Deut. xvii. 16, the kings of Judah sold their subjects to the kings of Egypt, who at that time obtained numbers of warriors from foreign countries, instead of employing their own unwarlike subjects. The Syrian kings also sent soldiers to Egypt, from whom the Jews learned Aramaic. That this was used not only as an official language, but also as a vernacular, is shown by the fact that fragments of ordinary speech are found in Judaeo-Aramaic papyri. That the EgyptianAramaic documents exhibit traces of Hebrew and Phoenician influence is a matter for no surprise. Probably the preference shown by the Persians for Aramaic originated under the Assyrian empire, in which a very large proportion of the population spoke Aramaic, and in which this language would naturally occupy a more important position than it did under the Persians. We therefore understand why it was taken for granted that a great Assyrian official could speak Aramaic (2 Kings xviii. 26; Isa. xxxvi. iI), and for the same reason the dignitaries of Judah appear to have learned the language ( ibid. ), namely, in order to communicate with the Assyrians. The short dominion of the Chaldaeans very probably strengthened this preponderance of Aramaic. A few ancient Aramaic inscriptions have been discovered far within the limits of Arabia, in the palm oasis of Teima (in the north of the Hijaz); the oldest and by far the most important of these was very likely made before the Persian period. We may presume that Aramaic was introduced into the district by
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Semitic Languages'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/s/semitic-languages.html. 1910.
