Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryant J. Williams III" <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>]

Dear List,

Recent discussion as been centered on the language of Hebrew being West 
Semitic and some of the Hebrew names being Hurrian names. This will NOT be a 
rehash of that discussion. Based on the information and link below, is Hebrew 
a West Semitic, Central Semitic or both? It appears to be both, but one will 
notice that NO other evidence is given for any other language group.

Please reply with comments for and against with links to the sources, IF 
possible. The link below is given so that one could look at the actual source 
in case some of the Hebrew characters did not transfer correctly.

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III

John A. Cook and Robert D. Holmstedt
Biblical Hebrew: An Illustrated Introduction states the following:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8477225/Textbook/BHII_Lessons_July2011.pdf

Biblical Hebrew: An Illustrated Introduction (Draft Copy)
© 2011 by John A. Cook and Robert D. Holmstedt

All rights reserved.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8477225/Textbook/BHII_Lessons_July2011.pdf
Biblical Hebrew: An Illustrated Introduction, pages 2-3 (9-10 on .pdf file)

Introduction
Hebrew is a Semitic Language

Ancient Hebrew emerged as a distinct dialect sometime in the 2nd millennium 
B.C.E. in the region of Canaan—the land between the Jordan River Valley and 
the Mediterranean Sea (see the map at right). In fact, one of the earliest 
references to Hebrew calls it “the language of Canaan” ( ֫ןַע$נְכּ תַפְשׂ; Isa 
19:18).

The language is also referred to in the Bible as תי,וּה/י “Judahite” (2 Kgs 
18:26, 28, etc.), but by the Roman period it was known as “Hebrew” (Latin 
Hebraios, Israeli Hebrew תי0ְבִע). However, in late antiquity, especially in 
Jewish literature, it frequently was called “the holy language” ( ּ שׁ4ּ6ַה 
ןוֹשְׁל) because Scripture was written in the language.

Any notion that Hebrew was somehow special among languages since it was the 
language of Scripture was dispelled in the 18th c., when philological study 
was able to trace Hebrew back to the Semitic language family. It was in that 
century that the name Semitic was coined to refer to languages spoken in 
those areas of the Near East that the Bible purports to have been settled by 
descendants of Shem:

To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of 
Japheth, children were born. The descendants of Shem: Elam, Asshur, 
Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. (Genesis 10:21-22)

                                                                              
                                                                      SEMITIC

                                                     WEST SEMITIC             
                                                                              
                EAST SEMITIC
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                    Akkadian
                      CENTRAL SEMITIC                                         
                                   SOUTH SEMITIC                              
  
Arabic                 Canaanite                   Arabic                     
                             Ethiopian        South Arabian
                   Hebrew   Phoenician

As one of the oldest and longest-used language families, the Semitic language 
family is over 5000 years old. Its history can be traced back through written 
evidence to the 3rd millennium B.C.E., although it was likely much older than 
that. Though many branches of the family have fallen into disuse (e.g., 
Akkadian, Phoenician; see diagram), the language family today consists of 
about 70 different languages or dialects spoken by nearly 500 million 
speakers.

Several features distinguish Semitic languages from non-Semitic:  Semitic 
languages use common distinctive sounds in their alphabet such as the 
guttural consonants (i.e., pharyngeal and laryngeal sounds made in the 
throat) (see 2.5). Semitic languages originally had only three vowels a, i, u 
each of which could be pronounced long or short.  Semitic languages possess a 
large shared vocabulary: e.g., father ab (Hebrew), abba (Aramaic), abu 
(Arabic).

The vocabulary of Semitic languages predominantly has triconsonantal roots. 
Semitic words are formed from roots of three consonants. Different parts of 
speech (verbs, adjectives, nouns) are derived by adding prefixes and/or 
suffixes and changing the vowels which occur between the consonants.

For example, the triconsonantal root
P-Q-D is associated with the following words:

paqad ‘he attended to,’

piqqed ‘he mustered,’

puqqad ‘he was mustered,’

pəquda ‘mustering,’

mipqad ‘appointed place’.


According to the family tree for Semitic (above), Hebrew is classified as a 
Central West Semitic language, and more specifically
a member of the Canaanite grouping. Features distinguishing Central West from 
South West Semitic languages include:

 The development of the Suffix Pattern verbal conjugation
 The change of w to y when the letter begins a word


According to the family tree for Semitic (above), Hebrew is classified as a 
Central West Semitic language, and more specifically a member of the 
Canaanite grouping. Features distinguishing Central West from South West 
Semitic languages include:

• The development of the Suffix Pattern verbal conjugation

• The change of w to y when the letter begins a word

The most notable distinguishing feature of Canaanite languages is the 
“Canaanite Shift”: sometime in the second half of the 2nd millennium B.C.E. 
long a vowels changed to long o vowels in Canaanite languages (e.g., ‘peace’ 
Hebrew šalōm versus Aramaic šəlām / Arabic salām).

The relative closeness of languages on the family tree is based on the degree 
of similarity among languages. As a result, those
languages most closely related to Hebrew (e.g., other Canaanite languages 
like Phoenician and Moabite, and the major West Semitic
language Aramaic) often provide textual remains that shed light on ancient 
Hebrew and ancient Israelite culture.