The Importance of Language in the History of the Middle East

The best way to delineate whether a certain group is still the same from historical times is to try to find as many criteria as possible that they fulfill. So language is one of them. The more you come up with criteria like this, the harder it will be to maintain the group's identity because some of them are more recent. But I don't think we are completely secure. However, that doesn't mean that you cannot make, that you cannot confidently assert group identities through shorter stands of time,.