Archaic Properties of Arabic Compared to Akkadian

In the paper, position of Akkadian and Arabic language among Semitic languages are determined and they are compared by linguistic factor. By means of distinguishing between temporal and linguistic priority, it is shown that a language could be older than other while former has preserved properties which the latter has missed them. In this paper, it is shown that Arabic temporally is posterior, but linguistically prior than to Akkadian. It means that some properties with origin of Proto-Semitic without changing are retained in Arabic and same properties have changed in Akkadian. Archaic properties of Arabic compared to Akkadian could be classified in two groups: (1) Phonemic properties and (2) Grammatical properties. Arabic language preserves Proto-Semitic phonemes: /θ/, /ḥ/, /δ/, /՜ṣ/, /θ’/, /ˁ/, /ǵ/, /h/ that disappeared completely in Akkadian language. On the other hand, these phonemes which have existed in Proto-Semitic gradually have changed to other phonemes in Akkadian, while they remained without any change in Arabic language. Most important grammatical properties which are maintained in Arabic language and disappeared in Akkadian language as follows: duality in personal pronouns (independent pronouns and affixes), duality in verbal conjugation (perfect and imperfect aspect). Final change that is studied in this paper is word order in the sentence. As with most Semitic languages, Arabic has maintained Proto-Semitic order VSO (verb-subject-object), while in Akkadian by influence of Sumerian language Proto-Semitic word order has changed to SOV (subject-object-verb).