In the series University of California Publications in Linguistics 126. 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. as denom. Gule 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. [20], The Berber (or Libyco-Berber) languages are spoken today by perhaps 16 million people. In this interpretation, a contrast existed between. An Encyclopedia of Language. The reconstructed consonants for Proto-Afro-Asiatic are p and b, t and d, and k and g. The Egyptian bw meaning place and the Semitic bi meaning in or from are believed to be from the reconstructed root *b- meaning foot or place (ELL, p.51). Afro-Asiatic is divided into six branches: Semitic, Berber, Egyptian, Cushitic, Chadic and Omotic. [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. p-Gbaya Each aspect of these reconstructions is substantiated in detail in an extensive etymological vocabulary of more than 1000 roots. [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). innovation: 'grow' > 'live,' whence Eg. The most up to . Under East Semitic rose Akkadian and Babylonian. Other Language Families and Fields of Study. [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. *w: deverbative complement and result suffix: 2. Tiefo [131] This sex-based gender system is widely agreed to derive from Proto-Afroasiatic. p-Aroid p-Bantu (Swadesh list) p-Lower Cross River [95], "Afro-Asiatic" redirects here. While this is not the first attempt to demonstrate that Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic are genetically related, it is the first to use the radical revision of the Proto-Indo-European consonantal system proposed by Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, Paul J. Hopper, 2.11. [167] These prefixes are clearly cognate across the branches, although their use within the verbal systems of the individual languages varies. [77] Roger Blench writes that the debate has "a strong ideological flavor", with associations between an Asian origin and "high civilization". [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. 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. [198] Andrzej Zaborski refers to Orel and Stolbova's reconstructions as "controversial", and Ehret's as "not acceptable to many scholars". Each aspect of these reconstructions is substantiated in detail in an extensive etymological vocabulary of more than 1000 roots. innovation: 'fold over, bend'), (Eg., Sem. [90], Syllable weight plays an important role in AA, especially in Chadic; it can affect the form of affixes attached to a word. p-Igboid [196][164] Such cognates tend to rely on relatively simple sound correspondences. p-Tuu 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. p-Edoid Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary. innovation: 'send' > 'direct,' hence 'command, rule'), (Agaw *a allows PAA vowel reconstructions *a, *aa, *o, or *e), (Sem., Eg. p-Bua About us. fort. Answer: Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family, which includes over 400 languages spoken across much of Africa and the Middle East. Among the countries included in this language family are: Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, and Ethiopia. p-Nupoid 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 [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. p-Fula-Sereer [117] In the different languages, central vowels are often inserted to break up consonant clusters (a form of epenthesis). 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. In current scholarship, the most common names used for the family are Afroasiatic (or Afro-Asiatic), Hamito-Semitic, and Semito-Hamitic. ), (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. [87], Afroasiatic languages share a number of phonetic and phonological features. [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]. [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. All branches of Afroasiatic have a limited number of underlying vowels (between two and seven), but the number of phonetic vowels can be much larger. 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 ). Origins, Migrations, and Language Contacts. As the Afroasiatic languages tend to be the tongues with the longest and oldest historical record, there are not many that can beat the Proto-Afroasiatic. [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. p-South Bauchi *y: attributive noun and attributive deverbative suffix: 2a. The reconstruction of Proto-Afroasiatic is problematic and . stretching out of arms), (Sem, Eg., Ch., Cush, innovation: 'set on top of' > 'cover'), (Sem., Eg. innovation: 'knee'; Berber *afud < *puuz), to be finished, come to an end, be used up, (Sem., Cush. in East Africa. p-Benue-Congo In Arabic, ti-ktib means she writes and katab-it means she wrote. [17] The name refers to the fact that this is the only major language family with members in both Africa and Asia. [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"). [40] Scholars have proposed locations both in the Middle East and in Africa. ; Eg., Sem. I.2.1. [49], There there are also other proposed branches, but none has so far convinced a majority of scholars:[7]. [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). V. V. ven. Allan Bomhard's own reconstructions of Proto-Afroasiatic roots (and phonology) seem to be biased toward Proto-Indo-European and Nostratic roots . [183], Another factor making comparisons of AA numeral systems difficult is the possibility of borrowing. Ekoid p-Jen Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2016 Alan S. Kaye Article Metrics Save PDF Kadu 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 . [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. p-Songhay The Subclassification of Afroasiatic (Afrasian) Appendix 1. *kns-loins: 326. [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". 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). ; short vowel required by derived verb #399), calabash (used as container, utensil, etc. 1 Afro-Asiatic Language Family. p-Potou-Akanic 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. These include Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Altaic and Dravidian (Atlas, p.74). >>14700332 The prefixes ti and it mean she. suff. [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. velar consonants can occur with pharyngeals or laryngeals; This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 01:29. 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 [134] A system K (masculine), T (feminine), and H (plural) can be found in Cushitic, Chadic, with masculine K also appearing in Omotic. p-Ukaan [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. Proto-Afro-Asiatic is of great antiquity; experts tend to place it in the Mesolithic Period at about 15,000-10,000 bce. except for Semitic, which is also spoken in the Middle-East and Malta, all branches of the There is no agreement on the relationships between and subgrouping of the different Afroasiatic branches. : *itsim-), (2nd root shape: possible old tr. Proto-Afroasiatic is a reconstructed language. [155], The degree to which the AA verbal root was triliteral (having three consonants) is debated. [191], The Cushitic and Chadic numeral systems appear to have originally been base 5. . [175] In Egyptian, it takes the forms -j, whereas in Semitic it takes the form -i(y);[138] it thus has the same form in both language families. [103] Igor M. Diakonoff proposed that Proto-AA had a three vowel system of long and short a, i, and u. In Cushitic and Semitic, nouns exist in the "free state" or the "construct state". [144], A second category, which partially overlaps with case, is the AA linguistic category of "state." . !Kung, Bangime common genetic origin of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic differ considerably from the assumptions made in other works on . [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. and touches on external evidence from Afroasiatic cognate languages. ref. Olukumi [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. [156], There is no agreement about which tenses or aspects Proto-Afroasiatic might have had. Proto-Afroasiatic, sometimes also referred to as Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto-language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. + stem; PS *lisn 'tongue' is a separate and distinct derivation from the same verb root), (Sem., Eg., Ch. [33] Only about 40 Chadic languages have been fully described by linguists. Meredith Holt
[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). [166], The so-called "Nisba" is a suffix used to derive adjectives from nouns and, in Egyptian, also from prepositions. 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. [75] Consequently, scholars have offered estimates for when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken that range between 18,000 and 8,000 BCE. NE Sudanic [34] Cushitic does not appear to be related to the attested ancient languages known from its area, Meroitic or Old Nubian. innovation: shift to outflow of water, not from body; root *-sa- seen in #540 + *t dur. [40] Coptic is the only stage written alphabetically to show vowels, whereas Egyptian was previously written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, which only represent consonants. [186] Within the Semitic language family, Lipiski counts four different roots meaning "one". as ELL). [93] Most words end in a vowel in Omotic and Cushitic, making syllable-final consonant clusters rare. (Though I found no mention of the origin of Semito-, it is possible that this name comes from Shem, another son of Noah). [16] Several issues with the label "Hamito-Semitic" have led to its decline in use by later scholars. [98] AA languages tend to have pharyngeal fricative consonants, with Egyptian, Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic sharing and . [133][150] It forms agent nouns, place nouns, and instrument nouns. of #724 by adding *-(a)C- where C = preceding stem-final C, is implied in Eg. [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. [74], There is no consensus on when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken. 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. [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". suff. There is some evidence from Coptic, but this may be unrelated to AA. [54] However, Christopher Ehret (1979), Harold Fleming (1981), and Joseph Greenberg (1981) all agree that the Omotic branch split from the rest first. [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. We unlock the potential of millions of people worldwide. [25][26], There are two extinct languages potentially related to modern Berber. into stem), to take (bit of food or drink) into the mouth, (* is required by derived noun, root #641 following), (Eg., Sem. BLACK ATHENA: THE Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication, - $16.27. [197], There are two etymological dictionaries of Afroasiatic, one by Christopher Ehret, and one by Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova, both from 1995. 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). [99] In Cushitic, the Ethiopian Semitic language Tigrinya, and some Chadic languages, there is no underlying phoneme [p] at all. Some features observed in most or all Afroasiatic languages include: It remains unclear what word order Proto-Afroasiatic had. 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 . Egyptian is classified as a distinct language and the other sub-groups are: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic (Voegelin, p.12). p-Grassfields [121], As part of these templates, the alternation (apophony) between high vowels (e.g. suff. [4] The most widely spoken modern Afroasiatic language or dialect continuum by far is Arabic, a de facto group of distinct language varieties within the Semitic branch. Archaeologists and anthropologists have long viewed the Bible as mankind's best guide to prehistoric religion, however, archaeologist Klaus Schmidt had no reason to . [119] Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova instead proposed a six vowel system with a, e, o, i, ([y]), and u. *kanf-/*kinf-wing: 325. [187] Modern Chadic numeral systems are sometimes decimal, having separate names for the numbers 1-10, and sometimes base-5, deriving the numbers 6-9 from the numbers 1-5 in some way. 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). [6][7], with the latter two having fallen out of favor in English but still seeing frequent usage in other languages, such as German. [32] It may have as many as 80 to 100 million first and second language speakers. [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. Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary. shared innovation: *als-/*ils- 'tongue': *a-/*i-attrib. 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'.
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