Which of the following is NOT classified as a Semetic language?

The story behind the answer

Sumerian is correct because it isn’t a Semitic language at all—it’s a language isolate, with no proven relatives. Spoken in ancient Sumer (southern Mesopotamia) from the 4th to early 2nd millennium BCE, it was written in cuneiform, a script later borrowed by neighboring peoples. By contrast, Akkadian, Mandaic, and Maltese are all Semitic languages, part of the Afro-Asiatic family.

Context tip: Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) is the earliest widely attested Semitic language; Mandaic is a form of Aramaic used by the Mandaean community; Maltese descends from Siculo-Arabic and is uniquely written in the Latin alphabet—the only Semitic language that’s an official language of the EU. Memory hook: “Sumerian stands solo; the others are Semitic siblings.”