Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

Uncommon card · No. 105214

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, Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula and Carthage from the 3rd millennium BC until the end of antiquity, with some, such as Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Jews, Mandaeans, Samaritans and Amharic/Ethio-Semitic speakers having a historical continuum into the present day. Their languages are usually divided into two main branches: East and West Semitic. The oldest attested forms of Semitic date to the early to mid-3rd millennium BCE (the Early Bronze Age) in Mesopotamia, the northwest Levant and southeast Anatolia. Perhaps the earliest attested inscription of any Semitic language was written in the Proto-Sinaitic script in King Unas' Tomb in Egypt around the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE. Speakers of East Semitic included the people of the Akkadian Empire, Ebla, Assyria and Babylonia, but the branch's languages...

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