Semitic people

Semitic people or Semites is a term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group associated with people of the Middle East 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 (שֵׁם), 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.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.