Japhetic languages is a largely obsolete term for the languages spoken by the descendants of Japheth

Japheth

Japheth is one of the sons of Noah in the Abrahamic tradition...

, son of Noah

Noah

Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...

. It is now rarely used especially within the field of historical linguistics

Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

. It was usually ascribed to the speakers of what we now term the Indo-European languages

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

. It should not be confused with the Japhetic theory

Japhetic theory (linguistics)

Japhetic theory is a term used to describe a linguistic theory developed by the Soviet linguist Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr . In linguistics it was compared by critics to Lysenkoism in biology: a theory that was promoted and supported for ideological rather than scientific reasons, because it was...

. The term Hamitic

Hamitic

Hamitic is an historical term for the peoples supposedly descended from Noah's son Ham, paralleling Semitic and Japhetic.It was formerly used for grouping the non-Semitic Afroasiatic languages , but since, unlike the Semitic branch, these have not been shown to form a phylogenetic unity, the term...

 also used to be used but has now passed into obscurity, referring to Noah's son Ham

Ham, son of Noah

Ham , according to the Table of Nations in the Book of Genesis, was a son of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan.- Hebrew Bible :The story of Ham is related in , King James Version:...

, ascribed to the languages spoken particularly by the people of Egypt, and more generally, by peoples in Africa. The third son of Noah, Shem

Shem

Shem was one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible as well as in Islamic literature. He is most popularly regarded as the eldest son, though some traditions regard him as the second son. Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity in each...

 still gives his name to the Semitic languages

Semitic languages

The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...

, a branch of the Afroasiatic family of languages, for which "Semito-Hamitic" is an older, and now virtually obsolete term.

See also

• Ham, son of Noah
  Ham, son of Noah
  Ham , according to the Table of Nations in the Book of Genesis, was a son of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan.- Hebrew Bible :The story of Ham is related in , King James Version:...
  
  
• Hamitic
  Hamitic
  Hamitic is an historical term for the peoples supposedly descended from Noah's son Ham, paralleling Semitic and Japhetic.It was formerly used for grouping the non-Semitic Afroasiatic languages , but since, unlike the Semitic branch, these have not been shown to form a phylogenetic unity, the term...
  
  
• Japheth
  Japheth
  Japheth is one of the sons of Noah in the Abrahamic tradition...
  
  
• Sons of Noah
  Sons of Noah
  The Seventy Nations or Sons of Noah is an extensive list of descendants of Noah appearing in of the Hebrew Bible, representing an ethnology from an Iron Age Levantine perspective...