Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples
There are several locations proposed as possible sites for prehistoric origins of Semitic-speaking peoples: Mesopotamia, the Levant, Eastern Mediterranean, Eritrea and Ethiopia[1] the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa.
Largely for this reason, the ancestors of Proto-Semitic speakers were originally believed by some to have first arrived in the Middle East from North Africa, possibly as part of the operation of the Saharan pump, around the late Neolithic.
According to Christy G. Turner II, there is an archaeological and physical anthropological reason for a relation between the modern Semitic-speaking populations of the Levant and the Natufian culture.
[9] In one interpretation, Proto-Semitic itself is assumed to have reached the Arabian Peninsula by approximately the 4th millennium BC, from which Semitic daughter languages continued to spread outwards.
When written records began in the late fourth millennium BC, the Semitic-speaking Akkadians (Assyrians and Babylonians) were entering Mesopotamia from the deserts to the west, and were probably already present in places such as Ebla in Syria.
[11] Between the 30th and 20th centuries BC, Semitic languages were spoken and recorded over a broad area covering much of the Ancient Near East, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula.
The earliest written evidence of them is found in the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia) c. the 30th century BC, an area encompassing Sumer, the Akkadian Empire and other civilizations of Assyria and Babylonia along the Tigris and Euphrates (modern Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey and the fringe of northwest Iran), followed by historical written evidence from the Levant and Canaan (present day Israel, Lebanon, Palestinian territories, Western Jordan, South Syria ), Sinai Peninsula, southern and eastern Anatolia (modern Turkey) and the northeast Arabian Peninsula.
However, some of the names appearing on the Sumerian King List as prehistoric rulers of Kish have been held to indicate a Semitic presence even before this, as early as the 30th or 29th century BC.
Of the West Semitic-speaking peoples who occupied what is today Syria (excluding the East Semitic Assyrian north east), Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and the Sinai peninsula, the earliest references concern the Canaanite-speaking Amorites (known as "Martu" or "Amurru" by the Mesopotamians) of northern and eastern Syria, and date from the 24th century BC in Mesopotamian annals.
The appearance of nomadic Semitic-speaking Ahlamu, Arameans and Suteans in historical record also dates from the late 14th century BC, the Arameans coming to dominate an area roughly corresponding with modern Syria (which became known as Aram or Aramea), subsuming the earlier Amorites, and founding states such as Aram-Damascus, Luhuti, Bit Agusi, Hamath, Aram-Naharaim, Paddan-Aram, Aram-Rehob, Idlib and Zobah, while the Suteans occupied the deserts of south eastern Syria and north eastern Jordan.
Between the 13th and 11th centuries BC, a number of small Canaanite-speaking states arose in southern Canaan, an area approximately corresponding to modern Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Sinai Peninsula.
These were the lands of the Edomites, Moabites, Hebrews (Israelites/Judaeans/Samaritans), Ammonites, (Ekronites, Suteans and Amalekites, all of whom spoke closely related west Semitic Canaanite languages.
Phoenician colonies (such as Carthage) spread their Canaanite language throughout much of the Mediterranean, while its close relative, Hebrew, became the vehicle of a religious literature, the Torah and Tanakh, which would have global ramifications.
Ethiopian Semitic languages are first attested by the ninth century BC, with the earliest proto-Ge'ez inscriptions of the kingdom of Dʿmt using the South Arabian alphabet.
A Canaanite group known as the Phoenicians came to dominate the coasts of Syria, Lebanon and south west Turkey from the 13th century BC, founding city states such as Tyre, Sidon, Byblos Simyra, Arwad, Berytus (Beirut), Antioch and Aradus, eventually spreading their influence throughout the Mediterranean, including building colonies in Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, the Iberian Peninsula and the coasts of North Africa, founding the major city state of Carthage (in modern Tunisia) in the 9th century BC.
A number of Semitic-speaking states are mentioned as existing in what was much later to become known as the Arabian Peninsula in Akkadian and Assyrian records as colonies of these Mesopotamian powers, such as Meluhha and Dilmun (in modern Bahrain).
Subsequent interaction with other Afroasiatic-speaking populations, Cushitic speakers who had settled in the area some centuries prior, gave rise to the present-day Ethiopian Semitic languages.
Aramaic dialects continued to be dominant among the peoples of what are today Iraq, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestinian territories, Kuwait, Sinai, south eastern Turkey, and parts of northwestern Iran and some areas the northern Arabian peninsula, until the Arab Islamic conquest of the 7th century AD.
