[27] The first longer written examples of modern Berber varieties only date from the 16th or 17th centuries CE. [77], Conjugation of verbs using prefixes that mark person, number, and gender can be found innovation: 'fold over, bend'), (Eg., Sem. innovation: *-VC- v. stems > *-CV-), (Eg., Sem. The other three are very closely related and it is not hard for, say, a Dane to learn to understand a Swede. infix [also tonal shift as found in Chadic cases]), (this root is included because #871 following derives from it), (sing. ), (additional Cushitic alternants *-br- and *-br-), (stem + *r n. 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. [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. [29], There are about 30,[34] 50,[35] or 70[36] Cushitic languages, spoken around the Horn of Africa and in Sudan and Tanzania. [99], The majority of AA languages are tonal languages: phonemic tonality is found in Omotic, Chadic, and Cushitic languages, but absent in Berber and Semitic. Upload your video About the author [75] Consequently, scholars have offered estimates for when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken that range between 18,000 and 8,000 BCE. [74], There is no consensus on when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken. Omotic is the most controversial member of Afro-Asiatic. p-Upper Cross River redup. 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'. Kim 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 . [109] Additionally, he showed that Proto-Semitic restricted a sequence of two identical consonants in the first and second position of the triliteral root. [118], Attempts to reconstruct the vocalic system of Proto-Afroasiatic vary considerably. They can occur together with subject pronouns but cannot fulfill an object function. [30] A common characteristic of AA languages is the existence of a special set of "independent" pronouns, which are distinct from subject pronouns. p-Jen [190] Some South Cushitic numerals are borrowed from Nilotic languages, other Cushitic numerals have been borrowed from Ethiopian Semitic languages. innovation: 'not want' > 'not need,' hence 'be sated'), (Eg., Sem. ; Sem., Eg. [22] Other scholars, however, argue that they are a group of around twelve languages, about as different from each other as the Romance or Germanic languages. BLACK ATHENA The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization - V - $57.73. This can be found in Semitic, Egyptian, Beja, Berber, and Chadic. p-Gbaya Bariba innovation: to spoil > to sour), (Sem., Eg. They are not found in Chadic languages, and there is no evidence for cases in Egyptian. [133][150] It forms agent nouns, place nouns, and instrument nouns. The Atlas of Languages. There is no agreement on the relationships between and subgrouping of the different Afroasiatic branches. [130], The assignment of nouns and pronouns to either masculine or feminine gender is present in all branches - but not all languages - of the Afroasiatic family. Proto-Afroasiatic is a reconstructed language. (abbrev. [198] Andrzej Zaborski refers to Orel and Stolbova's reconstructions as "controversial", and Ehret's as "not acceptable to many scholars". *t: . 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. [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. The only group with an African origin is Ethiopian Semitic. Yendang ), (Sem., Eg. It rigorously applies, throughout, the established canon and techniques of the historical-comparative method. [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. (abbrev. [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). p-Masa [99] Various Semitic, Cushitic, Berber, and Chadic languages, including Arabic, Amharic, Berber, Somali, and East Dangla, also exhibit various types of vowel harmony. Retard. common genetic origin of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic differ considerably from the assumptions made in other works on . [40] Egyptian is first attested in writing around 3000 BCE and finally went extinct around 1300 CE, making it the language with the longest written history in the world. [76] It may have originally mostly biconsonantal, to which various affixes (verbal extensions) were then added and lexicalized. *w: deverbative complement and result suffix: 2. 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. Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Adapted from Ruhlen 1987. These are some known features common to more than one branch, though (Hodge 1971; Lecarme, Lowenstamm, and Shlonsky 2000; Frajzyngier and Shay 2012): (root #311+old Afroasiatic pl. ), (Eg., Sem. [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. [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. [87], Afroasiatic languages share a number of phonetic and phonological features. Nara Since there is written data available from this region, it is easier to reconstruct ancient roots and find common characteristics (ELL, p.51). in a word must match. [18][11], The alternative name "Lisramic" is based on the AA root *lis- ("tongue") and the Egyptian word rm ("person"). Its words and roots are not directly attested in any written works, but have been reconstructed through the comparative method, which finds regular similarities between languages that cannot be explained by coincidence or word-borrowing, and extrapolates ancient forms from these similarities. suff. Proto-Afro-Asiatic: *abaw/y- Meaning: a k. of plant Semitic: *abVw- 'reed, papyrus' Egyptian: wb 'root', cf. ref. p-Gurunsi Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2016 Alan S. Kaye Article Metrics Save PDF p-Maban With the exception of its Semitic branch, all branches of the Afroasiatic family are . Dalby, Andrew. [159] The Egyptian verbal system diverges greatly from that found in the other branches. shared innovation: *isin-/*usun- 'they' (originally fem./masc. The speakers of Boreafrasian migrated north to an arid Sahara climate, then eventually pushed on west and east. innovation: 'knee'; Berber *afud < *puuz), to be finished, come to an end, be used up, (Sem., Cush. The name Hamitic originates from Ham, one of the sons of Noah. [108] Such rules do not always apply for nouns, numerals, or denominal verbs, and do not affect prefixes or suffixes added to the root. [186] Within the Semitic language family, Lipiski counts four different roots meaning "one". Proto-Afro-Asiatic is of great antiquity; experts tend to place it in the Mesolithic Period at about 15,000-10,000 bce. [2] With the exception of its Semitic branch, all branches of the Afroasiatic family are exclusively native to the African continent. 2.11. North of the Sahara and the Ethiopian mountains are the Afro-Asiatic languages. I.2.1. [29] Eight other Chadic languages have around 100,000 speakers; other Chadic languages often have few speakers and may be endangered of going extinct. sing. 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. [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. [101][a] The emphatic consonants are typically formed deeper in the throat than the others;[99] they can be realized variously as glottalized, pharyngealized, uvularized, ejective, and/or implosive consonants in the different branches. Bomhard postulates that from Proto-Afroasiatic (henceforth PAA), Chadic was the first to break off. The quality of the underlying vowels varies considerably by language; the most common vowel throughout AA is schwa. These classifications of language sub-sets vary according to different texts. [10][11], Friedrich Mller introduced the name "Hamito-Semitic" to describe the family in his Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, published in 1876. 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. [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. [16] Several issues with the label "Hamito-Semitic" have led to its decline in use by later scholars. A main characteristic of Afro-Asiatic languages is the use of vowel changes in word formation. [122] In some Chadic and some Omotic languages every syllable has to have a tone, whereas in most Cushitic languages this is not the case. [26] The second is the Guanche language, which was formerly spoken on the Canary Islands and went extinct in the 17th century CE. Afrasian. >>14700322 >Proto-Semitic language contact with PIE implies the Semitic languages themselves come from J Caucasians. [40] Coptic is the only stage written alphabetically to show vowels, whereas Egyptian was previously written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, which only represent consonants. Proto-Cushitic Roots (Additional to those presented in Ehret 1987) Appendix 3. as ELL). 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. Classification and Index of the Worlds Languages. 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 ). [139], Nouns cases are found in the Semitic, Berber, Cushitic, and Omotic. [113] These rules also have a number of exceptions: Similar exceptions can be demonstrated for the other AA branches that have these restrictions to their root formation. Forms that do not follow the pattern are in parentheses. p-Ron innovation: addition of *t n. Proto-Afroasiatic) was spoken, most agree that it was located within a region of Northeast Africa. 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. Kujarge p-Manjaku Proto-Nostratic would have been spoken between 15,000 and 12,000 BCE, in the Epipaleolithic period, close to the end of the last glacial period. The most up to . Continue Reading 5 Brian Collins p-Maji [49], There there are also other proposed branches, but none has so far convinced a majority of scholars:[7]. Beboid [17] The name refers to the fact that this is the only major language family with members in both Africa and Asia. [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. p-Central Togo [14], The term Semitic had already been coined in 1781 by August Ludwig von Schlzer, following an earlier suggestion by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1710. Amdang An Encyclopedia of Language. [141] However, the number and types of cases varies across AA and also within the individual branches. [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. [151] Such an etymology is rejected by A. Zaborski and Gbor Takcs, the latter of whom argues for a PAA *ma- that unites all or some of the meanings in the modern languages. [134] A system K (masculine), T (feminine), and H (plural) can be found in Cushitic, Chadic, with masculine K also appearing in Omotic. 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. [124] Other scholars argue that Proto-AA had a pitch accent and some branches subsequently developed tone. [12] Each component of this term was derived from the name of a Biblical son of Noah as detailed in the Book of Genesis: Semitic from his first-born son Shem, and Hamitic from his second son Ham (Genesis 5:32). ; short vowel required by derived verb #399), calabash (used as container, utensil, etc. The reconstruction of Proto-Afroasiatic is problematic and . One hypothesis places it in the Levant, as the language of the Natufian hunter-gatherers who were the first to adopt a farming lifestyle more than 10,000 years ago. [31], A majority of specialists consider Omotic to constitute a sixth branch of Afroasiatic. Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. p-Chadic The Egyptian prefix has a middle voice/intransitive/or passive meaning. [28], Chadic languages number between 150 and 190, making Chadic the largest family in Afroasiatic. There is also some evidence from. Anaang In the series University of California Publications in Linguistics 126. There are approximately 400 Afroasiatic languages, either living or recorded but extinct. Traditionally, the Hausa subject pronouns have been compared to the prefix conjugation. The Afroasiatic language family is thought to have originated in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula around 15,000 years ago. [180] Also common are dependent/affix pronouns (used for direct objects and to mark possession). Afroasiatic is generally considered to be comprised of the language families Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic, and Semitic. There was additional language contact within the Afro-Asiatic family when Arabs invaded Egypt in 640 A.D. Coptic, a daughter language of ancient Egyptian, had flourished until that time but was replaced eventually by Arabic (Voegelin ,p13). [130], Many AA languages use prefixes or suffixes (verbal extensions) to encode various pieces of information about the verb. [179] However, there is no consensus on what the reconstructed set of Afroasiatic pronouns might have looked like. In An Encyclopedia of Language, Omotic is listed as a sub-set of Cushitic, and Andrew Dalby writes the Egyptian division as "Egyptian-Coptic," even though Coptic is considered to be a sub-set of Egyptian. [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. [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. p-Ogoni for expected *ii probably reflects phonetic influence of PC root in #254), (Sem., Eg. p-Ring innovation: generalization of pl. [156], There is no agreement about which tenses or aspects Proto-Afroasiatic might have had. [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. Berta infix), fruit, seeds, foliage, plant growth in general, (Ch., Sem. Allan Bomhard's own reconstructions of Proto-Afroasiatic roots (and phonology) seem to be biased toward Proto-Indo-European and Nostratic roots . p-Fali [137][d] Another common method of forming plurals is reduplication. : *itsim-), (2nd root shape: possible old tr. innovation: specialization of meaning to plant growth), (Berber, e.g., Shilh agafay 'cloud,' implies a 2nd root shape *-gaap-), to impel, make move (by pushing, pulling), (root #311+old Afroasiatic pl. It rigorously applies, throughout, the established canon and techniques of the historical-comparative method. [182], Unlike in the Indo-European or Austronesian language families, numerals in AA languages cannot be traced to a proto-system. fort. [65] He did not include the Chadic languages, though contemporary Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius argued for the relation of Hausa to the Berber languages. [54][73][9] The reluctance of some scholars to recognize Chadic as a member of Afroasiatic persisted as late as the 1980s. [90] Some Chadic languages allow a syllable to begin with a vowel. Three dialects emerged (Omotic, Cushitic, and Chadic) from the main one and this left Boreafrasian, the source of Berber, Egyptian and Semitic (Dalby ,p. 6). [66], Meinhof's version of the "Hamitic theory" remained prevalent until the 1940s, when it was definitively disproved by Joseph Greenberg. NE Sudanic Map of Afro-Asiatic languages distribution (click to enlarge it) Omotic and Cushitic followed the example and split together, as did Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic in another group. Due to isolation, Icelandic has changed the least and is most similar to Old Norse, and therefore probably also to Proto-Germanic. suff. Root Structure Patterning in Proto . [173] While some scholars posit an AA origin for this form, it is possible that the Berber and Cushitic forms are independent developments,[130] as they show significant differences from the Egyptian and Semitic forms. p-Koman Ongota Abstract The paper is a new contribution to revealing the Afro-Asiatic heritage in the lexicon of the Angas-Sura group of Chadic languages by means of interbranch comparison using a.o. Proto-Afroasiatic is a language and NOT an ethnicity: Proto-Afroasiatic language - Wikipedia There is no proof where the Afroasiatic languages originated, but the oldest Afroasiatic language writing has been found in Egypt and dated 6000 years. 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). *y: adjective suffix: 3. Ekoid p-Kongo The results, while confirming some previous views on proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian), revise or overturn many others, and add much that is new. The Proto-Afroasiatic Consonant System. Linguistics 450 to domestic animals in general, then narrowing in PS and Eg. ), to become thoroughly wet, pour heavily (intr. [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. Also, how do roots work? 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. ), (root #695 + *f iter.? Vol.1. innovation: 'to rub' > 'to scrape'), (* and *a are reconstructed because they are required in derived root #651 below), (#649 + *r diffus. innovation: *agaw- 'cooked grain,' stem + *w n. 28 July 1999. (Though I found no mention of the origin of Semito-, it is possible that this name comes from Shem, another son of Noah). This work provides the first truly comprehensive and systematic reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian). [117] Christopher Ehret proposed a five vowel system with long and short a, e, o, i, and u. The results, while confirming some previous views on proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian), revise or overturn many others, and add much that is new.

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