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4. Questions - Got a question about Semitic then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

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6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Semitic wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

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8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Semitic site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Semitic, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Semitic, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic (from the Bible "Shem", Hebrew: שם, translated as "name", Arabic: ساميّ) was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages.This family includes the ancient and modern forms of Amharic, Arabic language, Aramaic language, Akkadian language, Ge'ez language, Hebrew language, Phoenician language, Maltese language, Tigre language and Tigrinya among others.

As language studies are interwoven with cultural studies, the term also came to describe the extended cultures and List of ethnic groups, as well as the history of these varied peoples as associated by close geographic and linguistic distribution.The late 19th century term "anti-Semitism" refers specifically to hostility toward Jews, further complicating the understood meaning and boundaries of the term.

Origin The term Semite was proposed at first to refer to the languages related to Hebrew by August Ludwig von Schlözer, in Johann Gottfried Eichhorn "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 derivative 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 "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. In Genesis 10:21-31 Shem is described as the father of Aram, son of Shem, Asshur, and others: the Biblical ancestors of the Arabs, Aramaeans, Assyrian people, 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, whose languages were not Semitic.

The hypothetical Proto-Semitic language, ancestral to historical Semitic languages in the Middle East, is thought to have been originally from either the Arabian Peninsula (particularly around Yemen) or the adjacent Ethiopian highlands, but its region of origin is still much debated and uncertain. The Semitic language family is also considered a component of the larger Afro-Asiatic macro-family of languages. Identification of the hypothetical proto-Semitic region of origin is therefore dependent on the larger geographic distributions of the other language families within Afro-Asiatic.

Ancient Semitic peoples The following is a list of ancient Semitic peoples.



Semitic languages 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, the ancient language of Babylon; Amharic language, the official language of Ethiopia; Tigrinya language, a language spoken in Eritrea and in northern Ethiopia; Arabic language; Aramaic language; Canaanite language; Ge'ez language, the ancient language of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church scriptures; Hebrew language; Phoenician language 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 many 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, Coptic language, Hausa language, Somali language, 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 — Azerbaijani language, Armenian language, Kurdish language, Persian language, Gilaki, Turkish language, ancient Sumerian language, and Nubian language — do not belong to the larger Afro-Asiatic language family.

For a complete list of Semitic languges arranged by subfamily, see list from SIL's Ethnologue.

Geography Semitic peoples and their languages, in both 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. Early traces of Semitic speakers are found, too, in South Arabian inscriptions in Yemen, Eritrea, Northern Ethiopia and later, in Roman times, in Nabataean inscriptions from Petra (modern Jordan) south into Arabia.

Later historical Semitic languages also spread into North Africa in 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, was the expansion of the Muslim armies and Arabic in the 7th-8th centuries AD, which, at their height, controlled the Iberian Peninsula (until 1492) and Sicily. Arab Muslim expansion is also responsible for modern Arabic's presence from Mauritania, 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.

Modern Hebrew was reintroduced in the 20th century, and together with Arabic, is a national language in Israel. Western Aramaic dialects remain spoken in Malula near Damascus. Eastern Neo-Aramaic is spoken along the northern border of Syria and Iraq and in far northwestern Iran. These speakers are often called Chaldean or Neo-Assyrian. Mandean is still spoken in parts of southern Iraq. Semitic languages and peoples are also found in the Horn of Africa, especially Eritrea and Ethiopia. Tigrinya, a North Ethiopic dialect, has around six million speakers in Eritrea and Tigray Region. In Eritrea, Tigre is the language of around 800,000 Muslims. Amharic is the national language of Ethiopia and is spoken by at least 10 million Coptic Christians. 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.

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 Ancient Semitic religions (such as the religions of Baal, Hadad) that flourished in the Middle East before the Abrahamic religions.

Ethnicity and race , depicting Asia as the home of the descendents of Shem (Sem). Africa is ascribed to Ham and Europe to JaphethIn Medieval Europe, all Asian peoples were thought of as descendants 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 a population's common physical descent through genetic research, and analysis of the Semitic-speaking peoples suggests that they have some common ancestry. Though no significant common mitochondrial results have been yielded, Y chromosome links between Semitic-speaking Near-Eastern peoples like Arabs, Assyrians and 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. However, this correlation should rather be attributed to said common Near Eastern origin, as for example Semitic-speaking Near Easterners from the Fertile Crescent are generally closerly related to non-Semitic speaking Near Easterners, such as Iranian peoples, Anatolians, and Peoples of the Caucasus, than to other Semitic-speakers, such as Gulf Arabs, Ethiopian Semites, and North African Arabs.http://www.assyrianfoundation.org/genetics.htm

See also References External links

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic (from the Bible "Shem", Hebrew: שם, translated as "name", Arabic: ساميّ) was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages.This family includes the ancient and modern forms of Amharic, Arabic language, Aramaic language, Akkadian language, Ge'ez language, Hebrew language, Phoenician language, Maltese language, Tigre language and Tigrinya among others.

As language studies are interwoven with cultural studies, the term also came to describe the extended cultures and List of ethnic groups, as well as the history of these varied peoples as associated by close geographic and linguistic distribution.The late 19th century term "anti-Semitism" refers specifically to hostility toward Jews, further complicating the understood meaning and boundaries of the term.

Origin The term Semite was proposed at first to refer to the languages related to Hebrew by August Ludwig von Schlözer, in Johann Gottfried Eichhorn "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 derivative 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 "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. In Genesis 10:21-31 Shem is described as the father of Aram, son of Shem, Asshur, and others: the Biblical ancestors of the Arabs, Aramaeans, Assyrian people, 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, whose languages were not Semitic.

The hypothetical Proto-Semitic language, ancestral to historical Semitic languages in the Middle East, is thought to have been originally from either the Arabian Peninsula (particularly around Yemen) or the adjacent Ethiopian highlands, but its region of origin is still much debated and uncertain. The Semitic language family is also considered a component of the larger Afro-Asiatic macro-family of languages. Identification of the hypothetical proto-Semitic region of origin is therefore dependent on the larger geographic distributions of the other language families within Afro-Asiatic.

Ancient Semitic peoples The following is a list of ancient Semitic peoples.



Semitic languages 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, the ancient language of Babylon; Amharic language, the official language of Ethiopia; Tigrinya language, a language spoken in Eritrea and in northern Ethiopia; Arabic language; Aramaic language; Canaanite language; Ge'ez language, the ancient language of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church scriptures; Hebrew language; Phoenician language 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 many 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, Coptic language, Hausa language, Somali language, 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 — Azerbaijani language, Armenian language, Kurdish language, Persian language, Gilaki, Turkish language, ancient Sumerian language, and Nubian language — do not belong to the larger Afro-Asiatic language family.

For a complete list of Semitic languges arranged by subfamily, see list from SIL's Ethnologue.

Geography Semitic peoples and their languages, in both 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. Early traces of Semitic speakers are found, too, in South Arabian inscriptions in Yemen, Eritrea, Northern Ethiopia and later, in Roman times, in Nabataean inscriptions from Petra (modern Jordan) south into Arabia.

Later historical Semitic languages also spread into North Africa in 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, was the expansion of the Muslim armies and Arabic in the 7th-8th centuries AD, which, at their height, controlled the Iberian Peninsula (until 1492) and Sicily. Arab Muslim expansion is also responsible for modern Arabic's presence from Mauritania, 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.

Modern Hebrew was reintroduced in the 20th century, and together with Arabic, is a national language in Israel. Western Aramaic dialects remain spoken in Malula near Damascus. Eastern Neo-Aramaic is spoken along the northern border of Syria and Iraq and in far northwestern Iran. These speakers are often called Chaldean or Neo-Assyrian. Mandean is still spoken in parts of southern Iraq. Semitic languages and peoples are also found in the Horn of Africa, especially Eritrea and Ethiopia. Tigrinya, a North Ethiopic dialect, has around six million speakers in Eritrea and Tigray Region. In Eritrea, Tigre is the language of around 800,000 Muslims. Amharic is the national language of Ethiopia and is spoken by at least 10 million Coptic Christians. 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.

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 Ancient Semitic religions (such as the religions of Baal, Hadad) that flourished in the Middle East before the Abrahamic religions.

Ethnicity and race , depicting Asia as the home of the descendents of Shem (Sem). Africa is ascribed to Ham and Europe to JaphethIn Medieval Europe, all Asian peoples were thought of as descendants 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 a population's common physical descent through genetic research, and analysis of the Semitic-speaking peoples suggests that they have some common ancestry. Though no significant common mitochondrial results have been yielded, Y chromosome links between Semitic-speaking Near-Eastern peoples like Arabs, Assyrians and 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. However, this correlation should rather be attributed to said common Near Eastern origin, as for example Semitic-speaking Near Easterners from the Fertile Crescent are generally closerly related to non-Semitic speaking Near Easterners, such as Iranian peoples, Anatolians, and Peoples of the Caucasus, than to other Semitic-speakers, such as Gulf Arabs, Ethiopian Semites, and North African Arabs.http://www.assyrianfoundation.org/genetics.htm

See also References External links



Semitic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical " Shem", Hebrew: שם, translated as "name", Arabic: ساميّ) was first used to refer to a language family of largely ...

Semitic languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Semitic languages are a language family whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Horn of ...

Definition: semitic from Online Medical Dictionary
The Online Medical Dictionary is a searchable dictionary of definitions from medicine, science and technology.

AskOxford: Semitic
Semitic /si mitt ik/ • noun a family of languages that includes Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic and certain ancient languages such as Phoenician. • adjective relating to these ...

Semitic - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about Semitic
Semite. Any of the peoples of the Middle East originally speaking a Semitic language, and traditionally said to be descended from Shem, a son of Noah in the Bible.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Paris anti-Semitic T-shirt probe
French prosecutors open an investigation after T-shirts carrying anti-Semitic slogans are seen on sale in Paris.

BBC NEWS | UK | Anti-Semitic crime 'reaches high'
New figures suggest the number of attacks on Britain's Jewish community reached record levels in 2004.

Semitic languages - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about Semitic ...
All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only.

Semitic - definition of Semitic by the Free Online Dictionary ...
Se·mit·ic   (s-m t k) adj. 1. Of or relating to the Semites or their languages or cultures. 2. Of, relating to, or constituting a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic language group ...

Ethiopian Languages - Semitic, Cushitic, Omotic and Nilo-Saharan
Ethiopian Treasures explores the many varied aspects of Ethiopia including its history, culture, tradition, religion, language, calendar, geography and climate.

 

Semitic



 
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