Glossary

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The words “Semite” and “Semitic” have several distinct but overlapping meanings—among them, one used in biblical genealogy and another in language study. These words are derived from the name of Shem, the first of Noah’s three sons. The earliest forms of these words in English—following Hebrew pronunciation—were “Shemite” and “Shemitic,” until these pronunciations were displaced in the middle of the 19th century by the current forms, which are based on Latin.

Latin learning was largely derived from Greek models. Since the Greek language did not have the sh sound, when the ancient Greeks borrowed Hebrew words with this sound, they regularly transcribed and pronounced them with an s instead; thus “Shem” became “Sem.” This form of the name then spread via Latin. The ending -ite, meaning “native of” or “belonging to,” is found also in “Manhattanite” and “Muscovite.” Hence, a Semite is “someone related to Shem.”

Genesis 10:21–31 introduces Shem’s descendants. Shem had five named sons, who had 21 named children. Among the nations they established, scholars have identified the Elamites, Assyrians, Arameans, Lydians, Hebrews, Arabs and perhaps Chaldeans (often a synonym for Babylonians). Abram, son of Terah, later to become Abraham (Genesis 17:5), appears in Shem’s genealogical chain. From Abram the Hebrew, a native of Ur of the Chaldees (11:26–32), come the Midianites (25:2) and, through his son Ishmael, come the Nabateans (25:13). Abraham’s son Isaac has twin sons, Esau and Jacob (25:26). The Edomites (36:1) and Amalekites (36:12) descend from Esau. The Israelites descend from Jacob, whose name changes to Israel (32:29) after he wrestles with the angel and prevails.

Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings regularly depicted Semites as bearded and brown-skinned, in contrast to clean-shaven and red-skinned Egyptians. But 19th-century ethnology, influenced by European imperialism in the Arab world and longstanding anti-Jewish bias, hypothesized a Semitic “race” characterized by curly dark hair, prominent nose and moral inferiority. Today anthropologists reject the term “Semitic” as indicating a race. Also in the 19th century the term “anti-Semitism” was coined as a political counterpart to the religious term “anti-Jewish.” Despite semantic quibbles, therefore, it is possible in the English language for an Arab, who is a Semite, to be anti-Semitic.

To linguists, “Semitic” refers to a group of related languages, Including Arabic, the language of the Koran; Hebrew, the language of most of the Bible (in this article “Bible” refers only to the Hebrew Bible); Aramaic, the language of some of the Bible and of everyday life in the time of Jesus; and Akkadian, the language of Mesopotamia between about 3000 B.C.E.^a and the first century C.E.

The language label Semitic was introduced in 1781 by the German historian A. L. Schloezer because the peoples who spoke these tongues are listed in the Bible as descended from Noah’s son Shem. However, the genealogical and linguistic uses of the term Semitic do not coincide completely. Though the Lydians and Elamites appear in the biblical lists of Semitic peoples, scholars today do not include their languages in the Semitic group. Conversely, the Phoenicians spoke a Semitic language but are listed in Genesis (10:15) as descendants of Shem’s brother Ham.

The relationship of Semitic languages to each other parallels the similarity of English to German or of Spanish to Italian; knowledge of one Semitic language increases our understanding of the others. For example, over 1,000 words appear only once in the Hebrew text of the Bible and about 400 of these words—especially those referring to animals, plants, special clothing and ritual objects—cannot be understood by reference to any known biblical root. They can, however, sometimes be understood with help from cognates, that is, related words in other languages of the same family. Similarly, the Hebrew text of the Bible does not visually distinguish poetry from prose. The interpretation of Hebrew poetic texts is aided by comparison to poetic traditions in sister languages.

The oldest surviving documents in a Semitic language are in Akkadian, the language of Assyria and Babylonia, in Mesopotamia (approximately modern Iraq). They are preserved on baked tablets in cuneiform, that is, “wedge-shaped” writing, dating from the third millennium B.C.E. The contents of these tablets range from epic poetry to private correspondence. Their importance for understanding early Hebrew language and thought is immense.

Archaeologists have also discovered literary remains on clay tablets in the city-state of Ugarit, modern Ras Shamra in Syria. Though scholars disagree about whether Ugaritic is a Semitic language, the surviving poetry from Ugarit of the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.E. resembles biblical poetry in many ways and is another aid to understanding biblical texts.

The Phoenicians have left an even larger heritage: They transmitted the Semitic 035alphabet to the rest of the world. These seafarers of Tyre and Sidon, in today’s Lebanon, established trading posts as far west as Spain and their North African colony of “New City,” or Qart H|adasht—more familiar in the Latinized form Carthage—and contested with Rome throughout the third century B.C.E. for the domination of the known world. We even know what their language, called Punic, sounded like because passages are preserved in Latin transliteration in a play by the contemporaneous Roman writer Plautus.

Greek historians credited the Phoenicians with the invention of commerce. One key to their commercial success was their seemingly magical ability to keep records. The magic, of course, lay in their use of what scholars now call the Common Semitic Alphabet, which was shared by other Semitic peoples as well. Many trading partners learned to write from the Phoenicians, among them the Greeks, who passed the secret on to the Romans. It later spread around the world, wherever missionaries of the Greek and Roman churches brought the Bible. The Arabic, Ethiopian, Syriac, Indian and Mongolian scripts also came from this Semitic alphabet.

Because only a few inscriptions and fragments have survived, little is known about the ancient Edomite and Amorite languages except that they seem to have belonged to the Semitic family. The newly discovered language of Ebla may also prove to be a member. A single monument, erected in the ninth century B.C.E. by King Mesha of Moab, commemorating his rebellion against Israelite rule (2 Kings 3:4–5), our source for the language of these eastern neighbors of Israel. The language of the monument is so similar to Hebrew, however, that some scholars believe the inscription is, in fact, Hebrew.

The original language of most of the Bible is Hebrew, but large sections of Ezra and Daniel are in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Near East from about the sixth century B.C.E. to about the seventh century C.E. Long proximity to Aramaic influenced early Hebrew and, in fact, the vernacular of the Jews after the Babylonian Exile was probably Aramaic; Hebrew became a sacred or learned language. Of the two components of the Talmud, the Mishnah—the carefully crafted code of laws compiled in the second century C.E.—is in Hebrew, but the Gemarah—the edited notes of rabbinic lectures and discussions of the Mishnah—is in Aramaic. The Aramaic of the Talmud is closely related to Syriac, another Semitic language, which serves as the liturgical language of the Nestorian and Jacobite Christian churches and is the language of surviving Christian communities in Iran and Soviet Georgia. After the seventh century C.E., Aramaic was supplanted as a lingua franca by another Semitic language, Arabic, the sacred tongue of Islam and the vernacular of the Arab world.

Finally, Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia and the sacred language of sixteen million Coptic Christians, and Harari, spoken in the Moslem city of Harar, in southeastern Ethiopia, are also Semitic languages although they have been greatly influenced by the surrounding non-Semitic languages.

The words “Semite” and “Semitic” have several distinct but overlapping meanings—among them, one used in biblical genealogy and another in language study. These words are derived from the name of Shem, the first of Noah’s three sons. The earliest forms of these words in English—following Hebrew pronunciation—were “Shemite” and “Shemitic,” until these pronunciations were displaced in the middle of the 19th century by the current forms, which are based on Latin. Latin learning was largely derived from Greek models. Since the Greek language did not have the sh sound, when the ancient Greeks borrowed Hebrew words with this sound, […]