Semitic word order (was: Skälansk - History and Babel text)

Keith Gaughan wrote:


> Isaac Penzev wrote:
>
> > And don't forget the Biblical Hebrew: it's predominantly VSO, esp. in
> > narratives.
>
> You're right! And Classical and Modern Arabic too.
>
> What about the other Semitic languages; are they mostly VSO too?
I'm not sure. Modern Ethiosemitic lgs (Amharic, Tigriña) are SOV under the
influence of Kushite substrate, in contrast to older Ge'ez that keeps VSO.
Tigré has free word order. At least that's what my "Linguistic Encyclopaedic
Dictionary" says.

-- Yitzik