Semitic people
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Semites are (historical) peoples who speak and spoke a Semitic language.
The German historian August Ludwig von Schlözer coined the term in 1781 with reference to the table of nations in Genesis - see Semitism. The Bible traces the descent of Abraham back to Shem, the son of Noah. Following this, in biblical times all peoples of the Near East who considered themselves descendants of Abraham were referred to as "sons of Shem". The Semites include the Amhars, Tigrinya, Arabs, Hyksos, Maltese, Minaeans, Sabaeans, Amorites, Ammonites, Akkadians/Babylonians/Assyrians/Aramaeans, Hebrews, Canaanites, Moabites, Nabataeans, Phoenicians and Samaritans.
The Semites in the linguistic sense are not completely identical with the descendants of Shem of the Bible. Thus, although the Canaanites spoke a Semitic language, the biblical progenitor Canaan is described as the son of Noah's son Ham.
Semitic languages are spoken in particular by Arabs, Israelis, Arameans, Maltese and several language groups in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The collective term "Semites" as a designation of a family of peoples is now considered inaccurate and outdated, especially due to its use in racist contexts.
Distribution
In ancient times, peoples who spoke Semitic languages probably first inhabited the Arabian Peninsula. Migrations brought them to Mesopotamia, Syria and Canaan, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and with Phoenician colonization to the shores of the western Mediterranean. It is believed that they originally came from northeast Africa, which was also home to the other branches of the Afro-Asiatic language family, referred to in older linguistics as Hamitic languages.
Semites as a racist term
In various pseudo-scientific race theories, the Jews were called "Semites" because the Hebrews were a Semitic people. In order to substantiate the hostility towards the Jews "scientifically" (and no longer only religiously), the Semites were declared to be an "inferior race", which was not capable of an independent culture. This also gave rise to the term anti-Semitism (enemies of the Jews called themselves anti-Semites). Anti-Semites such as Eugen Dühring went so far as to call the Jews the worst kind of Semites, hated even by the other Semites (Arabs). At the same time, the anti-Semites assumed that the Jews were not pure Semites but, according to Theodor Fritsch, a mixed race mainly of the "Semitic (Oriental, Arab) race" and the "Near Eastern (Armenoid, Assyroid) race", with 90% of the Jews belonging rather to the latter group. Towards the end of the Nazi regime, the self-designation "anti-Semites" was abolished - also with regard to Arab allies - and replaced, for example, by "opponents of the Jews". Already Dühring in the 19th century preferred to understand anti-Semitism as "anti-Hebraism".
