The Hebrew language is a branch of a larger West Asian language family, which was native to Palestine, Phoenicia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Assyria, and Arabia, covering the regions from the Mediterranean to beyond the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and from the Armenian mountains to the southern coast of Arabia. In ancient times, it spread from Arabia also to Abyssinia and through Phoenician colonies to several islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, particularly along the Carthaginian coast. There is a lack of a comprehensive ancient name for the languages and peoples of this family; however, the name Semites and Semitic languages is now widely accepted and therefore retained by us. The grammatical structure of the Semitic language family exhibits many peculiarities compared to other language families, particularly the Indo-European family.