The name Hamites, as now used among ethnologists, is restricted more closely than it once was to certain African races, whose languages are found to be related. The languages classed as Hamitic are those of the ancient Egyptians and the modern Copts, most of the Abyssinian tribes, the Gallas and the Berbers. Some of the older writers, Lenormant, for example, embraced the Phœnicians and all their Canaanite neighbors among the Hamites; but this is not now an accepted view. It was undoubtedly formed under the influence of the theory from which the name Hamites came, namely that the people so designated were descendants of Ham; and it sought to adjust a division of the Hamitic family to four lines of descent, indicated by the Biblical account of the four sons of Ham,—Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. This hypothesis identified the Cushites with the Ethiopians (modern Abyssinians and Nubians), the descendants of Mizraim with the Egyptians, those of Phut with the Libyans, and those of Canaan with the Canaanites, including the Phœnicians. Some held that the Hamites occupied originally a great part of western and southern Asia; that they were the primitive inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia, or Chaldea, southern Persia, and southern Arabia, and were displaced by the Semites; also that they once inhabited the most of Asia Minor, and that the Carians were a surviving remnant of them. But the more conservative sense in which the term Hamite is now used restricts it, as stated above, to certain races which are grouped together by a relationship in their languages. Whether or not the Hamitic tongues have an affinity to the Semitic seems still an open question; and, in fact, the whole subject is in an undetermined state, as may be inferred from the following extract: "The so-called Hamitic or sub-Semitic languages of Northern Africa … exhibit resemblances to the language of ancient Egypt as well as to those of the Semitic family. In the Libyan dialects we find the same double verbal form employed with the same double function as in Assyrian, and throughout the 'Hamitic' languages the causative is denoted by a prefixed sibilant as it was in the parent Semitic speech. We cannot argue, however, from language to race, … and the Libyans have ethnologically no connection with the Semites or the Egyptians. Moreover, in several instances the Hamitic' dialects are spoken by tribes of negro or Nubian origin, while the physiological characteristics of the Egyptians are very different from those of the Semite." _A. H. Sayce, The Races of the Old Testament, chapter 4._ HAMPDEN, John. See ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637; 1640-1641; 1642 (JANUARY), (OCTOBER-DECEMBER); and 1643 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER). HAMPDEN CLUBS. See ENGLAND: A. D. 1816-1820. HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE. See ENGLAND: A. D. 1604.