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".
Biblical Hebrew
The morphology of Proto-Central-Semitic shows significant changes compared with Proto-Semitic, especially in its verbs, and is much like in Classical Arabic. Nouns in the singular were usually declined in three cases: /-u/ (nominative), /-a/ (accusative) or /-i/ (genitive). In some circumstances (but never in the construct state), nouns also took a final nasal after the case ending: "nunation" (final /-n/) occurred in some languages, "mimation" (final /-m/) in others. The original meaning of this marker is uncertain. In Classical Arabic, final /-n/ on nouns indicates indefiniteness and disappears when the noun is preceded by a definite article or otherwise becomes definite in meaning. In other languages, final /-n/ may be present whenever a noun is not in the construct state. Old Canaanite had mimation, of uncertain meaning, in an occurrence of the word "urušalemim" (Jerusalem) as given in an Egyptian transcription.