Rethinking Proto-Semitic

This week, I was stoked to attend a workshop in Marburg, Germany, entitled “Rethinking Proto-Semitic” and organized by profs Stefan Weninger and Michael Waltisberg. Despite some cancellations, the workshop had an amazing lineup of speakers—and a terrific atmosphere. Here’s my summary of the talks.

Leonid Kogan, “What can we learn from Eblaite on Proto-Semitic morphology?” Ongoing study and decipherment of the 24th-century BCE East Semitic language from Ebla, Syria shows the following features that are interesting for reconstruction:

1. personal pronouns: independent 1sg. /ʔanā/, 1pl. /nuḥnū/, 2m.sg. /ʔatta/, 2m.pl. /ʔattunu/, 3m.sg. /suwa/, 3f.sg. /siya/; suffixed 1du. /-nay/, 1pl. /-nu/, 2du. /-kumay(n)/, 3du. /-sumay(n)/
2. 3m.pl. prefix conjugation /ti-…-ū/
3. t-perfect, as in Mesopotamian Akkadian
4. autobenefactive use of the ventive /-am/
5. no subjunctive marker -u, unlike Mesopotamian Akkadian (this is big)
6. t-stem infinitives with both prefixation and infixation, like dar-da-bí-tum /tartappidum/ ‘to roam here and there’, cf. ra-ba-tum /rapādum/ ‘to roam’
7. nominal oblique “masculine” plural ending /-ay/, as reconstructed for Sargonic Akkadian and Assyrian and compatible with Babylonian; unlike Central Semitic *-ī-na
8. singular case endings preserved in the construct state and before pronominal suffixes, e.g. ba-lu da-a-tim /baʕlu daʕātim/ ‘owner of knowledge (nom.)’, me-gi-ru12-zu /migrusu/ ‘his favourite (nom.)’
9. productive use of terminative *-is, e.g. DU-ti-iš /halaktis/ ‘for the journey’
10. ‘twenty’ with -ū vowel like Central Semitic, not -ā like other languages

Maria Bulakh, “Intercalated *a as a plural marker in Soqotri and its implications for the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic”. While superficially hard to recognize (and Jorik and I didn’t attempt to in our paper on this subject), reconstruction of Modern South Arabian and especially Soqotri attest insertion of *-a- between the second and third radical of *CVCC- nouns in the plural. No external plural suffix though.

Me, “Rethinking the Proto-Semitic stative”. Slides here. Got some good suggestions for languages where I could go looking for a synchronic distinction between resultative *qatal-a and preterit *ya-qtul.

Ahmad Al-Jallad, “Revisiting the post-verbal morphemes *-u and *-n(V) in Semitic: a proposal for a unified theory”. The different verbal suffixes/enclitics shaped like -u and -n(V) in Akkadian, Central Semitic possibly Modern South Arabian, and Gurage (South Abyssinian) could all descend from the Proto-Semitic *=u(m) locative, which gained various subordinating and durative meanings. Central Semitic *ya-qtul-u instead of *ya-qattal-u for the imperfect could show a collapse in the distinction between *ya-qtul and *ya-qattal related to the rise of the West Semitic perfect *qatal-a.

Michael Waltisberg, “Issues of reconstructive methodology in Semitics”. Based on his review of Rebecca Hasselbach(-Andee)’s 2013 Case in Semitic, Waltisberg discussed some methodological questions like whether our reconstructed Proto-Semitic represents an actually spoken language or just maps correspondences between different languages and whether there is room for dialectal diversity and different chronological stages within a protolanguage. (Prof. Hasselbach-Andee sadly had to cancel her planned attendance.)

Lutz Edzard, “Linguistic divergence and convergence in Arabic and Semitic revisited”. As the most protolanguage-sceptic scholar at the workshop, Edzard reviewed some of his problems with the linear-descent-only family tree model where every language in a family descends from a kind of ancestral singularity with no internal diversity.

Vera Tsukanova, “What can modern Arabic dialects reveal about the etymology of the L-stem in Semitic?” The development of the L-stem (*qātal-) in historical Arabic suggests that it is more likely that this stem originally had a concrete meaning like applicative that was bleached in some languages than that it was originally vague and acquired its specific meaning in pre-Arabic.

Eran Cohen, “Semitic k-based similative particles—comparative and diachronic aspects”. Different Semitic particles starting with k- can be diachronically related to each other according to recognized historical pathways of development.

Na’ama Pat-El, “Homomorphs and reconstruction”. We are probably not dealing with one, syncretic morpheme but rather two homophonous ones in the cases of 1) prefix conjugation 2m.sg./3f.sg. *t-; (2) f.sg. abstract noun/m.pl. adjective suffix *-ūt-; (3) f.sg. noun or adjective/weak root verbal noun or infinitive suffix *-t-. In the latter, most controversial case, Pat-El invoked some evidence that the verbal nouns like Biblical Hebrew šéḇeṯ ‘sitting’ (from y-š-b) are syntactically masculine (e.g. Ps 133:1).

Stefan Weninger, “The Semitic Urheimat question: a review of the proposals and some perspectives”. An overview of some proposed points of dispersal for the Semitic languages since the late 19th century, the main contenders being the Arabian peninsula and East and North Africa. In the Q&A, Kogan added his own suggestion, published in an Encyclopedia Aethiopica article: Canaan.

Walter Sommerfeld, “The concept of a common Semitic cultural area (‘Kish Civilization’) in the 3rd millennium”. Contemporary evidence shows that there is no basis for Ignace Gelb’s concept of a distinctly Semitic culture in Early Dynastic northern Babylonia.

Apart from these talks, we spent about half the time in unstructured panel discussions, on phonology, morphology, methodology, and classification/Urheimat questions. Each discussion was kicked off by a short, stimulating talk, mostly by attendees who did not present full papers: Martin Kümmel, Michaël Cysouw, and Aaron Rubin. This was an experimental feature of the workshop, and I’m on the fence about it; the discussions were certainly fun and a lot of interesting points were brought up (e.g. Kogan: linguistic paleontology shows that Proto-Semitic speakers did know hyraxes but did not know oryxes, and only Canaan is [+hyrax][-oryx]), but it felt like they yielded fewer concrete insights than regular talks would have. It was a nice way to get some more people involved, though, also from adjacent fields (Indo-European/Indo-Iranian and Caucasian/Germanic linguistics).

All in all, it was wonderful to be able to fully geek out about Proto-Semitic and its daughters for a couple of days. There’s plans to publish proceedings, so hopefully in a few years you’ll be able to read all about these topics in full detail. Stay tuned.

It’s so easy to look at what’s still undone.

What didn’t get finished.

Where you thought you’d be by now.

But this week — before rushing into what’s next —

pause and look around at what is.

What you’ve made it through.

What you’ve learned.

What you’ve built, even in small, quiet ways.

Because momentum doesn’t just come from hustle.

It comes from acknowledging your own strength.

When you focus on what you have — not just materially, but internally —
you remind yourself of what you’re capable of.

And that reminder?

That’s fuel.

That’s forward energy.

So let this weekend be your check-in.

Not just to rest.

But to reflect on how far you've already come.

There is so much more ahead — but you’re not starting from scratch.

You're moving forward with everything you’ve already earned, learned, and become.

Shabbat Shalom

Here’s to starting the next step from a place of real power.