# Semitic languages: similarities



## pcplus

Do they have anything in common the Hebrew and the Arabic languages?

I have read names and different words in Hebrew and Arabic and they don't sound too different

Maybe the origin of these languages and the nearly georgraphic situation make it so


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## elroy

Yes, they have a lot in common.

They are both Semitic languages so they share many lexical, morphological, phonological, and grammatical features. 

Furthermore, in Israel the languages are spoken side by side and that has led to many colloquial borrowings in both directions. 

The languages are not similar enough, however, to be mutually intelligible (unfortunately ).


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## Shlama_98

As mentioned above, different languages (That are not intelligible) but do share a lot in common because they belong to the same family branch.


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## pcplus

Shlama_98 said:


> As mentioned above, different languages (That are not intelligible) but do share a lot in common because they belong to the same family branch.


like French and Romanian and Spanish, all of them derive from Latin


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## pachyderm

My impression is that Spanish and French are more similar than Hebrew and Arabic, I'm not sure though.


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## elroy

What gives you that impression?


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## amikama

pachyderm said:


> My impression is that Spanish and French are more similar than Hebrew and Arabic, I'm not sure though.


Interesting - this is also my impression, although I don't know French and Arabic.

I can think of at least two reasons for this impression:

1) Spanish and French are written in the same script, while Hebrew and Arabic aren't.

2) When I read French, I can guess several words that look familiar. When I read Arabic (transcribed into Hebrew script), much less words look familiar. (Of course there are clear exceptions, such as כול כלב ביג'י יומו  )


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## Shlama_98

Since I don't speak Spanish or French I can't make a judgment, but with Arabic and Hebrew you can find a lot of common words (As well with other Semitic languages), and also depending on Hebrew dialects as well, for example I find Yemeni Jews who speak their Hebrew dialect sound close to Arabic, but the mainstream Hebrew dialect sounds like Semitic/Hebrew French lol.


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## pachyderm

I speak all four languages, more or less, and I find that a very small portion of the vocabulary in Hebrew and Arabic is common, much smaller than in Spanish and French, at any rate.


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## Shlama_98

pachyderm said:


> I speak all four languages, more or less, and I find that a very small portion of the vocabulary in Hebrew and Arabic is common, much smaller than in Spanish and French, at any rate.



In what sense do you want it to be common? like exact words used by both languages or words that are in someway similar but don't exacly sound the same? let me give you an example:

a) Shalom = Salam <---Similar, but not the same word.

b) Melek = Melek <---- Same word that sounds the same.

Are you making your judgment based on option a or b?


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## modus.irrealis

Not knowing much about either Arabic or Hebrew, is it possible that French and Spanish share more words because they both form their higher-register words (for lack of a better term) on the same Latin (and Greek) roots, with minimal differences like -tion ~ -ción and ph ~ f, while Hebrew and Arabic have different resources for coining such terms? For example, do Arabic and Hebrew use the same roots for words like like "conscience" or "communication?" And then I guess, even if they did use cognate rote, they might still end up being very different and be comparable to such pairs as French _fils_ and Spanish _hijo_, which can't really be called similar. Does that make any sense at all?


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## elroy

Shlama_98 said:


> b) Melek = Melek <---- Same word that sounds the same.


 Actually it's "m*a*lek" in (colloquial) Arabic and "mele*ch*" in Hebrew but your point was well made.  


modus.irrealis said:


> Not knowing much about either Arabic or Hebrew, is it possible that French and Spanish share more words because they both form their higher-register words (for lack of a better term) on the same Latin (and Greek) roots, with minimal differences like -tion ~ -ción and ph ~ f, while Hebrew and Arabic have different resources for coining such terms? For example, do Arabic and Hebrew use the same roots for words like like "conscience" or "communication?" And then I guess, even if they did use cognate rote, they might still end up being very different and be comparable to such pairs as French _fils_ and Spanish _hijo_, which can't really be called similar. Does that make any sense at all?


 Yes - excellent point!

Indeed, I would say that the vast majority of cognates in French and Spanish are "higher-register words" with the same roots, whereas most everyday words are not cognates. With Arabic and Hebrew, I find that the opposite is true. Political terms tend to be different, whereas the words for parts of the body are almost all cognates! 

And you're right about the existence of "not obvious" cognates - especially if you compare Hebrew with colloquial Arabic. It may not be obvious, for example, that "regel" (Hebrew) and "ijer" (Palestinian Arabic) come from the same root.

One last point: "Similarity" between two languages is not based only on vocabulary. As Semitic languages, Hebrew and Arabic demonstrate remarkable grammatical and morphological similarities. Of course, so do Spanish and French, but I just want us to keep that in mind.


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## yuvali

There are quite a few arabic *slang* words that became an integral part of the *spoken* hebrew slang. Most noteably, Yalla and Walla, both very common words, spoken many times a day.

They are both used in several situations so it's a little hard to describe their exact meanings.
Yalla basicly means something like - "It's time to go" or "Get a move on".
Walla basicly means something like - "(You are) Right!", "This is correct!", "I understand!"...

- Yuval


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## Nunty

Let us not forget ahla! and sababa! -- my personal favorites.


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## elroy

Nun-Translator said:


> Let us not forget ahla!


 Is it really pronounced "ahla" in Hebrew or was that a typo?  Because in Arabic's it's either "ahla*n*" or "*ha*la" - but not "ahla."


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## elroy

Moderator Note: The discussion about the pronunciation of the word for "king" in Arabic and Hebrew has earned itself a new thread.


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## Tizona

modus.irrealis said:


> And then I guess, even if they did use cognate rote, they might still end up being very different and be comparable to such pairs as French _fils_ and Spanish _hijo_, which can't really be called similar. Does that make any sense at all?



Although I don't know any Hebrew (well, I don't any Arabic either...) this is not a very good example to show the differences between French and Spanish. 
Both languages come from Latin and it is usually the case, that what was an 'f' in Latin has remained as an 'f' in French (and in Italian) but has become an 'h' in Spanish (h aspirada). So both words have the same root but have developed in different ways:

Latin= filius, i
French= fils
Italian= figlio
Spanish= hijo


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## Nunty

elroy said:


> Is it really pronounced "ahla" in Hebrew or was that a typo?  Because in Arabic's it's either "ahla*n*" or "*ha*la" - but not "ahla."


Hmmm. The word I mean is אחלה, which we use as "great!" "cool!" "wonderful" or just "OK, that works for me". I _believe_ it means "beauty" in Arabic, and so we use it like יופי, which is sort of dated as slang, but also means "beauty".

Is that the same as the words you mention in Arabic?


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## elroy

Nun-Translator said:


> Hmmm. The word I mean is אחלה, which we use as "great!" "cool!" "wonderful" or just "OK, that works for me". I _believe_ it means "beauty" in Arabic, and so we use it like יופי, which is sort of dated as slang, but also means "beauty".
> 
> Is that the same as the words you mention in Arabic?


 Ah - no. This is the problem with transliteration! 

I was thinking of the normal "h" sound (the Hebrew ה) and not the guttural "h" sound (the Hebrew ח). "Ahlan" and "hala" are ways to say "hello" in Arabic. 

אחלה in Arabic means "*more* beautiful" and yes it can be used to mean "how cool" but we would usually say "ma a7la." We do not use it to mean "OK" though but this is not the only borrowed word that has changed or broadened its meaning in the receiving language!


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## Nunty

I was taken some liberties with the "okay". It is not like בסדר, more emphatic. אחלה, החלטנו. בוא נזוז כבר (Great, we've made a decision. Let's get moving.)

We say אהלן, too, of course.


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## modus.irrealis

elroy said:


> Indeed, I would say that the vast majority of cognates in French and Spanish are "higher-register words" with the same roots, whereas most everyday words are not cognates. With Arabic and Hebrew, I find that the opposite is true. Political terms tend to be different, whereas the words for parts of the body are almost all cognates!


Thanks - that was sort of my suspicion.



> One last point: "Similarity" between two languages is not based only on vocabulary. As Semitic languages, Hebrew and Arabic demonstrate remarkable grammatical and morphological similarities. Of course, so do Spanish and French, but I just want us to keep that in mind.


I've read that the Semitic languages are roughly analogous to the Romance languages in divergence, so I'd assume that from the historical point of view the languages are equally similar, but I guess from a layman's point of view that might be different and vocabulary would play a bigger role because it's more obvious (I guess the funny thing is that in this sense written French and Spanish are similar but not the spoken versions.)



Tizona said:


> Although I don't know any Hebrew (well, I don't any Arabic either...) this is not a very good example to show the differences between French and Spanish.


From the historical point of view, I agree, but it's my feeling in this case that this historical link wouldn't be obvious to a person who did not know the history of the languages.


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## PianoMan

If this hasn't already been said:  Shalom Aleichem - Salaam Aleikum

   I think it's quite obvious about these two languages' similarities but what about other semetic languages like Syriac (I think it is) and Aramaic, I know someone who posted here is fluent in those two.  Just out of curiosity,


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## Shlama_98

PianoMan said:


> If this hasn't already been said:  Shalom Aleichem - Salaam Aleikum
> 
> I think it's quite obvious about these two languages' similarities but what about other semetic languages like Syriac (I think it is) and Aramaic, I know someone who posted here is fluent in those two.  Just out of curiosity,



Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, it's not another language. I am fluent in both Syriac and Arabic, if you want to compare Hebrew with Aramaic it's best to create another thread because that's what will end up happeening anyways


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## elroy

Actually, it might be interesting to turn this thread into a discussion of similarities between all Semitic languages.  All I would have to do would be change the title of the thread.


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## eli-milqo

hello!
I noticed that somebody said that he thinks that french and spanish have more in commmon than Hebrew and Arabic...
I agree that ...especially from the grammatical point of view .... latin originated languages are similar to each other gramatically more than  Arabic, Syriac and hebrew becasue each one of these three languages has its own shape of grammer and sentence making and arabic is the one most complicated amongst them.
about phonetics ... in general Syriac and Hebrew are similar to each other I think (( but not modern hebrew prounounciation as it is used in modern state of israel)) and Arabic also is similar to them but not as much as they are to each other ... for example in Hebrew and Syriac there are voices like " O , E " and such voices don't exist in literal Arabic...but by the way they exist in the spoken Arabic of many countries. for example in Syria or Lebanon and this region some times arabic words are pronounced like Syriac or canaanite languages like we say in arabic " katib" which means writer, or some one who's writting ....and in some spoken dialects ((like I speak)) we hear them saying " koteb" which is more into canaanite dialects and Syriac language. 
about scripture...Arabic, Syriac and Hebrew are  different talking about alphabets.. Arabic nowadays uses Arabic alphabet ...Syriac uses three Alphabets(" Etrangela, Serto "western" , Nestorian "eastern" ) , and hebrew uses Aramaic quadrat letters .
that's what I know and think briefly .
Shukran jazeelan 
Tawdi sagi 
todah rabah


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## PianoMan

It has gotten to the point where I've actually forgotten the initial discussion topic of the thread...wow...well, I'm all for elroy's idea, no sense creating another thread...as long as people stick with the revised version.  

And thanks for the information of the Syriac dialect.  It does use a different syllabry writing system though, right?  However, I think one thing to metion though is how pervasive the Semitic languages were into North Africa, not just with the spread of Islam/Arabic, but the Ethiopian use of the Amharic alphabet.


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## MiamianIsraeli

Sorry to muddy the waters, but I thought that the original comment about אהלה was that was יהלה (sp?) taken from Arabic, and meaning let's go, although I always discover a new meaning.

Actually, just to add another dimension to this thread I'm traveling to Ethiopia in a couple of months and Amharic is also considered Semitic. What are the cross-communicational possibilities?


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## elroy

MiamianIsraeli said:


> Sorry to muddy the waters, but I thought that the original comment about אהלה was that was יהלה (sp?) taken from Arabic, and meaning let's go, although I always discover a new meaning.


 I'm not sure what you mean here. 

"Ahla" and "yalla" are two different loan words with different meanings.


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## Nunty

I think this is due to my poor transliteration of אחלה several posts back.  Miamian, ahla is the word I meant. It's like יופי, but more modern.


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## MiamianIsraeli

בסדר

BTW, I'm taking a trip to Ethiopia soon and Amharic is also a Semitic language. We'll see how similar.


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## PianoMan

Oh, that should be interesting...do you plan to learn a dialect or anything?  Also, it could just be me but their names might give away something:  Amharic - Aramaic - Arabic, maybe some similarity the name?  Let me know what you think.


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## MiamianIsraeli

PianoMan said:


> Oh, that should be interesting...do you plan to learn a dialect or anything?  Also, it could just be me but their names might give away something:  Amharic - Aramaic - Arabic, maybe some similarity the name?  Let me know what you think.



No, I don't plan to learn the language beyond a few useful phrases. Learning a language takes months of intensive study and I'll only be there a few weeks.

I don't think that there is a connection in the names. The word Aramaic comes from Aram, a name synonymous with Syria and Arabic from Arabia. I've been reading up on Ethiopia but I haven't found what the root of the name Amharic, in their language Amhareegna, is.


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## Flaminius

PianoMan said:


> Amharic - Aramaic - Arabic, maybe some similarity the name?  Let me know what you think.


Not quite.  Note that the first consonant for the Arabic name for Arabic is pharyngeal fricative (ayin) while that for the other two is glottal stop (alef).

Amharic is called _āmariññā_ by the natives.
Arabic is called _al-luġah al-*ʿarabiyyah*_ by the natives.
Aramaic is called _Ārāmāyâ_ by the natives.

Hebrew is called _ʿIvrit_ by the natives (all according to Wikipedia).  Arabic and Hebrew share the same radicals but in different orders; `-R-B and `-B-R.  I don't think there is anything more than a coincidental relationship but, well, it is interesting.


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## eli-milqo

hello !!
about the similarities between names of the languages:

Arabic (( Aarabi or Aarabiah))....is originally as I think from ((Araba)) which means ((desert)) in old semetic languages and the Arabian ((Arabi)) originally is some one from Arabia which in generall ((not totally)) a deserted land!

Hebrew (( Ivri - Ivrith)) as I think is from the verb ((Avar)) in hebrew and ((Abar)) in Arabic ...which means ((he passed)) ..and I think that the hebrews were called this way because they passed the rivers as the story says ((tigris,euphrates,Jordan)) or maybe passed somewhere else that's why they were called ((Ivrim)) I think. but anyway there might be other better theories or documents. 

that's why I think the names don't have a relation in the way Flaminius said.

thanks


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## PianoMan

Thank you for the information, that is actually quite interesting and I'll keep it in mind.


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