(abbrev. all catalog, articles, website, & more in one search catalog books, media & more in the Stanford Libraries' collections articles+ journal articles & other e-resources p-Ogoni [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. [99] In all AA languages, consonants can be bilabial, alveolar, velar, and glottal, with additional places of articulation found in some branches or languages. [37][34] Only one Cushitic language, Oromo, has more than 25 million speakers; other languages with more than a million speakers include Somali, Saho-Afar, Hadiyya, and Sidaama. It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham's ancestor, Eber ("Ever" in Hebrew), mentioned in Genesis 10:21. They can occur together with subject pronouns but cannot fulfill an object function. p-Gurunsi p-Cushitic Archaeologists and anthropologists have long viewed the Bible as mankind's best guide to prehistoric religion, however, archaeologist Klaus Schmidt had no reason to . Atlantic (Guinea) [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. Egyptian is classified as a distinct language and the other sub-groups are: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic (Voegelin, p.12). Tiefo [65] In 1844, Theodor Benfey first described the relationship between Semitic and the Egyptian language and connected both to the Berber and the Cushitic languages (which he called "Ethiopic"). You guys might disagree with the results form the Shum Laka paper but don't distort their own interpretations of their findings. The languages that evolved from Proto-Arabic have around 313 million native speakers, concentrated primarily in the Middle East and North Africa.[5]. < v. in #918 by V > VV; occurrence of PSC *ee (or *e?) innovation: narrowing of application of v. to angry calling out), (Sem., Cush, innovation: > n. 'covering' > 'rind, bark'), (root #447+ * iter. p-Surmic He later added Semitic and Beja to Chadic-Berber-Egyptian and tentatively proposed, Alexander Militarev (2000), on the basis of. velar consonants can occur with pharyngeals or laryngeals; This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 01:29. The only branch that's actually E is Berber. These three groups are classified as being in Africa while Afro-Asiatic is listed under the term Eurasia (Atlas, p.74). This work provides the first truly comprehensive and systematic reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian). !Kung, Bangime [95], "Afro-Asiatic" redirects here. [188] Andrzej Zaborski further notes that the numbers "one," "two," and "five" are particularly susceptible to replacement by new words, with "five" often based on a word meaning "hand". Proto-Afro-Asiatic: *abaw/y- Meaning: a k. of plant Semitic: *abVw- 'reed, papyrus' Egyptian: wb 'root', cf. Proto-Afro-Asiatic is generally considered the oldest accepted one, though it's not known exactly how long ago it was spoken. Sumerian- tamil links ( included links with turkish ( said to be closed to sumerian by panturkists which also said dravidian and turkish cognated when we know dravidians were first people of asia coming from black african L3haplogroup), yeniseian ( intermediate between turkish and chinese and member of sino caucasian family that links chinese to north caucesian langages who according to . [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. [65] He did not include the Chadic languages, though contemporary Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius argued for the relation of Hausa to the Berber languages. for expected *ii probably reflects phonetic influence of PC root in #254), (Sem., Eg. Proposed specific locations include the Horn of Africa, Egypt, the eastern Sahara, and the Levant. tr. [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. It is very difficult to reconstruct ancient Proto-Afroasiatic (PAA) vocabulary, and still more difficult to reconstruct a common morphosyntax. [76], There is no consensus where the original homeland (Urheimat) of the first Afroasiatic speakers was located. Mimi-D [127], Afroasiatic Languages use the processes of reduplication and gemination (which often overlap in meaning) to derive nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs throughout the AA language family. suff. Their range extended from the Benue Trough and Lake Chad, to the Nile Valley, the Indus Valley, and Southern Europe during the African Aqualithic Period. p-Khoe *-kep-to cease, no longer function: 327. Temein [168] Prefixes of - (glottal stop) for the first person singular and y- for the third person masculine can also be reconstructed. However, since the 1970s and '80s, comparisons of other Chadic subject pronouns with the Hausa ones have convinced most scholars that the similarity to the prefix conjugation is incidental. p-Nupoid p-Ring Forms that do not follow the pattern are in parentheses. p-Kuliak (Ik) Kim ; PC variant *damn-), (Ch., Eg., Sem. Yendang If you are not satisfied with 225345861639 This original biblical genealogy reflected political rather than linguistic realities: thus the Canaanites are descendants of Ham, although their language is closely related to Hebrew, and the Elamites are descendants of Shem, although their language is not related to Hebrew at all. [54] These five or six branches remain the academic consensus on the family. [152], A widely attested feature in AA languages is a consonantal structure into which various vocalic "templates" are placed. innovation: stem + *n n. suff. [34] Cushitic does not appear to be related to the attested ancient languages known from its area, Meroitic or Old Nubian. p-Oti-Volta (p-E. Oti-Voltap-C. Oti-Volta) [159] The Egyptian verbal system diverges greatly from that found in the other branches. Once the Luwian hieroglyphics for God "" and Gate "" were discovered at Gbekli Tepe, this author was able to directly link the site's carved pillars and pillar enclosures to the Abrahamic/Mosaic "Word of God", . Rashad [49], There there are also other proposed branches, but none has so far convinced a majority of scholars:[7]. The "s-causative" may be reflected in Hausa (as -r), however this may be a language internal development. [116], There is a large variety of vocalic systems in AA. This can be found in Semitic, Egyptian, Beja, Berber, and Chadic. [193][194], Afroasiatic languages share a vocabulary of Proto-Afroasiatic origin to varying extents. innovation: 'increase' > 'grow in size'), (root #838 + * part. It rigorously applies, throughout, the established canon and techniques of the historical-comparative method. suff. A set of constraints, developed originally by Joseph Greenberg on the basis of Arabic, has been claimed to be typical for Afroasiatic languages. Proto-Semitic was a contemporary of PIE. US$62.00 (softcover). [32] It may have as many as 80 to 100 million first and second language speakers. Published 1995 Linguistics This work provides the first truly comprehensive and systematic reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian). These classifications of language sub-sets vary according to different texts. Central Sudanic (p-Central Sudanicp-Sara-Bongo-BagirmiSinyarBirrip-Mangbetu) [41] In the Coptic period, there is evidence for six major dialects, which presumably existed previously but are obscured by pre-Coptic writing; additionally, Middle Egyptian appears to be based on a different dialect than Old Egyptian, which in turn shows dialectal similarities to Late Egyptian. p-Manjaku [141] However, the number and types of cases varies across AA and also within the individual branches. [72] Earlier, the first scholar to question to existence of "Hamitic languages" was Marcel Cohen (1924),[9] while skepticism was also expressed by A. Klingenheben and Dietrich Westermann (1920s and '30s). [47] Other scholars have questioned whether it is Afroasiatic at all, due its lack of several typical aspects of Afroasiatic morphology. El proto-afroasitico , a veces denominado proto-afrasiano , es el proto-lenguaje reconstruido del que descienden todas las lenguas afroasiticas modernas . [20], The Berber (or Libyco-Berber) languages are spoken today by perhaps 16 million people. 4 This was Hodge's term for the ancestral proto-language of Proto-Afroasiatic and Proto-Indo-European based on Proto-Lislakh *lis- 'language' + *laxwos 'people'. The Proto-Afroasiatic Vowel System. We unlock the potential of millions of people worldwide. Kunama [179] However, there is no consensus on what the reconstructed set of Afroasiatic pronouns might have looked like. [44], The c. 30 Omotic languages are still mostly undescribed by linguists. The root form of the verb has only three consonants in common. [198] Andrzej Zaborski refers to Orel and Stolbova's reconstructions as "controversial", and Ehret's as "not acceptable to many scholars". innovation: 'fold over, bend'), (Eg., Sem. ; Eg., Sem. [98] AA languages tend to have pharyngeal fricative consonants, with Egyptian, Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic sharing and . Continue Reading 5 Brian Collins It rigorously applies, throughout, the established canon and techniques of the historical-comparative method. In Afro-Asiatic languages: Origins originated is referred to as Proto-Afro-Asiatic. [34], The Egyptian branch consists of a single language, Ancient Egyptian, which was historically spoken in the lower Nile Valley. There is no information on whether Egyptian had tones. Bomhard postulates that from Proto-Afroasiatic (henceforth PAA), Chadic was the first to break off. *y: adjective suffix: 3. [88], Egyptian, Cushitic, Berber, Omotic, and most languages in the Semitic branch all require a syllable to begin with a consonant (with the exception of some grammatical prefixes). * "Revising the Consonant Inventory of Proto-Eastern Cushitic," Studies in African Linguistics 22, 3 (1991): 211-275. Among the countries included in this language family are: Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, and Ethiopia. [138][177] Christopher Ehret argues for its presence in Proto-Afroasiatic and for its attestation in some form in all branches, with a shape -*ay in addition to -*iy in some cases. [186] Within the Semitic language family, Lipiski counts four different roots meaning "one". 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 . [31] Hausa is the largest Chadic language by native speakers, and is spoken by a large number of people as a lingua franca in Northern Nigeria. New York: Elsevier, 1977. Both works provide highly divergent reconstructions and have been heavily criticized by other scholars. In addition to the languages spoken today, Afroasiatic includes many ancient languages, such as Egyptian, which forms a distinct branch of the family; and within the Semitic family, Akkadian, Hebrew, Phoenician, other Canaanite languages, Amorite, Ugaritic and Aramaic. The Subclassification of Afroasiatic (Afrasian) Appendix 1. Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary. suff. With the exception of its Semitic branch, all branches of the Afroasiatic family are . The HmongMien languages also known as MiaoYao and rarely as Yangtzean1 are a highly tonal language family of southern China and northern Southeast [103][53] In some branches, it can also derive abstract nouns and participles. . the ancient Egypto-Semitic evidence. n. pref. Pre-Proto-Semitic Roots (Additional to those presented in Ehret 1989) Appendix 2. NE Sudanic [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. South Bauchi ; *m > /n/ ([])/_*x), (Sem., Eg. [27] The first longer written examples of modern Berber varieties only date from the 16th or 17th centuries CE. p-Maji [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. shared innovation: *als-/*ils- 'tongue': *a-/*i-attrib. [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. [99] Various Semitic, Cushitic, Berber, and Chadic languages, including Arabic, Amharic, Berber, Somali, and East Dangla, also exhibit various types of vowel harmony. Mao In Arabic, ti-ktib means she writes and katab-it means she wrote. 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. Afro-Asiatic is a large language family with great diversity. 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. [9] ( innovation: *agaw- 'cooked grain,' stem + *w n. [197], There are two etymological dictionaries of Afroasiatic, one by Christopher Ehret, and one by Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova, both from 1995. Afroasiatic languages have over 500 million native speakers, which is the fourth-largest number of native speakers of any language family (after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and NigerCongo). p-Katloid 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. Proto-Chadic and Proto-Cushitic are likely even older. p-Yoruboid Aunque las estimaciones varan ampliamente, los eruditos creen que se hablaba como un solo idioma hace entre 12.000 y 18.000 aos (12 a 18 kya ), es decir, entre 16.000 y 10.000 a . [74], There is no consensus on when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken. The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic ), also known as Hamito-Semitic, [3] or Semito-Hamitic, [4] and sometimes also as Afrasian or Erythraean, [5] are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara / Sahel. [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. However, not one of Militarev's proposed 32 agricultural roots can be considered diagnostic of cultivation. [107] Another widespread constraint is against two non-identical lateral obstruents, which can be found in Egyptian, Chadic, Semitic, and probably Cushitic. suff. * "The Origins of Third Consonants in Semitic Roots: An Internal Reconstruction (Applied to Arabic)," Journal of Afroasiatic Languages 3, 2 (1989): 109-202. p-Akokoid in Semitic, Berber, and in Cushitic,[130][166] where it is only found on a small set of frequent verbs. [79], An African origin has broad scholarly support,[75] and is favored by most linguists on the basis of the linguistic data. in *n, as also in #210) 324. Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. ), #209 + Afroasiatic pl. Proto-Afroasiatic, sometimes also referred to as Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto-language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. These include Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Altaic and Dravidian (Atlas, p.74). . Jalaa *t: . Proto-Afro-Asiatic is proposed to have been spoken 18,000 years ago near the Horn of Africa (eastern Africa). [124] Other scholars argue that Proto-AA had a pitch accent and some branches subsequently developed tone. *kns-loins: 326. Diamond and Bellwood adopt Militarev's ( 2) solitary counterclaim of proto-Afroasiatic cultivation. This family was formally described and named "Semitic" by August Ludwig von Schlzer in 1781. 3 The Phonemes of English - A. Cohen 1971-07-31 I gladly take this opportunity to convey my heartfelt thanks to those who have guided me on my way as an This great divide has made travel difficult so linguistic boundaries tend to be based on either side. into stem), to take (bit of food or drink) into the mouth, (* is required by derived noun, root #641 following), (Eg., Sem. p-Plateau (p-Tarokoid) Some languages have an additional feminine plural form in -t that is not listed here. [164] Identifying cognates is difficult because the languages in question are often separated by thousands of years of development and many languages within the family have long been in contact with each other, raising the possibility of loanwords. Ongota ; possible n. derivation < v. in #1004). Under East Semitic rose Akkadian and Babylonian. There are approximately 400 Afroasiatic languages, either living or recorded but extinct. [29] Eight other Chadic languages have around 100,000 speakers; other Chadic languages often have few speakers and may be endangered of going extinct. These are some known features common to more than one branch, though (Hodge 1971; Lecarme, Lowenstamm, and Shlonsky 2000; Frajzyngier and Shay 2012): Each aspect of these reconstructions is substantiated in detail in an extensive etymological vocabulary of more than 1000 roots. PROTO-AFROASIATIC PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM One of the most significant characteristics of Afroasiatic consonantism is the system of triads found in the stops and affri- cates -- each series (except the lateralized affricates) contains three members: a voiceless (aspirated) member, a voiced member, and a glottalized (that is, ejective) member. The quality of the underlying vowels varies considerably by language; the most common vowel throughout AA is schwa. [190] Some South Cushitic numerals are borrowed from Nilotic languages, other Cushitic numerals have been borrowed from Ethiopian Semitic languages. [123], Some scholars postulate that Proto-Afroasiatic was a tonal language, with tonality subsequently lost in some branches: Christopher Ehret has postulated a tonal system of at least two tonal phonemes, falling tone, rising tone, and possibly a third tone, level tone. innovation: integration of *t dur. Greenberg, 1958 D. Cohen,. Omotic and Cushitic followed the example and split together, as did Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic in another group. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996. [136] These so-called "internal a" or "broken" plurals are securely attested in Semitic, Berber, Cushitic, and Chadic, although it is unclear if the Chadic examples are an independent development. Afro-Asiatic has been hypothesized to be related to many other language families. [117] In the different languages, central vowels are often inserted to break up consonant clusters (a form of epenthesis). [23] In the past, Berber languages were spoken throughout North Africa except in Egypt;[24] since the 7th century CE, however, they have been heavily affected by Arabic and have been replaced by it in many places. [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. Akpes Proto-Afroasiatic, sometimes also referred to as Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto-language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. Like in the English example, feet foot, vowels make the difference between separate words. Fig. and touches on external evidence from Afroasiatic cognate languages. The speakers of Boreafrasian migrated north to an arid Sahara climate, then eventually pushed on west and east. innovation: narrowing of meaning to beating time to music), (Eg., Sem. p-Songhay innovation: 'increase' > 'grow fat, thicken'), (root #141 + *n n. [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. innovation: derivation of v. 'to sleep' by addition of *n non-fin. p-South Bauchi [121] In contemporary Omotic, Chadic, and Cushitic languages, tone is primarily a grammatical feature: it encodes various grammatical functions, only differentiating lexical roots in a few cases. p-Atlantic-Congo