Sound Changes in Semitic Languages - Consonant Shifts

In this video, I talk a little bit about consonant shifts in Semitic languages, mostly Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. After finding some rules for how these changes work, I talk about some difficulties and cases in which these rules don't seem to apply. I go on to explain these phenomena and use two specific processes as examples - coalescence and long distance assimilation.

[@xh7385]

Bro's recording equipment is underpaid and on strike.

[@dionysus1394]

Dropping a bomb ass project that warrants several follow ups and then dipping for half a decade is what I strive to accomplish

[@UltraSpark303]

Arabic letter is so beautiful 🤩

[@xavierreichel8254]

Great video! I love running into quality phonological content, and I'm sure your channel is going amazing places.

[@kirkalbrecht9557]

My man made an amazing educational video and then never uploaded again

[@drfudgecookie5800]

This is awesome! I love these linguistic break downs, especially in relation to proto languages and linguistic families!

[@Catuireal]

Nice content. But it demands concentration and the music in the back doesn't help...

[@spacelogisticsinc468]

More videos like this, please 🙏

[@owbi2431]

fun fact most people in the levant don't say 8 as thamania ثمانية but instead as tmana تمانة

[@gottod6895]

In North Africa it is tmenya.

[@tunistick8044]

​@@gottod6895 not true, in tunisian it's thmanya

[@Ptaku93]

great content, something that I really need to get to know for my conlang! when can we expect a new video from you??

[@paxphonetica5800]

Awesome video

[@Jittzi]

I'm not expecting you (R S) to reply, but does anyone reading this comment happen to know the font used in this video? edit: nevermind, already found it. in case anyone is wondering, the font is 'Alef'.

[@AndriiAndrusiak]

What software did you use to produce those amazing animated tables?

[@dragonitzgame]

The next video never came out...

[@pinkashram]

Nice work. Looking forward to more from you. If you can increase the volume that would be great!

[@SirAU]

:(

[@katathoombz]

6:09 This reasoning is verily true.

[@abdullahalrai]

I believe Arabic actually retains its original sound of consonants ث س ش, where as Hebrew uses ש to represent all three Arabic consents, which causes the readers to only pronounce Sh for all three different sounds as can be seen in the example of Arabic Sitta and Thalatha in Hebrew Shesh and Shalosh.

[@nabatean180]

No in proto Sematic there were many ''S'' sounds and arabic deleted couple of them Arabic might be closer to proto sematic but didn't retain all sounds Like ق\ط\ظ\ض\ص they were pronounced differently

[@abdullahalrai]

@@nabatean180 the sounds that you have mentioned are all retained in Arabic (Qaf / T’aw / Dhaw / Dhawd / Tsawd) where as in Hebrew and Aramaic, most of them are lost except Tsawd / Tsadi, which even is pronounced as S. (sin) and 3ayn also sometimes sounds like A most of the time. Whereas in Arabic, the actual sounds are preserved until to this day.

[@nabatean180]

@@abdullahalrai Firs of all aramaic still has them. but my point is in proto sematic the Qaf and the rest of letters are pornounced differently. They are pronounced as the Qaf in south arabian languages or ethiopians.

[@abdullahalrai]

@@nabatean180 so does Arabic, it’s a Dialectal issue rather than giving its full Actual right to that Individual Letter for e.g if you have noticed in ق suppose to be Q sound rather than G or K sound or ج suppose to be J sound rather G, or ك suppose to be K sound rather than Kh خ sound, as can be noticed in Ethiopian / Hebrew / Aramaic languages. so there are many factors at play which causes the Actual right of that letter-sound to deflect from its place, dialectal issue, easiness of the tongue, Foreigners influence on those letters etc. that is why I remember when I was learning Arabic at young age, my teacher was very much keen on focusing the right pronunciation of Arabic letters and words.

[@Pingwn]

The letters س and ش have definitely changed over time, Arabic has lost the consonant ɬ and it is believed that originally س was pronounced as ʃ and ش as ɬ but there was a sound shift over time.

[@frasenp8411]

Good video, however how come you use the ר as a [ʁ] and not as the historical trill/tap? is it for easy of pronounciation for yourself or ? anyway I hope you make more videos

[@frasenp8411]

@@RS-yp4gq Aah okay thanks for the answer :)

[@abhinavchauhan7864]

@@RS-yp4gq can you make the same kind of video about Sanskrit

[@starlonga]

Please make more videoes

[@TheSdzfr]

So Hebrew has Shesh, interestingly enough Sanskrit has Shat. Would be interesting if Indo-European languages are a part of Afro-Asiatic only, or vice-versa.

[@megasupreme9985]

I've noticed this too There were some old theories that Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afro-Asiatic are related, but they have since been widely rejected. It's likely that when the Indo-Europeans migrated southward, they came into contact with the Afro-Asiatic peoples, and both influenced one another. The original PIE word for six was Sueks The original PAA word for six would likely have been something like Shidis or Sidis Keep in mind, PIE is relatively quite recent in relation to PAA. PAA appeared around twelve to eighteen thousand years ago, while PIE appeared around seven thousand years ago.

[@TheSdzfr]

@@megasupreme9985 thanks, information appreciated. But if one language family influences another, then how long do they take to merge into a single, third language family?

[@megasupreme9985]

@@TheSdzfr It depends. Two languages in contact with one another won't necessarily merge into one single language. With English for example, while tons of words for this Germanic language began to be borrowed from the Romance languages Latin and French, the two never truly merged as one. English generally stayed the same in the way of grammar and core vocabulary. There may be some estimate out there for the minimum amount of time it *could* take, but I am not aware of any.

[@TheSdzfr]

@@megasupreme9985 But if people can merge, why can't languages. I sometimes Imagine an alternative history (alternative, not real), scenario, where Indo-Europeans migrated southwards completely and Niger-Congo moved northwards, slowly and steadily these two families engulfed Afro-Asiatic as the races interbred and new languages arose. The Indo-European language family engulfs the Asiatic section and Niger-Congo engulfs Afro section. Perhaps that way, Berber and Cuschitic would be Niger-Congo and Semitic would be Indo-European in this alternate dimension. Imagine if a language called "Arabic/Arabian" is spoken like Persian, Greek and Latin hybrid in the Peninsular deserts. They aren't Loanwords but Words in general. Most of them and the grammar similar to PIE, however certain parts of PAA survives in all of them. How will it sound like? Perhaps not too dissimilar to modern Spanish, English, etc. We would have one language family less, but languages equal to what is there in the modern scenario.

[@megasupreme9985]

Relatively recently I've come across a source that offers a more detailed explanation than the one I'd previously given you. It goes like this: "It appears somewhat likely that six and seven were both early wanderworts. Proto-Indo-European: swéḱs septḿ̥ (or possibly kswéḱs?) Proto-Semitic: šidṯ šabʕ (šabʕatum in feminine) Egyptian: yVssá sáfḫa Etruscan: śa semph (or huth semph) Basque: sei zazpi Proto-Kartvelian: ekʂwi šwidi Hurrian: šeše šinti (Note that most of those listed as š, except Kartvelian, were probably all /s/). Proto-Semitic and PIE are especially close with 7, while PIE and Kartvelian are extremely close with 6 (especially Indo-Iranian, which has evidence of an initial *k throughout the family). Some others don't appear so close, and some may be chance resemblance, but at least a few appear to have been very early borrowings." I will also add that the V in Egyptian yVssá represents an unknown vowel, rather than an actual v-sound. A wanderwort is basically a word that has spread across the world into various unrelated languages through contact with one another. Another example would be the English word for 'orange', which originally was from a Dravidian language like Tamil 'nāram'. It was then borrowed into Sanskrit (nāraṅga), then Persian (nârang), then Arabic (nāranj), then Italian (arancia), then French (orenge), and finally into English. These languages are from three completely different language families, and yet share the same word. It's not coincidence, but it's also not because they share a common ancestor; it's because they share geographic proximity and interact with each other via trade.

[@SionTJobbins]

Great video, but please sort out the sound and volume and drop the pointless music.

[@blazeጸወታታት]

Im so confused where is Eritrea and Ethiopia?

[@mutalix]

In africa

[@1luv.]

horn of africa

[@blazeጸወታታት]

No On the list I meant

[@tFighterPilot]

Amharic is mentioned in the video.

[@blazeጸወታታት]

Tigrinya is more close

[@abdullahali7237]

numbers in araib have a missing word at the end number 6 is sitt(a) number 8 is thamani(a) thats the name of the general number but if its with anoter one it will be pronunced like you did sitta = just 6 siit = six and something like sixtyeight sitt wa thmanon with (o) sound in the end of sitt sorry if i did not explain it correctly

[@ionatizonismyocrinthia]

S or Sh or Shv

[@jibriel4918]

Arabic kept its consonants

[@user-vm9xz4kv9z]

It kept 28 out of 29,making it the most conservative Semitic language.

[@7164227]

@@user-vm9xz4kv9z What's this one consonants that is missing?

[@user-vm9xz4kv9z]

Proto-Semitic had s ʃ (old sheen) ɬ In arabic merged with And became the new (modern sheen)

[@7164227]

@@user-vm9xz4kv9z ​ thanks for the reply. but don't (s) and (sh) still exist cuz we pronounce it. I know the actual letter is (sheen) but we just say sha.I don't study these things and im just a native speaker. It's very interesting to me.

[@user-vm9xz4kv9z]

@@7164227 but we lost (lh), a sound that no longer exist in Arabic.

[@benavraham4397]

Obviously, the coolest👍🇮🇱 !

[@rhetoric5173]

Nice lopsided explanation. The reason it’s S and not SH is because Hebrew and Aramaic are mumbled pidgins. They have no S at all. Just Sh, same with the kh snort sound without the h like I’m Arabic.

[@yahudi9936]

Or the more correct explanation is that Semitic languages spoken by people of actual civilisations evolve faster than languages spoken by inconsequential Arabian desert primitives. Have you noticed how Arabic has to reuse multiple letters for different sounds? It's because the people who developed the original alphabet didn't retain the crud that was not required, unlike the Arabians.

[@rhetoric5173]

@@yahudi9936 yahudi indeed 🤣the limits of language are the limits of thought;thus the yahudi speaking creole is unable to comprehend

[@albertmiller2electricbooga897]

wow you guys are both great at being racist

[@ranro7371]

Arabic is basically protosemitic, the relationship between our and other "semitic" languages is that of Latin and the romance languages.

[@curlysue9436]

Not true. Hebrew is much older than Arabic and anyway, they all came from an older, proto-Semitic language

[@ranro7371]

@@curlysue9436 Hebrew is literally mumbled Arabic.

[@curlysue9436]

@@darkkiller9996 I'm just going to leave this here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages If you scroll down a little bit (to the 2nd picture, that shows a chronology of Semitic languages), you will see that (ancient) Hebrew is more than 1,000 years older than Arabic. It's not even close. Also, the Hebrew alphabet was influenced by the Pheonicians, not by Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The fact that you saw a stone once for a few seconds and thought "this looks kind of similar" doesn't mean anything. That's not how linguists determine is something was influenced by something else.

[@curlysue9436]

@@darkkiller9996 P.S. The Rosetta Stone is currently being held (preserved) at the British Museum in London. You wouldn't have gotten to see it in Egypt. Stop making things up.

[@curlysue9436]

@@darkkiller9996 No, I don't speak Arabic and am not listening to an entire audiobook. If anything you're saying here is true, you should be able to prove it with a link. FYI, proof that the Hebrew alphabet was originally influenced by Phoenician writing: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Hebrew_alphabet Given that Hebrew has phonetic letters, and Egyptian hieroglyphs were logo-graphic (meaning-based) characters, like Chinese, it wouldn't make sense for one of them to be influenced by the other. They don't even look alike.