Uri:
My objection to "proto-semitic" is not that such a language may have existed,
but the specific form postulated for it. In particular, I think that the concept that
all the phonemes ever expressed in a semitic language had to have been in proto-semitic
(I may have overstated this). As I understand it, the theory is that languages only
lose phonemes, and don't gain them.
But this stands in direct contradiction to the documented history of some
languages. ...
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