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With nothing but the scanty resources of our alphabet to fall back upon, it is quite impossible to represent this peculiarity phonetically, but it was once remarked by a student of Semitic tongues that the sound of the Hebrew letter 'Ayin is as nearly as possible that of the burr, and that, if you want to ascertain the correct Hebrew pronunciation of the name Ba'al, all you have got to do is to ask any Alderman of Berwick to say "Barrel"
This may have been due to the union of Shamash with the place where  was worshipped. Such an amalgamation of two originally male deities into a combination of male and female, strange as it may seem to us, is in keeping with the lack of sharp distinction between male and female in the oldest forms of Semitic religions.
XXXVI , pp. 274 ff., Professor Jastrow suggests that the Dragon combat in the Semitic- Babylonian Creation poem is of Semitic not Sumerian origin.
The sacred emblem of the Heliopolitan Sun-god reminds us forcibly of the Semitic bethels or baetyli, the sacred stones of Palestine, and may give yet another hint of the Semitic origin of the Heliopolitan cult.
The Jewish race connects the modern populations with the early ages of the world, when the relations of the Creator with the created were more intimate than in these days, when angels visited the earth, and God himself even spoke with man. The Jews represent the Semitic principle; all that is spiritual in our nature. They are the trustees of tradition and the conservators of the religious element.
From recollections of Bible accounts, Oswald thought Israel required frequent redemption, though that apostrophized by the impressive exclamation was neither exclusively nor peculiarly Semitic. The preacher's theme was "Overcoming the World." Though the subject was ably and eloquently treated, that listener found his ideas ranging at various angles to those of the speaker.
Austria would long ago have dissolved but for the Semitic principle, and if the north of Germany has never succeeded in attaining that imperial position which seemed its natural destiny, it is that the north of Germany has never at any time been thoroughly converted.
"And so sincere and full of real emotion," she added. "I find it unspeakably touching. 'O Artemidorus, farewell! There is the real note of human grief, the sorrow of eternal parting. How much finer it is than the vulgar boastfulness of the Semitic epitaphs, or our own miserable, insincere make-believe of the 'Not lost but gone before' type.
Hellenic taste and sense of beauty and Semitic speculation not only evolved side by side in Egypt but mixed and commingled; their thoughts were intertwined and interwoven, giving rise to a new intellectual movement, a new philosophy of thought: the Judæo-Hellenic.
Yet philologists have discovered what appears to be a far-off link between the Berber and Semitic languages, and the Chleuhs of the Draa and the Souss, with their tall slim Egyptian-looking bodies and hooked noses, may have a strain of Semitic blood.
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