[5]
Similarly, we call Semites those peoples who speak a Semitic language:
Arabs, Jews and Syrians. But a people may speak an Aryan or a Semitic
language and yet not be of Aryan or Semitic race; a negro may speak
English without being of English stock. Many of the Europeans whom we
classify among the Aryans are perhaps the descendants of an ancient
race conquered by the Aryans and who have adopted their language, just
as the Egyptians received the language of the Arabs, their conquerors.
These two names (Aryan and Semite), then, signify today rather two
groups of peoples than two distinct races. But even if we use the
terms in this sense, one may say that all the greater peoples of the
world have been Semites or Aryans. The Semitic family included the
Phoenicians, the people of commerce; the Jews, the people of religion;
the Arabs, the people of war. The Aryans, some finding their homes in
India, others in Europe, have produced the nations which have been,
and still are, foremost in the world--in antiquity, the Hindoos, a
people of great philosophical and religious ideas; the Greeks,
creators of art and of science; the Persians and Romans, the
founders, the former in the East, the latter in the West, of the
greatest empires of antiquity; in modern times, the Italians, French,
Germans, Dutch, Russians, English and Americans.
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