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Isn't the semitic language a gotcha because of how arabic and hebrew have changed to SVO (while remainder are largely vso?) Or is that the point of asking?

In this case the assumption is that we're talking about ancient languages.

Edit

You're right that it would be (somewhat) impressive if they knew there was a transition.

Semitic words are triliteral:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_root

SVO?

Subject Verb Object.

Subject-Verb-Object word order like English or most other European languages. (I ate the apple).

Classical Arabic and other semitic languages are VSO, but spoken Arabic is mostly SVO.