They were spoken in what is today Israel, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, the northern Sinai peninsula, some northern and eastern parts of the Arabian peninsula, southwest fringes of Turkey, and in the case of Phoenician, coastal regions of Tunisia (Carthage), Libya and Algeria, and possibly in ...

Is Arabic a Semitic language?

Arabic language, Southern-Central Semitic language spoken in a large area including North Africa, most of the Arabian Peninsula, and other parts of the Middle East. (See Afro-Asiatic languages.) Arabic is the language of the Qurʾān (or Koran, the sacred book of Islam) and the religious language of all Muslims.

Is Ethiopian a Semitic language?

Ethiopian Semitic (also Ethio-Semitic, Ethiosemitic, Ethiopic or Abyssinian) is a family of languages spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. They form the western branch of the South Semitic languages, itself a sub-branch of Semitic, part of the Afroasiatic language family.