The Semitic speaking people were dominant throughout Mesopotamia, and Canaan. The Semitic speaking people included the Babylonians, Assyrians, Canaanites, Arabians, Hebrews, Phoenicians and others. Semite was also spoken by the group the Egyptians called the Sand Dwellers, and later the Medji. They settled across the Red Sea from Egypt in Arabia. Scholars have added to the confusion of tongues by believing, as critics do, that each nation represents a different language group. That wasn’t always true, especially following a major migration. There were Semitic speaking people in the Nile delta of Egypt who were the majority at one point in history. The people of the Middle East moved almost constantly, and climatic changes spurred major migrations. All three language families could be found in every part of the Middle East. In some cases and newcomer language would become the dominate one, in which case the indigenous language may become extinct. The Bible gives the names of Semitic speakers that are relevant to Jewish history. They were not the only Semites, and the Israelites were not the only Hebraic Semites. The Bible is pretty thorough in covering all of the areas in what is referred to as the Holy Land. The Scribes weren’t concerned with any nation that wasn’t in contact with Israel at the time of their writing. In many cases they weren’t familiar with foreign nations that we now know of. That was particularly true of the Aryans, who settled areas of the world that the Hebrews may not have known existed.
It was believed at one time that the Aryans entered Anatolia from Greece and migrated into Mesopotamia. Now it is known that it was just the opposite. The Aryans, along with the Afro Asiatics came from the area of the Caucasus. They were not from the Afro-Asiatic group, but believed to be a splinter group of the Semites. The Bible claims that the Javanites developed apart from the Semites, from the same ancient parent group as Ham and Shem. The name Aryan Yavanas, which has been translated as Younger Race, has been identified with the Biblical Javan. The Bible lists all of the sons of Japheth as names that can be identified with Armenia, Anatolia and the islands off the coast of the Mediterranean, although it has been common among historians and Scholars to equate the Biblical Isles of the Gentiles with Greece. Ancient texts from Syria and Egypt have made it possible to locate the sons of Javan near the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean. That was the start of the Aryans migration into Europe.
According to linguists, there were two different groups of Aryans that migrated out of the Caucasus, that belong to the Indo-European language group. One group went west across Mesopotamia, while the other went south into Iran and India. The original Aryans were not blue eyed blonde haired, although they may have been light skinned compared to the Hamites and Semites. Although it was once believed that the Aryans ventured from Greece into Anatolia, history shows that it was just the opposite. At one time it was believed that the name Yavana was an Asian pronunciation of the Greek Ionia on the western edge of Anatolia. Ancient Greek historians claim that Yona originated on the Greek mainland. There are, however, references to Yonas in ancient Indian documents, suggesting that the Yavanas actually may have given the name to Ionia on their migration westward to Greece. Migrations were not always in one direction only. Like the Semites and the Hamates, the Aryans also migrated back to where they began. When working with languages it’s difficult to trace the same language group migrating in opposite directions. It is known that the Indo-Europeans, which includes Greek, was spoken in Troy as early as 1275 bce, long before the Greeks ever settled in Anatolia, in 700 bce. The Trojans spoke what was known as Luwian which was related to the Hittite language. The Hittites built an empire in Anotolia in the regions the Bible calls Gomer, Magog and Meshech. The area west of the Hittite core, Arzawa, later came to be called Ludda (Lydia) after the Luwian speaking inhabitants. The Hittite, Luwian, and Palaic languages of Anatolia were all recorded prior to 1000 bce. Paliac comes from the Hittite “palaumnili’ meaning people of Pala.It is known that Pala was Northwest of Hittite country, whose language went out of regular use in the 15th century b.c.
Hittite texts also refer to a place in Syria known as “The land of Uan”, which is possibly the origin of the Anatolian Ionia. It was also known as Uanai by the Egyptians as early as the reign of Thutmose III. Uan has also been associated with the city of Siu where Uan was a god. It would appear that the Yavanas (Uanas) were connected with the ancient god Uan which in time became Ion through different pronunciations According to modern theories the Yavanas migrated back to Anatolia and following the conquest of Alexander more Greeks settled in the Middle East as far as the border of India, eventually settling in India. The Yavanas of India are a racial group, but also a religious group. The name refers to the Greeks who adhere to the Abrahamic faith. Those Greeks came to India sometimes after Alexander the great arrived in India in the 4th century BCE. According to historical sources the first known invaders of India were Aryans (also mentioned sometimes as Indo-Aryans). It is believed that the Aryans arrived in north India somewhere from Iran and southern Russia at around 1500 B. C. The Aryans are referred to in Indian history as fair skinned people who pushed the dark skinned Dravidians southward. Today in India, the followers of the Abrahamic religion are known as yavanas and mlecchas.
These Aryans had been living in Iran and Armenia for a very long time before they invaded India. Being connected with Abraham, they are also connected with the Bible, suggesting that there must be some truth in the Biblical Table of Nations. The ancient Greeks never called themselves "Yavanas", or Aryans. It was always a name that has been connected to religious groups rather than a separate nation. The Ionians migrated into Greece from Anatolia around 1,000 BCE, near the same time as the Dorians. Greek history, in fact, makes the same claim. Archaeologists and ethnographers believe that evidence points to migrations of the people who spoke Indo-European languages at the beginning of the Bronze Age. Historians tell us the Aryans were the creators of Mycenean Culture. That would indicate that the Mycenae culture began in the near east rather that the Greek isles. They were not readily accepted into Greek society because of their relationship with the Persians. The Yavanas were not ancient Greeks, and the name Aryan did not originate with the Greeks, or any other part of Europe.
The prominent archaeologist J.P. Mallory has not only assembled the evidence for an origin north of the Black Sea, but has also assembled a compelling collection of evidence showing that Indo-European linguistic influences first appeared in Anatolia around the Bosporus, with the earliest Indo-European traces spreading steadily thence southward and eastward through Anatolia over the centuries, thousands of years after the region had adopted agriculture. The Germanic Gothic is an Indo-European language and Vandalic is closely related. There are no traces of any form of Aryan speech in central Europe or west of the Rhine prior to 1000 B.C., while we have some, though scant, evidence of non-Aryan languages. Vedic Sanskrit and Gathic Avestan descended from the common Proto-Indo-Iranian language, believed to have originated within the Indus Valley Civilization.
It is very likely that Kittim became synonymous with Cyprus, but the original Kittim were probably the people of Khatti. Here again is the Hebrew “im’, which indicated more than one. It was used as not only “lands of”, but “people of”. It is known that the indigenous people of Anatolia spoke a Hattian language The Hittites actually called themselves “The people of Hatti”. It is believed they came from the North East. They inhabited Anatolia as early as 2300 bce. and are known to archaeologists as Proto-Hittites. Eventually the Neshian (Hittite) language replaced the Hattian, which was neither Indo-European nor Semitic. By the time the Hittites established a kingdom in Anatolia, there were eight different languages spoken in the region. They were Hattian, Luwian, Palaic, Aryan, Akkadian, Sumerian, Hittite and what has been referred to as Human, a conglomeration of languages from Uratu (Ararat). The Acheans were a result of intermingling of people from the Greek Peninsula and those of the people from the North. They appeared in Anatolia long before the Dorian invasion. After 1600 bce the Acheans fell under Cretan influence. Further intermingling produced the Ionians. Once again our misunderstanding of the origins of Biblical names is due to them becoming synonymous with their more modern locations. Memories of a more distant past become lost and it is left up to the Linguist to sort out the long forgotten origins of a particular nationality.
The Bible is accurate about the origin of the languages, and the names attached to the languages or the cities the different groups established. The Biblical names come from different sources which was sometimes the names of gods, given to either a capital city or the kingdom itself. They are sometimes the names of people who established the kingdoms. The Bible also tells us that there was a division of clansmen prior to the flood. At the time of Eber (Genesis 10:25) the sons of Shem (Semites) split with two of his sons, Peleg and Joktan. One group retained the name of Shem and the other the name of Eber. They were the Eberites (Eberews, Hebrews). According to the Bible the sons of Joktan gave rise to the Arabian Semites, who were never called Hebrews. The name Eber comes from a root meaning to cross over and may reflect the mention of the place of crossing in the Sumerian texts. The Bible does say that the flood survivors made journey from the east and found a place in Shinar. That would be in perfect harmony with the mention of Dilmun being in a place where the sun rises as compared to Sumeria. There is little doubt from reading the Bible that the descendents of Noah traveled south from Armenia, either through the mountains of Iran or along the edge of the mountains east of the Tigres until they came to southern Mesopotamia. Scientists, who study human genetics, claim that lineages derived from known people groups did in fact appear to have migrated from the "Middle East." Mesopotamia has rightly been called the “Cradle of Civilization.”
References: William L Moran. “The Amarna Letters.” 1992. S.N. Kramer, 1940. “Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta: A Sumerian Tale of Iraq and Iran.” J.P. Mallory. “In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth.” 1989 A. H. SAYCE “RECORDS OF THE PAST “
