this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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You have that reversed. Etymology is the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history. The origin of Semite no longer applies to the word as it is used today.
The only reason it’s unique to Jews is because it’s both a form of racism and religious persecution. One can be genealogically an Ashkenazi Jew but not practice Judaism, or vice-versa.
You maybe missed the point that language evolved and eventually the definition may revert.
It’s possible. Language evolves. You’re likely not going to get it to catch on with root awareness. That’s hardly how English has evolved for the last century.
Root awareness worked in our high school latin class lol
Root awareness as well as prefixes and suffixes are the key to contextual understanding of English through its Latin and Romantic influence. Have you seen the words and alternate definitions that have been added to the dictionary in the last decade? They’re colloquial slang.
Here’s the first example I found from 2023:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/new-words-in-the-dictionary
You know, I haven’t looked at anything linguistics related since taking Latin in college, but I am roughly aware of there being a trend of new words being added for sometimes popular usage reasons as opposed to true neologisms.
Totally random, but one of my favorite things about studying Latin was finally understanding who/whose/which lol
Qui, quid, quod, cuem, cuius? I don’t know if I remember correctly myself. It was a nightmare to understand at first.
Yes, all dictionary updates are colloquially based. Meaning the word or alternate definition must be widely adopted in everyday language. All new admissions are based on what people use, not what words are “supposed to mean.”
Aye, those be the ones. Cuius almost even sounds like “whose” if you chop off the k sound. Pheweee, by the end of the 4th semester, I was drowning in different ablatives.
Well, I’m going to keep on popularizing retro-definitions and roots, unless you have a different recommendation in this specific situation?
Should I keep reminding people the Arabs and Jews are both Semites? Or would you argue that only Jews are Semitic?
No, you’re right. They’re both Semites. The thing is, the Jews have been persecuted for two millennia, to the point that it’s a massive part of their culture. Half of their holidays are in remembrance of moments of past persecution. They need a word to define it, since neither racism nor religious persecution applies. That’s the really shitty thing about Netanyahu wielding it in defense of his actions. Besides putting a target on the back of Jews around the world that have no connection to Zionism, it dilutes a concept that has plagued the Jews for all of their recorded history.
Sigh, like Bob Marley said: the -ism schism game.
Yeah, but they flip it. It’s not about the effects of persecution. They focus all of the stories and holidays on how unity and remembrance got them through the oppression. It’s actually kind of beautiful.
No doubt, thanks for sharing that; there is beauty in everything, if you know where to look. For all the invictive and hate lodged at Islam and Muslims, there is so much beauty in it, too.
American Christians are so threatened by Muslims, yet many don’t realize that The Bible is to the Torah, as the Quran is to the Bible. Muslims follow Jesus’s teachings too. Some might even say better than Christians. All three religions also follow a very similar story of origin found in the Torah.
Hate is commonly born from fear of the unknown and unfamiliar. I’m sure many would be surprised to learn of their similarities.