Comment Re:Arabs are semites. (Score 1) 1379
Claiming Arabs are semitic means a priori accepting the 19th century Christian belief that the Jews and Arabs are both descended from Abraham, thus accepting the veracity of the Bible.
Not necessarily. You could, for instance, make the classification based on the language similarities, since both Hebrew and Arabic are Semitic languages, along with a few others. In fact, that's the first definition of "Semitic" in the dictionary.
As for "anti-Semitic", what it *should* mean is "against Semites." That its dictionary definition is "anti-Jewish" isn't entirely an excuse, since any word is going to evoke both its denotation and its connotation.
Speaking personally as someone who grew up in a place where there are neither Jews nor Arabs, I was mightily confused the first time I heard someone call the U.N. "anti-Semitic." What? The U.N. hated most of the Middle East?
What's the big deal about using "anti-Jewish", anyway? Why use instead a word that's so etymologically messed up?
Not necessarily. You could, for instance, make the classification based on the language similarities, since both Hebrew and Arabic are Semitic languages, along with a few others. In fact, that's the first definition of "Semitic" in the dictionary.
As for "anti-Semitic", what it *should* mean is "against Semites." That its dictionary definition is "anti-Jewish" isn't entirely an excuse, since any word is going to evoke both its denotation and its connotation.
Speaking personally as someone who grew up in a place where there are neither Jews nor Arabs, I was mightily confused the first time I heard someone call the U.N. "anti-Semitic." What? The U.N. hated most of the Middle East?
What's the big deal about using "anti-Jewish", anyway? Why use instead a word that's so etymologically messed up?
