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Proto-Semitic
#1
Shlama,

While Aramaic is older than classical Arabic as a literary language, linguists say that Arabic is the most proto-Semitic language amongst all modern Semitic languages, such as Amharic, Farsi, Hebrew, because it seemed to have retained a majority of the original features of the Afro-Asiatic lingual ancestor.

What are your thoughts on this as a linguist, Paul?
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
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#2
Shlama Akhi bar-Khela,

Farsi is Iranian (Aryan)! <!-- s:biggrin: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif" alt=":biggrin:" title="Big Grin" /><!-- s:biggrin: --> (It is an Indo-European language, not Semitic.)

Arabic retains many of the characteristic of the oldest Semitic language: Akkadian. (For that matter, so do Aramaic and Hebrew)

See: http://www.sron.nl/~jheise/akkadian/ for more information on this language which was around for centuries before Abraham was born. (i.e., before Hebrew and Arabic even existed)

I don't know if it's the "most" archaic of the three, but it does retain many similiarities with Akkadian that seem very ancient.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
[Image: sig.jpg]
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#3
Ancient Hebrew script looks like freakin Egyptian hieroglyphs. I wonder where the semitic change came in.
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#4
shlomo Rob,

hieroglyphs symbols represents a meaning, where as semitic script represent letters. The first instance of a the semitic script was developpped by the Canaanite(i.e. Phoenician). If memory serves me well they took some of the Egyptian symbols and instead of using them as symbols representing actions, they used them as letters to give the same sound as that of speach.

My two cents contribution!

bashlomo,
keefa-moroon

Rob Wrote:Ancient Hebrew script looks like freakin Egyptian hieroglyphs. I wonder where the semitic change came in.
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#5
Shlama,

"The Nabateans were originally a nomadic group that came from a coalition of Arab tribes that were under the leadership of the Shepherd King of Khedar. According to Genesis 25:13-16, Nebaioth and Kedar are from the tribes of Ismael. The Khedarites were a powerful tribe that roamed the desert around Wadi Sirhan area of northern Arabia. It is thought that the khedarites gained supremacy over a group of northern tribes in the Arabian Peninsula between the eighth and fifth centuries BC. While the king of Khedar ruled over the northern tribes, another coalition existed to the south, probably centring on the oasis of al-'Ula during the Persian period ''539-332 BC''.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.acacialand.com/spirit.html">http://www.acacialand.com/spirit.html</a><!-- m -->

Hmmm.... (if all of this is true)

1) The Nabateans descended from nomadic Arab tribes
2) These tribes descended from the sons of Ishmael, Nabaioth and Kedar
3) The Nabateans spoke Aramaic

Therefore, Ishmael spoke Aramaic. OK, so you were right, Paul. Now the sixty million dollar question is this: If the Nabateans originally conversed in Aramaic (which was lost to Greek), how did Arabic come along centuries later?
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
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#6
Shlama Akhi bar-Khela,

Imagine you had two sons who both move off to different places and become isolated from you....losing contact with you and each other as well. Imagine one son goes to an unpopulated place in the desert to the east of L.A. and the other son goes to a desert in Mexico that is populated.

After a few generations, their descendents (your great-great-great-great grandchildren) will speak differently from each other, but they will still retain a similiarity to how you used to speak.

Both Hebrew and Arabic are highly specialized Aramaic dialects - Abraham left his family in Mesopotamia and in Aram and his children settled in foreign lands. Some of them (the Isaacites) settled in areas among foreign people and adopted their ways of speech. Others (the Ishmaelites) settled in unpopulated areas of the desert and became so isolated that they developed their own way of speaking.

The Nabateans were close enough (in northern Arabia) to the rest of their original Aramaic-speaking Semitic stock that they retained the Aramaic of their father Ishmael.

When Islam swept through, the southern Arabian tribes who were more isolated came along and most of the Arab tribes were united with their speech and their religion.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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#7
<!-- s:biggrin: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif" alt=":biggrin:" title="Big Grin" /><!-- s:biggrin: -->

Man, you're good! I like the analogy.

Can you relocate Keefa's transliteration of Sura 1 in both Arabic and Aramaic and send me the link? Now I must warn you, this link goes way back---back to my alter ego, Sieg <!-- sWink --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/wink1.gif" alt="Wink" title="Wink" /><!-- sWink -->
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
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#8
Shlama,

"...From the facts that Abraham was connected with Haran, that Jacob is called an Aramean (Deut. xxvi. 5), and that the language is designated as Canaanitish and, as mentioned above, was spoken in Palestine centuries before the Exodus, one might assume, as some scholars have done, that the Israelites' language in patriarchal times was Aramaic. Hommel ("The Ancient Hebrew Tradition") maintains that Aramaic is a later development; that in patriarchal times Aramaic was but an Arabic dialect; and that originally the Israelites spoke Arabic. (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view_f...5&letter=H)"

"...Medieval Jewish scholars considered Arabic and Aramaic, the only cognate languages known to them, as corruptions of Hebrew. In more recent times, however, two opposing theories have been held. One, whose chief exponent is S. D. Luzzatto, is that Hebrew is derived from Aramaic; the other, whose chief exponent is Olshausen, is that it is derived from Arabic. D. S. Margoliouth ("Lines of Defense of Biblical Tradition," and "Language of the Old Testament," in Hastings, "Dict. Bible," iii. 25 et seq.) claims that Hebrew is nothing but a vulgar dialect of Arabic."

Oh great, another run-around! <!-- s:lookround: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/lookround.gif" alt=":lookround:" title="Look Round" /><!-- s:lookround: -->
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
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#9
More...

South-Semitic Languages. Arabic.

The Arabic language with its various dialects is used to-day by a much greater number of people than is any other Semitic tongue. This preeminence it owes to the influence of Islam. Although its literary monuments are much younger than those of several of the other Semitic languages, scholars recognize in the classical Arabic (of which the Koran is the chief example) the dialect which has retained most fully the forms of the primitive Semitic speech. These were preserved in Arabic owing to the isolated position of the Arabian people. Living in the desert fastnesses of central Arabia, they were not subjected to the disintegrating influences of foreign contact. In both verb-and noun-forms, accordingly, classical Arabic is much richer than the other Semitic languages. The development of its verb may be comprehended by a glance at the verb-stems. They are as follows:
LANGUAGES:">see table

Of these forms, I. denotes the simple action; II., the intensive of I.; III., an attempted or indirect action; IV., a causative action; V. is reflexive of II.; VI. is reflexive or reciprocal of III.; VII. and VIII. are reflexive or passive of I.; IX. and XI. areused to denote inherent qualities or bodily defects; X. is a reflexive of IV.; and XII.-XV., while rare and obscure, seem to indicate the doing of a deed, or the possession of a quality, in intensity. All the forms except IX. and XI.-XV. possess a passive as well as an active voice, whence it will be seen that the characteristic of the Semitic verb in contrast with the Aryan has here its fullest expression. In the imperfect of the verb, also, Arabic is more fully developed than the other languages, having the following modes in both the active and the passive voices:

Indicative.

Subjunctive.

Jussive.

First Energic.

Second Energic.

Moreover, in the richness of its development of infinitives or verbal nouns Arabic far surpasses the other Semitic tongues. This is not easily illustrated in a short article; but it has led grammarians to make the Arabic forms the standard by which to measure and explain all Semitic nouns. In the modern dialects of Arabic many of the refinements of form and syntax are neglected, and much phonetic decay is apparent.
(<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=466&letter=S&search=arabic%20language#1554">http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view. ... guage#1554</a><!-- m -->)


What thinkest thou, droogs?
???Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art... Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance.???
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