Central Semitic languages
| Central Semitic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Middle East and North Africa |
| Genetic classification: |
Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic |
| Subdivisions: |
|
The Central Semitic languages are an intermediate group of Semitic
languages, comprising Arabic and Northwest Semitic (including Canaanite
(Hebrew), Aramaic and
Different classification systems disagree on the precise structure of the group. The most common approach divides it into Arabic and Northwest Semitic, while SIL Ethnologue has South Central Semitic (including Arabic and Hebrew) vs. Aramaic.
The main distinction between Arabic and the Northwest Semitic languages is the presence of broken plurals in the former. The majority of Arabic nouns form plurals in this manner, whereas almost all nouns in the Northwest Semitic languages form their plurals with a suffix (for example, Ar. بيت bayt 'house' → بيوت buyūt 'houses', He. בית bayit 'house' → בתים battîm 'houses').
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