Talk:Semitism

Firstly there are many entries on wktionary which are not found in other dictinries. Seconly, the new references do not seem to primarily refer to Jewish features. Pass a Method (talk) 13:34, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

If you think some listed senses are actually nonexistent, you can take them to WT:RFV. — Keφr 14:11, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Sub-par Usenet citations

Moved out of the entry. Confer the RFV and TR discussions.

• 1999, Nishee, Re: Freedom is under siege in soc.culture.lebanon, Usenet:

  Here we go with Pan-Semitism. Of course Pan-Semetism excludes Hebrew. That is an understood unless you are going to portray the Hebrews and their languages as being Arabs, then you can include Hebrew. I am not for Pan-Semitism with or without Hebrew.

• 2002, "Freethought110" (username), Re: Why I AM Not A Christian - Russell Group, talk.religion.bahai, Usenet:

  A sword to beat civilization into a crass form of desert semitism and 1400 years later a group of demented terrorists crashing planes into the World Trade Center.

RFV discussion: September 2014–January 2015

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Semitism

Previous discussion: Wiktionary:Tea room/2014/July#Semitism

The entry has numerous quotations, but most of them are so poor and opaque that I find it hard to judge which sense, if any, they are using. (Several of the most problematic citations have already been removed.) Heka previously opined that all of the quotations listed under the "religion, culture and customs of adherents of Abrahamic religions" in fact "refer to Jewish features of Islam, ... sense #1", but even that reading is not easy to arrive at. (I've put the quotations in question in a "Quotations" section for now.) Which senses of this word are actually attested? - -sche (discuss) 18:38, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

As I said at the other place, the only real meaning that I'm personally familiar with is the linguistic meaning, basically "feature of the Greek language usage of the Septuagint or Greek New Testament which is influenced by features of the Hebrew and/or Aramaic languages". For an example, see "Septuagint Lexicography" by Takamitsu Muraoka in Biblical Greek Language and Lexicography, edited by Bernard A. Taylor, John A.L. Lee, Peter R. Burton, and Richard E. Whitaker →ISBN, p. 85: "The main reason for this neglect is the fact that it is largely a translated text, a fact which is alleged to account for its strange idiom tinged with Semitic traits, largely in syntax and lexicography. For sure, one can easily identify countless Semitisms." -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:06, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I have added about 8 refs. Pass a Method (talk) 00:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Wikitiki89, you have both a "he-2" and an "I'm Jewish" Babel box, what's your take on which sense(s) the citations are using? As I commented above, I think "most of them are so poor and opaque that I find it hard to judge which sense, if any, they are using". Some, like the one I removed here, seem to be errors for "Semites" or "Semitic". - -sche (discuss) 03:46, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, I've overhauled the entry. I moved the two citations which weren't of the headword to the talk page. I cited the most common sense, "(countable) A word or phrase (construction or idiom) typical of or influenced by Hebrew or Aramaic", and I also found and parsed enough citations to support two other senses: "(uncountable, rare) Semitic character; Semiticness" and "(uncountable, rare) Judaism; Jewishness (especially when seen as the thing to which anti-Semitism is opposed)". I moved all of the remaining citations to the citations page. - -sche (discuss) 06:18, 30 January 2015 (UTC)