East Semitic languages
language family
The East Semitic languages are one of three branches of the Semitic language family. This branch is known from three languages, Akkadian, Eblaite, and possibly Kishite, all of which are now extinct. They were influenced by the non-Semitic Sumerian language and adopted cuneiform writing.
East Semitic languages stand apart from other Semitic languages, which are traditionally called West Semitic, in a number of respects. Historically, it is believed that the linguistic situation came about as speakers of East Semitic languages wandered further east, settling in Mesopotamia during the 3rd millennium BC, as attested by Akkadian texts from this period. By the early 2nd millennium BC, East Semitic languages, in particular Akkadian, had come to dominate the region.
Phonology
Modern understanding of the phonology of East Semitic languages can be derived only from careful study of written texts and comparison with the reconstructed Proto-Semitic. Most striking is the reduction of the inventory of back consonants, the velar and pharyngeal fricatives, as well as glottals. Akkadian preserves *ḫ and (partly) *ḥ only as a single phoneme transcribed ḫ and usually reconstructed as a voiceless velar or uvular fricative. All of the sounds *ʾ, *h, *ʿ, *ġ have been lost.
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This entry incorporates text from “East Semitic languages” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.