Others[85] hold that the original home of the Semites was in the south of Arabia whence they gradually overspread the peninsula, so that, as Sprenger expresses it, “All Semite are successive layers of Arabs.” The arguments for this theory are briefly given by Sayce:[86] “The Semitic traditions all point to Arabia as the original home of the race. It is the only part of the world which has remained exclusively Semites. The racial characteristics—intensity of faith, ferocity, exclusiveness, imagination—can best be explained by a desert origin.” De Goeje lays stress on the fine climate of Central Arabia and the splendid physical development of the Arab as additional proof together with the indisputable fact that “of all Semitic languages the Arabic approaches nearest to the original mother-tongue as was conclusively demonstrated by Professor Schrader of Berlin.” The following table will show at a glance the position of Arabic in the Semitic family group, _dead languages being put in italics_. Arabic, ancient and modern belongs to the South Semitic group and at an early period supplanted the Himyaritic in Yemen, although the Mahri and Ehkeli dialects are still used in the mountains of Hadramaut.[87] It was practically the only conquering language on the list and is the only one that is growing in use. TABLE OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES. NORTHERN: EASTERN _Babylonian._ _Assyrian._ WESTERN (Aramaic) Eastern Syriac. Mandean. _Nabathean._ Western _Samaritan._ _Jewish Aramaic_ (as Targums and Talmud). _Palmyrene._ _Egyptian Aramaic._ CENTRAL: _Phœnician._ Hebrew. _Moabite_ and _Canaanitish dialects_. SOUTHERN: ARABIC (Ishmaelite) One written language but Modern Dialects in speech. Maltese [?]. Morocco. Algerian, etc. Egyptian. Syrian. Yemen. Bagdadi. Omanese, etc. _Himyaritic_ Mahri. _Ehkeli._ Ethiopic (Joktanite) _Old Geez._ Tigre. Tigrina. Amharic. Harari. There are to-day over one hundred Arabic newspapers and magazines regularly published and which together have an immense circulation in all parts of the Arabic-speaking world.