--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...> wrote:
> I actually should have emphasized that the Biblical stories of Shem
and Japheth and Ham, especially if taken metaphorically as
descriptions of groups of languages, may have a kernel of truth (apart
from these names actually being used formerly to name three language
families), since Nostratic theory says that Indo-European and Semitic
are ultimately related.
Surely it's just the recurring idea of monogenesis!
Have you read Genesis x recently? Note that Ham begot Canaan, who in
turn begot Heth (i.e. the Hittites), and that Shem begot Lud, who is
presumed to mean the Lydians. Now, the Hittites and Lydians were
Indo-European, and the Canaanites were Semitic - or at least, the
Phoenicians were, and Sidon is the eldest son of Canaan. I don't
think there's anything particularly Semitic about Elam either.
If Ham encompasses all with Egyptian connections, then the rest are
divided between coastal people to the North and West, and landlubbers
to the East and north. The Hebrews belong in the latter group, and
otehr peoples don't figure at all. Lud = Lydians and Lud being a son
of Shem make no sense to me.
> I assume here that the earlier use of "Semitic", "Japhetic", and
"Hamitic" was adopted before it was proved, or at least empirically
suggested (only recently, was it not?), that these language families
are actually related ("Japhetic" being of course Indo-European).
I believe St Augustine mentions that Punic was similar to Hebrew, so
the savants should have known that the labels were only approximate.
According to my dictionary, 'Semite' etc. only came into use in the
19th century in English, so these terms are not independent of an
understanding of linguistic relatedness in that example. 'Hamitic',
of course, doesn't seem to be much more meaningful than 'North
African' in linguistic terms, though attempts were made to define it
more rigorously.
Richard.