Semitic and Afroasiatic (Asian Branches)

Afroasiatic is a language family whose African branches, Chadic, Cushitic, Omotic and Berber, belong to this atlas's African subcategory; this group covers only its Asian branch, Semitic, which includes Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic together with the extinct languages of ancient Mesopotamia and South Arabia and their many named sub-branches, Canaanite, Neo-Aramaic, Ancient South Arabian and the rest. This group holds every Eurasian Language Families member whose sourced description identifies it as Semitic or as part of Afroasiatic through its Semitic branch, keeping the geographically Asian Semitic languages together rather than scattering them across a continent-spanning Afroasiatic group this atlas's structure does not otherwise use.