Hamitic (from the biblical Ham) is a historical term in ethnology and linguistics for a division of the Caucasian race and the group of related languages these populations spoke. "Hamitic" was applied to non-Semitic languages in the Afroasiatic family, which was thus formerly labelled "Hamito-Semitic". The Hamitic languages were classified as including the Berber, Cushitic and Egyptian branches. However, since these branches have not been shown to form an exclusive (monophyletic) phylogenetic unit of their own, separate from other Afroasiatic languages, linguists no longer use the term in this sense. Each of these branches is instead now regarded as an independent sub-group of the larger Afroasiatic family.