[181] Other commonalities are masculine and feminine forms used in both the second and third persons, except in Cushitic and Omotic. < v. in #918 by V > VV; occurrence of PSC *ee (or *e?) [47] Other scholars have questioned whether it is Afroasiatic at all, due its lack of several typical aspects of Afroasiatic morphology. 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. p-Central Chadic Amdang innovation: narrowing of meaning to loud kinds of response), (2nd shape: stem + *r n. [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. innovation: derivation of n. for 'hand'), (Eg., Sem. innovation: addition of *b extend., imputing meaning 'to count'), to show, bring to (ones) notice or attention, (Ch., Berber, and Eg. p-Kuliak (Ik) p-Plateau (p-Tarokoid) The speakers of Boreafrasian migrated north to an arid Sahara climate, then eventually pushed on west and east. Egyptian is classified as a distinct language and the other sub-groups are: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic (Voegelin, p.12). [65] He did not include the Chadic languages, though contemporary Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius argued for the relation of Hausa to the Berber languages. 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. [66], Meinhof's version of the "Hamitic theory" remained prevalent until the 1940s, when it was definitively disproved by Joseph Greenberg. Afroasiatic is generally considered to be comprised of the language families Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic, and Semitic. [21] They are often considered to constitute a single language with multiple dialects. [20], The Berber (or Libyco-Berber) languages are spoken today by perhaps 16 million people. 2.12. [163] Three derivational prefixes can be reconstructed for Proto-Afroasiatic: *s- 'causative', *t- 'middle voice' or 'reflexive', and *n- 'passive'. 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. [40] Coptic is the only stage written alphabetically to show vowels, whereas Egyptian was previously written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, which only represent consonants. 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. Published 1995 Linguistics This work provides the first truly comprehensive and systematic reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian). In the series University of California Publications in Linguistics 126. p-Lakka [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. Afroasiatic(Afro-Asiatic), also known as Afrasianand in older sources as Hamito-Semitic(Chamito-Semitic)[3]or Semito-Hamitic,[4]is a large language familyof about 300 languages. [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. [15] The association between Africans and the Biblical Ham dates back to at least Isidore of Seville (6th century CE), and earlier 19th-century scholars had vaguely spoken of "Hamian" or "Hamitish" languages. [34], The Egyptian branch consists of a single language, Ancient Egyptian, which was historically spoken in the lower Nile Valley. This work provides the first truly comprehensive and systematic reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian). Proto-Semitic was a contemporary of PIE. Pp. South Bauchi The Proto-Afrasian Phonological System Unlike the comparative-historical study of the Indo-European languagefamily, which has a long history, the comparative-historical study of the Afrasian language familyis still not far advanced, though enormous progress has been made in recent years. Pr. [174] It is found in Egyptian, Semitic, and possibly, in some relic forms, Berber. [26] The second is the Guanche language, which was formerly spoken on the Canary Islands and went extinct in the 17th century CE. ; *m > /n/ ([])/_*x), (Sem., Eg. 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. PROTO-AFROASIATIC PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM One of the most significant characteristics of Afroasiatic consonantism is the system of triads found in the stops and affri- cates -- each series (except the lateralized affricates) contains three members: a voiceless (aspirated) member, a voiced member, and a glottalized (that is, ejective) member. The languages that evolved from Proto-Arabic have around 313 million native speakers, concentrated primarily in the Middle East and North Africa.[5]. [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. It is, rather, a comparison of Proto-Indo-European with Proto-Afroasiatic. [26] Egyptian is usually divided into two major periods, Earlier Egyptian (c. 3000-1300 BCE), which is further subdivided into Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian, and Later Egyptian (1300 BCE-1300 CE), which is further subdivided into Late Egyptian, Demotic, and Coptic. p-Kongo S. SC Sem. suff. Proto-Afro-Asiatic is generally considered the oldest accepted one, though it's not known exactly how long ago it was spoken. ), (root #695 + *f iter.? [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. p-Agaw With the exception of its Semitic branch, all branches of the Afroasiatic family are . [101] The Omotic forms of the personal pronouns differ from the others, with only the plural forms in North Omotic appearing potentially to be cognate. fort. p-Bantu (Swadesh list) [130], Many AA languages use prefixes or suffixes (verbal extensions) to encode various pieces of information about the verb. [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. Because i notice in some cases, they seem to have vowels shifting around quite a bit, akin to the trilateral root systems of the semitic languages. [166], The so-called "Nisba" is a suffix used to derive adjectives from nouns and, in Egyptian, also from prepositions. [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. The results, while confirming some previous views on proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian), revise or overturn many others, and add much that is new. The HmongMien languages also known as MiaoYao and rarely as Yangtzean1 are a highly tonal language family of southern China and northern Southeast [124] Other scholars argue that Proto-AA had a pitch accent and some branches subsequently developed tone. [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. The Proto-Afroasiatic Consonant System. To the south lay the other language families of Africa: Niger-Kordofanian, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan (Atlas,p74). [189] In some Berber languages, the roots for one and two are also borrowed from Arabic. The Atlas of Languages. [121] For Egyptian, evidence for the root-and-template structure exists from Coptic. p-Tuu [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. innovation: addition of *w inchoative to stem), (root #866 with *-u- tr. p-Gbaya Kanuri [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. ; PS, Eg., Ch. 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. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996. 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). 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). 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. 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. Ekoid [99] [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. [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. Adapted from Ruhlen 1987. Originally Posted by gihanga.rwanda. [48] The oldest written attestations of Semitic languages come from Mesopotamia, Northern Syria, and Egypt and date as early as c. 3000 BCE. This great divide has made travel difficult so linguistic boundaries tend to be based on either side. As Egyptian is spelled without vowels, it is difficult to know whether it had internal change plurals. [103][101] The feminine marker T is one of the most consistent aspects across the different branches of AA;[133] in addition to deriving feminine nouns in many branches, it also functions as a diminutive, pejorative, and/or singulative marker in some languages. : *itsim-), (2nd root shape: possible old tr. This page was last edited on 28 August 2022, at 11:13. [91] Typically, syllables only begin with a single consonant. innovation: addition of *t n. These three groups are classified as being in Africa while Afro-Asiatic is listed under the term Eurasia (Atlas, p.74).