The
East Semitic languages constitute one of the three major subdivisions of
Semitic languagesThe Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
, the others being
West SemiticThe West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of Semitic languages. One widely accepted analysis, supported by semiticists like Robert Hetzron and John Huehnergard, divides the Semitic language family into two branches: Eastern and Western. The former consists of the extinct Eblaite...
and South Semitic. The East Semitic group is attested by two distinct languages,
AkkadianAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
and
EblaiteEblaite is an extinct Semitic language, which was spoken in the 3rd millennium BCE in the ancient city of Ebla, at Tell Mardikh , between Aleppo and Hama, in western modern Syria...
, both of which have been long
extinctAn extinct language is a language which no longer has any speakers. Extinct languages may be contrasted with dead languages: no longer spoken as a main language.-Language loss:...
. The East Semitic languages stand apart from other Semitic languages in a number of respects. Historically, it is believed that this linguistic situation came about as speakers of East Semitic languages wandered further east, settling in
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
during the
third millennium BCEThe 3rd millennium BC spans the Early to Middle Bronze Age.It represents a period of time in which imperialism, or the desire to conquer, grew to prominence, in the city states of the Middle East, but also throughout Eurasia, with Indo-European expansion to Anatolia, Europe and Central Asia. The...
, as attested by Akkadian texts from this period.
The
East Semitic languages constitute one of the three major subdivisions of
Semitic languagesThe Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
, the others being
West SemiticThe West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of Semitic languages. One widely accepted analysis, supported by semiticists like Robert Hetzron and John Huehnergard, divides the Semitic language family into two branches: Eastern and Western. The former consists of the extinct Eblaite...
and South Semitic. The East Semitic group is attested by two distinct languages,
AkkadianAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
and
EblaiteEblaite is an extinct Semitic language, which was spoken in the 3rd millennium BCE in the ancient city of Ebla, at Tell Mardikh , between Aleppo and Hama, in western modern Syria...
, both of which have been long
extinctAn extinct language is a language which no longer has any speakers. Extinct languages may be contrasted with dead languages: no longer spoken as a main language.-Language loss:...
. The East Semitic languages stand apart from other Semitic languages in a number of respects. Historically, it is believed that this linguistic situation came about as speakers of East Semitic languages wandered further east, settling in
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
during the
third millennium BCEThe 3rd millennium BC spans the Early to Middle Bronze Age.It represents a period of time in which imperialism, or the desire to conquer, grew to prominence, in the city states of the Middle East, but also throughout Eurasia, with Indo-European expansion to Anatolia, Europe and Central Asia. The...
, as attested by Akkadian texts from this period. By the beginning of the
second millennium BCEThe 2nd millennium BC marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age.Its first half is dominated by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and Babylonia. The alphabet develops. Indo-Iranian migration onto the Iranian plateau and onto the Indian subcontinent propagates the use of the chariot...
, East Semitic languages, in particular
AkkadianAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
, had come to dominate the region. They were influenced by the non-Semitic
Sumerian languageSumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BCE . It was gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BCE , but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary...
and adopted
cuneiformCuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...
writing.
Modern understanding of the
phonologyPhonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system...
of East Semitic languages can only be derived from careful study of written texts and comparison with the reconstructed
Proto-SemiticProto-Semitic is the hypothetical proto-language of the Semitic languages.- Dating :The earliest attestations of a Semitic language are in Akkadian, dating to ca. the 23rd century BC and Eblaite, but earlier evidence of Akkadian comes from personal names in Sumerian texts...
. Most striking is the loss of the
glottal stopThe glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English the feature is represented for example by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those attempting an authentic pronunciation of...
, or
aleph' is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician ' , Syriac ' , Hebrew Aleph , and Arabic ' ....
, and the
voiced pharyngeal fricativeThe voiced pharyngeal approximant/fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents it is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ?\....
, or
ayin' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic . It is the twenty first letter in the new Persian alphabet...
, both of which are prominent features of West Semitic languages (for example,
Akk.Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
bēl 'master' <
PS.Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical proto-language of the Semitic languages.- Dating :The earliest attestations of a Semitic language are in Akkadian, dating to ca. the 23rd century BC and Eblaite, but earlier evidence of Akkadian comes from personal names in Sumerian texts...
*ba‘al). Also, East Semitic languages do not possess a series of three back
fricativesFricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
: . Their
elisionElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect....
appears to give rise to the presence of an
e-Close-mid front unrounded vowel:The close-mid front unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is e....
vowel, where it is not found in other Semitic languages (for example,
Akk.Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
ekallu 'palace/temple' <
PS.Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical proto-language of the Semitic languages.- Dating :The earliest attestations of a Semitic language are in Akkadian, dating to ca. the 23rd century BC and Eblaite, but earlier evidence of Akkadian comes from personal names in Sumerian texts...
*haykal). It also appears that the series of interdental fricatives became
sibilantsA sibilant is a type of fricative or affricate consonant, made by directing a jet of air through a narrow channel in the vocal tract towards the sharp edge of the teeth.-The term:...
(for example,
Akk.Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
šalšu 'three' <
PS.Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical proto-language of the Semitic languages.- Dating :The earliest attestations of a Semitic language are in Akkadian, dating to ca. the 23rd century BC and Eblaite, but earlier evidence of Akkadian comes from personal names in Sumerian texts...
*). However, the exact phonological make-up of the languages is not fully known, and the absence of features may have been the result of the inadequacies of Sumerian orthography to describe the sounds of Semitic languages rather than their real absence.
The word order in East Semitic may also have been influenced by Sumerian, being
Subject Object VerbIn linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear or usually appear in that order...
rather than the West Semitic
Verb Subject ObjectVerb Subject Object is a term in linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages when classifying languages according to the sequence of these constituents in neutral expressions: Ate Sam oranges....
order.