The Semitic languages are a group of related languages spoken across North and East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and one of the major language groups that descended from the larger family of Afroasiatic languages.

Files List

  • Bibliography of the Modern South Arabian languages  
    In category: Semitic MSAL.
    Uploaded by on 18 January 2023.

    Initial compilation of this bibliography was done by the investigators of the Leverhulme Trustfunded Documentation and Ethnolinguistic Analysis of Modern South Arabian team (Watson, Morris & Eades), and from 2014 by Watson and Morris in collaboration with the people we thank at the end.

  • Proto-Modern South Arabian Vowels – A First Approximation  
    In category: Semitic MSAL.
    Uploaded by on 18 January 2023.

    All Modern South Arabian languages possess large amounts of Arabic loanwords. Sometimes they can be identified by irregular consonant correspondences, such as /s/ corresponding to Arabic /s/ going back to Proto-Semitic */š/, which yields /š/ or /h/ in Modern South Arabian. In general, however, it is at the current state of knowledge not possible to reliably recognize loans. To minimize the danger of deforming the reconstruction by words that entered Modern South Arabian languages after they split, we will only consider words which either appear to have no cognate in Arabic, or also have a cognate outside of Arabic

  • Mehri and Hobyot spoken in Oman and in Yemen  
    In category: Semitic MSAL.
    Uploaded by on 18 January 2023.

    In the South of the Arabian Peninsula in the Sultanate of Oman and in the Republic of the Yemen, live about 200,000 Arabs whose maternal tongue is not Arabic but one of the six socalled Modern South Arabian Languages (= MSAL).1 Mehri, Harsusi [ħarsūsi], Bathari [baṭħari], Hobyot [hōbyyt], Jibbali [ǧibbāli],2 and SoqoTri [sḳʌ́ṭri]. Only Mehri and Hobyot are spoken in the two countries. Except Soqotri spoken only in the Yemenite islands of Soqoṭra, ‘Abd-el-Kūri and Samħa, all others are spoken in Oman.

  • The Modern South Arabian Languages  
    In category: Semitic MSAL.
    Uploaded by on 18 January 2023.

    In the South of the Arabian Peninsula, in the Republic of the Yemen and in the Sultanate of Oman, live some 200,000 Arabs whose maternal language is not Arabic but one of the socalled Modern South Arabian Languagues (MSAL). This designation is very inconvenient because of the consequent ambiguity, but a more appropriate solution has not been found so far. Although there exists a very close relationship with other languages of the same Western South Semitic group, the MSAL are different enough from Arabic to make intercomprehension impossible between speakers of any of the MSAL and Arabic speakers.