In the satrapy of Assyria (Athura) the Syriac language emerged during the 5th century BC. After this, Arabic gradually replaced Aramaic as a part of a steady process of Arabization and Islamification, accompanied by the influx of a large number of Muslim Arabs from the Arabian peninsula, although the Syriac language, script and literature continued to exert influence upon Arabic into the Middle Ages. Brewminate uses Infolinks and is an Amazon Associate with links to items available there. These were the lands of the Edomites, Moabites, Hebrews (Israelites/Judaeans/Samaritans), Ammonites and Amalekites, all of whom spoke closely related west Semitic Canaanite languages. However, some of the names appearing on the Sumerian King List as prehistoric rulers of Kish have been held to indicate a Semitic presence even before this, as early as the 30th or 29th century BC. By extension, it encompassed the ancient histories and cultures of peoples who spoke and wrote in Semitic languages: Israelites, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Phoenicians, Arameans, Akkadians, Babylonians, Arabs. Emir Maurice Hafez Chehab was a Lebanese archaeologist and museum curator. Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap “Ex Oriente Lux” 39: 181–199. Aramaic dialects continued to be dominant among the peoples of what are today Iraq, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestinian territories, Kuwait, Sinai, south eastern Turkey, and parts of north western Iran and some areas the northern Arabian peninsula, until the Arab Islamic conquest of the 7th century AD. Old Italic, Anatolian, Armenian, Georgian and Paleohispanic scripts are also descendant of Phoenician script. Phoenician became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world and beyond, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures. In the first millennium BC, the alphabet spread much further, giving us a picture not just of Canaanite, but also of Aramaic, Old South Arabian, and early Ge’ez. However, as an ironic result of the Assyrian Empire's vast conquests, Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent and much of the Near East and parts of Anatolia, gradually pushing Akkadian, Hebrew, Phoenician-Canaanite, and several other languages to extinction, although Hebrew and Akkadian remained in use as sacred languages, Hebrew in particular developing a substantial literature. Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples were West Asian people who lived throughout the Ancient Near East, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian peninsula, and the Horn of Africa from the third millennium BCE until the end of antiquity. The appearance of nomadic Semitic-speaking Ahlamu, Arameans and Suteans in historical record also dates from the late 14th century BC, the Arameans coming to dominate an area roughly corresponding with modern Syria (which became known as Aram or Aramea), subsuming the earlier Amorites, and founding states such as Aram-Damascus, Luhuti, Bit Agusi, Hamath, Aram-Naharaim, Paddan-Aram, Aram-Rehob, Idlib and Zobah, while the Suteans occupied the deserts of south eastern Syria and north eastern Jordan. However, the Persians had spent centuries under Assyrian domination and influence, and despite being Indo-European speakers, they retained the Imperial Aramaic of the Assyrian empire as the lingua franca of their own empire, and many of the Semitic nations of the region (such as Assyria, Babylonia, Israel, Judah, Aramea, Canaan and Phoenicia) continued to exist as geo-political entities, albeit as occupied satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire. 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