Talk:Semitic languages

message: The Proto-Semitic article, which is linked in the history/origin section of this article, seems to have suffered a fatal HTML flaw. Is it fixable? Can it be restored?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by PinkWorld (talk • contribs) 09:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proto-Semitic Article MIA 

message: Beneath the examples of Arabic and Hebrew roots, the Maltese examples are preceded by the paragraph
:In Maltese, the consonantal roots are referred as the mamma of each word, which can be determined by reference to the masculine past tense of the applicable verb. In the case of the verb "to write", the masculine past tense would be kiteb (k-t-b), so that the following nouns and verbs can be formed, using the same mamma always in the same order, but inserting different vowels and, occasionally additional consonants:
Is this needed? It is true for all other Semitic languages, and the same statement is given in the opening paragraph of the section so it is redundant. The only difference is that in Maltese it is called mamma. Etams 17:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, attempted revision. the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 22:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maltese triliteral roots 

message: The extinct Eteocyprian (included in the Semitic languages in the map) was not Semitic. The language has not been deciphered and there are few theories as to it origins, but there is hardly any evidence it was Semitic. As such the map is erroneous and should be corrected or removed.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.251.117.65 (talk) 13:51, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: A plural of paucity appears in Classical Arabic, in a few words.
In some degree, it is a fourth grammatical number,
referring to 3 to 10 items.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.169.201.1 (talk) 10:34, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plural of Paucity 

message: The term "Semitic" for these languages, after Shem, the son of Noah in the Bible, is etymologically a misnomer in some ways (see Semitic)
 
The Semitic article doesn't say that anywhere.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.132.142.209 (talk) 05:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Because you deleted it. Misnomer or not, the article should give an etymological explanation of the name semitic. Landroving Linguist (talk) 09:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misonmer??? 

message: It now seems to be at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Transwiki:List_of_Proto-Semitic_stems , though I'm not sure why it was deleted from here, or what good it's doing anyone over there... AnonMoos (talk) 00:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I was wondering where those tables went! I believe they would serve a better purpose here.--Xevorim (talk) 00:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

text: Here is the current link: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_Proto-Semitic_stems Solo Owl (talk) 22:51, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Former article [[List of Proto-Semitic stems]]

message: 5 million is the number of the Israeli Jewish citizens 11 years ago (by the citation). The article does not count:
# The enlargement in Israeli Jewish population
# Non-Jewish Israelis. They are about 20% of the Israeli population and most of them learn Hebrew and speak it very well.
# Other groups how learn it:
## Jewish non-Israelis.
## Non-Israeli Palestinians.
## Bedouins in Sinai.
## Archeologists, theologists, linguistic researchers. Hebrew is taught in many universities including in Egypt and Iraq.
According to Hebrew Wikipedia there are 8 million Hebrew speakers. Eddau (talk) 02:10, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This may all be as you say. However, to be able to change the figure in the text you would have to make us aware of a published reliable source which supports a higher number of Hebrew speakers - like for example a census giving information on language use in the state of Israel. Without such information it would not be appropriate to adjust the number upwards. One more remark - the way I understand this article, it gives the number of first-language speakers, which would probably eliminate all the other groups you mention in your post. All current first-language speakers of Hebrew these days would most likely be Jewish citizens of the state of Israel, who live there at least in the second generation. Would you agree with that statement? Landroving Linguist (talk) 11:28, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In this case the number makes more sense. However, this is neither what the article says (it does not distinguish between first language and foreign languages), nor what the citation says. Eddau (talk) 19:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

text: At least in the initial paragraph the article talks about native speakers (the inflated number for Arabic needs to be changed, as it is also not supported by the sources cited). Amharic for example has twice as many second-language speakers as the one cited here, being the national language of Ethiopia, a nation of 80 Million. The Ethnologue, which is the source for the Hebrew number, is only concerned with first-language speakers, and gives second language speakers only as a second number. So it would be good to stick to this here. Again, I also think that the number for Arabic is inflated, so if I tell you not to change Hebrew, and then do nothing about Arabic, I am aware that I am applying a double standard here. Landroving Linguist (talk) 20:09, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: on this page Wikipedia seams to give different numbers. And by the way, the numbers we should look for are not the numbers of mother-tong speakers but of mother-tong-level speakers. A person who was born and is living in a state that its official language is different than the one spoken at home, usually speaks that language as good as a mother tong. Usually the official language is taught at school, spoken on TV and Radio, and is used every dayEddau (talk) 20:52, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The page you cite again is using inflated numbers. It claims to use SIL's numbers (the Ethnologue), but I just checked there and it states for Hebrew "4,850,000 in Israel (1998). Population total all countries: 5,316,700." Like it or not, it is the only published source cited so far. Find a different reliable published secondary source, and you change the article. Without that, I would not encourage it. Encarta is also cited on your page, but this in itself is a tertiary source, and should have less priority than for example the Ethnologue. Landroving Linguist (talk) 13:32, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not that I want to see a bigger number near the name of my mother tong. I’m just saying that all the estimations I found both in English Wikipedia and in the Hebrew one, are worthless or out of time. The best thing to do is to write that the precise up to date number is unknown, and was roughly estimated in 1998 as five million. (And of course, it has nothing to do with the number of Arabic speakers. There is a conflict between the Israelis and the Arabs, not between our languages). Eddau (talk) 00:52, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: An eleven year old figure is not that bad, all considering. If it was 5 million then, it won't be 9 or 10 million now, but still within the vicinity of 5 million. If the figure was from 1879 or 1934, I would see your point, but over the past ten years the linguistic landscape of the Middle East cannot have changed that much. Or am I missing something? Landroving Linguist (talk) 10:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, 10 or 9 million does not make seance. Still, assuming that the number of Jewish Israelis is a good estimation for the number of people who speak Hebrew well needs a justification. Finding a clearer mistake in another estimation is not a justification for your estimation. By the way, since 1989 the Israeli Jewish had grown from 4,785,100 to 5,569,200.  Eddau (talk) 18:30, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

text: 1) Not everyone in Israel speaks Hebrew as a native language.  2) One must judge the reliability of sources:  for speaker numbers, Encarta's source might be reliable, but Encarta itself is not as reliable as Ethnologue, which relies on primary sources, not other secondary sources.  (Taivo (talk) 19:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I found Ethnologue’s estimation and justification. It is bad. The Justification of their estimation of the number of natural Hebrew speakers in the world in 1999 is the addition of the number of natural Hebrew speakers in USA in 1970 and the number of natural Hebrew speakers in Israel in 1995. They also claim that most Jewish Israelis who started learning Hebrew as a second language spoke it in 1999 as a primer language. Adding their estimation of Hebrew natural speakers and that of those who Hebrew became their primer language gives five million.  I would never dare writing such estimation in a test. However, if you still want to use an estimation of this kind, add the number of Israeli Jews in 2008 (5,569,000)  and that of Israeli citizens living out of Israel in 2003 (650,000) . All together: 6,219,000.Eddau (talk) 20:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You aren't getting it yet.  You don't have a source that surpasses Ethnologue. On Wikipedia we don't use original research, which is, in essence, getting numbers from a variety of sources and performing mathematics on them.  At this time, the only reliable source for the total number of native speakers of Hebrew is Ethnologue.  No one has said that Ethnologue is perfect, but it's still the best we have for total numbers of native speakers in most cases.  (Taivo (talk) 20:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I get it very well. Ethnologue is worthless just like any speculation that any one else can do. As I already wrote, I would never dare writing anything of this kind in a test. The best we can do is to write that the number of Hebrew speakers is not known. Eddau (talk) 21:33, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you still think that this is a term paper based on original research.  Ethnologue is not worthless, no one said that except for you.  Despite your accusation, Ethnologue cites its original sources and is not "speculation".  While the sources may be old, they are still cited.  Ethnologue is a reliable source by Wikipedia's definition and you have not offered any other reliable source to back up your numbers.  You are trying to substitute original research instead of a reliable, secondary source.  I object to "unknown" as a status because there is a verifiable, reliable number available.  It may not be accurate today, but it is based on a published fact, not mathematical manipulation.  This isn't a term paper or test, and if you were using Ethnologue as a referenced source, you would not be marked off since you have provided a reference rather than just guessing (which is what you have been doing so far).  (Taivo (talk) 22:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the statistical significance of Ethnologue's findings?Eddau (talk) 00:01, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

text: I'd like to second Taivo's thoughts here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of published knowledge. There are some things on Wikipedia which I know not to be true. However, the facts stated are based on published sources, whereas I cannot point to any published sources to verify my claim. That is why I will not change the articles. So whether the Ethnologue is correct or totally off in its figures on Hebrew (I suspect that actually it is not significantly off the mark), is pointless as to the subject of this discussion: Wikipedia should only contain facts supported by published reliable secondary sources. By the way, Encarta uses the Ethnologue figures in most cases. So the fact that you find different numbers for the same languages all over Wikipedia is not a problem of the Ethnologue or Encarta, but it is the result of edits by Wikipedia users who have substituted the published results by their own research. The inflated number for Arabic in this article is an example. Neither Ethnologue nor Encarta ever claimed that there are 422 million speakers of Arabic on this planet. Landroving Linguist (talk) 06:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

text: Thanks! Landroving Linguist (talk) 07:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  There are more than 5 million Hebrew speakers.  

message: Under the above caption, only six examples are given. The much larger number of common words in Semitic languages
can be estimated numerically. Otherwise, the impression will be given that the common vocabulary is much smaller than it is.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.29.1 (talk) 10:37, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can provide sources, please add this information. Dan ☺ 07:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I might just as well be asked for proof that 2+2=4.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.149.95 (talk) 15:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Nobody's doubting your statement, but Wikipedia strives to provide information "based on reliable, third-party (independent), published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" (read about it). Dan ☺ 11:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common vocabulary 

message: The original text said 5750 BP and 2800 BP, dates for the born of the semitic languages in the Levant and for the introduction of semitic languages in Ethiopia. But in fact cited source say: 5750 years ago and 2800 years ago , so the correct years are 2750 BC and 800 BC. I'm not sure if this support the asiatic origin hypothesis, but certainlly these dates concur with the rise of the Akkadians and with archeological-agriculture changes in Ethiopia, respectively. --Bentaguayre (talk) 01:21, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. Just that the math for the first date results in 3750 before Christ. I'm going to correct that. Landroving Linguist (talk) 17:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Origins wrong dates

message: Per our classification, Semitic consists of E, W, & S branches. W in turn consists of C & S branches. Thus West = Central. Which should we go with here? — kwami (talk) 07:37, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like two competing classification schemes (both found in Hetzron's The Semitic Languages) have been conflated.  I think the most conservative route is to get rid of the "West Semitic" node and just go with E, C, & S branches as primary.  In Ruhlen, Semitic is broken into E & W, then W is broken into C & S.  But that's not universally accepted.  While the lower level nodes are well-accepted (Ethiopic, South Arabian, Arabic, Northwest, East), the relationship between them is a bit in flux.  --Taivo (talk) 08:28, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What you say sir is wrong. The purpose of compiling the Central and South Semitic under the label "West Semitic" is to indicate that both CS and SS have a common origin that postdates the split of the Semitic family into an Eastern and Western branches. Most writers still recognize this early split, even Hetzron himself. And I would advise User:Kwamikagami to stop dealing with such big questions in Semitic scholarship in as laid-back manner as he does. Those scholars who made the classification are not less smart than you. You would be very wrong if you think you can outsmart them in 5 minute thinking. I also advise you that when you decide next time to do such a major change as striking out the classification "West Semitic" from every article in Wikipedia, you should wait first until you hear many opinions from people who know better than you. What you are doing here is totally inappropriate. Finally, I am not expert in Wikipedia rules but I think that when somebody reverts you and asks you for explanation, you should explain to them clearly what you're doing, not override them. I think what you did is called vandalism or edit warring.--HD86 (talk) 08:04, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

text: The division of the Semitic family into an Eastern and Western branches is based on phonological, morphological, and lexical isoglosses. I am not going to explain much here, but one of the main isoglosses that distinguish an east-west split is the simplified verb system in WS. Most respectable sources recognize this level of classification.--HD86 (talk) 08:40, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

text: The evolvement of the PS subjunctive pefective verb into an indicative imperfective in both CS and SS is an example of an isogloss that groups the two branches together as opposed to ES.--HD86 (talk) 08:44, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right that we should come to consensus here, but then we also had a rather egregious and long-standing error, with two conflicting classifications conflated into one. I won't be able to my library till next week, but it is common to exclude S Sem from W Sem. As for "when somebody reverts you and asks you for explanation", you'll have to explain what you mean; you have never asked me for anything as far as I can see. — kwami (talk) 08:58, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

text: Central Semitic and West Semitic are not equal categories. Any classification system that does not recognize an early east-west split (the west including both CS and SS) should not be promoted here because it is simply a fringe opinion. As I said already, there are many isoglosses that group CS and SS together as opposed to ES. I expect you to restore the "West Semitic" category ASP because it is a crucial classification level that exists in the best references dealing with the subject.--HD86 (talk) 10:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

text: I said I don't want to elaborate much here, but I am going to say the following. The basic idea in Hetzron's work is that a classification system should give preference to shared innovations over shared retentions. The presence in SS of such features as the s- preformative and the yaqattal verbal class shouldn't be given much importance in classification because these are retentions from PS, not innovations. On the other hand, the use of the PS subjunctive pefective verb as an indicative imperfective in SS is very important because this is a shared innovation that works as an ideal isogloss. The writers to whom you refer are mostly unfamiliar with this logic.--HD86 (talk) 11:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No one here doubts Hetzron's methodology.  He is an outstanding scholar.  There is no question that Semitic forms a node of Afro-Asiatic, just as there is no question that there are Ethiopic, South Arabian, East Semitic, Northwest Semitic, and Arabic nodes within Semitic.  But there is not yet unanimity on what comes in between and how these pieces are arranged.  South Arabian is a good example.  There has been recent argumentation that South Arabian forms an independent branch of Semitic coordinate with East and "West".  So a conservative classification is what I suggested we follow here-- list C, S, & E branches separately.  The Semitic classification in Wikipedia last week was a mess, with conflicting classification schemes based on the two different charts in Hetzron's The Semitic Languages.  Kwami thankfully cleaned up that classification and cleared up the mess.  Now, if a consensus forms that West Semitic is a widely-accepted and useful node, then we can easily add it back in, but without the mess of different classifications that had existed in Wikipedia before.  --Taivo (talk) 14:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

text: I don't know how the page exactly was before, and I am not saying that the mess should be kept. What I am saying is that removing the "West Semitic" category from the page and dogmatically removing it from every article in Wikipedia is a big mistake. As for South Arabian, I suppose that what you mean is Modern South Arabian, because as far as I know there is nobody contending against the classification of Ancient South Arabian with Ethiopic in a single family. The question of Modern South Arabian is irrelevant here. I don't see how this matter should lead to canceling the "West Semitic" family. When I was talking above about the s- preformative and the yaqattal verbal form I was specifically referring to Modern South Arabian, not to anything else. Anyway, as I said the question of Modern South Arabian is irrelevant to our case.--HD86 (talk) 16:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If W = C + S, and S is promoted to an equal level with W, then W = C. As Taivo says, it's easy enough to add W back in if need be. It's also common to leave out a few intermediate nodes in language info boxes because the cladistic list gets unmanageably long in some cases, so leaving out W doesn't mean in itself that it's rejected. BTW, there were many cases where W was used as shorthand for NW. — kwami (talk) 17:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

text: The German article makes reference to scholars who have made a (convincing, as far as I can see) case that South Semitic isn't a valid node, either, as it is based on a retention, not an innovation, and that Old South Arabian (better: Sayhadic – I wish the Semiticists would finally get rid of those confusing labels with all their historical baggage) is actually part of Central Semitic. As far as I can see, the only commonly agreed upon nodes are exactly those six listed in the article now. But the tree referred to in the article is the one on page 7, in the section right on the topic of classification by Alice Faber – who, if I recall correctly, accepts West Semitic and justifies doing so in the text. This tree is the best classification we have to date, and can be taken as reflecting an important opinion, if not consensus, at least among those who care to justify their classification with the current best practice of giving shared innovations (even though this consensus is bound to change, thanks to more recent arguments such as those I alluded to above). Other classifications, if they do not follow this current gold standard of scholarship, cannot be taken as equally important. So I say we either follow the tree on page 7 in Hetzron 1997, or we follow a conservative, minimal consensus and acknowledge only the six nodes listed in the article as "fairly uncontroversial". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:15, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Classification 

message: Some weeks ago, user Akivagoldberg edited the Hebrew number, replacing the original source (Ethnologue) with a new online-source, a commercial translation page, which reveals a speaker number for Hebrew just as a mouse-over feature. Do we really accept such a source as a better source than the Ethnologue? I have the impression that once more someone was happy to stumble across any web-page just to have a reference for an inflated number. Landroving Linguist (talk) 21:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hebrew number sources 

message: Am I missing something, or do many references mentioned in the Notes section not have a corresponding listing in the References section? For example, notes 14 - 16 are:
• Dolgopolsky 1999, p. 29.
• Taylor 1997, p. 147.
• Woodard 2008, p. 219.
Dolgopolsky is used in several notes, but there is no title associated with Dolgopolsky (or the other two mentioned) in the Reference section. Without a title to refer to, aren't these citations more or less worthless? — al-Shimoni (talk) 10:14, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: A further note regarding Dolgopolsky. While attempting to locate what title by Dolgopolsky may be being referred to, the possible titles appear to be his works in Nostratic. Considering Nostratic is not Semitic, and considering Nostratic still is not well accepted by mainstream scholarship, it would be probably be best to find citations that are not based on Nostratic research to back up contested proposals in Semitics. Citations from works concentrating on Semitics would be a wiser choice. — al-Shimoni (talk) 12:27, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notes contents vs References 

message: The row about Hebrew in the paragraph "Living Semitic languages by number of speakers" is WAY out of date.
I've checked the refrence and it says "Population  	4,850,000 in Israel (1998). Population total all countries: 5,316,700." which is true to 1998, not 2012. Israel's population is almost 7,900,000 people, which is almost twice the people stated in the site. Now, we are not in 1998, and I don't know exactly how to fix it without getting a message in my talk page, so I'm counting on you to fix it, by any means you thing are 'kosher'.
P.S. I have the ref. about Israel's population (from the respective Wikipedia article) here: http://www.cbs.gov.il/www/yarhon/b1_e.htm
Thanks in advance, TomeHale (talk) 20:12, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't want to repeat everything I have said earlier on this page. Bottom line is that whatever number is stated on a wikipedia article, it needs to be drawn from a good published secondary source of unblemished reputation. If you can provide such a source, there is no problem. Two things you must not do: original research (like stating on wikipedia your own conclusions based on population size), or quoting wikipedia, even if the page is in a different-language wikipedia. Landroving Linguist (talk) 12:13, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Living Semitic languages by number of speakers 

message: This is from the infobox in the Arabic article
Native speakers 	more than 422 million  (2008)[7]
This article gives half that number of Arabic speakers.
Alázhlis (talk) 16:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Rv. to a RS fig of 280M. — kwami (talk) 16:57, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of Arabic speakers 

message: Some followers of Abrahamic religions claim that the Semitic languages (especially Arabic, Hebrew) were chosen by God because these languages are more comprehensive. Can anyone attest to this? Pass a Method talk 11:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never encountered the claim -- neither in scholarly histories of linguistics nor in silly online crypto-linguistics.  Perhaps you can google a bit and find a link to someone making this claim?  -Ben (talk) 15:12, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've heard somewhat similar claims: God spoke Hebrew, as did Adam and Eve. It was the original language from which all others descend. You can most definitely find books purporting to establish Hebrew as proto-World. The Koran should not be translated, because Arabic is a divine creation, and the perfect language. None of the loans in Arabic are loans, because that would imply that Arabic had once been less perfect, had a need to borrow words. — kwami (talk) 04:48, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but the way User:Pass a Method described it makes it sound like the languages pre-existed their 'selection' by God -- almost as if the Deity thought "I need to communicate with humanity using verbs with second-person gender markers.  Hmm -- guess I'd better find a Hebrew speaker."  Ben (talk) 00:42, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment 

message: Some comments on the Image on the distribution of Semitic language around the 1st century A.D (Semitic_1st_AD.svg): 
It is doubtful that Amharic can be dated so far back and was spoken so far South at 1st century AD. It's not only a modern language; ancient Amhara region is said to have been conquered in the 9th century AD and Amharic language only became the royal language in 13th century AD, spread mainly in the 14th century with a lot of conquests under Gäbrä Mäsqäl ʿAmdä-Ṣiyon. 
It shoult be termed Old South Arabian instead of Southern Arabic, to avoid confusion...
One might consider to separate (the predecessor of) Modern South Arabian, which is presumably closer to Ge'ez than the other, and Old South Arabian. 
--Aferghes (talk) 04:10, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semitic language around the 1st century A.D. 

message: As noted at Gurage languages, the languages of the Gurage do not form a coherent group, but belong to different sub-branches of Southern Ethio-Semitic. As far as I can see, this is sufficient explanation for their diversity and a linguistic basis for grouping them together as a branch of their own is lacking. Moreover, I have seen no argument ascribing their alleged divergence from the rest of Semitic (which, in light of their classification as belonging to specific subgroups of Southern Ethio-Semitic, would seem to be more apparent than anything else, or at least it is completely unclear what exactly their divergent qualities are) to an early split from Semitic, rather than, for example, areal influence from Cushitic (or other non-Semitic) languages, or the retention of ancient features which have disappeared in their close non-Gurage relatives. Therefore, this argument for an East African origin of Semitic is simply mistaken (unless it can be shown that the accepted classification of Southern Ethio-Semitic is completely wrong, and that would require a really high-quality citation, not just a throwaway remark like Blench's), and other arguments in its favour are nowhere to be seen. I propose to remove the Gurage argument, along with the East African proposal, from the article. No scholar advocates an East African origin for Semitic nowadays, as far as I am aware; importantly, even Blench does not seriously do that, as his phrasing makes clear. (Note that while the traditional bipartition of Ethio-Semitic into a northern and southern branch has recently been challenged, even if the objection is valid – and it might very well be –, this does not weaken the argument against an exclusive Gurage branch at all, rather strengthen it because it would mean that the so-called Gurage languages do not even all belong to the same primary subbranch of Ethio-Semitic.)--Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:02, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It is good news to read that the idea of an East African origin of Semitic is finally being abandoned by scholars, particularly considering that the Semitic speakers themselves have vigorously maintained the non-African origin of Semitic for centuries. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you being sarcastic here? If so, your sarcasm makes no sense, as I'm not aware that this idea was ever seriously maintained by any significant group of Semiticists. Also note that this concerns only the immediate origin of Semitic (the location of the Semitic Urheimat); the idea that the ultimate origin of all Afro-Asiatic languages is somewhere in East Africa (or at the very least somewhere in Africa) seems still widespread, notwithstanding some dissenters – chiefly Alexander Militarev – who would like to place both the Semitic and the Afro-Asiatic homeland in the Levant. Our article on Proto-Semitic reports the Levantine origin of Semitic as the hypothesis which is now prevalent, notwithstanding the assumption of a slightly more remote origin in North Africa because of close connections to Berber (and to a lesser extent Egyptian), but the ultimate origin of Afro-Asiatic is currently still considered to be in Africa by a majority of scholars, mainly on the strength of the centre of diversity argument. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:48, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a strong argument if things are rarely more mysterious than they seem in that regard.  But if nobody seriously supports an African origin of Semitic, I agree with you that it does not need much weight in the article.  If someone prominent has held to such a theory, he might be mentioned briefly for the historiographic aspect. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 15:07, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gurage 

message: Don't know what that means... AnonMoos (talk) 15:32, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for catching that... of course we don't know of any Ge'ez texts that were specifically imported from Arabia in the 8th century BC, presumably they meant the South Arabian Epigraphic Script, so I have rephrased and adjusted it accordingly. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 16:49, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: "Meanwhile, Ge'ez texts, imported from Arabia in the 8th Century BC, give the first direct record of Ethiopian Semitic."

message: I have corrected this file, after its deletion from this page (Semitic languages) by user Til Eulenspiegel. I had 'XVI' intead of 'XIV' as the date of the first texts in Amharic; a misspelling, I guess.
Any other correction is very welcome. Thanks, Til Eulenspiegel.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Msanzl (talk • contribs) 19:50, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  File: Semitic languages - Chronology 

message: ... needs to be standardized. Long i, long u should for clearness's sake always carry macrons (Semitists, but not everybody, know(s) that there are no short i, u) - in accordance with chapter Vowels. Transliterations in chapters Common vocabulary and Cardinal Numerals should have ə instead of i/e.
"libb", "lissan": Since when is there a sign to denote gemination in Ge'ez?
Nuremberg  -  Ángel.García 131.188.2.12 (talk) 16:59, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration of Ethio-Semitic vowels .... 

message: There is the spoken language and the written language. There is no heading for the written language, no description that the language is wrote and read from the right to left.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 21:26, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: In fact, not all Semitic languages are written from right to left, and at least four different script systems are currently employed, not even mentioning all systems no longer in use nowadays. So it may be best to refer to different writing systems on the individual language pages. Landroving Linguist (talk) 06:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Writing 

message: I originally posted this to the Akkadian Language talk page...should have been on this talk page from the beginning, d'oh!
According to an article on sciencedaily.com, Canaanitic is the oldest attested of the Semitic languages.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070129100250.htm
:"Prof. Steiner, a past fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University and a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, has deciphered a number of Semitic texts in various Egyptian scripts over the past 25 years. In his Hebrew University lecture, he provided the interpretation for Semitic passages in Egyptian texts that were discovered more than a century ago, inscribed on the subterranean walls of the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara in Egypt. The pyramid dates from the 24th century B.C.E., but Egyptologists agree that the texts are older. The dates proposed for them range from the 25th to the 30th centuries B.C.E. No continuous Semitic texts from this period have ever been deciphered before.
:The passages, serpent spells written in hieroglyphic characters, had puzzled scholars who tried to read them as if they were ordinary Egyptian texts. In August, 2002, Prof. Steiner received an email message from Robert Ritner, professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, asking whether any of them could be Semitic. "I immediately recognized the Semitic words for 'mother snake,'" said Steiner. "Later it became clear that the surrounding spells, composed in Egyptian rather than Semitic, also speak of the mother snake, and that the Egyptian and Semitic texts elucidate each other."
:Although written in Egyptian characters, the texts turned out to be composed in the Semitic language spoken by the Canaanites in the third millennium B.C.E., a very archaic form of the languages later known as Phoenician and Hebrew. The Canaanite priests of the ancient city of Byblos, in present-day Lebanon, provided these texts to the kings of Egypt.
:The port city of Byblos was of vital importance for the ancient Egyptians. It was from there that they imported timber for construction and resin for mummification. The new discovery shows that they also imported magical spells to protect royal mummies against poisonous snakes that were thought to understand Canaanite. Although the Egyptians viewed their culture as far superior to that of their neighbors, their morbid fear of snakes made them open to the borrowing of Semitic magic.
:"This finding should be of great interest to cultural historians," said Prof. Steiner. "Linguists, too, will be interested in these texts. They show that Proto-Canaanite, the common ancestor of Phoenician, Moabite, Ammonite and Hebrew, existed already in the third millennium B.C.E as a language distinct from Aramaic, Ugaritic and the other Semitic languages. And they provide the first direct evidence for the pronunciation of Egyptian in this early period." The texts will also be important to biblical scholars, since they shed light on several rare words in the Bible, he said.
:"This is a sensational discovery," said Moshe Bar-Asher, Bialik Professor of Hebrew Language at the Hebrew University and president of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. "It is the earliest attestation of a Semitic language, in general, and Proto-Canaanite, in particular."" - A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 22:54, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Very interesting, but note it says the text is "Proto-Canaanite", not "Canaanitic"... I am very interested but could not find any update at that link, anything on this since '07? Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 23:31, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, Til Eulenspiegel! Well, I use those terms synonymously. Proto-Canaanite is often used of early Phoenician and early Hebrew...I just say Canaanitic which is purposefully general, but also specific in not implicating other Northwest Semitic languages. The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia edited by Roger D. Woodard (2008)...http://books.google.com/books?id=vTrT-bZyuPcC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq= mentions the paper on page 4 of Chapter 1. Cf. Also...https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ANE-2/conversations/topics/3644. In searching through JSTOR, Mr. Steiner has other papers on similar topics. - A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 13:28, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: An important discovery if it's born out.  Should keep the "perhaps" until then.  — kwami (talk) 04:16, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

text: Sumerian is not a Semitic language. Moreover, the oldest coherent texts which are unambiguously written in Sumerian only date to c. 2800 or 2600 BC. Before that date, the language of the texts cannot be determined with full certainty – the possibility that it is a different language that was originally written cannot be excluded due to the logographic nature of the writing system, although only a deviant syntax (from the Sumerian point of view) would possibly positively point to this possibility. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:25, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

text: This uncertainty is also noted in the article Kish tablet which you are linking to. Sumerian language#Development notes that the Jemdet Nasr texts from c. 3100–3000 BC are identified with Sumerian already, by the way, so the real question concerns the preliterary texts from c. 3350–3100 BC. But then, there are not even Semitic elements (such as personal names) in the earliest Sumerian texts prior to c. 2600 BC. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:39, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Akkadian is perhaps not the oldest attested Semitic language...Canaanitic? 

message: The word given for the Maltese for "father" is misleading. There are separate words for the speaker's father and the father of another.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.228.163.152 (talk) 12:03, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Are the terms of address or of reference?  I.e., do you use diff words when saying "he is my father" and "he is their father"?  — kwami (talk) 19:32, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  My knowledge of Maltese is limited. I don't even know what the second word is that the user refers to. But the normal word for father is missier, which can be used in most or all contexts, with or without a possessive suffix, referring to "my" father or another. It's also used for the Christian God the Father. So giving it as the Maltese word for "father" doesn't seem misleading at all.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.204.66.227 (talk) 12:57, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maltese 

message: The Arabic vernaculars column is inaccurate and unreliable. It needs to be rewritten by a native Arabic speaker. 2.91.40.115 (talk) 12:06, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Independent personal pronouns Table 

message: In the lead, do you prefer Middle east or Near East? Personally I prefer Near East.. it's much more specific and concise. Ljgua124 (talk) 06:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Near East vs. Middle East 

message: This article needs to be updated which I have done theres a couple problems there are 29 million Amhara speakers and 420 million Arabic speakers native although its actually 450 million you have to exlude the 30 million non-native l2 speakers Hebrew is spoken by 7 million isralis worldwide not 5 million ill fix the errors.ArabAmazigh12 (talk) 19:26, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: What is your source for these numbers? Please don't change the figures without providing a reference for them.  Also, Oromo is Cushitic, not Semitic. -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 19:45, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  The page really Is outdated there are actually 595 million semitic speakers worldwide  

message: If the total of speakers is 470 million and the most widely spoken languages are 300+22+7+5=334 million. That would mean 136 million users with languages of less then 5 million users each; this is hard to believe. Maybe different sources and/or different definitions used. ABMvandeBult (talk) 12:35, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right. Two years ago there was a constant push by people to inflate numbers, and I tried to resist it for some time. Then in August 2013 someone came up with a source from the Princeton University website which claimed the 470 million, and I guess no-one complained afterwards, although it seems as if that page was actually re-printing an older version of the Wikipedia page with inflated numbers. Just as now, the tally of individual languages given on the same page would not have even reached 300 million. In those days, however, this Wikipedia entry still adopted the 206 million for Arabic from Ethnologue, and since then a better number (300 million) came up from a very reliable different source. In any case, I'm not aware of any reliable source giving a good number for all the Semitic languages which we can cite, and we cannot just take the number we've had two years ago (270 million), as it is now clearly too low. Landroving Linguist (talk) 13:32, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

text: I have now changed the text to "more than 330 million", which is a conservative lower-end figure based on the number given on the major Semitic languages further down in the article. This simple arithmetic with a qualifying "more than" should be ok if put under  NOR scrutiny. If not, please let's discuss here what to do instead. Of course I'm sure that the real number is higher, but would probably be not higher than 350 million. As long as we don't have a good source on any different figure, we should police the number we have in the text now, reverting anyone who inflates it again without using good sources, as will doubtlessly happen. Landroving Linguist (talk) 10:24, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbers don't seem to match  

message: The semitic languages are artifical. Not artifical in the sense of esperanto being belarussian grammar mated with spanish words, but artificial in being a result of careful design and implementation, before being gifted to the people who speak it. The triliteral root system means the entity who created the language (YHWH) built it on top the "platonic ideals" theory, except Platon wasn't yet born at the time. Every trilateral root conforms to one "platonic ideal" e.g. book -> read/write/learn. The platonic ideals we can only comprehend as much as shadowy reflections on a cave's wall, were (are) clearly laid out before his all-seeing eye.
This shows ur-semitic (the original form of arabic and hebrew) was not a result of natural evolution like PIE, but a carefully designed and implemented, ready-made gift bestowed from above on the carnivorous people of monotheism! Any later fractioning and splits are unfortunate results of corruption.
This realization also counters the theories promulgated by indo-aryan political supremacists, who want to posit sanskrit/PIE as the mother of all human languages and recently use it to push a poly-theistic, vegetarian agenda for hinduism, buddhism and germanic neo-paganism. 91.82.36.150 (talk) 14:53, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a fascinating perspective and I thank you for sharing it.  Unfortunately, I don't see how this can improve our article. Robert the Broof (talk) 15:04, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Teutonic supremacists certainly existed, mostly before 1914, but they were never vegetarian.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.53.53.66 (talk) 09:30, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  The reason why semitic languages are not related to any other language families. 

message: Under: Common vocabulary
The Arabic ʿ-r-f root does relate to the Hebrew root ʿ-r-f which stands for back-of-neck and to-behead. In the past people in this Semitic region used to hold or scratch the back of their necks when trying to remember something. It is noted by Maimonides somewhere but I cannot remember where (*scratching the back of my neck*). Also, the Arabic ʿ-l-m root corresponds with the Hebrew root for World (Olam), Youth (Elem) as well as invisible (Ne'elam) all connected to knowlege or lack thereof. 
Regarding Amharic, the root ʿ-w-q has an equivalent in Hebrew for words that deal with mental burden. The root f-l-ṭ can also be found in Hebrew in words related to discharge of matter as well as information. (I am a native Hebew speaker and Arabic lit. Major).
: The thing about scratching the back of one's neck is far off. Of course, such strange etymologies are occasionally correct; but I consider it very unlikely in this case. With ʿ-l-m, you are definitey mixing stuff up. The Hebrew root for "youth, young man" is originally ġ-l-m and hence the related Arabic word is غلام (ġulām, "boy"). That Hebrew ʿ-l-m ("to conceal") is the same as Arabic ʿ-l-m ("to know") seems possible. After all, concealing something presupposes that one know it oneself.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.206.143.85 (talk) 23:27, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example for Roots with no Relation 

message: I wonder if someone here can give me a hand at Ladino Wikipedia. I am trying to merge two articles:
*:lad:Semitiko
*:lad:Linguas semetikas
The surviving article, wherever it actually lives, will clearly be based on the text of the first article. But what I could use help on over there is to classify the languages listed in the second of the articles within the sections of the first article. So if any experts out there can help me I'd greatly appreciate that. Thanks. StevenJ81 (talk) (administrator there) 15:32, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for help at Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) Wikipedia 

message: Two maps in this article purport to show the Semitic language area in the 1st century AD and 1000-2000 years ago. I don't know about other areas, but the extension of the Ethio-Semitic area seems to me to be overambitious. I don't think there is any evidence that in the 1st century AD Ethio-Semitic was spoken anywhere outside what is now Eritrea. The map shows Amharic (a language that is only attested since the 12th century) spoken way south of Lake T'ana, and linguists agree that this area was entirely occupied by speakers of Cushitic languages well into the second half of the 2nd millennium. Do others agree with me that these maps need to be adjusted? As a starter, I would take out any reference to Amharic, and then better reflect the situation of the 1st millennium by pushing the Semitic boundary to north of the Tekeze river. Landroving Linguist (talk) 11:20, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: oh really, and what do you know about it? Do you fancy yourself some sort of expert on the topic? Can you read what Amharic books (you know the people who keep records) have to say on it, or even read one word of Amharic? Doubt it since their own books say different from your armchair p.o.v. 172.56.34.158 (talk) 13:12, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Worku Nida: ጀብዱ። የጉራጌ ሕዝብ ታሪክና ባህል። Addis Ababa 1983 E.C., 1991 G.C. He states that the various theories on Gurage ethnogenesis place the migration of the Gurage ancestors from the North at the earliest in the 5th century, whereas the Gurage oral tradition actually actually has it happen at the time of Ahmed Gragn, in this case coming from the East in the late 16th century. All figured out from my arm-chair. Landroving Linguist (talk) 07:04, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethio-Semitic on historic maps 

message: According to the consonants table at the phonology section, Biblical Hebrew distinguished /ð/ and /z/ (both written as ז) and also /ʃ/ and /θ/ (both written as שׁ). I couldn't find any source for that claim in the article, and moreover it contradicts the Hebrew-Aramaic-Arabic fricative correspondence table below. 
Another thing I noticed is the somewhat peculiar transliteration *ṱ for Biblical Hebrew צ. What does it stand for? 109.65.22.101 (talk) 17:24, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consonants in Biblical Hebrew 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Oranjelo100 added the following sources to the initial paragraph of the article: http://e-learning.tsu.ge/pluginfile.php/5868/mod_resource/content/0/dzveli_armosavluri_enebi_-ugarituli_punikuri_arameuli_ebrauli_arabuli.pdf, https://books.google.pl/books?id=KQpFAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=old+south+arabian+central+semitic&source=bl&ots=pEV0cdsVOu&sig=o8Mg12NX6BsfCLes-2Roh2-AK5Y&hl=pl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj4gOyTr_PTAhXE1xoKHf-4BbUQ6AEIfzAN#v=onepage&q=old%20south%20arabian%20central%20semitic&f=false and https://books.google.pl/books?id=LfruK29pVl8C&pg=PA124&lpg=PA124&dq=old+south+arabian+languages+grammar&source=bl&ots=C_2xqghETA&sig=iAxC60ax0rjqVYtObzAAP_RQLCY&hl=pl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-3_2N8PLTAhUFGZoKHdHxCKUQ6AEIczAN#v=onepage&q=old%20south%20arabian%20languages%20grammar&f=false. In the references section these sources show up as shown here. In fact, all three sources are good and relevant sources regarding Semitic languages, but what we see here in each case are cryptic links which entirely hide the identity of the sources unless you click on these links, pointing to google books or other websites. The first link actually leads to the whole book as a pdf, but the google book pages leave you in the dark what particular point is supposed to be supported here. I took these sources out as insufficiently documented, but got reverted on that by Oranjelo. I still believe that cryptic links don't satisfy the requirement of well documented sources, but I may be mistaken. Can others here clarify on how things should be done according to best practices or wikipedia policies? Landroving Linguist (talk) 19:37, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source format 

message: "Proto-Semitic *ś was still pronounced as [ɬ] in Biblical Hebrew, but no letter was available in the Phoenician alphabet, so the letter ש did double duty, representing both /ʃ/ and /ɬ/".
No proof is produced of this assertion in the article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.153.143.86 (talk) 13:31, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The same assertion appears in the article on the Hebrew language, on Phonology.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.153.143.86 (talk) 13:35, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assertion 

message: My change to indicate the total number of Hebrew speakers at around 9 million (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Semitic_languages&oldid=809954069) was reverted by .
The current figure of "unknown; 5 million native and non-native L1 speakers" seems to be inaccurate and out of date, and the idea of a "non-native L1 speaker" doesn't make sense. The references I added (borrowed from Hebrew language) indicate that there are around 9 million total speakers today. Almost all of the Jewish population of Israel (~6 million) speaks it, even though some struggle with the language as indicated in the reference, and about half the non-Jewish population (~50% × ~2 million), and a substantial population of Israeli expats and non-Israeli jews.
Hebrew has an unusually large proportion of non-native but fluent or near-fluent daily users, so listing only L1 speakers doesn't seem to make sense to me. —Moxfyre (ǝɹʎℲxoɯ | contrib) 07:37, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: We've had this discussion many times, though not involving you yet (you can see it further up on this discussion page). The list on the page is about native language speakers - there are no 9 million Hebrew L1-speakers on this planet. There just are no recent sources that say how many there are, and for that reason we are for now stuck with the Ethnologue source stating 5 million. The very fact that, as you admit, many Israelis struggle with speaking Hebrew shows that they are not L1-speakers, but L1-speakers of different languages, and therefore they cannot be included in the list, as each person should only be counted once for his L1-language. Now, if we, for the reason that Hebrew is a special situation, allow the inclusion of any person who needs to speak Hebrew, because it is the official language of the state he lives in, then within a week we have Amharic blow up from 27 to 100 million, or Arabic to 420 million. The counting-criteria of this list just is L1-speakers, which is a reasonable criterion for determining the size of a language, because it can be a lot better established than anything else. Please do not change this back to inflated numbers. It will continue to be reverted (not just by me) unless there is a credible secondary source supporting your number (which you then need to cite). Landroving Linguist (talk) 06:51, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: , fair points. However the wording in the current version ("5 million native and non-native L1 speakers") still doesn't make any sense. That ought to be changed to "5 million native (L1) speakers" since that is indeed what the Ethnologue source indicates. I'll do that. —Moxfyre (ǝɹʎℲxoɯ | contrib) 13:58, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I was actually thinking the same. Landroving Linguist (talk) 14:22, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

text: BTW, a big apology for the mess I left behind after my last edit. I don't know what happened there. Kudos to  for cleaning it up. Landroving Linguist (talk) 07:09, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of Hebrew speakers 

message: This: 
most scripts used to write Semitic languages are abjads – a type of alphabetic script that omits some or all of the vowels, which is feasible for these languages because the consonants in the Semitic languages are the primary carriers of meaning.
contradicts this:
Words are composed out of roots not so much by adding prefixes or suffixes, but rather by filling in the vowels between the root consonants (although prefixes and suffixes are often added as well). For example, in Arabic, the root meaning "write" has the form k-t-b. From this root, words are formed by filling in the vowels and sometimes adding additional consonants, e.g. كتاب kitāb "book", كتب kutub "books", كاتب kātib "writer", كتّاب kuttāb "writers", كتب kataba "he wrote", يكتب yaktubu "he writes", etc. 
--Espoo (talk) 10:23, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: No contradiction. The consonants provide a general idea about the meaning (k-t-b is "something about writing"), while the vowels and sometimes prefixes/suffixes narrow the meaning (see transfix).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 17:44, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Illogical / confusing lede 

message: The map on the left is not accurate.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.174.232.113 (talk) 15:59, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: Is there anyone who understand several semitic languages who can explain to us how closely the languages are related, for example in comparison to relationship between the Germanic languages such as English, German, Dutch, Danish. For a speaker of one semitic language, how easy is it to learn another one? How easy is it for a Hebrew speaker to learn or cross over to speaking Aramaic? How easy is it for an Arabic speaker to learn or cross over to speaking Hebrew? 2A00:23C5:C102:9E00:8829:E061:DE19:C46C (talk) 00:50, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anyone here who understand several semitic languages who can give us some answers? 

message: § Independent personal pronouns glosses second-person dual and plural pronouns with the archaic  English word "ye", for no reason that I could see. The explicit quantifier ("dual", "plural") is quite sufficient and causes no confusion. I am changing "ye" to "you". 
--Thnidu (talk) 15:09, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Ye" 

message: The article states "Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script". However, Hasaniyya Arabic is written in the Latin script too (in Senegal). Should this article be changed?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:3024:18F1:6400:6807:5709:C143:4261 (talk) 21:56, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I would accept this as a good source about the official orthography being based on Latin script. It would be good to also have a source on whether this orthography is in actual use, such as in printed publications, or primary education. Landroving Linguist (talk) 17:52, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hasaniyya Latin Alphabet 

message: The map shows Babylonian, which became extinct centuries earlier. Hebrew was surely not as widely spoken as is shown. In fact, pretty much the entire middle east was speaking Aramaic back then. TFighterPilot (talk) 20:19, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: This map is an embarrassment since at least 2013, as this and this discussion further up on this talk page testify. In those days it was suggested to change the map, but that never happened. I will delete it boldly, and if people are willing to defend the map, they may also be willing to modify it to reflect the realities of the 1st century. LandLing 20:36, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The map in the infobox is also full of anachronisms. "Historical distribution" is wrong, because this couldn't have been a snapshot at any time. I have no good idea how to change the caption, maybe something "Distribution of Semitic languages by their first attested location"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Austronesier (talk • contribs) 20:55, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  (NB: you should sign your comment), that would sound good to me, but looking at Arabic, I don't think anyone ever claimed that it was spoken first at that spot, but either much further south or much further north. At least I think that map is worth keeping. LandLing 22:30, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, agree. Unlike the first-mentioned map, it should stay. –Austronesier (talk) 20:00, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  First century map 

message: Perhaps the page should mention https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.18.342816v2.full, which finds genetic evidence for population changes consistent with Kitchen 2009? Ewx (talk) 19:34, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genetics 

message: I want to connect this article to other Wikipedia languages. Md. Rayan Alam Rifat (talk) 18:31, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  connect to interwiki connection. 

message: Does anyone know what "originated" is intended to mean here? Is it meant as 'entered the Levant' or similar? The way it's written will surely suggest to readers not familiar with language evolution in general that the languages suddenly appeared out of nothing, i.e. nonsense. Enlightened re-wording is definitely in order. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 14:04, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd understand it to mean 'the place where Proto-Semitic was originally spoken'. The link in the same paragraph to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Semitic_language points quite strongly at this interpretation. Ewx (talk) 18:22, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: There are four occurrences of "origin/originate", and in each case it seems to refer to something slightly different. It could refer to the Proto-Semitic homeland (i.e. the initial point of language dispersal), or the ultimate place of origin preceding the Proto-Semitic stage. Also, the phrasing "origin of Semitic-speaking peoples" in the first two sentences is problematic, since many groups have become Semitic-speaking through language shift. We should strictly talk about the linguistic homeland here. –Austronesier (talk) 20:36, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Good points. [Preface: I know little of Semitic. I have taught Historical Linguistics for years.] My worry was not so much location, but the time factor: "originated [anywhere] around 3800 BC" takes us back to what "originated" is intended to mean here. 3800 BC is just too late to be credible for actual origins unless what is meant is something like "initial stages of fragmentation of Proto-Semitic seems to...", in which case a better-worded version of that is what is called for. My point is to anticipate some ingenuous readers' predictable notions of languages suddenly materializing like clouds in a cloudless sky. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 21:00, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  History: "Some claim that the Semitic languages originated in the Levant around 3800 BC" 

message: According to the Manual of Style MOS:ERA there is no preference between using BCE/CE and BC/AD, but it should be uniform within an article. In this article, BCE and BC seem to appear about equally often. I'm not going to make my choice, but I am just calling attention to the facts. TomS TDotO (talk) 02:00, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  BCE &  BC