On the Origins or the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language

Chus

Now we shall touch upon the descendants of Shem. The first of them was Elam, from whom the Elamites were named, Eastern peoples related to the Persians. Ashur was the author of the name Assyria. That region touches Mesopotamia, the Medes, and the Armenians. The term Arameans was once heard of the Eastern Syrians, and from the Arameans came the descent of both the people and the name of the Armenians. The other names, because they are in the Eastern parts of Asia, situated in places very distant from us, are so obscure to us that, beyond the names themselves, we have clearly nothing except a certain conjecture. He named the region of Hus original: "Hus" Trachonitis, from where Job was, the land of Hus, which is between Palestine and Syria, which others call koilosyrian hollow or low-lying Syria. The seventy interpreters called it the land of Ausitis the land of Uz, which word a certain dabbler in theology said was southern, from the word ausitidos, thinking that austrum south, that is, the notus south wind, and ausitin have some affinity.

Arphaxad

Arphaxad had named the Chaldeans formerly the Arphaxadeans. He dwelt in the Northern part of Assyria, which in some codices of Ptolemy is called Arrachitis, in others Arrapachitis, and in both incorrectly, as also in the transcriber Orontius, since it ought to be read Arphaxitis. Moreover, the Chaldeans were spread throughout Babylonia, Assyria, Adiabene, Coelesyria, Syria, part of Arabia, etc. We know Gether had the Bactrians only by report, just as we do the Eastern things themselves, which I consider not sufficiently known to the ancient cosmographers nor to our own age. For there was always something of Barbarity interposed there, lest their affairs be known to us. That Assarmauet was the author of the Sarmatians or Sauromatians and Scythians, the affinity of the voice sufficiently declares. Hevila named the other, the Eastern Indians, whom the Gihon or Ganges washes, just as the first Hevila named the African Indians, or Ethiopians. Ophir seems to have left the name to that gold-bearing province of which I spoke above regarding Tarshish. I would have brought forth many more things to this argument if I had wished to follow Annius of Viterbo, and the fragments of Manetho and Berosus