The Arabs belong to the great family of nations which on account of their supposed descent from Shem, the son of Noah, are commonly known as the 'Semites.' This term includes the Babylonians and Assyrians, the Hebrews, the Phœnicians, the Aramæans, the Abyssinians, the Sabæans, and the Arabs, and although based on a classification that is not ethnologically precise--the Phœnicians and Sabæans, for example, being reckoned in Genesis, chap. x, among the descendants of Ham--it was well chosen by Eichhorn († 1827) to comprehend the closely allied peoples which have been named. Whether the original home of the undivided Semitic race was some part of Asia (Arabia, Armenia, or the district of the Lower Euphrates), or whether, according to a view which has lately found favour, the Semites crossed into Asia from Africa,[1] is still uncertain. Long before the epoch when they first appear in history they had branched off from the parent stock and formed separate nationalities. The relation of the Semitic languages to each other cannot be discussed here, but we may arrange them in the chronological order of the extant literature as follows:--[2] 1. Babylonian or Assyrian (3000-500 B.C.). 2. Hebrew (from 1500 B.C.). 3. South Arabic, otherwise called Sabæan or Ḥimyarite (inscriptions from 800 B.C.). 4. Aramaic (inscriptions from 800 B.C.). 5. Phœnician (inscriptions from 700 B.C.). 6. Æthiopic (inscriptions from 350 A.D.). 7. Arabic (from 500 A.D.). [Sidenote: The Arabs as representatives of the Semitic Race.]