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Semitic people or Semites is a term for an ethnic, cultural or racial groupOn the use of the terms “(anti-)Semitic” and “(anti-) Zionist” in modern Middle Eastern discourse, Orientalia Suecana LXI Suppl. (2012)
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Lutz Eberhard Edzard
"In linguistics context, the term "Semitic" is generally speaking non-controversial... As an ethnic term, "Semitic" should best be avoided these days, in spite of ongoing genetic research (which also is supported by the Israeli scholarly community itself) that tries to scientifically underpin such a concept."Review of "The Canaanites" (1964)
by Marvin H. Pope: "The term "Semitic," coined by Schlozer in 1781, should be strictly limited to linguistic matters since this is the only area in which a degree of objectivity is attainable. The Semitic languages comprise a fairly distinct linguistic family, a fact appreciated long before the relationship of the Indo-European languages was recognized. The ethnography and ethnology of the various peoples who spoke or still speak Semitic languages or dialects is a much more mixed and confused matter and one over which we have little scientific control." associated with people of the
The term Semitic in a racial sense was coined by members of the Göttingen school of history in the early 1770s. Other members of the Göttingen school of history coined the separate term Caucasian in the 1780s. These terms were used and developed by numerous other scholars over the next century. In the early 20th century, the pseudo-scientific classifications of Carleton S. Coon included the Semitic peoples in the Caucasian race, as similar in appearance to the Indo-European, Northwest Caucasian, and Kartvelian-speaking peoples. Due to the interweaving of language studies and cultural studies, the term also came to be applied to the religions ( ancient Semitic and Abrahamic) and ethnicities of various cultures associated by geographic and linguistic distribution.
The terms "anti-Semite" or "antisemitism" came by a circuitous route to refer more narrowly to anyone who was hostile or discriminatory towards Jews in particular.
Anthropologists of the 19th century such as Ernest Renan readily aligned linguistic groupings with
Semitic language family tree
included under "Afro-Asiatic" in SIL'
Ethnologue
The south Arabian origin of ancient Arabs
The perished Arabs
{{Authority control Historical definitions of race Islam and Judaism Shem
b
Lutz Eberhard Edzard
"In linguistics context, the term "Semitic" is generally speaking non-controversial... As an ethnic term, "Semitic" should best be avoided these days, in spite of ongoing genetic research (which also is supported by the Israeli scholarly community itself) that tries to scientifically underpin such a concept."Review of "The Canaanites" (1964)
by Marvin H. Pope: "The term "Semitic," coined by Schlozer in 1781, should be strictly limited to linguistic matters since this is the only area in which a degree of objectivity is attainable. The Semitic languages comprise a fairly distinct linguistic family, a fact appreciated long before the relationship of the Indo-European languages was recognized. The ethnography and ethnology of the various peoples who spoke or still speak Semitic languages or dialects is a much more mixed and confused matter and one over which we have little scientific control." associated with people of the
Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
and the Horn of Africa, including Akkadians ( Assyrians), Arabs, Arameans, Canaanites ( Jews, Phoenicians, etc.) and Habesha peoples. The terminology is now largely unused outside the grouping " Semitic languages" in linguistics. First used in the 1770s by members of the Göttingen school of history, this biblical terminology for race was derived from Shem (), one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis, together with the parallel terms Hamites and Japhetites.
In archaeology, the term is sometimes used informally as "a kind of shorthand" for ancient Semitic-speaking peoples. The use of the term as a racial category is considered obsolete.
Ethnicity and race
The term Semitic in a racial sense was coined by members of the Göttingen school of history in the early 1770s. Other members of the Göttingen school of history coined the separate term Caucasian in the 1780s. These terms were used and developed by numerous other scholars over the next century. In the early 20th century, the pseudo-scientific classifications of Carleton S. Coon included the Semitic peoples in the Caucasian race, as similar in appearance to the Indo-European, Northwest Caucasian, and Kartvelian-speaking peoples. Due to the interweaving of language studies and cultural studies, the term also came to be applied to the religions ( ancient Semitic and Abrahamic) and ethnicities of various cultures associated by geographic and linguistic distribution.
Antisemitism
The terms "anti-Semite" or "antisemitism" came by a circuitous route to refer more narrowly to anyone who was hostile or discriminatory towards Jews in particular.
Anthropologists of the 19th century such as Ernest Renan readily aligned linguistic groupings with ethnicity
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...
and culture, appealing to anecdote, science and folklore in their efforts to define racial character. Moritz Steinschneider, in his periodical of Jewish letters ''Hamaskir'' (3 (Berlin 1860), 16), discusses an article by Heymann Steinthal criticising Renan's article "New Considerations on the General Character of the Semitic Peoples, In Particular Their Tendency to Monotheism". Renan had acknowledged the importance of the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Israel etc. but called the Semitic races inferior to the Aryan for their monotheism, which he held to arise from their supposed lustful, violent, unscrupulous and selfish racial instincts. Steinthal summed up these predispositions as "Semitism", and so Steinschneider characterised Renan's ideas as "anti-Semitic prejudice".
In 1879, the German journalist Wilhelm Marr began the politicisation of the term by speaking of a struggle between Jews and Germans in a pamphlet called ''Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum'' ("The Way to Victory of Germanism over Judaism"). He accused the Jews of being liberals, a people without roots who had Judaized Germans beyond salvation. In 1879, Marr's adherents founded the "League for Anti-Semitism",Moshe Zimmermann, ''Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Anti-Semitism'', Oxford University Press, USA, 1987 which concerned itself entirely with anti-Jewish political action.
Objections to the usage of the term, such as the obsolete nature of the term "Semitic" as a racial term, have been raised since at least the 1930s.
See also
* Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples * Pan-Semitism *Generations of Noah
The Generations of Noah, also called the Table of Nations or ''Origines Gentium'', is a genealogy of the sons of Noah, according to the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, Genesis ), and their dispersion into many lands after Genesis flood narrative ...
* Hamites
* Japhetites
References
Bibliography
* *External links
Semitic language family tree
included under "Afro-Asiatic" in SIL'
Ethnologue
The south Arabian origin of ancient Arabs
The perished Arabs
{{Authority control Historical definitions of race Islam and Judaism Shem