Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/855

* SEMITIC LANGUAGES. Ti acters of l?abvlonia and As-syiia, which, orig- inatin<.' in a pictorial script." bccaiiie linear or wcdfre-shapcil (soc Cinkifokm Insckiptions) ; (l>) the I'liiciiician ami its ilcrivativcs. lli4)rov, tlic various Aramaic alphabets, and furtlicr de- rivatives from the latter; the Syriac and .rabic alphabets; the Pha^nician itself may revert to the characters found in the south-Arabic in- scriptions; (c) the Ethiopic, which may like- wise be a derivative of the ancient south-Arabic (Saba»an and llimyaritic) alphal)et, thou<;h other factors have entered into the ])roduction of some of the peculiarities presented by the Kthiopic alphabet. See -Vhmiaiset; I.n.sckiptions. Of the various jiroups of the Semitic languages, the Babylono-Assyrian merits the lirst place by virtue of the antiquity of its literature. The ex- cavations in Habylonia and Assyria (q.v.) have broui;ht to li<;ht inscriptions that date back to about B.C. 4500 and as early as B.C. 2500 there ap- jicars to have existed quite an extensive litera- ture, chii'lh- historical, lepal, and reIij;ious. Later we lind other branches like medicine and astronomy represented. Assyria adopted the script together with the "cneral culture of Babylonia, and while it made few contributions to the literature outside of annals, prayers, and incantations, great care was taken by some of the kings to copy and preserve the literature pro- duced in the south. The cuneiform characters in various modifications continued in use in .Mesopotamia until a few decades prior to the present era. The Aramaic branch is distinguished by the large number of its subdivisions and dialects and by the large territory over which these sub- divisions and dialects are spread at a compara- tively early period. The extensive sway of Aramaic is almost coequal with the range of Semitic speech, and some of the Aramaic dia- lects developed sufficiently distinct traits to fall within the category of separate languages. By far the most important representative of the group is the Syriac, or the Aramaic dialect spoken in Edessa, Harran, Nisibis, and other places in Mesopotamia. The Babylonian dialect of the Aramaic was adopted by the .Tews of the Exile : its form in the period a.d. 250-450 may be seen in the Babylonian Talmud. A similar dia- lect, though less exposed to foreign influence. was the Mandaic. The Aramaic dialect spoken in Judea has been preserved in the Bible (por- tions of Ezra and Daniel) and in the earlier Tar- gums. Another Aramaic ofl'shoot is the Samari- tan, being the dialect spoken in the district of Shechem, and of importance as the tongue of the Samaritan community. The Galilean dialect, as it was spoken in the third century A.n. and later, has been preserved in many Targmns and in the Babylonian Talmud. For further detail con- cerning these langua|;es and their literatures, see the articles Aramaic; Syriac; !Mand.ean,s; Samaritans. In the Hebrfeo-Plurnician gi'ouji, the Hebrew merits the first place by virtue of the fact that the bulk of the Old Testament is written in this language. (See article Jew.s, sections Behrcio History and Lauf/uaf/e and Liternturr ; also Hexateuch: Pektateuch.) Hebrew literature is also represented by the older division of the Talmud known as the Mishna (q.v.). containing the codification of the Rabbinical laws. This section of Hebrew literature was edited about 7 SEMITIC LANGUAGES. A.i). 200. . number of Midrashim arc likewise written in this Nenllebraic speech, liy this time Hebrew had long ci-ased to be the current speech of .lews, who in Palestine had adciptcil .raiMaic, and outside of Palestine the hinguage of the ciiUMlries in which they were settled, but He- brew still maintained its sway as the tongue of sacred writ and as the ollicial language of tho synagogue. In view of this it continued to lie cultivated not only by the learned, but by tho masses as well, so that from time to time He- brew witnessed literary revivals. Such a revival took place in Spain in the eleventh and twellth centuries, and again in Unssia and Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century, so that nu- merous works in Hebrew continue to be published up to the present time. The Hebrew of the 31 id- die Ages and the Xeo-Hebrew are modeled en- tirely U]ion the biblical style; and, since it la artificially cultivated and nowhere used as the sole language of interchange, it can hardly be designated as one of the living Semitic lan- guages. Hebrew being merely the C'anaanitish speech adopted by the Israelites up(m taking ])ossession of Canaan, it follows that it is prac- tically identical in its earliest form with I'ha-ni- cian, since the Pha'nicians are merely t'anaanitcs who settled on the shore instead of in the interior of Palestine. The Pha?nicians do not appear to have developed any literature, and the langmige is known to us only from the vast number of mortuary and votive and commemorative inscrip- tions found in PlKpnicia itself, and in even larger quantities in the colonies of the Phceni- eians, notably in tVprus, Northern Africa. Sar- dinia, JIalta, Southern Spain, and Southern France. These inscriptions cover the long period from about the eighth century n.C. up to the end of the second century of our era. Their interest is chiefly ( 1 ) epigrapbical in enabling us to trace the develo]uuent and modifications of the Phcenician script, and (2) linguistic as furnishing the means to the study of a Semitic tongue tiiat was the first to spread outside of Semitic terri- tory, (See PiKENiciA.) Presenting only slight variations from the Hebrew and Pluen'ician is the iloabitie. represented by a single inscription of the Moabitic King Mesha (.see Moauite Stone), and which is of special interest as rep- resenting the oldest alphabetical inscription in ancient Phitnician or Canaanitish script. Of tile southern l>ranch the chief representative is the Arai)ic, the Semitic language which has far exceeded all others in the wide character of its influence. H was the rise and spread of Islam that gave to Arabic as the language of the Koran its supreme importance. Previous to that time Arabic was confined to the peninsiila of -Vrabia : several dialects prevailed, and the one that became the classical speech was the form sjjoken in Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed, Leaving southern Arabic out of account for the present, .rabic literature pre- vious to ^lohanuned was confined to poetical com- positions which were |>rcserved orally. Islam marks not only a religious innovation, but was also an intellectual movement that gave rise to written literature among the Arabs, and as the Arabs came into contact through the spread of Islam with the existing Oriental and Occidental cultures, the various branches of science, meili- cine, philosophy, theolog%', mathematics, geog- raphy, history, besides poetry, were cultivated