Semitic
The term Semitic was coined in 1781 for the language family. Officially, it was coined after the Biblical Shem, though both had been around for millennia without any special link. I suggest the languages are really named for being semiotic languages, important for marks & signs, because their consonant-only scripts are particularly useful to encrypt secret messages. Anti-Semitic may likewise be a spook pun with anti-semiotic, i.e. being dangerous towards their secret marks & signs. The term Semitic itself is therefore a semiotic term.
The now ubiquitous term Semitic was officially coined in 1781 by August von Schlözer, a spooky clergyman who worked in trade and wrote on Phoenicians. It’s explained to be derived from the Biblical name Shem, whose name means “name”. However, that explanation is garbage on multiple levels:
- Shem is an arbitrary minor character, of no special importance to the Bible, or to the regions & languages of the Middle East in general.
- The name Shem means “name”, and the spooky pun may be “fame”. Why would you name a group of languages as “name”, or even “fame”? They are important, but not more famous than other languages.
- “Semitic” isn’t even pronounced like “Shem”. It should be Shem-itic or Shem-ite. The alleged etymology doesn’t fit at all.
- The Semitic languages have been in use since before the dawn of history, and even the Bible has been around for millennia. Yet no one had ever linked the name Shem to the languages of that region before von Schlözer.
So what’s the explanation? As usual, it’s a pun. Here, it’s even a pun about pun-encryption.
I suggest the Semitic langages are named for being semiotic languages. Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols for communication. For the spook aristocracy, the most important sub-branch of this discipline is likely how to use signs and symbols for encrypted or manipulative communication. And that term semiotics had only recently been coined into English by John Locke in 1689. That’s why the pun Semitic ≈ semiotic could not have been invented in the millennia before.
Of course, semiotics is not generally concerned with encryption, but the definition includes even intentionally used words, that have a special meaning to the interpreter. So, the encryption through puns certainly falls into this category, and the Semitic abjad scripts have proved to be particularly suited for this. Of course, all this is unknown to common Semitic-speaking people, but is a secret shared only by the cryptocratic elites, of all backgrounds.
By contrast, “anti-Semitic” has become a catch-all accusation by the authorities against skeptics & critics. Real discrimination & racism exists and common people are to blame for it of course. But such racism is typically incited & magnified by the cryptocrats themselves. The aristocratic hate-mongers can then pretend to be victims, because so many crypto-aristocrats feign to be “Jews”. Perhaps to the spooks, “anti-Semitic” means anti-semiotic, i.e. “dangerous to the secret marks & signs”, and in general dangerous to their veil of secret rulership.
English, Greek Semitic = a language family; semiotic = about marks, signs, signals
Semitic : of or pertaining to a subdivision of Afroasiatic Semitic languages: Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Syriac, Akkadian, Hebrew, Maltese, Tigrigna, Phoenician etc.; from the Hebrew שֵׁם (Šēm, “Shem”), the name of the eldest son of Noah in biblical tradition; The word was coined and first applied to the Semitic languages by August Ludwig von Schlözer in 1781. — English (Wikt)
semiotic : of or relating to semiotics or to semantics; Borrowed from Ancient Greek σημειωτικός (sēmeiōtikós, “observant of signs”), ultimately derived from σῆμα (sêma, “mark, sign”). — English (Wikt)
σῆμᾰ sêma : mark, sign, token; a sign to begin something, watchword, signal, banner; a token by which one’s identity or commission was certified — Ancient Greek (Wikt)