The Israelites (/ˈɪzriəˌlaɪts, -reɪ-/) were a Semitic people of the Ancient Near East, who inhabited part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods (15th to 6th centuries BCE), and lived in the region in smaller numbers after the fall of the monarchy. The term "Israelites" is the English term (derived from the ancient Greek) for the Hebrew biblical term Bnei Yisrael which properly translates as either "Sons of Israel" or "Children of Israel", and refers both to the direct descendants of the patriarch Jacob as well as to the historical populations of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah. In the post-exilic period, beginning in the 5th century BCE, the two known remnants of the Israelite tribes came to be referred to as Jews and Samaritans, inhabiting the territories of Judea, Galilee and Samaria. Other terms sometimes used include the "Hebrews" and the "Twelve Tribes" (of Israel).The Jews, which include the tribes of Judah, Simeon, Benjamin and partially Levi, are named after the southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah. This shift of ethnonym from "Israelites" to "Jews", although not contained in the Torah, is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE), a book in the Ketuvim, the third section of the Jewish Tanakh. The Samaritans, whose religious texts consists of the five books of the Samaritan Torah (but which does not contain the books comprising the Jewish Tanakh), do not refer to themselves as Jews, although they do regard themselves as Israelites, as per the Torah.The Kingdom of Samaria contained the remaining ten tribes, but following Samaria's conquest by Assyria, these were allegedly dispersed and lost to history, and henceforth known as the Ten Lost Tribes. Jewish tradition holds that Samaria was so named because the region's mountainous terrain was used to keep "Guard" (Shamer) for incoming enemy attack. According to Samaritan tradition, however, the Samaritan ethnonym is not derived from the region of Samaria, but from the fact that they were the "Guardians" (Shamerim) of the true Israelite religion. Thus, according to Samaritan tradition, the region was named Samaria after them, not vice versa. In Jewish Hebrew, the Samaritans are called Shomronim, while in Samaritan Hebrew they call themselves Shamerim.In Judaism, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious group, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites. In texts of Jewish law such as the Mishnah and Gemara, the term יהודי (Yehudi), meaning Jew, is rarely used, and instead the ethnonym ישראלי (Yisraeli), or Israelite, is widely used to refer to Jews. Samaritans commonly refer to themselves and Jews collectively as Israelites, and describe themselves as the Israelite Samaritans.