Ethiopian Semitic (also known as Ethiopian, Ethiosemitic, Ethiopic, or Afro-Semitic) is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea. Some linguists have begun calling this group "Afro-Semitic" to avoid the exclusive focus on Ethiopia, but its use is not widespread.

While focused on Semitic languages as the only branch of the broader Afroasiatic languages that has its distribution outside Africa, a recent study proposed through the use of Bayesian computational phylogenetic techniques that "contemporary Ethiosemitic languages of Africa reflect a single introduction of early Ethiosemitic from southern Arabia approximately 2800 years ago", and that this single introduction of Ethiosemitic underwent "Rapid Diversification" within Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. They constitute a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. The most widely spoken Semitic languages today are Arabic (206 million native speakers),Amharic (27 million),Hebrew (about 7 million)Tigrinya (6.7 million), and Aramaic (about 2.2 million).

Semitic languages are attested in written form from a very early date, with texts in Eblaite and Akkadian appearing from around the middle of the third millennium BC, written in a script adapted from Sumerian cuneiform. However, most scripts used to write Semitic languages are abjads — a type of alphabetic script that omits some or all of the vowels, which is feasible for these languages because the consonants in the Semitic languages are the primary carriers of meaning. Among them are the Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and South Arabian alphabets. The Ge'ez alphabet, used for writing the Semitic languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea, is technically an abugida — a modified abjad in which vowels are notated using diacritic marks added to the consonants. Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script and the only official Semitic language of the European Union.

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical "Shem", Hebrew: שם‎, translated as "name", Arabic: ساميّ‎) was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages. This family includes the ancient and modern forms of; Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Ge'ez, Maltese, Canaanite/Phoenician, Amorite, Eblaite, Ugaritic, Sutean, Chaldean, Mandaic, Old Persian, Ahlamu, Amharic, Tigre and Tigrinya among others.

As language studies are interwoven with cultural studies, the term also came to describe the extended cultures and ethnicities, as well as the history of these varied peoples as associated by close geographic and linguistic distribution.

The term Semite means a member of any of various ancient and modern Semitic-speaking peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including; Akkadians (Assyrians and Babylonians), Eblaites, Ugarites, Canaanites, Phoenicians (including Carthaginians), Hebrews (Israelites, Judeans and Samaritans), Ahlamu, Arameans, Chaldeans, Amorites, Moabites, Edomites, Hyksos, Arabs, Nabateans, Maganites, Shebans, Sutu, Ubarites, Dilmunites, Maltese, Mandaeans, Sabians, Syriacs, Mhallami, Amalekites and Ethiopian Semites. It was proposed at first to refer to the languages related to Hebrew by Ludwig Schlözer, in Eichhorn's "Repertorium", vol. VIII (Leipzig, 1781), p. 161. Through Eichhorn the name then came into general usage (cf. his "Einleitung in das Alte Testament" (Leipzig, 1787), I, p. 45). In his "Geschichte der neuen Sprachenkunde", pt. I (Göttingen, 1807) it had already become a fixed technical term.

Tzipporah Malkah "Tzipi" Livni (Hebrew: ציפורה מלכה "ציפי" לבני‎; born 8 July 1958) is an Israeli lawyer and politician. She was the Israeli Opposition Leader from 2009 to 2012 and leader of Kadima, the largest party in the Knesset. Raised an ardent nationalist, Livni has become one of her nation's leading voices for the two-state solution^{[citation needed]}. In Israel she has earned a reputation as an honest politician who sticks to her principles. She is the first woman to be leader of the opposition in Israel. In 2011 Livni was named one of "150 Women Who Shake the World" by Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

Born in Tel Aviv, Livni is the daughter of Eitan Livni (born in Poland) and Sara (Rosenberg), both prominent former Irgun members. Her father served as the chief operations officer of the Irgun.

Tzipi Livni served as a lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). According to an interview in Yediot Aharonot, described in The Sunday Times, she served in the elite Mossad unit responsible for Operation Wrath of God (also known as Bayonet) in the 1980s. She resigned from the IDF in August 1983 to marry and finish her law studies.