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Concept
Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples
Summary
Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples or Proto-Semitic people were speakers of Semitic languages who lived throughout the ancient Near East and North Africa, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula, and Carthage from the 3rd millennium BC until the end of antiquity, with some, such as Assyrians, Mandeans, Arabs, Arameans, Samaritans and Jews having a continuum into the present day.
Their languages are usually divided into three branches: East, Central and South Semitic languages.
The Proto-Semitic language was likely first spoken in the early 4th millennium BC in Western Asia, and the oldest attested forms of Semitic date to the early to mid-3rd millennium BC (the Early Bronze Age).
Speakers of East Semitic include the people of the Akkadian Empire, Ebla, Assyria, Babylonia, the latter two of which eventually switched to East Aramaic and perhaps Dilmun. Central Semitic combines the Northwest Semitic languages and Arabic. Speakers of Northwest Semitic were the Canaanites (including the Phoenicians, Punics, Amorites, Edomites, Moabites and the Hebrews) and the Arameans, Ugarites and Maltese. South Semitic peoples include the speakers of Modern South Arabian languages and Ethiopian Semitic languages.
There are several locations proposed as possible sites for prehistoric origins of Semitic-speaking peoples: Mesopotamia, the Levant, Eastern Mediterranean, Eritrea and Ethiopia the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa. The majority view is that the Semitic languages originated in the Levant circa 3800 BC, and was later also introduced to the Horn of Africa in approximately 800 BC from the southern Arabian peninsula, and to North Africa and southern Spain with the founding of Phoenician colonies such as ancient Carthage in the ninth century BC and Cádiz in the tenth century BC.
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