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Glite Dictionary
Hamitic

Hamitic

9.9
An old name for languages in northern Africa once thought related to Arabic and Hebrew
  • noun
  • /həˈmɪtɪk/
  • Archaic
translation icon : hamítico
  • The Hamitic languages were once believed to be a separate branch within the Afro-Asiatic language family.

Examples

  • Scholars have largely moved away from the concept of Hamitic languages, considering it obsolete in the field of linguistics.

  • Historically, the term Hamitic referred to a group of languages spoken in northern Africa that were thought to be related to Semitic languages.

  • As is now well known, Western race theory of the colonial period held that Hutu and Tutsi were different peoples by nature, representatives of the larger and equally distinct "Bantu" and "Nilotic" groups (see Mamdani 2001:76-102 for a full account of the "Hamitic" theory).

    Academic text (2005)

Synonyms

Hamitic language
vsHamitic
  • Archaic
9.9

An old idea that grouped some North African languages with Semitic ones

is a historical term stressing obsolescence rather than a technical classification

Compounds

Hamitic language
  • Archaic
9.9

An old idea that grouped some North African languages with Semitic ones

Surface Forms

Hamitic singular
Hamitics plural

Morphology

Hamitic = Ham (semi-transparent) = Ham + itic

The form signals 'relating to Ham' via a standard relational suffix, but knowledge of the biblical figure and the historical/obsolete classification is needed to derive the meaning.

Etymology

Hamitic comes from the name Ham in the Bible, who was once thought to be the 'ancestor' of many peoples in parts of Africa and the Near East. So Hamitic was used to name languages believed to come from Ham's descendants, but experts now say the term is old and no longer used.