Semites

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The term Semites or Semtic people (from the biblical "Shem", one of the three sons of Noah) is a term for peoples who speak or spoke Semitic languages.

Previously, it roughly meant "Asians".

Parallel terms derived from the Bible are "Hamites" ("Africans") and "Japhetites" ("Europeans"). These terms are now mostly obsolete even in linguistics.

Leftist Wikipedia claims that the term "Semitic" is now obsolete outside of linguistics, despite itself having articles on topics such as "Semitic studies" and "Ancient Semitic religion".

The term "Semitic peoples" has been used somewhat differently in some racial anthropological classifications, such as by Carleton S. Coon.

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