# Are there any Semites other than the Jews **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 12, 2004, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724 "2004-05-12T03:21:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724/1 "2004-05-12T03:21:37Z")
The dictionary gives two definitions for the word “Semite”: 1. A Jew 2. Anyone from an ethnic group that speaks a Semitic language, which includes Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and others. But the history books that I’ve read all suggest that the Semites were just one of several tribes native to Arabia. The impression I get is that the Semites, either the entire tribe or just part of it, started moving northward out of the Arabian Desert and into Babylonia. They mingled there for some time, and later a group broke off and moved westward, becoming the Jewish people. Obviously if you believe biblical accounts, then this was the migration led by Abraham. But then what happened to the Semites who didn’t move westward to Canaan? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724/2 "2004-05-12T03:32:21Z")
Semites are, like the definition says, people who speak a Semitic language (which is part of the Hamito-Semitic family). Jews, Arabs, the Ethiopians and the Maltese are the only surviving Semitic peoples (with the exception of a few Aramaic speakers in Syria and Turkey), but in the past, you had the Canaanites, the Akkadians, the Babylonians, the Moabites, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724/3 "2004-05-12T05:55:24Z")
The confusion comes from the brute facts of history. The previous posts are correct, there are many other Semitic peoples besides Semitic Jews. However, _Anti-Semitic_ is properly applied only in reference to those with a pathology concerning Jewish people. The phrase arose out of the history of persecution of Jewish people in Europe. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724/4 "2004-05-12T06:29:01Z")
**Sevastapol,** your point is well taken. However, I wonder what _anti-semitic_ will mean in another 20 years. There’s a rapid acceleration in anti-arab sentiment, and a parallel spike in anti-Jewish sentiment, and I’m not comfortable with either trend. Who gains from all this cross-cultural hatred? I haven’t quite figured that out. ---
**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724/5 "2004-05-12T06:39:24Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > **Sevastapol,** your point is well taken. However, I wonder what _anti-semitic_ will mean in another 20 years. There’s a rapid acceleration in anti-arab sentiment, and a parallel spike in anti-Jewish sentiment, and I’m not comfortable with either trend. Who gains from all this cross-cultural hatred? I haven’t quite figured that out. At the risk of sending this spiraling into GD, isn’t the canonical answer “Whitey”? ---
**Author:** ![Catalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@Catalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catalyst)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724/6 "2004-05-12T11:07:53Z")
Who benefits? The Man™, of course! ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724/7 "2004-05-12T13:18:40Z")
A Semite is a speaker of a Semitic language or a member of an ethnic group supposedly descended (on the view of those for whom the Bible has a literal factual application) from Shem. One of our linguistics experts can detail what surviving tongues are Semitic – there are a few more than Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese, and Aramaic. The supposed Shem lineage includes: [ol][li]Elamites (ancient SW Iran)[/li][li]Assyrians (ancient north Iraq)[/li][li]Lydians (ancient central Turkey)[/li][li]Aramaeans (ancient southern Syria, spreading through northern Israel and Jordan and northern and western Iraq, in some parts of which small pockets remain today)[/li][li]A whole conglomeration of “Arabic” tribes not familiar to even Bible scholars ranging from Biblical Moab southeast across the north edge of the “Empty Quarter”[/li][li]Ophirites and Sabaeans (Sheba-ites), found in ancient times in southern Arabia and adjacent Ethiopia and Somalia. Some modern groups claim descent from them.[/li][li]Moabites, in southwest Jordan approximately east and southeast of the Dead Sea[/li][li]Ammonites, formerly in west Jordan opposite the West Bank, with their capital at Rabbah-Ammon, the present Jordanian capital city of Amman.[/li][li]Ishmaelites, from whom modern Arabs claim descent[/li][li]Midianites, occupying the Sinai in ancient times[/li][li]Edomites, becoming Idumaeans in New Testament times, in southern Israel and adjacent Jordan[/ol][/li] I make no claim for this list being either anything other than derived from Biblical eponymous genealogies and hence subject to a lot of folk theorizing nor that it is anything like complete. But it gives a rough summary of who were thought to be “Semites” in Biblical times. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724/8 "2004-05-12T20:38:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Ophirites and Sabaeans (Sheba-ites), found in ancient times in southern Arabia and adjacent Ethiopia and Somalia. Some modern groups claim descent from them. I recall reading in several places, including in Larry Gonick’s excellent _Cartoon History of the Universe_, that members of these Ethiopian tribes have been claiming a lineage that ties them to the Jews of biblical times for many years. At first historians dismissed the claims as an invalid attempt by black Africans to claim partial white heritage, but later DNA testing supposedly proved it was true. Anyone have the straight dope on this? ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724/9 "2004-05-12T22:11:42Z")
For a quick run-over of Semitic languages, look here: [Encyclopedia.com: Semitic Languages](http://encyclopedia.com/html/section/afroasia_thesemiticlanguages.asp) ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-semites-other-than-the-jews/244724/10 "2004-05-13T13:13:37Z")
> [@sevastopol](#): > > However, _Anti-Semitic_ is properly applied only in reference to those with a pathology concerning Jewish people. The phrase arose out of the history of persecution of Jewish people in Europe. From Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > The antisemitic political writer Wilhelm Marr is credited with coining the German word Antisemitismus in 1873, at a time when racial science was fashionable in Germany but religious hatred wasn’t. This term was offered as an alternative to the older German word Judenhass, meaning Jew-hating. > > So far as can be ascertained, the word was first printed in 1880. In that year Marr published “Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte,” and Wilhelm Scherer used the term “Antisemiten” in the “Neue Freie Presse” of January. The related word semitism was coined around 1885. And further, > [@](#): > > Semantically, it would be considered that Arabs or Jews, being Semites, could not be anti-Semitic (barring issues of self-hatred). However, **this illustrates the difficulty of the general adoption of an inaccurate term for a common phenomenon** , since some of them are anti-Jewish, which is what anti-Semitism mostly means in historical terms. Some modern speakers now prefer the term anti-Jewish as being both more accurate and as being more appropriate. A related term is Judeophobic, which means “an irrational fear of Judaism and Jews”. [emphasis mine] Leaving aside the irony of people wanting to respect a racist’s definition of a word that is itself racist & ignorant, Semites are descendents of Noah’s son Shem—they probably dropped the “h” 'cos they thought it looked cool. The New Advent, the online Catholic encyclopedia, discusses it at some lenght. Who the Semites are, that is, not why they dropped the “h.” It offers a longer discussion that may be what you, the OP, are looking for.