闪米特语族,译作闪米特语族塞姆语族闪米特米特语族 ,旧称叙利亚-阿拉伯语族[2],是亚非语系之下的语族之一,起源于中东地区[3][4],其下属语言约有3.3亿人作为母语,分布于西亚北非非洲之角,也有亚非语系侨民生活于欧洲北美,或高加索中亚

闪米特语族
叙利亚-阿拉伯语族
地理分布西亚北非非洲之角马耳他
谱系学分类亚非语系
  • 闪米特语族
原始语言原始闪米特语
分支
语言代码
ISO 639-2 / 5sem
Glottologsemi1276[1]

闪米特语言的大致历史分布

闪米特语族由哥廷根历史学校的成员于18世纪命名,“闪米特”一词来源于希伯来圣经创世记,是挪亚的三个儿子之一,相传是希伯来人亚述人的祖先[5]

现代所使用的其分支语言有阿拉伯语[6]希伯来语[7]阿拉姆语[8][9][10]阿姆哈拉语[11]提格里尼亚语[12]提格雷语马耳他语[13]等。闪米特语族中使用人数最多的语言是现代标准阿拉伯语,而如果包括所有阿拉伯语变体的母语人口在内,阿拉伯语共有3.1亿人作为母语,广泛分布在西亚、北非和东非地区[14]

闪米特语族下属语言在词法学上有一个被称为“不连续形态”的显著特征,即词汇的词根并不是独立的音节或单词,而是多个互相分离的辅音(通常为三个),借由相应的元音将分离的辅音词根联系起来而组成新词。例如,阿拉伯语中的k-t-b是与“写”相关的词根形式,用这个词根组成的词汇有كتابkitāb(书的单数),كتبkutub(书的复数)、كاتبkātib(作家的单数)和كتّابkuttāb(作家的复数)等。

分支

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参考文献

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  1. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (编). Semitic. Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. 2016. 
  2. ^ Kitto, John. A Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature. London: W. Clowes and Sons. 1845: 192. That important family of languages, of which the Arabic is the most cultivated and most widely-extended branch, has long wanted an appropriate common name. The term Oriental languages, which was exclusively applied to it from the time of Jerome down to the end of the last century, and which is even now not entirely abandoned, must always have been an unscientific one, inasmuch as the countries in which these languages prevailed are only the east in respect to Europe; and when Sanskrit, Chinese, and other idioms of the remoter East were brought within the reach of our research, it became palpably incorrect. Under a sense of this impropriety, Eichhorn英语Johann Gottfried Eichhorn was the first, as he says himself (Allg. Bibl. Biblioth. vi. 772), to introduce the name Semitic languages, which was soon generally adopted, and which is the most usual one at the present day. [...] In modern times, however, the very appropriate designation Syro-Arabian languages has been proposed by Dr. Prichard英语James Cowles Prichard, in his Physical History of Man. This term, [...] has the advantage of forming an exact counterpart to the name by which the only other great family of languages with which we are likely to bring the Syro-Arabian into relations of contrast or accordance, is now universally known—the Indo-Germanic. Like it, by taking up only the two extreme members of a whole sisterhood according to their geographical position when in their native seats, it embraces all the intermediate branches under a common band; and, like it, it constitutes a name which is not only at once intelligible, but one which in itself conveys a notion of that affinity between the sister dialects, which it is one of the objects of comparative philology to demonstrate and to apply. 
  3. ^ Bennett, Patrick R. Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. 1998. 
  4. ^ Hetzron, Robert. The Semitic Languages. London/New York: Routledge. 1997. 
  5. ^ Baasten, Martin. A Note on the History of 'Semitic'. Hamlet on a Hill: Semitic and Greek Studies Presented to Professor T. Muraoka on the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday. Peeters Publishers. 2003: 57–73 [2018-07-26]. ISBN 9789042912151. (原始内容存档于2019-12-07). 
  6. ^ Jonathan, Owens. The Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics. Oxford University Press. 2013: 2 [18 February 2014]. ISBN 0199344094. (原始内容存档于2019-06-01). 
  7. ^ Modern Hebrew于《民族语》的链接(第18版,2015年)
  8. ^ ^ Jump up to: a b Assyrian Neo-Aramaic at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  9. ^ Chaldean Neo-Aramaic at Ethnologue (14th ed., 2000).
  10. ^ ^ Turoyo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  11. ^ Amharic于《民族语》的链接(第18版,2015年)
  12. ^ Tigrinya于《民族语》的链接(第18版,2015年)
  13. ^ Ethnologue Entry for Maltese, 21st ed., 2018. [2018-07-26]. (原始内容存档于2021-01-26). 
  14. ^ Arabic. ethnologue.com. [14 April 2018]. (原始内容存档于2016-01-05). 

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