Phoenician (/ f ə ˈ n iː ʃ ən / fə-NEE-shən) is an extinct Canaanite Semitic language originally spoken in the region surrounding the cities of Tyre and Sidon.Extensive Tyro-Sidonian trade and commercial dominance led to Phoenician becoming a lingua franca of the maritime Mediterranean during the Iron Age.The Phoenician alphabet spread to Greece during this period, where it …

Classification issues. It was originally thought that all four members of this group were dialects of one Old South Arabian language, but in the mid-twentieth century, linguist A.F.L. Beeston finally proved that they did in fact constitute independent languages.. The Old South Arabian languages were originally classified (partly on the basis of geography) as South Semitic, along …

Hebrew (Hebrew alphabet: עִבְרִית ‎, ʿĪvrīt (help · info), IPA: or ; Samaritan script: ࠏࠁࠓࠉࠕ; Paleo-Hebrew script: ????????????‫????????) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family.Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans.

Ancient North Arabian (ANA) is a collection of scripts and possibly a language or family of languages (or dialects) related to Old Arabic that were used in north and central Arabia and south Syria from the 8th century BCE to the 4th century CE. The term "Ancient North Arabian" refers to all of the South Semitic scripts except Ancient South Arabian (ASA).

History and literature. Although it differs markedly from the Geʽez (Classical Ethiopic) language, for instance in having phrasal verbs, and in using a word order that places the main verb last instead of first in the sentence—there is a strong influence of Geʽez on Tigrinya literature, especially with terms relating to Christian life, Biblical names, and so on.

The Minaean people were the inhabitants of the kingdom of Ma'in (Minaean: ???????????? Maʿīn; modern Arabic معين Maʿīn) in modern-day Yemen, dating back to the 10th century BCE-150 BCE. It was located along the strip of desert called Ṣayhad by medieval Arab geographers, which is now known as Ramlat Dehem.. The Minaean people were one of four ancient Yemeni groups …

Coptic (Bohairic Coptic: ϯⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, timetremǹnkhēmi) is a language family of closely related dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third-century AD in Roman Egypt. Coptic was supplanted by Arabic as the primary spoken language of Egypt following the Muslim conquest of ...

The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family.They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania.As of 2012, the Cushitic languages with over one million speakers were Oromo, Somali, Beja, Afar, Hadiyya, Kambaata, Saho, and …

Classification. Afar is classified within the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic family. It is further categorized in the Lowland East Cushitic sub-group, along with Saho and Somali. Its closest relative is the Saho language. Geographic distribution. The Afar language is spoken as a mother tongue by the Afar people in Djibouti, Eritrea, and the Afar Region of Ethiopia.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also refers to spoken Arabic that approximates this written standard. MSA is the language used in literature, academia, print and mass media, law …