Semitic peoples

The term Semitic refers to those people whose mother tongue is a Semitic language. The adjective was originally used in the linguistic field to refer to a large family of languages originating from the Near East and which are currently known as Semitic languages.^{[citation required]}

Despite lacking any ethnic basis, and as happened with the term «Aryan», the word «Semitic» during the century XIX transferred its original linguistic meaning to a new, pseudoscientific and racial one. With the end of World War II, the second sense of the term has fallen into disuse.^{[citation required]}

Toponymy

The adjective "Semitic" refers to the people mentioned in the Bible, descendants of Shem, one of the sons of Noah - according to tradition (based on the book of Genesis), the firstborn, although according to direct interpretation from the text, he may have been second after Japheth—; The third brother was Ham. In the book of Genesis (the first of the Bible) there is the narrative of the Universal Flood and in it is the "table of nations", where reference is made to the genealogy of the Semites. Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples include the inhabitants of Aram, Assyria, Babylon, Syria, Canaan—including the Hebrews—and Phenicia.

The word was initially proposed by August Ludwig von Schlözer in Eichhorn's Repertorium (1781), to refer to languages related to Hebrew. The Catholic Encyclopedia states that as early as 1807, “Semite” had been adopted as an ethnic term. By extension, "Semitic" began to be used to designate the peoples who spoke Semitic languages and their cultural achievements.

In linguistics and ethnology, the term "Semitic" is used to refer to a linguistic family of predominantly Middle Eastern origin, now called Semitic languages. This language family includes ancient and modern forms of Akkadian, Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Phoenician, Ge'ez, Hebrew, Maltese, Yehen, and Tigrinya.

Use

The Semitic-speaking peoples were made up of a heterogeneous group of peoples and ethnic groups, all of them belonging to the ancient Semitic linguistic family. The racial meaning of "Semite" is today considered pseudoscientific and its use is discouraged. The relationship between the Semitic peoples is due exclusively to their linguistic and cultural origin, so the use of "Semite" must be limited to these areas. It is, therefore, inappropriate to speak of Indo-European "races" or Semitic "races", but rather we must speak of peoples who spoke one of these languages.

It is especially in the classification of linguistics and when considering language families that regions are determined with groups that speak different languages, among which there are also Semitic languages.

Anti-Semitism

At the end of the 19th century the neologism anti-Semitism was coined in pamphlets calling for ideological and racial hostility against Jews. That has been and continues to be the exclusive meaning of the term, that is, applied exclusively to Jews (and not to other peoples with Semitic languages, such as Arabs), and this is reflected in the DRAE (see its definition).

The terms "anti-Semitic" or "anti-Semitism" arrived by a "circuitous" path to refer more narrowly to anyone who was hostile or discriminatory toward Jews in particular.

Anthropologists of the 19th century, such as Ernest Renan, readily aligned linguistic groupings with ethnicity and culture, appealing to anecdote, science, and folklore in their efforts to define racial character. Moritz Steinschneider, in his magazine of Jewish literature Hamaskir (3 (Berlin 1860), 16), comments on an article by Heymann Steinthal criticizing Renan's article «New considerations on the general character of the Semitic peoples, in particular their tendency towards monotheism." Renan had recognized the importance of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Israel, etc., but he described the Semitic races as inferior to the Aryans for their monotheism, which according to him came from their supposed instincts. lustful, violent, unscrupulous and selfish racial groups. Steinthal summarized these predispositions as "Semitism", and thus Steinschneider characterized Renan's ideas as "anti-Semitic prejudice.

In 1879, the German journalist Wilhelm Marr began the politicization of the term by speaking of a struggle between Jews and Germans in a pamphlet titled Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum ("The road to the victory of Germanism over Judaism. He accused the Jews of being liberals, a rootless people who had Judaized the Germans beyond salvation. In 1879 Marr's followers founded the "League of Anti-Semitism", which dealt exclusively with anti-Jewish political action.