OriginThe term
Semite means a member of any of various ancient and modern Semitic-speaking peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Arabs, and Ethiopian Semites. It was proposed at first to refer to the languages related to 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.[sup]
[1][/sup]
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 derivative of that name, namely
Σημ (Sēm); the noun form referring to a person is
Semite.
The term "anti-Semitic" (or "anti-Semite") overwhelmingly refers to
Jews only. It was coined in 1879 by German journalist
Wilhelm Marr in a pamphlet called, "The Victory of Germandom over Jewry". Using ideas of race and nationalism, Marr argued that Jews had become the first major power in the West. He accused them of being liberals, a people without roots who had Judaized Germans beyond salvation. In 1879 Marr founded the "League for Anti-Semitism".[sup]
[2][/sup]
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 nephew,
Canaan. In Genesis 10:21-31, Shem is described as the father of
Aram,
Asshur, and
Arpachshad: the Biblical ancestors of the
Arabs,
Aramaeans,
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
Elam and
Lud, although the
Elamites and
Lydians usually thought to descend from these spoke languages that 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 with, for example, a recent
bayesian analysis identifying an origin for Semitic languages in the Levant around 5,750
BP with a single introduction from southern Arabia into Africa around 2,800 BP.[sup]
[3][/sup] The Semitic language family is also considered a component of the larger
Afroasiatic 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
Afroasiatic.