p-Edoid with pre-PAA root *way thus having been a n. or adj. >I find it odd how Semitic is still Afroasiatic even though it's tied to a non-E haplogroup Egyptian and Semitic are both J. Cushitic is T and Chadic is J/R1b-V88. However, not one of Militarev's proposed 32 agricultural roots can be considered diagnostic of cultivation. (Though I found no mention of the origin of Semito-, it is possible that this name comes from Shem, another son of Noah). [179] However, there is no consensus on what the reconstructed set of Afroasiatic pronouns might have looked like. [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. innovation: 'increase' > 'grow fat, thicken'), (root #141 + *n n. [164] Christopher Ehret has proposed that Proto-Afroasiatic originally had as many as thirty-seven separate verbal extensions, many of which then became fossilized as third consonants. It is very difficult to reconstruct ancient Proto-Afroasiatic (PAA) vocabulary, and still more difficult to reconstruct a common morphosyntax. Dictionary of Languages. These classifications of language sub-sets vary according to different texts. p-Jen innovation: 'fold over, bend'), (Eg., Sem. [128] In most branches, gender is an inherent property of nouns. 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). [127] These pronouns tend to show a masculine "u" and a feminine "i". It also fully incorporates the most up-to-date evidence from the distinctive African branches of the family, Cushitic, Chadic, and Omotic. [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. You guys might disagree with the results form the Shum Laka paper but don't distort their own interpretations of their findings. Also, how do roots work? p-Kuliak (Ik) Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary. p-Central Khoisan [103] Igor M. Diakonoff proposed that Proto-AA had a three vowel system of long and short a, i, and u. Amdang Under East Semitic rose Akkadian and Babylonian. [25][26], There are two extinct languages potentially related to modern Berber. [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. The root form of the verb has only three consonants in common. Like in the English example, feet foot, vowels make the difference between separate words. [30] A common characteristic of AA languages is the existence of a special set of "independent" pronouns, which are distinct from subject pronouns. PSom-III. A set of constraints, developed originally by Joseph Greenberg on the basis of Arabic, has been claimed to be typical for Afroasiatic languages. innovation: generalization of pl. p-Guang suff. London, Bloomsbury, 1998. Some features observed in most or all Afroasiatic languages include: It remains unclear what word order Proto-Afroasiatic had. Thanks for viewing our Ebay listing! [182], Unlike in the Indo-European or Austronesian language families, numerals in AA languages cannot be traced to a proto-system. [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. 2.11. (abbrev. [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. [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. In Afro-Asiatic languages: Origins originated is referred to as Proto-Afro-Asiatic. Kunama [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. [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. innovation: narrowing of meaning to tr. [40] Coptic is the only stage written alphabetically to show vowels, whereas Egyptian was previously written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, which only represent consonants. ), (Eg., Sem. Linguistic guesstimates or phylogenetic speculation date the proto-language (and thus the homeland) within a wide range, from 15,000 to 6,000 years ago. Afroasiatic. In current scholarship, the most common names used for the family are Afroasiatic (or Afro-Asiatic), Hamito-Semitic, and Semito-Hamitic. p-Cushitic Each aspect of these reconstructions is substantiated in detail in an extensive etymological vocabulary of more than 1000 roots. [99] Various Semitic, Cushitic, Berber, and Chadic languages, including Arabic, Amharic, Berber, Somali, and East Dangla, also exhibit various types of vowel harmony. C. If so, semantics are unclear), (pl. Afro-Asiatic is a large language family with great diversity. In this interpretation, a contrast existed between. n. pref. Among the countries included in this language family are: Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, and Ethiopia. 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. 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 New York: Elsevier, 1977. 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 ). p-Ukaan It rigorously applies, throughout, the established canon and techniques of the historical-comparative method. Linguists use the term "state" to refer to different things in different languages. [20], The Berber (or Libyco-Berber) languages are spoken today by perhaps 16 million people. These three groups are classified as being in Africa while Afro-Asiatic is listed under the term Eurasia (Atlas, p.74). in a word must match. p-South Bauchi [129] Full or partial reduplication of the verb is often used to derive forms showing repeated action (pluractionality), though it is unclear if this is an inherited feature or has been widely borrowed. [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). ; possible n. derivation < v. in #1004). Forms that do not follow the pattern are in parentheses. [149], A prefix in m- is the most widely attested affix in AA that is used to derive nouns. Fig. [155], The degree to which the AA verbal root was triliteral (having three consonants) is debated. London: Routledge, 1990. Looking at present languages and going backward helps us know what languages were like anciently (Atlas, p.75). Benfys title was later inverted to make Hamito-Semitic but over time racial connotations were applied to this name (Voegelin, p.13). [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-Yoruboid Yendang p-Benue-Congo p-Lakka 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. [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). ), #209 + Afroasiatic pl. Pp. [117] In the different languages, central vowels are often inserted to break up consonant clusters (a form of epenthesis). innovation: 'lift' > 'carry', (Eg., Sem., Cush, shared innovations: *su, *usu 'he'; *si, *isi 'she': see Chap. [49], There there are also other proposed branches, but none has so far convinced a majority of scholars:[7]. 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. p-Lower Cross River [6] Root Structure Patterning in Proto-Kartvelian. Shabo [83], A significant minority of scholars supports an Asian origin of Afroasiatic,[78] most of whom are specialists in Semitic or Egyptian studies. Momo *kop-sole (of foot . [26] The second is the Guanche language, which was formerly spoken on the Canary Islands and went extinct in the 17th century CE. [78] An additional complicating factor is the lack of agreement on the subgroupings of Afroasiatic (see Subgrouping) - this makes associating archaeological evidence with the spread of Afroasiatic particularly difficult. 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. [104] Several Omotic languages have "sibilant harmony", meaning that all sibilants (s, sh, z, ts, etc.) p-Chadic 2.12. 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. . suff. Diamond and Bellwood adopt Militarev's ( 2) solitary counterclaim of proto-Afroasiatic cultivation. [89] In Cushitic and Chadic languages, a glottal stop or glottal or fricative may be inserted to prevent a word from beginning with a vowel. [168] Prefixes of - (glottal stop) for the first person singular and y- for the third person masculine can also be reconstructed. 2.10. The Subclassification of Afroasiatic (Afrasian) Appendix 1. [3] The phylum has six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Omotic. Many of these roots have other proposed cognates that are not included on the table. Origins, Migrations, and Language Contacts. [196][164] Such cognates tend to rely on relatively simple sound correspondences. [18][11], The alternative name "Lisramic" is based on the AA root *lis- ("tongue") and the Egyptian word rm ("person"). 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). 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. Due to isolation, Icelandic has changed the least and is most similar to Old Norse, and therefore probably also to Proto-Germanic. p-Central Chadic 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. all catalog, articles, website, & more in one search catalog books, media & more in the Stanford Libraries' collections articles+ journal articles & other e-resources [130][164] In Akkadian, Egyptian, Berber, and Cushitic this forms a "stative conjugation", used to express the state or result of an action; the same endings as in Akkadian and Egyptian are also present in the West Semitic perfective verb form. 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. Natioro The HmongMien languages also known as MiaoYao and rarely as Yangtzean1 are a highly tonal language family of southern China and northern Southeast as ELL). ; semantics: from closed- to open-ended action), to be wrong, bad, ill; do or function wrongly, (Eg., Ch. [40] The latest possible date for the existence of Proto-Afroasiatic is c. 4000 BCE, after which Egyptian and the Semitic languages are first attested; however, the languages must have diverged and evolved for some time before this. The results, while confirming some previous views on proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian), revise or overturn many others, and add much that is new. innovation: added sense, 'to listen to'), (Ch., Sem., Berber innovation: specialized meaning 'tooth'; but note presence of that meaning isolated in single Omotic language), (innovation: Sem., Ch. suff. into stem), to take (bit of food or drink) into the mouth, (* is required by derived noun, root #641 following), (Eg., Sem. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996. [77][127] Berber, and Egyptian, and most Semitic languages are verb-initial languages, whereas Cushitic, Omotic and some Semitic subgroups are verb-final languages. 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. Whether this proto-language is ancestral to Berber and Semitic only, or also to other branches of Afroasiatic, still remains to be established. [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. Proto-Cushitic Roots (Additional to those presented in Ehret 1987) Appendix 3. innovation: addition of *t n. Great variety is incorporated in one family and this makes Afro-Asiatic an interesting topic of study. Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian) : vowels, tone, consonants, and vocabulary / Christopher Ehret Get this Comments (0) Librarian's View Copyright Status Online In the Library Order a copy Request this item to view in the Library's reading rooms using your library card. [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. [10][11], Friedrich Mller introduced the name "Hamito-Semitic" to describe the family in his Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, published in 1876. [192] Thus, it is possible that the numerals in Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic are more closely related, whereas the Cushitic and Chadic numerals are more closely related to each other. p-Ijaw stretching out of arms), (Sem, Eg., Ch., Cush, innovation: 'set on top of' > 'cover'), (Sem., Eg. He showed that, generally, any consonant from one of these groups could combine with consonants from any other group, but could not be used together with consonants from the same group. p-Koman [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. Dogon Olukumi The Afroasiatic language family is thought to have originated in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula around 15,000 years ago. Proto-Afroasiatic) was spoken, most agree that it was located within a region of Northeast Africa. [29] The Chadic languages are typically divided into three major branches, East Chadic, Central Chadic, and West Chadic. The prefixes ti and it mean she. Proto-Afro-Asiatic is proposed to have been spoken 18,000 years ago near the Horn of Africa (eastern Africa). innovation: stem + *n n. suff. 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. 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'. [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. innovation: narrowing of meaning to loud kinds of response), (2nd shape: stem + *r n. 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. * "Revising the Consonant Inventory of Proto-Eastern Cushitic," Studies in African Linguistics 22, 3 (1991): 211-275. Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Additional Proposed PAA Roots; Appendix 4. This page was last edited on 28 August 2022, at 11:13. [54] These five or six branches remain the academic consensus on the family. sing. 1 Afro-Asiatic Language Family. innovation: addition of *w inchoative to stem), (root #866 with *-u- tr. *t: . in *n, as also in #323), (possible V reconstructions: *a, *aa, *e, or *o), (Sem., Eg., Ch. p-Ring [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. North of the Sahara and the Ethiopian mountains are the Afro-Asiatic languages. This can be found in Semitic, Egyptian, Beja, Berber, and Chadic. Linguistics 450 [20], There are between 40 and 80 languages in the Semitic family. p-Nubian [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. [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". [87], Afroasiatic languages share a number of phonetic and phonological features. 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. [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 include Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Altaic and Dravidian (Atlas, p.74). Bariba Anaang innovation: 'grow' > 'live,' whence Eg. [74], There is no consensus on when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken. p-Ron ref. Proto-Afro-Asiatic is proposed to have been spoken 18,000 years ago near the Horn of Africa (eastern Africa). [115] James P. Allen has demonstrated that slightly different rules apply to Egyptian: for instance, Egyptian allows two identical consonants in some roots, and disallows velars from occurring with pharyngeals. *y: adjective suffix: 3. Pre-Proto-Semitic Roots (Additional to those presented in Ehret 1989) Appendix 2. p-Semitic, Khoisan p-Upper Cross River [68] In 1969, Harold Fleming proposed that a group of languages classified as Cushitic by Greenberg were in fact an independent "Omotic" language family, a proposal that has been widely accepted but remains controversial. 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", . [29], There are about 30,[34] 50,[35] or 70[36] Cushitic languages, spoken around the Horn of Africa and in Sudan and Tanzania. Report Save. [93] Most words end in a vowel in Omotic and Cushitic, making syllable-final consonant clusters rare. !Kung, Bangime 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. ), (root *-sa-, seen also in #539 preceding, + *w inchoative), (2nd root shape *-caab- seen in PEC v. and Banna (SOm) 'white,' is not as yet satisfactorily accounted for), indefinite pronoun stem (one, someone, somebody), (stem + * iter. ), (Berber, Eg. *kanf-/*kinf-wing: 325. Omotic and Cushitic followed the example and split together, as did Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic in another group. p-Oti-Volta (p-E. Oti-Voltap-C. Oti-Volta) 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. shared innovation: 'move, take' > 'take hold of'), (Cush., Ch., Eg., Sem. [121] Such scholars postulate that tones developed to compensate for lost or reduced syllables, and note that certain tones are often associated with certain syllable-final consonants.[125]. p-Manjaku innovation: *-VC- v. stems > *-CV-), (Eg., Sem. ; semantics: egg curves at every point? [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. [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. FOR SALE! p-Kongo [119] Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova instead proposed a six vowel system with a, e, o, i, ([y]), and u. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. [107] Another widespread constraint is against two non-identical lateral obstruents, which can be found in Egyptian, Chadic, Semitic, and probably Cushitic. [77], Conjugation of verbs using prefixes that mark person, number, and gender can be found The Atlas of Languages. Item Weight : 11.2 ounces Dimensions : 5.75 x 0.75 x 9 inches Best Sellers Rank: #1,696,866 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books) #2,811 in Comparative Religion (Books) Customer Reviews: 3 ratings Videos Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video! [2] With the exception of its Semitic branch, all branches of the Afroasiatic family are exclusively native to the African continent. There is also some evidence from. as denom. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011. . shared innovation: *isin-/*usun- 'they' (originally fem./masc. We unlock the potential of millions of people worldwide. > *itsan-; Omotic innovation: stem + *m n. Traditionally, the Hausa subject pronouns have been compared to the prefix conjugation. [54] Greenberg rejected the Afroasiatic classification of languages that Meinhof had classified as "Hamitic" based on racial and anthropological data. [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. S. SC Sem. Proto-Afroasiatic English gloss Notes 1. [118], Attempts to reconstruct the vocalic system of Proto-Afroasiatic vary considerably. [140] A common pattern in AA languages with case is for the nominative to marked by -u or -i, and the accusative to be marked by -a. These are some known features common to more than one branch, though (Hodge 1971; Lecarme, Lowenstamm, and Shlonsky 2000; Frajzyngier and Shay 2012): Mimi-N Theodor Benfy found that Egyptian and Semitic languages were similar in 1844, and he classified them under the Semito-Hamitic language family. p-Omotic [32] It may have as many as 80 to 100 million first and second language speakers. Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. WCh WOT [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). . [11], Greenberg reintroduced the name "Afroasiatic" in 1960, a name seemingly coined by Maurice Delafosse (as French afroasiatique) in 1914. Proto-Afro-Asiatic: *abaw/y- Meaning: a k. of plant Semitic: *abVw- 'reed, papyrus' Egyptian: wb 'root', cf. innovation: addition of *t n. [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. Semitic and Berber are quite closely related, and both are more distantly connected to Cushitic. p-Plateau (p-Tarokoid) See . p-Maji [132] Additionally, even when nouns are not cognates, they tend to have the same gender throughout Afroasiatic ("gender stability"). 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. [31] They are all spoken in southwest Ethiopia except for the Ganza language, spoken in Sudan. He later added Semitic and Beja to Chadic-Berber-Egyptian and tentatively proposed, Alexander Militarev (2000), on the basis of. of proto-Afroasiatic cultivation. shared innovation: n. for 'clay'), great (especially in size but also in number), (Ch., Eg., Sem. 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. [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. [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. 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). 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.