How come the Ethiopians and the Canaanites speak Semitic languages
Question:
How come the Ethiopians (Cush) and the Canaanites both descend from Ham, yet speak a Semitic language?
Thank you.
Answer:
When God divided mankind's language, nothing is stated about how that division took place. Nothing says all of Ham's descendants spoke related languages. Linguists group similar languages. Thus, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Amharic, and many other languages are considered to be in the group of Semitic languages.
As populations grew and people blended with their neighbors, languages also started to blend. For example, most of South America speaks forms of Spanish, but the people who lived there before the arrival of the Spaniards did not speak languages similar to Spanish. This could happen in many places as people move around.
Ethiopia has over 77 local languages. Oromo is the most commonly spoken language. Amharic is the language chosen for government documents. Amharic is considered to be in the Semitic family of languages. Recall that the eunuch who was Queen Candice's treasurer came from Ethiopia. He was a Jewish proselyte. There were also frequent ties between Ethiopia and Israel mentioned in the Old Testament, so it isn't surprising that the language is similar in some groups.
The Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, Amorites, Amelekites, and the Arabs all descend from Abraham, so it is not surprising that their languages were similar. Abraham originated in Ur in Mesopotamia, so there would be other family groups speaking similar languages.
