SEMITES. The term “Semite” was used by Johann Gottfried Eichhorn in 1787, in his Introduction to the Old Testament (second ed. 1:15) where he applied it to the peoples whose habitat is Ethiopia, Arabia, Palestine, Phoenicia, Syria, and the countries of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. The term was apparently first used by A. L. Schlözer in 1781 to designate the descendants of Shem in the lists of Genesis 10:21ff. The descendants of Shem, however, do not correspond entirely to the Sem.-speaking peoples. Elam e.g., which is included in Genesis 10:22, was not a Sem. speaking people, while the Canaanites, including the Sidonians, who were Sem., are given in Genesis 10:15 among the descendants of Ham. It should be noted, however, that there are certain similarities between Egyp. (Hamitic) and Sem. languages. Perhaps there was a very primitive Semitic-Hamitic community in the vicinity of Arabia and Egypt. Such facts indicate that the table of nations in Genesis 10 was not entirely ethnological, but at least partly geographical.

The original home of the Semites is not known, although various theories have been suggested. At the dawn of civilization traces of Sem. languages are found throughout the Fertile Crescent. Today the term Sem. is primarily applied to the various people associated with the Sem. languages. The Sem. family, therefore, includes most of the inhabitants of Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Arabia, and a high percentage of Turkey, Lebanon, and N Africa. The Sem. influence has reached England and the United States largely through Jews; the Arabs have greatly influenced Africa, and at one time, southern Europe.

The chief Sem. languages are E Sem. (Babylonian-Assyrian), NW Sem. (Aramaic dialects; Canaanite dialects such as Hebrew, Phoenician, Moabite, Ugaritic), and S Sem. (Arabic and Ethiopian dialects). All these languages are written from right to left except Akkadian and Ethiopic, the two languages which first indicated the vowels. Ugaritic, although a Canaanite dialect, is written in cuneiform script; therefore, like Akkad., it is written from left to right. The Sem. languages have many grammatical features and words in common.

Although all Semites were at one time polytheistic, it was they who gave birth to the three great monotheistic religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Bibliography S. Moscati, Ancient Semitic Civilizations (1957); An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (1964).