My Arabic Teacher says that Amharic is not a Semitic Language?

Hey there, last week I started an Arabic course at my university. In the first lecture during the intro he asked us if we knew any Semitic languages, so I said Amharic. But he said that it is not a Semitic language and then he mentioned Aramaic, Assyrian etc.

Not being sure I looked it up later and I couldn't find any source which said that Amharic is not a Semitic language. So I asked him today and he didn't really give an answer besides that "Amharic is just not a Semitic language, just how the Berber languages aren't Semitic languages, and yet there are people claiming so." I would have been happy if he had explained it more, but he didn't really seem to want to. I'm still curious though, as I have no idea myself and don't really speak any Semitic languages, does anyone know why he would claim Amharic to not be a Semitic language? For the record he is a native Arabic speaker from Syria.

Thanks in advance!

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