ABSTRACT
Models of Language Relatedness The question underlying, explicitly or implicitly, many discussions of the relationships among the Semitic languages is how appropriate for discovering such relationships are methods developed by Indo-Europeanists. That is, can the traditional methods of comparative linguistics lead to insights about the relationships among the Semitic languages? Or, is it more appropriate to view the obvious resemblances among the Semitic languages not as evidence of a shared linguistic heritage, but rather as resulting from the close cultural and geographic connections among communities speaking Semitic languages?
