A Brief Introduction to the Semitic Languages

by Aaron D. Rubin

With a written history of nearly five thousand years, the Semitic languages comprise one of the world’s earliest attested and longest attested families. Well known members of the family include Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic, and Akkadian. This volume provides an overview of this important language family, including both ancient and modern languages. After a brief introduction to the history of the family and its internal classification, subsequent chapters cover topics in phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon.

Each chapter describes features that are characteristic of the Semitic language family as a whole, as well as some of the more extraordinary developments that take place in the individual languages. This provides both a typological overview and a description of more unique features. The chapters contain abundant examples from numerous languages. All the examples include morpheme by morpheme glosses, as well as translations, which help make these examples clear and accessible even to those not familiar with a given language. Concluding the book is a detailed guide to further reading, which directs the reader to the most important reference tools and secondary literature, and an up-to-date bibliography.

This brief introduction contains a rich variety of data, and covers topics not normally found in short sketches such as this. The clarity of presentation makes it useful not only to those in the field of Semitic linguistics, but also to the general linguist or language enthusiast who wishes to learn something about this important language family.

Genres: Linguistics, Language

98 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Koen Crolla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief is right—this book started as a chapter in a larger thing on Afroasiatic languages, and when that didn't happen Rubin decided to rework it and publish it on its own, and consequently it's only 98 pages long (including the bibliography). It covers the ground you expect these things—that is, modern diachronic surveys by actual linguists—to cover, however, with adequate structure and lucidity, though the length also means you probably won't learn much in the way of interesting new trivia beyond what's in literally all of these. The fact that Rubin explicitly goes out of his way to quote living languages in his examples as well will undoubtedly be seen as a boon by someone somewhere.

[IVellon · Rating 4 out of 5]

In short: This is a nice introduction to all the things Huehnergard has written ^^
In full: Rubin gives a concise overview of commonly accepted features of Proto-Semitic and their reflexes in the known languages plus some later language internal developments. You won't find much discussion on critical or unclear topics here, which is not necessarily a bad thing. As mentioned above, Huehnergard is regarded as the last authority.
There are numerous examples from a broad range of languages (not just the older languages as it is often the case elsewhere) but it was not always clear for me how the example is to be understood and how it shows the discussed feature.
I would recommend this book to everybody who has not clue about Semitic languages yet and wants some very basic information.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice concise book to use in the first week of a course on Semitic linguistics. It is what it claims to be, an introduction. It summarizes the current state of (European) research into Semitic linguistics. The references section and further reading sections do ignore some important works by American scholars, such as W.R. Garr and Bruce Waltke. It is less than 100 pages and could be assigned for the first week of class in toto.

[Eric Chevlen · Rating 3 out of 5]

At under 100 pages, this book lives up to its title of being a BRIEF introduction to the Semitic languages. The author adapted this book from an introductory chapter he had written for a full-length textbook on Semitic languages. It shows. On every point he discusses, one feels that the subject has merely been touched before he races to another. That is not a criticism. For the reader who, like me, wants a quick overview of a very broad field, this book is perfect. Some background knowledge in linguistics is useful, but the reader who lacks that can interrupt his reading to look up the meaning of technical terms such as enclitic, asyndetic, deictic, etc. This book will give useful perspective to the student who is about to embark on a serious study of Akkadian, Ge’ez, Hebrew, Arabic, Maltese, etc.

[Paul G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great and very short introduction to comparative Semitics and the family in general. Rubin explains the essential typological and historical topics quickly and clearly before pointing the reader in the direction of all the essential scholarship and giving a list of essential works on most of the languages, which is very helpful. Even moderate linguistic knowledge should be enough to read this and get a better idea of the Semitic languages.