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".
Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic (, , autonym: "il-lahje š-šāmiyye") is a broad variety of Arabic and the main vernacular spoken Arabic of the eastern coastal strip of the Levantine Sea that includes parts of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey. With numerous dialects and over 30 million native speakers worldwide, it is considered one of the five major varieties of Arabic. In the frame of the general diglossia status of the Arab world, Levantine Arabic is used for daily spoken use, while most of the written and official documents and media use Modern Standard Arabic.