Such evidence may reveal plants known to early Afroasiatic speakers; but it does not diagnose whether they were cultivated or wild. Gule These include Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Altaic and Dravidian (Atlas, p.74). [13] Each of Noah's sons was traditionally presented as being the common ancestor of several apparently-related people groups, with Shem understood by the original audience as being the common ancestor of the Jews, Assyrians, and Arameans, among others, and Ham seen as the ancestor of the Egyptians and Cushites. to domestic animals in general, then narrowing in PS and Eg. From the earliest times we have written records from Northern Africa. It rigorously applies, throughout, the established canon and techniques of the historical-comparative method. [69] This theory connected the "Hamites", the originators of Hamitic languages, with (supposedly cultural superior) "Caucasians", who were assumed to have migrated into Africa and intermixed with indigenous "Negroid" Africans in ancient times. [68] On the other hand, the classification relied on anthropological and racial features, such as skin color, hair type, and lifestyle. innovation: 'increase' > 'grow in size'), (root #838 + * part. Theodor Benfy found that Egyptian and Semitic languages were similar in 1844, and he classified them under the Semito-Hamitic language family. Published 1995 Linguistics This work provides the first truly comprehensive and systematic reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian). in *n, as also in #210) 324. [49], There there are also other proposed branches, but none has so far convinced a majority of scholars:[7]. [91] Typically, syllables only begin with a single consonant. p-Nupoid innovation: shift to outflow of water, not from body; root *-sa- seen in #540 + *t dur. [16] Several issues with the label "Hamito-Semitic" have led to its decline in use by later scholars. innovation: *-VC- v. stems > *-CV-), (Eg., Sem. Africa is divided by geographical features, including the Sahara desert and the Ethiopian mountains. [195] Writing in 2004, John Huehnergaard notes the great difficulty in establishing cognate sets across the family. The languages that evolved from Proto-Arabic have around 313 million native speakers, concentrated primarily in the Middle East and North Africa.[5]. [98] AA languages tend to have pharyngeal fricative consonants, with Egyptian, Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic sharing and . *iw- 'cow') (Eg., Sem. Adapted from Ruhlen 1987. [40] Coptic is the only stage written alphabetically to show vowels, whereas Egyptian was previously written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, which only represent consonants. Consider also the debate over the origins of the Afroasiastic or Afrasan languages and cultures, a linguistic group with a wide geographical distribution covering the Middle East and Northern. [118], Attempts to reconstruct the vocalic system of Proto-Afroasiatic vary considerably. Yendang SLEC Som. Because i notice in some cases, they seem to have vowels shifting around quite a bit, akin to the trilateral root systems of the semitic languages. There is no general consensus over the location of the Urheimat, the original homeland from which began the migrations into the present locations of the speakers. [68] Greenberg also proposed that Hausa was part of a Chadic branch of Afroasiatic, and that Afroasiatic consisted of five main branches, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, and Semitic. p-Atlantic-Congo [26] The second is the Guanche language, which was formerly spoken on the Canary Islands and went extinct in the 17th century CE. p-Nilotic (p-E. Niloticp-S. Nilotic) A main characteristic of Afro-Asiatic languages is the use of vowel changes in word formation. [15] Mller assumed that there existed a distinct "Hamitic" branch of the family that consisted of Egyptian, Berber, and Cushitic. [120] Ronny Meyer and H. Ekkehard Wolff instead propose that Proto-Afroasiatic may have had no vowels as such, instead employing various syllabic consonants (*l, *m, *n, *r) and semivowels or semivowel-like consonants (*w, *y, *, *, *, *h, *, *, *, *h) to form syllables. Semitic speakers moved into the Fertile Crescent and "emerg[ed] into history" by bringing Akkadian (a Semitic language) into what is now Iraq, a previously Sumerian-speaking area (Dalby ,p6). The main quality of Afro-Asiatic is that it "cuts across usually perceived racial boundaries" (Dalby, p.6). [54] These five or six branches remain the academic consensus on the family. [82] Likewise, all Semitic languages are fairly similar to each other, whereas the African branches of Afroasiatic are very diverse; this suggests the rapid spread of Semitic out of Africa. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996. [171][172] In Akkadian and Egyptian, the suffixes appear to be reduced forms of the independent pronouns (see Pronouns); the obvious correspondence between the endings in the two branches has been argued to show that Egyptian and Semitic are closely related. There is some evidence from Coptic, but this may be unrelated to AA. [49][48] Arabic, spoken in both Asia and Africa, has around 300 million native speakers, while the Ethiopian Amharic has around 25 million. infix [also tonal shift as found in Chadic cases]), (this root is included because #871 following derives from it), (sing. [40] Tom Gldemann, however, argues that less time may have been required than is commonly assumed, as it is possible for a language to rapidly restructure due to language contact, as happened in the Chadic branch and probably also in Omotic. innovation: derivation of v. 'to sleep' by addition of *n non-fin. Proto-Afro-Asiatic is of great antiquity; experts tend to place it in the Mesolithic Period at about 15,000-10,000 bce. [131] This sex-based gender system is widely agreed to derive from Proto-Afroasiatic. [34], The Egyptian branch consists of a single language, Ancient Egyptian, which was historically spoken in the lower Nile Valley. 1 Afro-Asiatic Language Family. [132] Additionally, even when nouns are not cognates, they tend to have the same gender throughout Afroasiatic ("gender stability"). The proto-language of each Afroasiatic branch developed its own distinct vocabulary of food production, further supporting the view that herding and cultivation emerged separately in each branch after the proto-Afroasiatic period ( 7, 8 ). innovation: addition of *t n. ); to reach out, (only C. reflexes imply 2nd form with reconstructed *a), to remove (from surface), pull, tear, or scrape off, to grumble, sigh, make sounds of complaint, (Eg., Sem. >>14700322 >Proto-Semitic language contact with PIE implies the Semitic languages themselves come from J Caucasians. < v. in #918 by V > VV; occurrence of PSC *ee (or *e?) p-Edoid Tula-Waja Oko Omotic, Cushitic, and Chadic are also spoken north of the Sahara so it must be assumed that the speakers of these "dialects" migrated north likewise, though perhaps separately from the Boreafrasian speakers (Dalby, p.6). * "Revising the Consonant Inventory of Proto-Eastern Cushitic," Studies in African Linguistics 22, 3 (1991): 211-275. suff. ), (root seen also in #984 + *n non-fin. p-Jen ; Eg., Sem. suff. ; *u < *i /#-p_C-#? [107] Another widespread constraint is against two non-identical lateral obstruents, which can be found in Egyptian, Chadic, Semitic, and probably Cushitic. The results, while confirming some previous views on proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian), revise or overturn many others, and add much that is new. [196] Additionally, because Egyptian is written without vowels before the Coptic period, its use for comparative purposes often relies on vocalic reconstructions that themselves depend on comparisons with other Afroasiatic languages. 2.10. FOR SALE! [156] It is unclear whether this system is a common AA trait;[157] the Chadic examples, for instance, show signs of originally deriving from affixes, which could explain the origins of the alterations in other languages as well. [40] Militarev associates the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic with the Levantine Post-Natufian Culture, arguing that the reconstructed lexicon of flora and fauna, as well as farming vocabulary indicates that Proto-AA must have been spoken in this area. Afroasiatic (Afro-Asiatic), also known as Afrasian or Hamito-Semitic, Semito-Hamitic, or Erythraean is a large language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and parts of the Sahel. reflex), (root #723 + *x extend. [121] Besides for Semitic, vocalic templates are well attested for Cushitic and Berber,[154] where, along with Chadic, it is less productive; it is absent in Omotic. . Well-known Afroasiatic languages include Arabic, Ancient Egyptian, Somali, Tuareg, and Hausa. Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary. [64] In the same year T.N. While there is no consensus among historical linguists concerning the original homeland of the Afroasiatic family or the period when the parent language (i.e. Proto-Afro-Asiatic is proposed to have been spoken 18,000 years ago near the Horn of Africa (eastern Africa). Proto-Afroasiatic phonology has been the subject of several proposals for reconstruction that are not only different from each other, but also very divergent (cf. [178], The forms of the pronouns are very stable throughout the Afroasiatic (excluding Omotic),[127] and they have been used as one of the chief tools for determining whether a language belongs to the family. Ehret's dictionary lists "Proto-South-Cushitic, original homeland of the Afroasiatic family, "The feminine endings *-ay and *-y in Semitic and Berber", "A reconstruction of the system of verb aspects in proto-Berbero-Semitic", Afro-Asiatic and Semitic genealogical trees, short annotations of the talks given there, The prehistory of a dispersal: the Proto-Afrasian (Afroasiatic) farming lexicon, Once More About Glottochronology And The Comparative Method: The Omotic-Afrasian case, Root Extension And Root Formation In Semitic And Afrasian, A comparison of Orel-Stolbova's and Ehret's Afro-Asiatic reconstructions, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Afroasiatic_languages&oldid=1142726919, Linguist H. Fleming proposed that the near-exinct, Harold Fleming (1981) divides non-Omotic Afroasiatic, or "Erythraean", into three groups, Cushitic, Semitic, and Chadic-Berber-Egyptian. These three groups are classified as being in Africa while Afro-Asiatic is listed under the term Eurasia (Atlas, p.74). Though estimations vary widely, it is believed by scholars to have been spoken as a single language around 12,000 to 18,000 years ago (12 to 18 kya ), that is, between 16,000 and 10,000 BC. [105], Restrictions against the co-occurrence of certain, usually similar, consonants in verbal roots can be found in all Afroasiatic branches, though they are only weakly attested in Chadic and Omotic. [75] Proponents of an African origin of Afroasiatic assume the proto-language to have been spoken by pre-Neolithic African hunter-gatherers,[76] arguing that there is no evidence of words in Proto-Afroasiatic related to agriculture or animal husbandry. Kim ; possible n. derivation < v. in #1004). While this is not the first attempt to demonstrate that Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic are genetically related, it is the first to use the radical revision of the Proto-Indo-European consonantal system proposed by Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, Paul J. Hopper, [48] Today, Semitic languages are spoken across North Africa, Western Asia, and the Horn of Africa, as well as on the island of Malta, making them the sole Afroasiatic branch with members originating outside Africa. p-Maban fort. except for Semitic, which is also spoken in the Middle-East and Malta, all branches of the p-Surmic . Defaka p-Fali [3] The phylum has six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Omotic. Fig. [77][127] Berber, and Egyptian, and most Semitic languages are verb-initial languages, whereas Cushitic, Omotic and some Semitic subgroups are verb-final languages. The "s-causative" may be reflected in Hausa (as -r), however this may be a language internal development. innovation: 'increase' > 'grow fat, thicken'), (root #141 + *n n. Pp. Nara *y: attributive noun and attributive deverbative suffix: 2a. Classification and Index of the Worlds Languages. [34] The Cushitic family is traditionally spit into four branches: the single language of Beja (c. 3 million speakers), the Agaw languages, Eastern Cushitic, and Southern Cushitic. The Cushitic forms in particular may be derived from morphology found in subordinate clauses. Kanuri Berta [142][143] Zygmont Frajzyngier states that a general characteristic of case marking in AA languages is that it tends to mark roles such as genitive, dative, locative, etc. envisaged a tome citing several hundred reconstructed roots; he did manage, however, to publish over a hundred (53 proto-roots were published, for example, in Hodge 1981). [167] These prefixes are clearly cognate across the branches, although their use within the verbal systems of the individual languages varies. The only group with an African origin is Ethiopian Semitic. p-Talodi [27] The first is the Numidian language, represented by over a thousand short inscriptions in the Libyco-Berber alphabet, found throughout North Africa and dating from the 2nd century BCE onward. [67][68], An important development in the history of Afroasiatic scholarship - and the history of African linguistics - was the creation of the "Hamitic theory" or "Hamitic hypothesis" by Lepsius, fellow Egyptologist Christian Bunsen, and linguist Christian Bleek. [166] There is a general pattern in which n- is used for the first person plural, whereas t- is used for all forms of the second person regardless of plurality or gender, as well as feminine singular. [99] Various Semitic, Cushitic, Berber, and Chadic languages, including Arabic, Amharic, Berber, Somali, and East Dangla, also exhibit various types of vowel harmony. n. pref. shared innovation: *isin-/*usun- 'they' (originally fem./masc. [6][7], with the latter two having fallen out of favor in English but still seeing frequent usage in other languages, such as German. Amdang shared innovation: 'move, take' > 'take hold of'), (Cush., Ch., Eg., Sem. These classifications of language sub-sets vary according to different texts. Beboid derivation by addition of *-u- tr. Afro-Asiatic is divided into six branches: Semitic, Berber, Egyptian, Cushitic, Chadic and Omotic. Hadza, https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Appendix:Proto-Afroasiatic_reconstructions&oldid=68902118, attributive noun and attributive deverbative suffix, attributive and complement deverbative suffix, noun derivation from verb by stem-vowel lengthening, (Sem., Eg. A relationship between Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic and the Berber languages was perceived as early as the 9th century CE by the Hebrew grammarian and physician Judah ibn Quraysh, who is regarded as a forerunner of Afroasiatic studies. ; semantics: flow out bit-by-bit), *-man-/*-mun-, *-ma-/*-mu-, *-ma-/*-mu-, (root #572 + *w inchoat. p-Bantu (Swadesh list) innovation: narrowing of meaning to beating time to music), (Eg., Sem. [94], Several Afroasiatic languages have large numbers of consonants, and it is likely that Proto-Afroasiatic did as well:[95] Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova reconstruct 32 consonant phonemes,[96] while Christopher Ehret reconstructs 42. Proto-Chadic reconstruction is in its infancy, Proto-Cushitic is even less developed, and according to Glottolog it's not demonstrable that Omotic languages are even related to each other, let alone as part of Afro-Asiatic. ), (Sem., Eg. Archaeology and the study of oral traditions helps linguists find connections between language families. Retard. Continue Reading 5 Brian Collins This great divide has made travel difficult so linguistic boundaries tend to be based on either side. shared innovation: *als-/*ils- 'tongue': *a-/*i-attrib. As Egyptian is spelled without vowels, it is difficult to know whether it had internal change plurals. [103][101] The feminine marker T is one of the most consistent aspects across the different branches of AA;[133] in addition to deriving feminine nouns in many branches, it also functions as a diminutive, pejorative, and/or singulative marker in some languages. crcst test prep; crcst free test questions; paid test; crcst exam prep notes; subscribe [149], A prefix in m- is the most widely attested affix in AA that is used to derive nouns. p-Heiban For these versions, common words found in both Dolgopolsky (2008) and Bomhard (2018) are used, with Nostratic roots shared at least by Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Semitic, whenever possible. innovation: narrowing of meaning to loud kinds of response), (2nd shape: stem + *r n. This page was last edited on 28 August 2022, at 11:13. There are multiple possibilities: Egyptian had already undergone radical changes from Proto-Afroasiatic before it was recorded, the Afroasiatic family has so far been studied with an excessively Semito-centric approach, or Afroasiatic is a typological, not a genetic group of languages. [18][11], The alternative name "Lisramic" is based on the AA root *lis- ("tongue") and the Egyptian word rm ("person"). [150] Christopher Ehret has argued that this prefix is a later development that was not present in Proto-Afro-Asiatic, but rather derived from a PAA indefinite pronoun *m-. in East Africa. West Semitic brought forth such languages as Canaanite, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic (EL, p.906). [108] Such rules do not always apply for nouns, numerals, or denominal verbs, and do not affect prefixes or suffixes added to the root. [103], A form of long-distance consonant assimilation known as consonant harmony is attested in Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, and Semitic: it usually affects features such as pharyngealization, palatalization, and labialization. innovation: 'to rub' > 'to scrape'), (* and *a are reconstructed because they are required in derived root #651 below), (#649 + *r diffus. *kop-sole (of foot . [147][148] Berber instead contrasts between the "free state" and the "annexed state," the latter of which is used for a variety of purposes, including for subjects placed after a verb and after certain prepositions. [66], Meinhof's version of the "Hamitic theory" remained prevalent until the 1940s, when it was definitively disproved by Joseph Greenberg. p-Ring p-Oti-Volta (p-E. Oti-Voltap-C. Oti-Volta) Some features observed in most or all Afroasiatic languages include: It remains unclear what word order Proto-Afroasiatic had. [90] Some Chadic languages allow a syllable to begin with a vowel. If so, semantics are unclear), (pl. Many of these roots have other proposed cognates that are not included on the table. [197], There are two etymological dictionaries of Afroasiatic, one by Christopher Ehret, and one by Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova, both from 1995. suff. C. [66] Some scholars would continue to regard Hausa as related to the other Afroasiatic languages, but the idea was controversial: many scholars refused to admit that the largely unwritten, "Negroid" Chadic languages were in the same family as the "Caucasian" ancient civilizations of the Egyptians and Semites. p-Khoe Dictionary - Vladimir E. Orel 2015-11-02 This dictionary is a fundamental source of information on the extinct proto-language of the ancient Hamito-Semites, the Proto-Hamito-Semitic language, and . Of all of the languages in the Afro-Asiatic line, Arabic is the most widely spoken language, stretching from Western Africa to the Middle East (ELL, p.51). [33] Only about 40 Chadic languages have been fully described by linguists. (Though I found no mention of the origin of Semito-, it is possible that this name comes from Shem, another son of Noah). [80] Most scholars place the homeland of Afroasiatic near the center of its current distribution,[8] "in the southeastern Sahara or adjacent Horn of Africa. Omotic is the most controversial member of Afro-Asiatic. [186] Within the Semitic language family, Lipiski counts four different roots meaning "one". [6], Scholars generally consider Afroasiatic to have at least five and as many as eight separate branches, with the five universally agreed upon branches consisting of the Berber (also called "Libyco-Berber"), Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, and Semitic. p-Lower Cross River [11] Because the term "Afroasiatic" could be taken to mean that the family includes all the languages of Africa and Asia, the term "Afrasian" is sometimes used instead; this name was proposed by Igor Diakonoff (1980) and is mostly used by Russian scholars. In the above model, Taforalt draws about half of their ancestry (you can call this ANA) from a population that also (likely through a sister population) contributes the . [168] Prefixes of - (glottal stop) for the first person singular and y- for the third person masculine can also be reconstructed. 'be, exist'), (root seen also in #983 + probably *s caus. Fifteen are glossed as names of plants or loose categories of plants. [20], The Berber (or Libyco-Berber) languages are spoken today by perhaps 16 million people. Afrasian. [112] Greenberg divided Semitic consonants into four types: "back consonants" (glottal, pharyngeal, uvular, laryngeal, and velar consonants), "front consonants" (dental or alveolar consonants), liquid consonants, and labial consonants. p-Upper Cross River Root Structure Patterning in Proto . innovation: meaning shift, from avoiding per se to feeling a need or reason to avoid), to wear out, be used up, cease to function, (Eg., Cush., Ch. p-Ogoni [135] In addition to marking plurals via a number of affixes (with the suffixes -*uu/-*w and -*n(a) widely attested), several AA languages make use of internal vowel change (apophony) and/or insertion (epenthesis). The modern word "Hebrew" is derived from the word "Ivri" (plural "Ivrim"; English: Hebrews), one of several names for the Israelite (Jewish and Samaritan) people. [7] Nevertheless, both dictionaries agree on some items and some proposed cognates are uncontroversial.