Semitic languages

The Semitic languages (sem) constitute a group of related languages and a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Spoken by more than 470 million people throughout North Africa and Southwest Asia, the most widely spoken Semitic languages are Arabic, Maltese, Hebrew, Amharic, and Tigrigna.

The master plan involves generating independent finite-state transducers for each language, and then making individual dictionaries and transfer rules for every pair. The current status of these goals is listed below.

Status

The ultimate goal is to have multi-purposable transducers for a variety of Semitic languages. These can then be paired for X→Y translation with the addition of a CG for language X and transfer rules / dictionary for the pair X→Y. Below is listed development progress for each language's transducers and dictionary pairs.

Transducers

Once a transducer has ~80% coverage on a range of medium-large corpora we can say it is "working". Over 90% and it can be considered to be "production".

name	language	native name	ISO 639		formalism	state	stems	paradigms	coverage	location	primary authors
			-2	-3
apertium-heb	Hebrew	עִבְרִית	he	heb	lttoolbox	development	20,932	358		apertium-ara-heb (incubator)	Sagie Maoz, missmaryx
apertium-mlt	Maltese	Malti	mt	mlt	lttoolbox	development	7,371	758		apertium-mlt (languages)	Fran, Unhammer, Maria Fronczak, Sagie Maoz
apertium-ara	Arabic	العربية	ar	ara	lttoolbox	development	6,143	1,009		apertium-ara-heb (incubator)	Maria Fronczak, missmaryx

Existing language pairs

Text in italics denotes language pairs in the incubator. Regular text denotes a developing language pair in staging, while text in bold denotes a stable well-working language pair in trunk and text in bold and italics denotes a pair in staging. Bidix stems as counted with dixcounter are displayed below.

	heb	mlt	ara
heb	-	mt-he 3,634	ara-heb 131
mlt	mt-he 3,634	-	mt-ar 7,570
ara	ara-heb 131	mt-ar 7,570	-
eng		en-mt 814
epo	eo-he 1,505
spa		mlt-spa 137

Semitic languages by subgroup

There are six fairly uncontroversial nodes within the Semitic languages:

• East Semitic languages: Akkadian, Eblaite (extinct)
• Central Semitic languages
  • Northwest Semitic languages: Aramaic, Canaanite languages, Hebrew
  • Arabic languages: Classical Arabic, Standard Arabic, Maltese, etc.
• South Semitic languages
  • Western: Ethiopic languages (Amharic, Tigrinya, etc.) and Old South Arabian languages (Sabaean, Minaean, Qatabānian, Ḥaḑramitic, etc.)
  • Eastern: Modern South Arabian languages (Bathari, Harsusi, Hobyót, Mehri, Shehri, Soqotri)

Samples

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Language	Text
Arabic	يولد جميع الناس أحرارًا متساوين في الكرامة والحقوق. وقد وهبوا عقلاً وضميرًا وعليهم أن يعامل بعضهم بعضًا بروح الإخاء.
Maltese	Il-bnedmin kollha jitwieldu ħielsa u ugwali fid-dinjità u d-drittijiet. Huma mogħnija bir-raġuni u bil-kuxjenza u għandhom iġibu ruħhom ma’ xulxin bi spirtu ta’ aħwa.
Hebrew	כל בני אדם נולדו בני חורין ושווים בערכם ובזכויותיהם. כולם חוננו בתבונה ובמצפון, לפיכך חובה עליהם לנהוג איש ברעהו ברוח של אחוה.
Amharic	የሰው፡ልጅ፡ሁሉ፡ሲወለድ፡ነጻና፡በክብርና፡በመብትም፡እኩልነት፡ያለው፡ነው።፡የተፈጥሮ፡ማስተዋልና፡ሕሊና፡ስላለው፡አንዱ፡ሌላውን፡በወንድማማችነት፡መንፈስ፡መመልከት፡ይገባዋል።
Tigrigna	ብመንፅር ክብርን መሰልን ኩሎም ሰባት እንትውለዱ ነፃን ማዕሪን እዮም፡፡ ምስትውዓልን ሕልናን ዝተዓደሎም ብምዃኖም ንሕድሕዶም ብሕውነታዊ መንፈስ ክተሓላለዩ ኦለዎም፡፡

Vulnerability

This table summarizes the vulnerability of various Semitic languages. Data is derived from the ‘Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, © UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas’ and Ethnologue.

Language	ISO639-3	Location	Speakers	Status
				Ethnologue	UNESCO
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic	tmr	Iraq	0	10 (Extinct)	-
Mlahsö	lhs	Syrian Arab Republic	0	10 (Extinct)	5 (Extinct)
Mandaic, Classical	myz	Iran	0	10 (Extinct)	-
Mesmes	mys	Ethiopia	0	10 (Extinct)	-
Syriac	syc	Turkey	0	9 (Dormant)	-
Hebrew, Ancient	hbo	Israel	0	9 (Dormant)	-
Geez	gez	Ethiopia	0	9 (Second language only)	5 (Extinct)
Samaritan Aramaic	sam	Palestine	620	9 (Dormant)	-
Samaritan	smp	Palestine	620	9 (Dormant)	-
Barzani Jewish Neo-Aramaic	bjf	Israel & Iraq	20	8b (Nearly extinct)	5 (Extinct)
Bathari	bhm	Oman	200	8b (Nearly extinct)	4 (Critically endangered)
Senaya	syn	Iran	460	8b (Nearly extinct)	4 (Critically endangered)
Hobyót	hoh	Oman, Yemen	100	8a (Moribund)	3 (Severely endangered)
Arabic, Uzbeki Spoken	auz	Uzbekistan	700	8a (Moribund)	-
Hulaulá	huy	Israel & Iran	10,350	8a (Moribund)	5 (Extinct)
Soqotri	sqt	Yemen	64,000	8a (Moribund)	3 (Severely endangered)
Harsusi	hss	Oman	600	7 (Shifting)	2 (Definitely endangered)
Bohtan Neo-Aramaic	bhn	Georgia, Russian Federation	1,000	7 (Shifting)	3 (Severely endangered)
Arabic, Cypriot Spoken	acy	Cyprus	1,300	7 (Shifting)	3 (Severely endangered)
Lishanid Noshan	aij	Israel & Iraq	2,200	7 (Shifting)	5 (Extinct)
Lishán Didán	trg	Israel & Iran	4,450	7 (Shifting)	5 (Extinct)
Mandaic	mid	Iran, Iraq	5,500	7 (Shifting)	4 (Critically endangered)
Lishana Deni	lsd	Israel & Iraq	7,500	7 (Shifting)	5 (Extinct)
Western Neo-Aramaic	amw	Syrian Arab Republic	15,000	7 (Shifting)	2 (Definitely endangered)
Arabic, Judeo-Tripolitanian	yud	Israel	35,000	7 (Shifting)	-
Arabic, Judeo-Tunisian	ajt	Israel	45,500	7 (Shifting)	3 (Severely endangered)
Mehri	gdq	Oman, Yemen	115,200	7 (Shifting)	2 (Definitely endangered)
Arabic, Judeo-Iraqi	yhd	Israel	151,820	7 (Shifting)	-
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic	cld	Iraq	206,000	7 (Shifting)	-
Arabic, Judeo-Moroccan	aju	Israel	258,930	7 (Shifting)	2 (Definitely endangered)
Zay	zwa	Ethiopia	4,880	6b (Threatened)	3 (Severely endangered)
Arabic, Tajiki Spoken	abh	Tajikistan	6,000	6b (Threatened)	-
Shehri	shv	Oman	25,000	6b (Threatened)	3 (Severely endangered)
Argobba	agj	Ethiopia	43,700	6b (Threatened)	4 (Critically endangered)
Turoyo	tru	Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey	62,000	6b (Threatened)	3 (Severely endangered)
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic	aii	Iraq	232,300	6b (Threatened)	-
Koy Sanjaq Surat	kqd	Iraq	800	6a (Vigorous)	-
Hértevin	hrt	Turkey	1,000	6a (Vigorous)	4 (Critically endangered)
Dahalik	dlk	Eritrea	2,500	6a (Vigorous)	-
Harari	har	Ethiopia	25,800	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Shihhi Spoken	ssh	United Arab Emirates	27,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Judeo-Yemeni	jye	Israel	51,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Dhofari Spoken	adf	Oman	70,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Algerian Saharan Spoken	aao	Algeria	130,500	6a (Vigorous)	-
Mesqan	mvz	Ethiopia	195,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Kistane	gru	Ethiopia	255,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Inor	ior	Ethiopia	280,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Hadrami Spoken	ayh	Yemen	410,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Spoken	avl	Egypt	1,690,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Gulf Spoken	afb	Iraq	3,601,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Hijazi Spoken	acw	Saudi Arabia	6,023,900	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, North Mesopotamian Spoken	ayp	Iraq	6,300,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Ta’izzi-Adeni Spoken	acq	Yemen	7,078,500	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Sanaani Spoken	ayn	Yemen	7,600,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Arabic, Sa’idi Spoken	aec	Egypt	19,000,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Wolane	wle	Ethiopia	?	6a (Vigorous)	-
Sebat Bet Gurage	sgw	Ethiopia	440000	5 (Developing)	-
Arabic, Omani Spoken	acx	Oman	853,900	5 (Developing)	-
Silt’e	stv	Ethiopia	935,000	4 (Educational)	-
Tigré	tig	Eritrea	1,050,000	4 (Educational)	-
Arabic, Baharna Spoken	abv	Bahrain	310,000	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, Chadian Spoken	shu	Chad	1,139,100	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, Sudanese Spoken	apd	Sudan	1,833,000	3 (Wider communication)	-
Hassaniyya	mey	Mauritania	3,278,190	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, Libyan Spoken	ayl	Libya	4,320,500	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, South Levantine Spoken	ajp	Jordan	6,200,000	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, Tunisian Spoken	aeb	Tunisia	9,406,900	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, Najdi Spoken	ars	Saudi Arabia	9,670,000	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, North Levantine Spoken	apc	Syria	14,426,540	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, Mesopotamian Spoken	acm	Iraq	15,100,000	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, Moroccan Spoken	ary	Morocco	21,048,600	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, Algerian Spoken	arq	Algeria	27,997,000	3 (Wider communication)	-
Arabic, Egyptian Spoken	arz	Egypt	53,990,000	3 (Wider communication)	-
Tigrigna	tir	Ethiopia	6,915,000	2 (Provincial)	-
Maltese	mlt	Malta	429,000	1 (National)	-
Hebrew	heb	Israel	5,302,770	1 (National)	-
Amharic	amh	Ethiopia	21,811,560	1 (National)	-
Arabic, Standard	arb	Saudi Arabia	206,000,000	1 (National)	-

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Semitic languages", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.