On the Controversy over the Linguistic Origins of Place Names

For more than a century now, the controversy has continued over the origins of eastern or more precisely Levantine languages, which are called "Semitic" as well as their dialectal ramifications. Some often include a newly created modern language, like "Hebrew", considering it as the basis of Semitic languages, but this is a big mistake, because there is no ancient Hebrew language, only a modern language which dates only to 1950, made on Aramaic-syriac basis and called "Modern Hebrew". The toponyms as "linguistic fossils" keep, by their continuity through the centuries, the original pronunciation although distorted due to oral transmission which alters in some way the original pronunciation. Based on the study of place names or Toponymy, as well as on the inscribed evidence from the soil of the Levant, epigraphists, even linguists, can conveniently define Semitic languages, of which Syriac remains the most influential, and ranks as the direct ancestor of the current dialect as well as classical Arabic writing in particular. However, although this is an accepted scientific reality, many researchers insist on the contrary, hence the importance of the studies that we continue to do continually on this topic, such as the present study.