I. Name: Up to the latter part of the eighteenth century, before Sanskrit was known to Europe, or attention had been directed to the Central and Eastern Asiatic tongues, or those of Africa (except Coptic), " Oriental languages " signified only Hebrew and its sister dialects: these alone, with the exception of Coptic, had been the object of scientific study. Up to this time all study of nonclassical languages was connected with the Bible; Biblical students accomplished all that was done in Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopic, and the related tongues, for the preceding 300 years. But when the linguistic circle began to widen, and attempts were made at classification, the need of special names for different linguistic groups was felt; and, for the more general divisions, recourse was naturally had to the genealogies in the table of nations in Gen. x. The credit, if such it be, of having originated the name " Semitic " (from Noah's son Sem, or Shem) for
the Hebrew group, is to be given either to Schldzer or to Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (q.v.)-to which of the two is doubtful. The first known use of the term is in Schlozer's article on the Chaldeans, in Eichhorn's Repertorium (viii. 161, 1781), and he seems to claim the honor of its invention; but a similar claim is made by Eichhorn for himself, without mention of Schlozer, in his Allgemeine Bibliothek, vi. 772 (Leipsic, 1794), and Eichhom appears to have been accepted as the author of the name. In a short while, however, it was everywhere adopted, and is now the recognized name of this group of languages. In Germany and France, and to some extent at least in England (so Coleridge, Table-Talk, 1827), the form " Semitic " was employed (after Septuagint and Latin Vulgate, and Luther's " Sem," instead of Hebrew " Shem "); while some English and American writers prefer the form " Shemitic," after the more accurate transliteration of the Hebrew. Between the two there is little to choose, but the shorter form, now the more common one, is preferable to the other, because it is shorter, and inasmuch as it is farther removed from genealogical misconception. The once popular but unscientific threefold division of all the languages of the world into Japhetic, Shemitic, and Hamitic, is now abandoned by scholars. " Shemitic " is misleading, in so far as it appears to restrict itself to the languages spoken by the peoples mentioned in the table of nations as descendants of Shem, while it in fact includes dialects, as the Phenician and the Philistine, which are assigned in the table to Ham. The form " Semitic " (in English, but not in German and French), as farther removed than " Shemitie " from " Shexn," may, perhaps, be more easily treated as in itself meaningless, and made to accept such meaning as science may give it. On the other hand, as meaningless, it is felt by some to be objectionable; and
other names, expressing a geographical, or ethnical, or linguistic differentia of the languages in question, have been sought, e.g., Western Asiatic, Arabian, Syro-Arabian: but none proposed has been definite and euphonic enough to gain general approbation, and it is likely that " Semitic " will retain its place for the present. If a new name is to be adopted some such term as " Triliteral " would be the most appropriate, since triliterality of stems is the most striking characteristic of this family of languages, and is found in no other family.
II. Territory: In ancient times (1,000 B.C.) the Semites occupied as their proper territory the southwestern corner of Asia; their boundaries, generally stated, being-on the east, the mountain
range running south from about fortyr. In His- miles east of the Tigris River, and the torical Persian Gulf; on the south, the Indian Times. Ocean; on the west, the Red Sea,
Egypt, the Mediterranean Sea, and GSlieia; and on the north the Taurus or the Masius Mountains. The north and east lines are uncertain, from the absence of full data in the early Assyrian records. At least 1,500 years before the beginning of the Christian era, Semitic emigrants from Southern Arabia crossed the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and occupied the part of Africa lying just south of Egypt, their territory being about that of the modern Abyssinia: these were the Geez (" emigrants," or possibly " freemen "), or Semitic Ethiopians. The main Semitic region thus lay between the tenth and thirty-eighth degrees of north latitude and the fortyfourth and sixtieth degrees of east longitude, with an area of over a million square miles. Semitic colonies established thereselves early in Egypt (Phenicians in the Delta, and perhaps the Hyksos), and on the north coast of Africa (Carthage and other cities) and the south coast of France (Marseilles) and Spain, possibly (though this is uncertain) in Asia Minor and in Greece. In modern times Syrian Semites are found in Kurdistan, as far east as the western shore of Lake Urumiah (lat. 37° 30' N.; long. 45° 30' E.); but it is doubtful whether this region was Semitic before the beginning of the Christian era. A large part of Semitic territory was steppe or desert. Only those portions which skirt the banks of rivers and the shores of seas (with the exception of the city of Mecca and possibly one or two other small cities) were occupied by settled populations the desert was traversed by tribes of nomads, whose life was largely predatory. Semitic speech is interesting, not from the size of the territory and population it represents, but from the controlling influence it has exerted on history through its religious ideas.
The original seat of the Semites is unknown. There must have been a primitive Semitic race (with a primitive Semitic language), which existed before the historical Semitic peoples and dialects had taken
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SIDONIUS, MICHAEL: Bishop of Merseburg. See HELDING, MICHAEL.