THE PLACE OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE IN COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

Abstract

Semitic languages date back to ancient times, and the area where they were spoken did not change much for about three millennia (except Ethiopia) until the spread of Islam in the 7th century. The name Semitic comes from the Old Testament from the legendary Shem, the son of Noah, because the peoples and tribes of the Arabian Peninsula who spoke and still speak numerous languages were considered his descendants. Numerous written monuments originating from the 3rd millennium BC. e. speak of the territorial distribution of Semitic languages from the Middle East to the Iranian Plateau. Later, the Semitic languages spread to the region of North Africa. There is ample evidence of the presence of Arabs in the ancient Middle East, in the lands of the Fertile Crescent and neighboring regions, but Arabic became the dominant Semitic language with the rise and expansion of Islam in the 7th century AD. e. The Arabic language had enormous importance in the Middle Ages, and it was also one of the most important languages of human civilization. In this paper, I will deal with the position of the Arabic language in a comparative study with its related Semitic languages.