Dictionary of Meaning

<<Back
Please select a letter:
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0-9

Semitic

*** Shopping-Tip: Semitic
'''Semitic''' is a linguistic term referring to a subdivision of largely Middle Eastern Afro-Asiatic languages Afro-Asiatic languages, the Semitic languages, as well as their speakers' corresponding culture cultures, and List of ethnic groups ethnicities. Although there is much debate about the scope of the word's "racial" use in the context of population genetics and history, as a linguistic term the language family is well-defined to include ancient and modern versions of Amharic, Arabic language Arabic, Aramaic language Aramaic, Akkadian language Akkadian, Hebrew language Hebrew, Maltese, Syriac, Tigrinya, etc.

Origin
The term Semite was proposed at first for the languages related to the Hebrew by Ludwig Schlözer, in Eichhorn's "Repertorium", vol. VIII (Leipzig, 1781), p. 161. Through Eichhorn the name then came into general usage (cf. his "Einleitung in das Alte Testament" (Leipzig, 1787), I, p. 45. In his "Gesch. der neuen Sprachenkunde", pt. I (Göttingen, 1807) it had already become a fixed technical term. (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIII) The word "Semitic" is an adjective derived from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible (Genesis 5.32, 6.10, 10.21), or more precisely from the Greek language Greek form of that name, namely '''Σημ''' (Sēm); the noun form referring to a person is '''Semite'''. The negative form of the adjective anti-Semitic is almost always used to mean "anti-Jewish," specifically. The concept of a "Semitic" peoples is derived from Biblical accounts of the origins of the cultures known to the ancient Hebrews. Those closest to them in culture and language were generally deemed to be descended from their forefather Shem. Enemies were often said to be descendants of his cursed brother Ham, son of Noah Ham. In Genesis 10:21-31 Shem is described as the father of Aram, Asshur, and others: the Biblical ancestors of the Aramaeans, Assyrian people Assyrians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Sabaeans, and Hebrews, etc., all of whose languages are closely related; the language family containing them was therefore named Semitic by linguists. However, the Canaanites and Amorites also spoke a language belonging to this family, and are therefore also termed Semitic in linguistics despite being described in Genesis as sons of Ham (See ''Sons of Noah''). Shem is also described in Genesis as the father of the Elamites and the descendants of Lud son of Shem Lud, whose languages were not Semitic. The Proto-Semitic peoples, ancestors of the Semites in the Middle East before the break-up of the hypothesized original proto-Semitic language into various modern Semitic languages, are thought to have been originally from the Arabian Peninsula. Other theories place proto-Semitic in the Ethiopian Highlands.

Language
The modern linguistic meaning of "Semitic" is therefore derived from (though not identical to) Biblical usage. In a linguistic context the Semitic languages are a subgroup of the larger Afro-Asiatic language family (according to Joseph Greenberg's widely accepted classification) and include, among others, Akkadian language Akkadian, the ancient language of Babylon, Amharic language Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, Arabic language Arabic, the largest contemporary Semitic language, Aramaic language Aramaic, the mother-tongue of Jesus, Canaanite language Canaanite, Ge'ez, the ancient language of the Ethiopian Coptic scriptures, Hebrew language Hebrew, Phoenician language Phoenician or Punic, and South Arabian, the ancient language of Sheba/Saba, which today includes Mehri, spoken by only tiny minorities on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. Wildly successful as second languages far beyond their numbers of contemporary first-language speakers, a few Semitic languages today are the base of the sacred literature of some of the world's great religions, including Islam (Arabic), Judaism (Hebrew and Aramaic), and Orthodox Christianity (Aramaic and Ge'ez). Millions learn these as a second language (or an archaic version of their modern tongues): many Muslims learn to read and recite Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur'an, and Jews all over the world outside of Israel with other first languages speak and study Hebrew, the language of the Torah, Midrash, and other Jewish scriptures. It should be noted that Berber language Berber, Egyptian language Egyptian (including Coptic language Coptic), Hausa language Hausa, Somali language Somali, and many other related languages within the wider area of Northern Africa and the Middle East do not belong to the Semitic group, but to the larger Afro-Asiatic language family of which the Semitic languages are also a subgroup. Other ancient and modern Middle Eastern languages — Armenian language Armenian, Kurdish language Kurdish, Persian language Persian, Turkish language Turkish, ancient Sumerian language Sumerian, and Nubian language Nubian — do not belong to the larger Afro-Asiatic language family and are unrelated to it (or, to be more precise, possibly remote genetic relatedness of languages far more remotely related). (Note, the first three of these languages are Indo-European languages Indo-European.) For a complete list of Semitic and Afro-Asiatic languages, see the [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=89997 Ethnologue's list].

Geography
Semitic peoples and their languages in modern and ancient historic times have covered a broad area bridging Africa, Western Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. The earliest historic (written) evidences of them are found in the Fertile Crescent, an area encompassing the Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, extending northwest into southern Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and the Levant along the eastern Mediterranean. (Today this same region is populated by Arabic speakers except for Israel, where modern Hebrew was reintroduced in the 20th century as the national language.) Early traces of Semitic speakers are found, too, in South Arabian inscriptions in Yemen and later, in Roman times, in Nabataean inscriptions from Petra (modern Jordan) south into Arabia. (Here, too, Arabic has largely won out over the original Semitic tongues.) Later expansions of Semitic languages and peoples are found into the Horn of Africa, especially Ethiopia, the last great holdout of South Semitic languages, and into North Africa at two widely separated periods. The first expansion occurred with the ancient Phoenicians, the name given by the Greeks to the Canaanites, along the southern Mediterranean Sea all the way to the Atlantic Ocean (colonies which included ancient Rome's nemesis Carthage). The second, a millennium later, occurred with the expansion of the Muslim armies and Arabic in the 7th-8th centuries AD, which, at their height, controlled the Hispanic Peninsula and Sicily. Arab Muslim expansion is also responsible for modern Arabic's presence from Mauretania, on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, to the Red Sea in the northeastern corner of Africa, and its reach south along the Nile River through traditionally non-Semitic territory, as far as the northern half of Sudan, where, as the national language, non-Arab Sudanese even farther south must learn it. Semitic languages today are also spoken in Malta (where an Italian-influenced dialect of North African Arabic is spoken) and on the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean between Yemen and Somalia, where a dying vestige of South Arabian is spoken in the form of Soqotri language Soqotri.

Religion
In a religious context, the term Semitic can refer to the religions associated with the speakers of these languages: thus Judaism, Christianity and Islam are often described as "Semitic religions," though the term Abrahamic religions is more commonly used today. A truly comprehensive account of "Semitic" religions would include the polytheism polytheistic religions (such as the religions of Baal Adad, Hadad) that flourished in the Middle East before the Abrahamic religions.

Ethnicity and "race"
Image:T and O map Guntherus Ziner 1472.jpg thumb|A stylised [[T and O map, depicting Asia as the home of the descendents of Shem (Sem). Africa is ascribed to Ham and Europe to Japheth]] In Medieval Europe all Asian peoples were thought of as descendents of Shem. By the nineteenth century the term Semitic was confined to the ethnic groups who have historically spoken Semitic languages. These peoples were often considered to be a distinct race. However, some anti-Semitic racial theorists of the time argued that the Semitic peoples arose from the blurring of distinctions between previously separate races. This supposed process was referred to as Semiticization by the race-theorist Arthur de Gobineau. The notion that Semitic identity was a product of racial "confusion" was later taken up by the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg. Modern science, in contrast, identifies an ethnic group's common physical descent through genetic research, and analysis of the Semitic peoples suggests that they share a significant common ancestry. Though no significant common mitochondria mitochondrial results have been yielded, Y chromosome Y-chromosomal links between Near-Eastern peoples like the Palestinians, Syrians and ethnic Jews have proved fruitful, despite differences contributed from other groups (''see Y-chromosomal Aaron''). Although population genetics is still a young science, it seems to indicate that a significant proportion of these peoples' ancestry comes from a common Near Eastern population to which (''despite the differences with the Biblical genealogy'') the term '''Semitic''' has been applied.

External links

- Semitic genetics
- Semitic language family tree included under "Afro-Asiatic" in SIL's [http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp Ethnologue]. Category:African culture bs:Semitski bg:Семити de:Semiten el:Σήμιτες es:Semitas fa:سامی fr:Sémites nl:Semieten pl:Ludy semickie pt:Semita zh:閃米特人

*** Shopping-Tip: Semitic