Semitic

Semitic is an adjective referring to the peoples who have traditionally spoken Semitic languages or to things pertaining to them. Genetic analysis suggests that the Semitic peoples share a significant common ancestry, despite important differences and contributions from other groups. This genetic commonality applies less in the Horn of Africa, however, where indigenous non-Middle Eastern populations may have adopted Semitic language(s) over time due to cultural influence from immigrants from Yemen. There is much debate about the scope of the word's "racial" use in the context of population genetics and history, but as a linguistic term it is well-defined, referring to a largely Middle Eastern family of languages — ancient and modern — including Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Assyrian (Syriac), Babylonian (Akkadian), Hebrew, Maltese, and Tigrigna. The Proto-Semitic peoples, ancestors of the Semites in the Middle East before the break-up of the hypothesized original (proto-)Semitic language into various modern Semitic languages, are thought to have been originally from the Arabian Peninsula.

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The word "Semitic" derives from the Greek version of the Hebrew name Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Jewish scriptures (Genesis 5:32); the noun form referring to a person is Semite. The negative form of the adjective anti-Semitic is almost always used to mean "anti-Jewish", specifically.

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Semitic languages: The Semitic languages are a family of languages spoken by more than 250 million people across much of the Middle East, where they originated, and North and East Africa. They constitute the northeastern subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic languages, and the only family of this group spoken in Asia....

Horn of Africa: The Horn of Africa (or, Somali Peninsula) is a peninsula of East Africa that juts into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent, and so-called because of its resemblance to a rhinoceros's horn....

Population genetics: Population genetics is the study of the distribution of and change in allele frequencies under the influence of the five evolutionary forces: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, migration and nonrandom mating. It also takes account of population subdivision and population structure in space....