Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The meaning of the word "Semetic"













In class the professor said that "Semetic" is a language group not a race.This tree outlines his point. The Semetic languages are organized together in order of theorized age and similarity. All the current Semetic languages are believed to have come from some unknown ancient language known simply as "Proto-Semetic". Arabic and Hebrew are both modern Semetic languages, so it makes little sense in labeling anti-Israeli Arabs as anti-Semetic.

The word "Aryan" originally was a name for another language group, what is now called the Indo-European language family, of which most modern European, Iranian, and Indian languages belong to.

(image from http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/proto-semitic-dating-and-locating-it/ , sorry about the bad quality)

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