Semitic languages
The similarity of the Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic languages was accepted by Jewish and Islamic scholars since medieval times. The languages were familiar to Western European scholars due to historical contact with neighbouring Near Eastern countries and through Biblical studies, and a comparative analysis of Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic was published in Latin in 1538 by Guillaume Postel. Almost two centuries later, Hiob Ludolf described the similarities between these three languages and the Ethiopian Semitic languages. However, neither scholar named this grouping as "Semitic".
Tihamiyya Arabic
The Tihami Arabic or Tihamiyya dialect has many aspects which differentiate it from all other dialects in the Arab world. Phonologically Tihami is similar to the majority of Yemeni dialects, pronouncing the ' () as and the ' () as a velar plosive (the ' pronunciation is also shared with Egyptian Arabic) unlike San'ani and Hadhrami Arabic which pronounce the ' () as . Grammatically all Tihami dialects also share the unusual feature of replacing the definite article ("al-") with the prefix ("am-"). The future tense, much like the dialects surrounding Sanaa, is indicated with the prefix ("š-"), for all persons, e.g. "ša-būk am-sūq" "I will go to the Souq". Some Tihami dialects, such as that spoken in Al-Hodeida, are otherwise fairly similar to other Yemeni dialects in grammar and syntax, differing mainly in vocabulary, while others can be so far from any other Arabic dialect that they are practically incomprehensible even to other Yemenis.