I have no doubt that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki doesn’t like Israel; he’s told us that, but when Howard Dean called him and Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani anti-Semites, I had to wince. Now if you’re going to accuse someone of something, it behooves you to know what you’re saying or you might, as Dr. Dean did on CNN this morning, sound like a dummy.
Although the Bible tells us that Semites descend from Shem, the son of Noah and suggests a Semitic race by that family connection, the term Semitic really refers to a language family, which includes many languages, used in many countries, the most widely spoken today of which is Arabic. Of course the Bible is a political mythology and while there is no evidence that old Shem was a historical character, there is solid evidence that Semitic languages share a common and ancient root as do languages in other language families like Indo-European and Finno-Ugric. People speaking related tongues are not necessarily related ethnically. Finns, for instance, speak Suomi which is related I’m told both to Hungarian and to Manchurian and not to the Aryan or Indo-European languages. But getting back to my point; Nouri al-Maliki is as much a Semite in linguistic terms as is Ehud Olmert.
Dean is a politician, a Physician and sometime maker of strange noises at inopportune times, but apparently not a linguist. That doesn’t excuse the Republican National Committee of making the idiotic statement that he was trying to make “cheap political points” by pointing out that al-Maliki doesn’t like Israel. He doesn’t like Israel, he says he doesn’t and I certainly believe him! Perhaps the cheap political points accrue to the Republicans (as most cheap political points have done in recent years) for trying to smear someone for stating the obvious facts.
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Thank you for explaining the meaning of Semitic. The misuse of that term is one of my pet peeves.
yes, but....
sorry, cap, but i'm about 2 nail u.
whether dean's right or not about particular individuals, the term "anti-semite" was invented in the 19th century by some jew-hater who wanted to make his phobia sound like it had a rational, or even scientific, basis.
so it really just means anti-jew, not literally anti-semite.
look it up.
Hmmmm, but the term Semite is quite a bit older than the 19th century. I think the classification of languages that adopted the term occured in the mid 18th century. Of course the word Semite is much older. I see Willy Marr as having been a thief of words rather than a creator of them.
Of course seeing the way languages is used today, you can argue that war means peace and anything means anything else.
I'm aware that it's usually used to mean anti-Jewish among Jews and everyone else, but since my education had more to do with linguistics than with the history of bigotry, and because I'd rather not dignify the 19th century protonazi dude, Semitic will remain a term describing the family of languages in my mind - such as it is and as it's used by people who waste time studying language families.
But on the subject; the word Aryan has been abused in the same way. It's not a racial term as Hitler liked to think, but another term of linguistic taxonomy, and Persians speak an Aryan language while the blond haired Finns do not. I think the word Iran and Aryan are cognate.
But it gets crazy here too. Egyptians, according to the Biblical myth, descend from Ham and his son Misrahi and so speaking a semitic language as they do today, you'd have to call them Hamitic.
I wonder if the name Ham comes from one of the ancient Egyptian words for their country: Kam. Re en Kam was the name of the language.
Anyway, I've yet to hear of anti-Hamitism and I hope I haven't given some 21st century racist ding-dong an idea.
I was having the same discussion about whether Romulans and Vulcans are the same species.
Life in the universe is relatively rare - intelligent life, even more so. The chance that the hundreds of occurrences that add up to the evolution of intelligent life will occur, in the right order, is very slim indeed. Rarest of all, though, is the possibility of two intelligent, humanoid species developing on the same planet. However, this has been known to happen. Like Homo Neandertalensis and Homo Sapiens who cohabitated Earth in the Paleolithic period, as well as the Valakians and Menk of Valakis, two intelligent humanoid species evolved on the planet Vulcan simultaneously.
There is one key difference between what happened on Vulcan and what happened on Earth and Valakis. On Vulcan, both species evolved and developed at the same rate, and neither species overcame the other biologically, in intelligence, or in technological advancements. In all things they were equal. The only physical difference between the two species was the presence of more pronounced ridges on the foreheads of one of the species.
As they evolved, both species became intensely aggressive and warlike. Following the appearance and teachings of Surak, one of the Vulcan species abandoned their warlike ways and turned to logic. The second species, however, vehemently disagreed with these philosophies. Out of outrage and disgust, they decided to leave their hot, inhospitable planet in search of greener pastures. This species soon re-settled on a planet known as Romulus, and proceeded to erase all ties between them and their former neighbors, the Vulcans.
The Romulans, unlike their Vulcan brethren, fully embraced their warrior natures. Once settled on Romulus, they proceeded to conquer and develop a huge empire. Their first step was to overcome and enslave the natives of Romulus' sister planet, Remus.
Though the majority of Romulans think of Vulcans as weak and do their best to forget their ancient connection, in the late 23rd and 24th centuries some changes in attitude began to manifest themselves. For example, there was a trend among young Romulans of embracing their Vulcan roots. They exhibited these feelings by turning to logic rather than aggression more and more often. It was also at this time that some chose to surgically remove their forehead ridges, to resemble the Vulcans more closely. To this day many on Romulus don't think twice when they see an individual on their streets that does not have ridges.
So are you off your meds again
Finnish and Korean are in the same language family. Yet culturally, the Koreans have more in common with the Japanese than the Finns. Korean and Japanese food are very similar, Korean food having a lot more garlic and pepper.
I wonder if their is a similarity in Vulcan and Romulan cuisine. I never was that into Star Trek to know. Must be a girl thing. ;)
I don't understand how it is when Howard Dean points out the obvious, it's a gaffe.
The Finns never occupied the place as far as I know, but when it comes to food, Korean is near the top of my list and reindeer meat is not.
But the republicans live in a world of "if you keep saying it, it's true" and they do want Dean to appear out of bounds so they keep saying it.
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