Is Greek originally a semitic language?

Answer 1

No way! It's an Indo-European language.

Answer 2

Ancient Semitic Language

Answer 3

The origin of Greek is Semitic but modern Greek is not considered a Semitic language. Phoenician is an ancient Semitic language that was originally spoken in today’s Lebanon. It is attested through inscriptions from the 12th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Phoenician traders established settlements all over the Mediterranean. The Phoenician consonantal script, written from right to left and consisting of 22 letters, is almost identical with the Old Hebrew script. It is the ancestor of the Greek and Latin alphabets.

Answer 4

No.

Greek is an IndoEuropean language. Regular sound correspondences between Greek and, say, Latin (Greek halos, Latin Salum (salt)) and other similiarities establish Greek's place in the IE family.

The Semitic languages probably had some influence on Greek through contact with Phoenician, Hebrews and other Semitic speakers.

Answer 5

No
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_language

Answer 6

no,In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical "Shem", Hebrew: שם, translated as "name", Arabic: ساميّ) was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages. This family includes the ancient and modern forms of Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Akkadian, Ge'ez, Hebrew, Phoenician, Maltese, Tigre and Tigrinya among others.

As language studies are interwoven with cultural studies, the term also came to describe the extended cultures and ethnicities, as well as the history of these varied peoples as associated by close geographic and linguistic distribution.

The modern linguistic meaning of "Semitic" is therefore derived from (though not identical to) Biblical usage. In a linguistic context the Semitic languages are a subgroup of the larger Afro-Asiatic language family (according to Joseph Greenberg's widely accepted classification) and include, among others: Akkadian, the ancient language of Babylon; Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia; Tigrinya, a language spoken in Eritrea and in northern Ethiopia; Arabic, the newest in the family of Semitic languages; Aramaic, the mother-tongue of Jesus; Canaanite; Ge'ez, the ancient language of the Eritrean and Ethiopian Orthodox scriptures; Hebrew; Phoenician or Punic; and South Arabian, the ancient language of Sheba/Saba, which today includes Mehri, spoken by only tiny minorities on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula.

Wildly successful as second languages far beyond their numbers of contemporary first-language speakers, a few Semitic languages today are the base of the sacred literature of some of the world's great religions, including Islam (Arabic), Judaism (Hebrew and Aramaic), and Orthodox Christianity (Aramaic and Ge'ez). Millions learn these as a second language (or an archaic version of their modern tongues): many Muslims learn to read and recite Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur'an, and many Jews all over the world outside of Israel with other first languages speak and study Hebrew, the language of the Torah, Midrash, and other Jewish scriptures.

It should be noted that Berber, Egyptian (including Coptic), Hausa, Somali, and many other related languages within the wider area of Northern Africa and the Middle East do not belong to the Semitic group, but to the larger Afro-Asiatic language family of which the Semitic languages are also a subgroup. Other ancient and modern Middle Eastern languages — Azerbaijani, Armenian, Kurdish, Persian, Gilaki, Turkish, ancient Sumerian, and Nubian — do not belong to the larger Afro-Asiatic language family.

Greek (ελληνική γλώσσα IPA: [eliniˈci ˈɣlosa] or simply ελληνικά IPA: [eliniˈka] — "Hellenic") has a documented history of 3,500 years, the longest of any single language in the Indo-European language family. It is also one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages, with fragmentary records in Mycenaean dating back to the 15th or 14th century BC, matched only by the extinct Anatolian languages and Vedic Sanskrit. Today, it is spoken by approximately 15–25 million people in Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Italy, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Egypt, Jordan and emigrant communities around the world, including Australia, United States, Germany and elsewhere.

Greek was written in the Greek alphabet (the first to introduce vowels) since the 9th century BC in Greece (before that in Linear B), and the 4th century BC in Cyprus (before that in Cypriot syllabary). Greek literature has a continuous history of nearly three thousand years.

Answer 7

How can you even ask this? Look up the word Semitic in the dictionary first!

Answer 8

Never, but they borrowed Canaanite/Phoenicians alphabets and some words

Answer 9

If it was, Latin would have been as well! No way!

Ciao...John-John.-