Has anyone ever wondered why in Hebrew we have a prefix “ha-” for the word “the” but in Aramaic we have a suffix “-a” while the Arabs have yet another way to say “the” – they use a prefix “al-“?

It was once thought that perhaps the original Semitic word for “the” was “hal-” and that it was shortened to “ha-” in Hebrew and to “al-” in Arabic and that the Aramaic “-a” was a just a remnant of the ancient suffix added to the object of a sentence. However there is no evidence in ancient Semitic inscriptions of such a word “hal-” ever having existed [although later it can be found in Arabic as a contraction of “hadha al-“] and the proposed sound changes do not match the known changes that occurred as Hebrew and Arabic emerged. One scholar has done an extensive study of the evidence to find the answer – Definite Articles in Semitic (with a focus on Central Semitic)

If you don’t want to read the whole academic megillah, here the short of it: The evidence points to the Hebrew “ha-” having come from a word “han” with the same root as the words “hinnei” and “hennah” that was originally the base of words meaning this/these. When added to the front of a word the n disappeared much as the n disappears when “min” (from) is added to a word and becomes the prefix “me-“. The situation in Aramaic is less certain but the the definite article “-a” seems to have emerged after the -a object marker had already disappeared and its overuse is a late feature. The word “han” was possibly also its origin but when added to the end of a word first being shortened to “-an” then finally “-a”. The Arabic “-al” on the other hand is unrelated to Hebrew “ha-” and instead shares a common origin with the Hebrew word “elle” (these).