Proto-Semitic

Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical proto-language ancestral to historical Semitic languages of the Middle East. Places which have been proposed for its original Urheimat location include northern Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Levant with a 2009 study proposing that it may have originated around 3750 BCE. The Semitic language family is considered a component of the larger Afroasiatic macro-family of languages.

The earliest attestations of a Semitic language are in Akkadian, dating to around the 23rd century BC (see Sargon of Akkad) and Eblaite, but earlier evidence of Akkadian comes from personal names in Sumerian texts around 2800 BC. Researchers in Egypt also claim to have discovered Canaanite snake spells that "date from between 3000 and 2400 BC".

The specific appearance of the donkey (an African animal) in Proto-Semitic but total absence of any reference to wheeled vehicles dates Proto-Semitic, rather narrowly, to between 3800 BC and 3500 BC.

Semiticists have put importance in locating the Urheimat of the Proto-Semitic language since all modern Semitic languages can be traced back to a common ancestor. The Urheimat of the Proto-Semites cannot be determined without considering the larger Afro-Asiatic family to which it belongs. The previously popular Arabian Urheimat hypothesis has been largely abandoned since the region could not have supported massive waves of emigration before the domestication of camels in the second millennium BC.

Some geneticists and archaeologists have argued for a back migration of proto-Afroasiatic speakers from Southwestern Asia to Africa as early as 10,000 BC. The Natufians might have spoken a proto-Afroasiatic language just prior to its disintegration into sub-languages. The hypothesis is supported by the Afroasiatic terms for early livestock and crops in both Anatolia and Iran. Recent Bayesian analysis identified an origin for Proto-Semitic language in the Levant around 3750 BC, with a later single introduction from what is now Southern Arabia into the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia) around 800 BC.

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