Japhetites

The term Japhetites (in adjective form Japhethitic or Japhetic) refers to the descendants of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible. The term has been adopted in ethnological and linguistic writing from the 18th to the 20th century but has now become obsolete.

This T and O map, from the first printed version of Isidore's Etymologiae (Augsburg 1472), identifies the three known continents (Asia, Europe and Africa) as respectively populated by descendants of Sem (Shem), Iafeth (Japheth) and Cham (Ham).

In medieval ethnography, the world was believed to have been divided into three large-scale groupings, corresponding to the three classical continents: the Semitic peoples of Asia, the Hamitic peoples of Africa and the Japhetic peoples of Europe.

The term has been used in modern times as a designation in physical anthropology, ethnography and comparative linguistics. In anthropology, it was used in a racial sense for white people (the Caucasian race). In linguistics, it was used as a term for the Indo-European languages. These uses are now mostly obsolete. In a linguistic sense, only the Semitic peoples form a well-defined family. The Indo-European group is no longer known as "Japhetite", and the Hamitic group is now recognized as paraphyletic within the Afro-Asiatic family.

Among Muslim historians, Japheth is usually regarded as the ancestor of the Gog and Magog tribes, and, at times, of the Turks, Khazars, and Slavs.[1]

Biblical genealogy
Main articles: Genesis flood narrative and Sons of Noah

In the Genesis, Japheth is mentioned as one of the three sons of Noah. The other two sons of Noah, Shem and Ham, are the eponymous ancestors of the Semites and the Hamites, respectively. In the Biblical Table of Nations (Genesis Genesis 10:2–5), seven sons and seven grandsons of Japheth are mentioned:

The intended ethnic identity of these "descendants of Japheth" is not certain; however, over history, they have been identified by Biblical scholars with various historical nations who were deemed to be descendants of Japheth and his sons — a practice dating back at least to the classical Jewish-Greek encounters. For example, the Roman Jewish historian Josephus states in the Antiquities of the Jews, I.VI.122 (Whiston) that:

Japhet, the son of Noah, had seven sons: they inhabited so, that, beginning at the mountains Taurus and Amanus, they proceeded along Asia, as far as the river Tanais (Don), and along Europe to Cadiz; and settling themselves on the lands which they light upon, which none had inhabited before, they called the nations by their own names.

Ancient and medieval ethnography

Pseudo-Philo

An ancient, relatively obscure text known as Pseudo-Philo and thought to have been originally written ca. 70 AD, contains an expanded genealogy that is seemingly garbled from that of Genesis, and also different from the much later one found in the Book of Jasher:[2]

  • Sons of Japheth: "Gomer, Magog, and Madai, Nidiazech, Tubal, Mocteras, Cenez, Riphath, and Thogorma, Elisa, Dessin, Cethin, Tudant."
    • Sons of Gomer: Thelez, Lud, Deberlet.
    • Sons of Magog: Cesse, Thipha, Pharuta, Ammiel, Phimei, Goloza, Samanach.
    • Sons of Duden: Sallus, Phelucta Phallita.
    • Sons of Tubal: Phanatonova, Eteva.
    • Sons of Tyras: Maac, Tabel, Ballana, Samplameac, Elaz.
    • Sons of Mellech: Amboradat, Urach, Bosara.
    • Sons of Ascenez: Jubal, Zaraddana, Anac.
    • Sons of Heri: Phuddet, Doad, Dephadzeat, Enoc.
    • Sons of Togorma: Abiud, Saphath, Asapli, Zepthir.
    • Sons of Elisa: Etzaac, Zenez, Mastisa, Rira.
    • Sons of Zepti: Macziel, Temna, Aela, Phinon.
    • Sons of Tessis: Meccul, Loon, Zelataban.
    • Sons of Duodennin: Itheb, Beath, Phenech.

Later writers

Some of the nations that various later writers (including Jerome and Isidore of Seville, as well as other traditional accounts) have attempted to describe as Japhetites are listed below:

Renaissance to Early Modern ethnography

Book of Jasher

The Book of Jasher, a midrash (Jewish elaboration of the biblical text) first printed in 1625, ostensibly based on an earlier edition of 1552, provides some new names for Japheth's grandchildren.

Anthropology
Main articles: Caucasian race and Biblical terminology for race

The term Caucasian as a racial label for Europeans derives in part from the assumption that the tribe of Japheth developed its distinctive racial characteristics in the Caucasus area, having migrated there from Mount Ararat before populating Europe. In the same vein, Georgian national histories associated Japheth's sons with certain ancient tribes of the Caucasus area, called Tubals (Tabals, Tibarenoi in Greek) and Meshechs (Meshekhs/Mosokhs, Moschoi in Greek), who they claimed represented ancient pre-Indo-European and non-Semitic, possibly "Proto-Iberian", tribes of Asia Minor of the 3rd-1st millennia BC. This theory influenced the use of the term Japhetic in the linguistic theories of Nikolai Marr (see below).

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Biblical statement attributed to Noah that "God shall enlarge Japheth" (Genesis 9:27) was used by some preachers[9] as a justification for the "enlargement" of European territories through imperialism, which they interpreted as part of God's plan for the world.[10] The subjugation of Africans was similarly justified by the curse of Ham.[10]

Linguistics
Main articles: Japhetic languages and Japhetic theory

The term Japhetic was also applied by William Jones, Rasmus Rask and others to what is now known as the Indo-European language group.

The term was used in a different sense by the Soviet linguist Nicholas Marr, in his Japhetic theory, which was intended to demonstrate that the languages of the Caucasus formed part of a once-widespread pre-Indo-European language group.

See also

References
  1. Heller, B.; Rippin, A. (2012) [1993]. "Yāfith". In Bearman, P. J.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. J.; Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.). Leiden: Brill Publishers. p. 236. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_7941. ISBN 978-90-04-16121-4.
  2. Pseudo-Philo
  3. Parry, J. H. (ed.). "7:3". Book of Jasher. Translated by Moses, Samuel.
  4. Parry, J. H. (ed.). "7:4". Book of Jasher. Translated by Moses, Samuel.
  5. Parry, J. H. (ed.). "7:6". Book of Jasher. Translated by Moses, Samuel.
  6. Parry, J. H. (ed.). "7:7". Book of Jasher. Translated by Moses, Samuel.
  7. Parry, J. H. (ed.). "7:8". Book of Jasher. Translated by Moses, Samuel.
  8. Parry, J. H. (ed.). "7:9". Book of Jasher. Translated by Moses, Samuel.
  9. Meagher, James L. "The Bread, Wine, Water, Oil, and Incense in the Temple" How Christ Said The First Mass. New York: Christian Press Association, 1908. 95-96. Internet Archive. Web. 4 Jun. 2017
  10. John N. Swift and Gigen Mammoser, "'Out of the Realm of Superstition: Chesnutt's 'Dave's Neckliss' and the Curse of Ham'", American Literary Realism, vol. 42 no. 1, Fall 2009, 3

Further reading
  • Kidd, Colin (2006). The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139457538.
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