The discipline of Semitic languages covers linguistic and literary studies on all historically attested stages of Arabic, Hebrew, Akkadian, Aramaic, South Arabian and Ethiopic. The discipline of Assyriology covers the east Semitic Akkadian but also other languages of Mesopotamia with a cuneiform script, like the non-Semitic Sumerian.

Semitic languages in Uppsala is currently the foremost research milieu in Sweden for the study of Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic and comparative Semitic linguistics, and Assyriology.

Current research on Semitic languages in Uppsala concentrates on Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic and Akkadian (the latter within Assyriology).