Semitic refers to a what is believed to be a related set of languages that is part of the Afro-Asiatic (aka Afrasian or Hamito-Semitic) group. It may have begun in the ancient Near East. Some of the people who spoke these languages were accomplished navigators who spread the languages from the area of modern Lebanon and Syria to northern Africa, especially Carthage. Writing in ancient Semitic languages includes the Akkadian cuneiform tablets from five thousand years ago.

Ancient Egyptian and Coptic are also part of this group.

Among the modern descendants of these languages are Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew,