Category talk:Semitic-speaking peoples

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Asia

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Africa

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Ancient Near East

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Languages

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This category was nominated for deletion on 11 May 2014. The result of the discussion was no consensus on this one, delete two others.

This category was nominated for renaming on 26 January 2016. The result of the discussion was no consensus, partly because the tag was removed from the page.

Validity[edit]

This is stupid. There are no Semitic People, but there are only Semitic languages! Jews speak the Semitic language, Hebrew, but most of them (Ashkenazim and Jews of Spain/Portugal) have the look of Europeans, because they are Europeans. So how can you put them together along with Arabs? They have only a semitic language in common. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.69.68.234 (talk • contribs) 20:16, 2 January 2007‎

It's because Jews use to be Hebrews but now anyone can convert and be called a Jew but not be a Semite..I think the word "Jews" should be removed and Hebrew left in it's place...by the way Arabs are Hebrews as well.-Mari — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.153.29.123 (talk • contribs) 04:36, 26 April 2007‎

@Mari,

Jews are commonly considered Semitic both culturally and genetically.

There is a definite link between language and culture. Throughout the Jewish diaspora, Jews have maintained their distinct Semitic culture to various degrees. This includes circumcision, which was common in the ancient Near East, as well as distinct music and cuisine, which was always different from that of the host populations.

Modern genetic studies have shown that the contribution of conversion over the years have been very small and that the majority of most Jewish communities, including Ashkenazim, show y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA originating in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. As far as the look of Europeans, light hair and blue eyes are also common in Lebanon, with blue eyes reaching frequencies of up to 40%. This makes sense, as ancient Pheonecians and ancient Hebrews spoke mutually intelligible languages and were probably quite closely related genetically. Things like Tay-Sachs Disease and Haplogroup G2c, which are almost exclusive genetic signatures of the Ashkenazi population, prove the low rate of admixture of host populations in the Ashkenazi Jewish population and of a common founder. The Aramaic substratum in the Yiddish language is linguistic evidence for a continued history between ancient Hebrews and modern Jews. - Eli (eblashko) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eblashko (talk • contribs) 20:02, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Naming[edit]

@Oncenawhile: would this be better renamed as Category:Semitic-speaking peoples, following the pattern of other sub-categories within Category:Afroasiatic peoples? – Fayenatic London 10:25, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Fayenatic london: yes that is very a good idea. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:21, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]