2204: -ite Dec 27, 2020

In Biblical translations, it is very common to come across tribal demonyms ending in -ite, such as:

"...Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites..." (Deuteronomy 20:17) but this has little relation to the text itself. Indeed, just compare the modern 'Israeli' and Biblical 'Israelite' and the linguistic discrepancy is perhaps more noticeable. In Hebrew, these are all pluralized with the same ending:

החתי והאמרי הכנעני והפרזי החוי והיבוסי

but this ending is pronounced [i] with no hint of a final [t]. In fact that's a function of Greek and not of Hebrew. Moreover, many place-names around areas with no contact to Greek such as Southeast Asia still take -ite like Bandung-Bandungite (Indonesia), Kuala Lumpur-KLite (Malaysia), Kuching-Kuchingite (Malaysia), Vizag-Vizagite (India), and Seoul-Seoulite (Korea). The -ite ending is found from English names for places around the world.