The Semitic Languages presents a comprehensive survey of the individual languages and language clusters within this language family, from their origins in antiquity to their present-day forms. This second edition has been fully revised, with new chapters and a wealth of additional material. New features include the following: * new introductory chapters on Proto-Semitic grammar and Semitic linguistic typology * an additional chapter on the place of Semitic as a subgroup of Afro-Asiatic, and several chapters on modern forms of Arabic, Aramaic and Ethiopian Semitic * text samples of each individual language, transcribed into the International Phonetic Alphabet, with standard linguistic word-by-word glossing as well as translation * new maps and tables present information visually for easy reference. This unique resource is the ideal reference for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of linguistics and language. It will be of interest to researchers and anyone with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistic typology, linguistic anthropology and language development.

This collection showcases the contributions of the study of endangered and understudied languages to historical linguistic analysis, and the broader relevance of diachronic approaches toward developing better informed approaches to language documentation and description. The volume brings together perspectives from both established and up-and-coming scholars and represents a globally and linguistically diverse range of languages.The collected papers demonstrate the ways in which endangered languages can challenge existing models of language change based on more commonly studied languages, and can generate innovative insights into linguistic phenomena such as pathways of grammaticalization, forms and dynamics of contact-driven change, and the diachronic relationship between lexical and grammatical categories. In so doing, the book highlights the idea that processes and outcomes of language change long held to be universally relevant may be more sensitive to cultural and typological variability than previously assumed. Taken as a whole, this collection brings together perspectives from language documentation and historical linguistics to point the way forward for richer understandings of both language change and documentary-descriptive approaches, making this key reading for scholars in these fields.

This collection showcases the contributions of the study of endangered and understudied languages to historical linguistic analysis, and the broader relevance of diachronic approaches toward developing better informed approaches to language documentation and description. The volume brings together perspectives from both established and up-and-coming scholars and represents a globally and linguistically diverse range of languages.The collected papers demonstrate the ways in which endangered languages can challenge existing models of language change based on more commonly studied languages, and can generate innovative insights into linguistic phenomena such as pathways of grammaticalization, forms and dynamics of contact-driven change, and the diachronic relationship between lexical and grammatical categories. In so doing, the book highlights the idea that processes and outcomes of language change long held to be universally relevant may be more sensitive to cultural and typological variability than previously assumed. Taken as a whole, this collection brings together perspectives from language documentation and historical linguistics to point the way forward for richer understandings of both language change and documentary-descriptive approaches, making this key reading for scholars in these fields.

The Semitic languages are a family of languages spoken by more that 370 million people across much of the Middle East and North and East Africa. This is the first general survey of those languages, including the Arab and Aramaic dialects and various languages of Ethiopia.

Containing twenty-two chapters that present a comprehensive survey of this language family from its origins in antiquity to the present day, The Semitic Languages is an essential source of reference for the specialist and the lay reader.

This book includes thirty contributions - twenty-nine papers and one artistic contribution - by John's colleagues, former students, and friends, on a variety of topics that represent John's versatility and many interests, including philology, history, natural history, and art. Many of the papers concentrate on the Akkadian speaking world, reflecting one of the major languages John Huehnergard has worked on throughout the years. Eran Cohen reviews and discusses the functional value of Akkadian iprus in conditional clauses in epistolary and legal texts. Lutz Edzard discusses the Akkadian injunctive umma, used in oath formulae. Daniel Fleming asks who were the 'Apiru people mentioned in Egyptian texts in the Late Bronze Age and what was their social standing as is reflected in the Amarna letters. Shlomo Izre'el offers a revised and improved version of his important study of the language of the Amarna letters. Leonid Kogan offers a comparative etymological study of botanical terminology in Akkadian, while Josef Tropper argues that Akkadian poetry, as well as Northwest Semitic poetry, are based on certain metric principles. Wilfred von Soldt lists and discusses personal names ending in -ayu from Amarna. A number of papers deal with Arabic grammarians and their concepts of language. Gideon Goldenberg discusses the concept of vocalic length in Arabic grammatical tradition and in the medieval Hebrew tradition that was its product. Wolfhart Heinrichs's contribution shows that Ibn Khaldun held innovative views of language and its evolution. Several other papers deal with Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible. Steven Fassberg deals with verbal t-forms that do not exhibit the expected metathesis in Hebrew and Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Randall Garr studies one class of denominal hiphil verbs and asks why these verbs are assigned to the causative stem despite their non-causative semantic content. Ed Greenstein suggests that the roots of biblical wisdom can be located in second-millennium Canaanite literature by identifying wisdom sayings and themes in the Ugaritic corpus. Jeremy Hutton sheds more light on tG forms in Biblical Hebrew. Paul Korchin explains occurrences of the cohortative in Biblical Hebrew that do not conform to the normative volitive function. Dennis Pardee provides a detailed study of the Hebrew verbal system as primarily expressing aspect, not tense. Gary A. Rendsburg argues in favor of Late Biblical Hebrew features in the book of Haggai. Four papers deal with linguistic aspects of non-Classical Semitic languages. Charles Haberl looks into predicates of verbless sentences in Semitic and particularly in Neo-Mandaic. Geoffrey Khan discusses the functional differences between the preterite and the perfect in NENA. Aaron D. Rubin provides Semitic etymologies of two Modern South Arabian words. Ofra Tirosh-Becker discusses the language of the Judeo-Arabic translation of the books of Prophets. Papers on comparative Semitics are likewise numerous. Jo Ann Hackett takes another look at Ugaritic yaqtul and argues for the existence of a preterite yaqtul on comparative grounds, among others. Rebecca Hasselbach tackles the evasive origin of the Semitic verbal endings -u and -a. Na'ama Pat-El continues the discussion of the origin of the Hebrew relative particle seC- from a syntactic and comparative perspective. Richard C. Steiner proposes a new vowel syncope rule for Proto Semitic. David Testen argues for a different reconstruction of the Semitic case system. Tamar Zewi shows that prepositional phrases can function as subjects in a variety of Semitic languages. Andrzej Zaborski suggests that Berber and Cushitic preserve archaic features that have been lost for the most part in the Semitic languages. There is one paper on an Indo-European language with important ties to Semitic languages in P. Oktor Skjaervo discussion of the Pahlavi verb *awas 'to dry.' Finally, Richard Walton contributes a paper about the jumping spiders of Concord, Massachusetts, a project he labored on with John Huehnergard. The book is beautifully decorated by the drawings of the artist X Bonnie Woods, who prepared special illustration for this volume, based on cuneiform.

The Semitic Languages presents a comprehensive survey of the individual languages and language clusters within this language family, from their origins in antiquity to their present-day forms. This second edition has been fully revised, with new chapters and a wealth of additional material. New features include the following: * new introductory chapters on Proto-Semitic grammar and Semitic linguistic typology * an additional chapter on the place of Semitic as a subgroup of Afro-Asiatic, and several chapters on modern forms of Arabic, Aramaic and Ethiopian Semitic * text samples of each individual language, transcribed into the International Phonetic Alphabet, with standard linguistic word-by-word glossing as well as translation * new maps and tables present information visually for easy reference. This unique resource is the ideal reference for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of linguistics and language. It will be of interest to researchers and anyone with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistic typology, linguistic anthropology and language development.

Akkadian, a Semitic language attested in writing from 2600 BCE until the first century CE, was the language of Mesopotamia for nearly three millennia. This volume examines the language from a comparative and historical linguistic perspective. Inspired by the work of renowned linguist John Huehnergard and featuring contributions from top scholars in the field, Be l Lisa ni showcases the latest research on Akkadian linguistics. Chapters focus on a wide range of topics, including lexicon, morphology, word order, syntax, verbal semantics, and subgrouping. Building upon Huehnergard's pioneering studies focused on the identification of Proto-Akkadian features, the contributors explore linguistic innovations in the language from historical and comparative perspectives. In doing so, they open the way for further etymological, dialectical, and lexical research into Akkadian. An important update on and synthesis of the research in Akkadian linguistics, this volume will be welcomed by Semitists, Akkadian language specialists, and scholars and students interested in historical linguistics. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Oyvind Bjoru, Maksim Kalinin, N. J. C. Kouwenberg, Sergey Loesov, Jacob J. de Ridder, Ambjoern Sjoers, Michael P. Streck, and Juan-Pablo Vita.

Historical syntax has long been neglected in the study of the Semitic languages, although it holds great value for the subgrouping of this diverse language family. Focusing on the development of adverbial subordination, nominal modifiers and direct speech marking, as well as reviewing changes through language contact and drift, this book is the first step in the syntactic reconstruction of the Aramaic dialect group, the longest-attested branch of the Semitic language family.