[124] Other scholars argue that Proto-AA had a pitch accent and some branches subsequently developed tone. The Semitic line of Afro-Asiatic has the most language sub-sets. except for Semitic, which is also spoken in the Middle-East and Malta, all branches of the p-Lakka Vol.1. [169] As there is no evidence for the "prefix conjugation" in Omotic, Chadic, or Egyptian, it is unclear whether this was a Proto-Afroasiatic feature that has been lost in those branches or is a shared innovation among Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic. p-Bua [99] Various Semitic, Cushitic, Berber, and Chadic languages, including Arabic, Amharic, Berber, Somali, and East Dangla, also exhibit various types of vowel harmony. [186] Within the Semitic language family, Lipiski counts four different roots meaning "one". North Germanic includes Icelandic, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. There is an obvious trend (probably driven by Semitic and Egyptian researchers) to place the Afroasiatic Homeland near one of the many proposed Semitic homelands, i.e. 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. innovation: 'fold over, bend'), (Eg., Sem. ), #209 + Afroasiatic pl. [32] It may have as many as 80 to 100 million first and second language speakers. [51] The classification within West Semitic remains contested. Proto-Afro-Asiatic: *abaw/y- Meaning: a k. of plant Semitic: *abVw- 'reed, papyrus' Egyptian: wb 'root', cf. to domestic animals in general, then narrowing in PS and Eg. These records make it possible to classify and reconstruct many languages. [84] Prominent in this camp is the linguist Alexander Militarev, who argues that Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken by early agriculturalists in the Levant and subsequently spread to Africa. shared innovation: 'raise' > 'lift, pick up'; probable further Ch., Eg., Sem. The Subclassification of Afroasiatic (Afrasian) Appendix 1. With the exception of its Semitic branch, all branches of the Afroasiatic family are . 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. [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". p-Nilo-Saharan Bariba Classification and Index of the Worlds Languages. innovation: shift to outflow of water, not from body; root *-sa- seen in #540 + *t dur. The Afroasiatic language family is thought to have originated in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula around 15,000 years ago. 'be, exist'), (root seen also in #983 + probably *s caus. *kop-sole (of foot . Additionally, Joseph Greenberg argued that "Hamitic" has racial connotations, and that the name "Hamito-Semitic" overstates the centrality of the Semitic languages within the family. [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. Berta 'to come so close as to brush against'), (Eg., Sem. [27] The first longer written examples of modern Berber varieties only date from the 16th or 17th centuries CE. p-Gbaya [91] Typically, syllables only begin with a single consonant. p-Gbe (Fongbe) derivation by addition of *-u- tr. sing. Therefore the root is considered ktb. When looking for roots it is important to remember that early Semitic only had consonants and vowels had to be inferred from the context (Atlas, p.78-79). [64] The French orientalist Guillaume Postel had also pointed out similarities between Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic in 1538, and Hiob Ludolf noted similarities also to Ge'ez and Amharic in 1701. and touches on external evidence from Afroasiatic cognate languages. [70] On the one hand, the classification of languages as "Hamitic" relied on linguistic features, such as the presence of male and female grammatical gender; thus Meinhof even split the Chadic family into "Hamito-Chadic" and unrelated non-Hamitic Chadic based on which languages possessed gender. in a word must match. This great divide has made travel difficult so linguistic boundaries tend to be based on either side. p-Edoid Adapted from Ruhlen 1987. There is no information on whether Egyptian had tones. [17] The name refers to the fact that this is the only major language family with members in both Africa and Asia. Each aspect of these reconstructions is substantiated in detail in an extensive etymological vocabulary of more than 1000 roots. innovation: *agaw- 'cooked grain,' stem + *w n. Proto-Chadic and Proto-Cushitic are likely even older. Map of Afro-Asiatic languages distribution (click to enlarge it) The other three are very closely related and it is not hard for, say, a Dane to learn to understand a Swede. Anaang May 29th, 2020 - grammar lithuanian is a richly inflected language that has retained some of the plex morphology of its ancestral proto indo european nouns nouns are marked for gender number and case that are fused into one ending there are two genders masculine and feminine with a few neuter nouns there are three numbers singular dual and plural 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 . [74], There is no consensus on when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken. [184] Only some Berber languages maintain the native Berber numeral system, with many using Arabic loans for higher numbers and some from any numeral beyond two. [121], As part of these templates, the alternation (apophony) between high vowels (e.g. p-Bantu (Swadesh list) [141] However, the number and types of cases varies across AA and also within the individual branches. Other Language Families and Fields of Study. *kanf-/*kinf-wing: 325. New York: Elsevier, 1977. The languages that evolved from Proto-Arabic have around 313 million native speakers, concentrated primarily in the Middle East and North Africa.[5]. Allan Bomhard's own reconstructions of Proto-Afroasiatic roots (and phonology) seem to be biased toward Proto-Indo-European and Nostratic roots . However, not one of Militarev's proposed 32 agricultural roots can be considered diagnostic of cultivation. 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. There is no agreement on the relationships between and subgrouping of the different Afroasiatic branches. 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). p-Tuu If you are not satisfied with 225345861639 In Cushitic and Semitic, nouns exist in the "free state" or the "construct state". Due to isolation, Icelandic has changed the least and is most similar to Old Norse, and therefore probably also to Proto-Germanic. [198] Andrzej Zaborski refers to Orel and Stolbova's reconstructions as "controversial", and Ehret's as "not acceptable to many scholars". . [139], Nouns cases are found in the Semitic, Berber, Cushitic, and Omotic. [131] This sex-based gender system is widely agreed to derive from Proto-Afroasiatic. p-Ring PSom-III. 6), (Eg., Sem., Cush. [137][d] Another common method of forming plurals is reduplication. [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. [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. [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). suff. Mimi-D The results, while confirming some previous views on proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian), revise or overturn many others, and add much that is new. Well-known Afroasiatic languages include Arabic, Ancient Egyptian, Somali, Tuareg, and Hausa. p-Atlantic-Congo Tadaksahak, p-Niger-Congo The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic,or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic subregions of Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara/Sahel. Kadu [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. in Semitic, Berber, and in Cushitic,[130][166] where it is only found on a small set of frequent verbs. *w: deverbative complement and result suffix: 2. NE Sudanic [183][184] In the Chadic family alone, there are two different roots for "two,"[185] and Berber and Semitic likewise have two different branch-internal roots for "two". stretching out of arms), (Sem, Eg., Ch., Cush, innovation: 'set on top of' > 'cover'), (Sem., Eg. [5] It includes languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africaand parts of the Sahel. FOR SALE! >>14700332 p-Jebel [17][18] Victor Porkhomovsky suggests that the label "Hamito-Semitic" is at this point simply convention and no more implies an opposition between Semitic and "Hamitic" languages than "Indo-European" implies a "European" and an Indic branch. The reconstruction of Proto-Afroasiatic is problematic and . suff. Some languages have an additional feminine plural form in -t that is not listed here. n. pref. The Cushitic forms in particular may be derived from morphology found in subordinate clauses. [30] For most branches, the first person pronouns contain a nasal consonant (n, m), whereas the third person displays a sibilant consonant (s, sh). Omotic and Cushitic followed the example and split together, as did Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic in another group. p-Fula-Sereer Temein all catalog, articles, website, & more in one search catalog books, media & more in the Stanford Libraries' collections articles+ journal articles & other e-resources Mimi-N suff. p-Manjaku innovation: narrowing of meaning to particular kind of joining, by sewing), to split in two, split one from the other, (proposed source: #502, with regular PAA * > PBA *n; Eg., Berber, Sem. ; *m > /n/ ([])/_*x), (Sem., Eg. [193][194], Afroasiatic languages share a vocabulary of Proto-Afroasiatic origin to varying extents. p-Masa 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). [99] In all AA languages, consonants can be bilabial, alveolar, velar, and glottal, with additional places of articulation found in some branches or languages. Kanuri Proto-Afro-Asiatic is proposed to have been spoken 18,000 years ago near the Horn of Africa (eastern Africa). innovation: addition of * concisive to denote short, concentrated outflow, hence vomiting), (Sem., Eg. [44], The c. 30 Omotic languages are still mostly undescribed by linguists. Olukumi > *itsan-; Omotic innovation: stem + *m n. [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. [15] Hamitic was coined by Ernest Renan in 1855, to refer to languages that seemed similar to the Semitic languages, but were not themselves provably a part of the family. [144], A second category, which partially overlaps with case, is the AA linguistic category of "state." [68] On the other hand, the classification relied on anthropological and racial features, such as skin color, hair type, and lifestyle. [116], There is a large variety of vocalic systems in AA. Afro-Asiatic is divided into six branches: Semitic, Berber, Egyptian, Cushitic, Chadic and Omotic. [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. [98] AA languages tend to have pharyngeal fricative consonants, with Egyptian, Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic sharing and . i, u) and a low vowel (a) in verbal forms is usually described as one of the main characteristics of AA languages: this change codes a variety of different functions. in *n, as also in #323), (possible V reconstructions: *a, *aa, *e, or *o), (Sem., Eg., Ch. 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. E-V13. This family was formally described and named "Semitic" by August Ludwig von Schlzer in 1781. The construct state is a special, usually reduced form of a noun, which is used when the noun is possessed by another noun (Semitic) or is modified by an adjective or relative clause (Cushitic). [97] All Afroasiatic languages contain stops and fricatives; some branches have additional types of consonants such as affricates and lateral consonants. suff. ; Eg., Sem. 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. ref. 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", . From the earliest times we have written records from Northern Africa. [7] Nevertheless, both dictionaries agree on some items and some proposed cognates are uncontroversial. [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). innovation: 'knee'; Berber *afud < *puuz), to be finished, come to an end, be used up, (Sem., Cush. [20] Omotic was formerly considered part of the Cushitic branch;[46] some scholars continue to consider it part of Cushitic. Some features observed in most or all Afroasiatic languages include: It remains unclear what word order Proto-Afroasiatic had. p-Akokoid [65] He did not include the Chadic languages, though contemporary Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius argued for the relation of Hausa to the Berber languages. [10][11], Friedrich Mller introduced the name "Hamito-Semitic" to describe the family in his Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, published in 1876. Benfys title was later inverted to make Hamito-Semitic but over time racial connotations were applied to this name (Voegelin, p.13). "[81] The African languages of Afroasiatic are not more closely related to each other than they are to Semitic, as one would expect if only Semitic had remained in an Asian AA homeland while all other branches had spread from there. ), (Eg., Sem. There is also some evidence from. Proto-Afroasiatic, sometimes also referred to as Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto-language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. [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. [71] In the end, Meinhof's classification included languages from every family in Africa that is recognized by modern linguistics. alternative feminine endings *-ay/*-y; corresponding vowel templates for verbal conjugations) which can be reconstructed for a higher-order proto-language (provisionally called "Proto-Berbero-Semitic" by Kossmann & Suchard (2018) and Van Putten (2018)). Ongota In Afro-Asiatic, there are five main families. [49], There there are also other proposed branches, but none has so far convinced a majority of scholars:[7]. 2.12. 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. show more [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. [2] With the exception of its Semitic branch, all branches of the Afroasiatic family are exclusively native to the African continent. as denom. shared innovation: *als-/*ils- 'tongue': *a-/*i-attrib. [76] It may have originally mostly biconsonantal, to which various affixes (verbal extensions) were then added and lexicalized. ), to fit on top of, go above or in front of, (Eg., Sem. TV. It rigorously applies, throughout, the established canon and techniques. Ekoid ; PS, Eg., Ch. innovation: 'grow' > 'live,' whence Eg. [176], Due to its presence in the oldest attested and best-known AA branches, nisba derivation is often thought of as a "quintessentially Afroasiatic feature". Fifteen are glossed as names of plants or loose categories of plants. [33] Only about 40 Chadic languages have been fully described by linguists. ), (root seen also in #984 + *n non-fin. p-Heiban New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996. [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. shared innovation: 'move, take' > 'take hold of'), (Cush., Ch., Eg., Sem. Such evidence may reveal plants known to early Afroasiatic speakers; but it does not diagnose whether they were cultivated or wild. [34] Cushitic does not appear to be related to the attested ancient languages known from its area, Meroitic or Old Nubian. bw 'plant used in medicine' (med) Central Chadic: *abay 'leaf' Proto-Afro-Asiatic: * (a-)bil- Meaning: door Semitic: *abul- 'door, gate' Western Chadic: *HVbil- 'door' Central Cushitic (Agaw): *bil- 'door' 1, 'hole, window' 2 p-Maji The construct state is used when a noun becomes unstressed as the first element of a compound, whereas the pronominal state is used when the noun has a suffixed possessive pronoun. The Proto-Afroasiatic Consonant System. SOm stat. Rashad [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. p-Koman [190] Some South Cushitic numerals are borrowed from Nilotic languages, other Cushitic numerals have been borrowed from Ethiopian Semitic languages. [31] They are all spoken in southwest Ethiopia except for the Ganza language, spoken in Sudan. [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. [103][53] In some branches, it can also derive abstract nouns and participles. C. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. I.2.1. The Berber and Semitic branches share certain grammatical features (e.g. Proto-Semitic was a contemporary of PIE. [130], Many AA languages use prefixes or suffixes (verbal extensions) to encode various pieces of information about the verb. [95], "Afro-Asiatic" redirects here. Each aspect of these reconstructions is substantiated in detail in an extensive etymological vocabulary of more than 1000 roots. 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). [34], The Egyptian branch consists of a single language, Ancient Egyptian, which was historically spoken in the lower Nile Valley. [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. 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. [42] Egyptian was replaced by Arabic as the spoken language of Egypt,[43] but Coptic continues to be the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church. 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. [153][168][h], Some AA branches have what is called a "suffix conjugation", formed by using pronominal suffixes to indicate person, gender, and number and a verbal adjective. infix [also tonal shift as found in Chadic cases]), (this root is included because #871 following derives from it), (sing. Semitic and Berber are quite closely related, and both are more distantly connected to Cushitic. Ayere-Ahan innovation: derivation of v. 'to sleep' by addition of *n non-fin. [119] Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova instead proposed a six vowel system with a, e, o, i, ([y]), and u. Proto-Afroasiatic) was spoken, most agree that it was located within a region of Northeast Africa. FOR SALE! The system in Berber, Egyptian, and Semitic, however, has independent words for the numbers 6-9. US$62.00 (softcover). [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). innovation: narrowing of meaning to loud kinds of response), (2nd shape: stem + *r n. There are approximately 400 Afroasiatic languages, either living or recorded but extinct. Shabo Bendi This is in part due to Boroafrasian speakers breaking into groups such as Berber and Egyptian in North Africa and Semitic dialects in the Arabian Peninsula. [64] In the same year T.N. 2.11. 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. [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). as ELL). [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. p-N. Jos [104] Several Omotic languages have "sibilant harmony", meaning that all sibilants (s, sh, z, ts, etc.) [77], Conjugation of verbs using prefixes that mark person, number, and gender can be found Continue Reading 5 Brian Collins 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. < v. in #918 by V > VV; occurrence of PSC *ee (or *e?) ; PC variant *damn-), (Ch., Eg., Sem. p-North Bauchi In current scholarship, the most common names used for the family are Afroasiatic (or Afro-Asiatic), Hamito-Semitic, and Semito-Hamitic. [106] The most widespread constraint is against two different labial consonants (other than w) occurring together in a root, a constraint which can be found in all branches but Omotic. [76], There is no consensus where the original homeland (Urheimat) of the first Afroasiatic speakers was located. ), (additional Cushitic alternants *-br- and *-br-), (stem + *r n. with pre-PAA root *way thus having been a n. or adj. p-Benue-Congo Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary. [54] The "Hamitic theory" would serve as the basis for Carl Meinhof's highly influential classification of African languages in his book Die Sprache der Hamiten (1912).