The Semitic languages reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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Semitic languages

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The term Semitic languages refers to the northeastern subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic languages, the only one spoken in Asia.

The most common Semitic languages spoken today are Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew, and Tigrinya.

Table of contents
1 The Eastern Semitic Languages
2 The Central Semitic languages
3 The South Semitic languages
4 Common characteristics

The Eastern Semitic Languages

Controversial (either East Semitic or Northwest Semitic): Eblaite language -- extinct

The Central Semitic languages

Northwest Semitic languages

South Central (Arabic) languages

The South Semitic languages

Western (within South Semitic)

Eastern (within South Semitic)

Common characteristics

These languages all exhibit a pattern of words consisting of triconsonantal roots, with vowel changes, prefixes, and suffixes used to inflect them. For instance, in Hebrew:
gdl means "big" but is no part of speech and not a word, just a root
gadol means "big" and is an masculine adjective
gdola means "big" (feminine adjective)
giddel means "he grew" (transitive verb)
gadal means "he grew" (intransitive verb)
higdil means "he magnified" (transitive verb)
magdelet means "magnifier" (lens)

spr is the root for "count" or "recount"
sefer means "book" (containing tales which are recounted)
sofer means "scribe" (Masoretic scribes counted verses)
mispar means "number".

Many roots are shared among more than one Semitic language. For example, the root ktb, a root signifying writing, exists in both Hebrew and Arabic ("he wrote" is rendered in Hebrew katav and in Classical Arabic kataba).

The following list will provide some equivalent words in Semitic languages.
Akkadian Aramaic Arabic language>Arabic Hebrew language>Hebrew English translation
zikaru dikrā ḏakar zÃ¥ḵÃ¥r Male
maliku malkā malik mĕlĕḵ King
imêru ḥamarā ḥimār ḥămōr Donkey
erṣetu ʔarʿā ʔarḍ ʔĕrĕṣ Land

Sometimes certain roots differ in meaning from one Semitic language to another. For example, the root b-y-ḍ in Arabic has the meaning of "white" as well as "egg", whereas in Hebrew it only means "egg". The root l-b-n means "milk" in Arabic, but the color "white" in Hebrew.

Of course, there is sometimes no relation between the roots. For example, "knowledge" is represented in Hebrew by the root y-d-ʿ but in Arabic by the roots ʿ-r-f and ʿ-l-m.

Other Afro-Asiatic languages show similar patterns, but more usually with biconsonantal roots; e.g. in Kabyle afeg means "fly!", while affug means "flight", and yufeg means "he flew".