| rdfs:comment | - Japheth + -ic
- Traditionally, Japheth has been believed by some to be the progenitor of the peoples of Europe. Thus "Japhetic" came to be used as a synonym for Europeans, as well as Asians. In medieval Europe, the world was believed to have been divided into three large-scale racial groupings. In addition to the Japhetic peoples of Europe, the Semitic peoples were equated with all Middle-easterners, Arabs and Israelites, and Hamitic peoples with Africans. In the Bible, Japheth is ascribed seven sons and seven grandsons:
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| abstract | - Traditionally, Japheth has been believed by some to be the progenitor of the peoples of Europe. Thus "Japhetic" came to be used as a synonym for Europeans, as well as Asians. In medieval Europe, the world was believed to have been divided into three large-scale racial groupings. In addition to the Japhetic peoples of Europe, the Semitic peoples were equated with all Middle-easterners, Arabs and Israelites, and Hamitic peoples with Africans. The link between Japheth and the Europeans is reflected in Genesis 10:5, which states that the sons of Japheth moved to the "isles of the Gentiles" — commonly believed to be the Greek isles, while others claim them to be the British Isles. In the Bible, Japheth is ascribed seven sons and seven grandsons:
* Gomer
* Ashkenaz
* Riphath
* Togarmah
* Magog
* Madai
* Javan
* Elishah
* Tarshish
* Kittim
* Dodanim
* Tubal
* Meshech
* Tiras 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 encounters of Jew with Hellene, for example in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, I.VI.122 (Whiston). Josephus wrote: 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. Josephus subsequently detailed the nations supposed to have descended from the seven sons of Japheth. Among the nations that various later writers (including Jerome and Isidore of Seville, as well as other traditional accounts) have attempted to assign to them, are as follows:
* Gomer: Scythians, Serbs, Croats, Armenians, Welsh, Picts, Irish, Germans (Teutons), Turks;
* Magog: Scythians, Slavs, Magyars (Hungarians), Irish;
* Madai: Mitanni, Mannai, Medes, more generally Persians, or even more generally Indo-Aryans;
* Javan: Ionians (Greeks)
* Tubal: Tabali, Georgians, Italics, Iberians, Basques;
* Meshech: Phrygians, Meskheti, Moschoi, Illyrians;
* Tiras: Thracians, Etruscans, Goths, Jutes, Teutons (Germans).
- Japheth + -ic
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