proto afroasiatic roots

Laal [33] Only about 40 Chadic languages have been fully described by linguists. Natioro [16] Several issues with the label "Hamito-Semitic" have led to its decline in use by later scholars. p-Cangin [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. Dictionary - Vladimir E. Orel 2015-11-02 This dictionary is a fundamental source of information on the extinct proto-language of the ancient Hamito-Semites, the Proto-Hamito-Semitic language, and . Afrasian. 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. p-Edoid [145] Edward Lipiski refers to Semitic nouns as having four states: absolute (free/indeterminate), construct, determinate, and predicate. p-Fula-Sereer 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. There is no consensus regarding the location of the Proto-Semitic Urheimat; scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant, the Sahara, or the Horn of Africa, and the view that it arose in the Arabian Peninsulahas also been common historically. ; *m > /n/ ([])/_*x), (Sem., Eg. *kns-loins: 326. [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). * "The Origins of Third Consonants in Semitic Roots: An Internal Reconstruction (Applied to Arabic)," Journal of Afroasiatic Languages 3, 2 (1989): 109-202. US$62.00 (softcover). The "s-causative" may be reflected in Hausa (as -r), however this may be a language internal development. in *n, as also in #210) 324. The Atlas of Languages. [81] Christopher Ehret, O. Y. Keita, and Paul Newman also argue that archaeology does not indicate a spread of migrating farmers into Africa, but rather a gradual incorporation of animal husbandry into indigenous foraging cultures. Proto-Afro-Asiatic is of great antiquity; experts tend to place it in the Mesolithic Period at about 15,000-10,000 bce. p-Gbaya [149], A prefix in m- is the most widely attested affix in AA that is used to derive nouns. innovation: 'to rub' > 'to scrape'), (* and *a are reconstructed because they are required in derived root #651 below), (#649 + *r diffus. Each aspect of these reconstructions is substantiated in detail in an extensive etymological vocabulary of more than 1000 roots. The system in Berber, Egyptian, and Semitic, however, has independent words for the numbers 6-9. [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. [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. . p-Tuu [77][127] Berber, and Egyptian, and most Semitic languages are verb-initial languages, whereas Cushitic, Omotic and some Semitic subgroups are verb-final languages. Atlantic (Guinea) [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. innovation: 'lift' > 'carry', (Eg., Sem., Cush, shared innovations: *su, *usu 'he'; *si, *isi 'she': see Chap. Origins, Migrations, and Language Contacts. 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)). This language family has now been renamed Afro-Asiatic, because this term is less culture specific (Dalby, p.6). [119] Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova instead proposed a six vowel system with a, e, o, i, ([y]), and u. The prefixes ti and it mean she. 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 The Berber and Semitic branches share certain grammatical features (e.g. *iw- 'cow') (Eg., Sem. ; PC variant *damn-), (Ch., Eg., Sem. p-Central Khoisan >>14700332 [74], There is no consensus on when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken. (Though I found no mention of the origin of Semito-, it is possible that this name comes from Shem, another son of Noah). ; short vowel required by derived verb #399), calabash (used as container, utensil, etc. [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. Author: Martin Bernal Language: EnglishEdition: 1stBinding: HardcoverPages: 575Publisher: Rutgers Univ PressPublication Date: 304805601149 . [132] Additionally, even when nouns are not cognates, they tend to have the same gender throughout Afroasiatic ("gender stability"). [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). p-Central Chadic [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. Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1994. Tadaksahak, p-Niger-Congo Sandawe The languages of what is now Afro-Asiatic occupy a "vast area that stretches from Morocco to Arabia" (Dalby, p.6). p-Potou-Akanic Roots Beginning with P and B - Oleg Linkohr 2020-03-15 . [99] In all AA languages, consonants can be bilabial, alveolar, velar, and glottal, with additional places of articulation found in some branches or languages. 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. Among the countries included in this language family are: Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, and Ethiopia. Pre-Proto-Semitic Roots (Additional to those presented in Ehret 1989) Appendix 2. [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. It also fully incorporates the most up-to-date evidence from the distinctive African branches of the family, Cushitic, Chadic, and Omotic. 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. innovation: 'increase' > 'grow fat, thicken'), (root #141 + *n n. Originally Posted by gihanga.rwanda. [64] In the same year T.N. Gumuz p-Cushitic The most up to . p-Yoruboid ), (Berber, Eg. except for Semitic, which is also spoken in the Middle-East and Malta, all branches of the See . Continue Reading 5 Brian Collins [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. 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. [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. Ayere-Ahan C. [107] Another widespread constraint is against two non-identical lateral obstruents, which can be found in Egyptian, Chadic, Semitic, and probably Cushitic. Fig. Dogon The only branch that's actually E is Berber. Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. p-Benue-Congo "[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. [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. 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. Akpes 2.10. [29] Eight other Chadic languages have around 100,000 speakers; other Chadic languages often have few speakers and may be endangered of going extinct. [93] Most words end in a vowel in Omotic and Cushitic, making syllable-final consonant clusters rare. ; PS, Eg., Ch. [89] Igor Diakonoff argues that the requirement to begin with a vowel goes back to Proto-Afroasiatic. in a word must match. [44], The c. 30 Omotic languages are still mostly undescribed by linguists. + stem; PS *lisn 'tongue' is a separate and distinct derivation from the same verb root), (Sem., Eg., Ch. [99] North of the Sahara and the Ethiopian mountains are the Afro-Asiatic languages. [92] Diakonoff argues that Proto-Afroasiatic syllables disallowed consonant clusters or vowels at the end of a syllable. Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian . Published 1995 Linguistics This work provides the first truly comprehensive and systematic reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian). [118], Attempts to reconstruct the vocalic system of Proto-Afroasiatic vary considerably. Jalaa [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. A relationship between Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic and the Berber languages was perceived as early as the 9th century CE by the Hebrew grammarian and physician Judah ibn Quraysh, who is regarded as a forerunner of Afroasiatic studies. This work provides the first truly comprehensive and systematic reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian). Upload your video About the author [168] Prefixes of - (glottal stop) for the first person singular and y- for the third person masculine can also be reconstructed. [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. Temein [11] In 1855, Ernst Renan named these languages, related to Semitic but not Semitic, "Hamitic," in 1860 Carl Lottner proposed that they belonged to a single language family, and in 1876 Friedrich Mller first described them as a "Hamito-Semitic" language family. Berta shared innovation: 'move, take' > 'take hold of'), (Cush., Ch., Eg., Sem. in *n, as also in #323), (possible V reconstructions: *a, *aa, *e, or *o), (Sem., Eg., Ch. [100], All or most branches of AA have a contrast between voiceless, voiced, and "emphatic" consonants. Classification and Index of the Worlds Languages. 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. 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). [75] Consequently, scholars have offered estimates for when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken that range between 18,000 and 8,000 BCE. p-Masa Since there is written data available from this region, it is easier to reconstruct ancient roots and find common characteristics (ELL, p.51). innovation: n. 'morning' by addition of *r n. velar consonants can occur with pharyngeals or laryngeals; This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 01:29. Fifteen are glossed as names of plants or loose categories of plants. ), (Sem., Eg. [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. [103], A form of long-distance consonant assimilation known as consonant harmony is attested in Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, and Semitic: it usually affects features such as pharyngealization, palatalization, and labialization. Nilo-Saharan The Cushitic forms in particular may be derived from morphology found in subordinate clauses. [180] Also common are dependent/affix pronouns (used for direct objects and to mark possession). Newman suggested a relationship between Semitic and the Hausa language, an idea that was taken up by early scholars of Afroasiatic. [31] They are all spoken in southwest Ethiopia except for the Ganza language, spoken in Sudan. In Arabic, ti-ktib means she writes and katab-it means she wrote. [48] The oldest written attestations of Semitic languages come from Mesopotamia, Northern Syria, and Egypt and date as early as c. 3000 BCE. [66], Meinhof's version of the "Hamitic theory" remained prevalent until the 1940s, when it was definitively disproved by Joseph Greenberg. 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 . Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Mao At the same time, linguistic similarities such as vowel changes help show relationships among languages. Kujarge * "Revising the Consonant Inventory of Proto-Eastern Cushitic," Studies in African Linguistics 22, 3 (1991): 211-275. p-Nupoid . Some features observed in most or all Afroasiatic languages include: It remains unclear what word order Proto-Afroasiatic had. [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. There is some evidence from Coptic, but this may be unrelated to AA. Beboid Lafofa, p-Afroasiatic This can be found in Semitic, Egyptian, Beja, Berber, and Chadic. 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. [34] Cushitic does not appear to be related to the attested ancient languages known from its area, Meroitic or Old Nubian. 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. shared innovation: *als-/*ils- 'tongue': *a-/*i-attrib. innovation: move > move toward), (probably demon., root #767+ *l n./adj. [174] It is found in Egyptian, Semitic, and possibly, in some relic forms, Berber. [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. In Afro-Asiatic languages: Origins originated is referred to as Proto-Afro-Asiatic. Afroasiatic. 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. Afro-Asiatic is a large language family with great diversity. You guys might disagree with the results form the Shum Laka paper but don't distort their own interpretations of their findings. The Semitic line of Afro-Asiatic has the most language sub-sets. [51] The classification within West Semitic remains contested. [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. p-Lower Cross River Forms that do not follow the pattern are in parentheses. 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 . Well-known Afroasiatic languages include Arabic, Ancient Egyptian, Somali, Tuareg, and Hausa. 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. [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. [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. Proto-Afro-Asiatic: *abaw/y- Meaning: a k. of plant Semitic: *abVw- 'reed, papyrus' Egyptian: wb 'root', cf. Ongota p-Maban Tula-Waja [166], The so-called "Nisba" is a suffix used to derive adjectives from nouns and, in Egyptian, also from prepositions. To the south lay the other language families of Africa: Niger-Kordofanian, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan (Atlas,p74). innovation: semantic narrowing to hitting with the hand), (probable *tliiz-, adj. Afro-Asiatic has been hypothesized to be related to many other language families. p-Khoe The following list of Proto-Afroasiatic reconstructions is from Ehret (1995). suff. [54] These five or six branches remain the academic consensus on the family. Ekoid [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. 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 ). to domestic animals in general, then narrowing in PS and Eg. [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. [103][53] In some branches, it can also derive abstract nouns and participles. 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. For these versions, common words found in both Dolgopolsky (2008) and Bomhard (2018) are used, with Nostratic roots shared at least by Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Semitic, whenever possible. p-Heiban [158] Most grammars of AA posit a distinction between perfective and imperfective verbal aspects, which can be found in Cushitic, Berber, Semitic, most Chadic languages, and some Omotic languages. 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. Archaeology and the study of oral traditions helps linguists find connections between language families. This great divide has made travel difficult so linguistic boundaries tend to be based on either side. [95], "Afro-Asiatic" redirects here. Yendang ref. [101] It is generally agreed that only the obstruents had a contrast between voiceless and voiced forms in Proto-Afroasiatic, whereas continuants were voiceless. Rashad New York: Elsevier, 1977. [165] This theory has been criticized by some, such as Andrzej Zaborski and Alan Kaye, as being too many extensions to be realistic, though Zygmont Frajzyngier and Erin Shay note that some Chadic languages have as many as twelve extensions. innovation: 'grow' > 'live,' whence Eg. infix), fruit, seeds, foliage, plant growth in general, (Ch., Sem. [7] Nevertheless, both dictionaries agree on some items and some proposed cognates are uncontroversial. (root #311+old Afroasiatic pl. p-Idomoid 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. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2016 Alan S. Kaye Article Metrics Save PDF p-Bantu (Swadesh list) The speakers of Boreafrasian migrated north to an arid Sahara climate, then eventually pushed on west and east. This name is possibly based upon the root "-b-r" ( . [190] Some South Cushitic numerals are borrowed from Nilotic languages, other Cushitic numerals have been borrowed from Ethiopian Semitic languages. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011. . Theodor Benfy found that Egyptian and Semitic languages were similar in 1844, and he classified them under the Semito-Hamitic language family. Diamond and Bellwood adopt Militarev's ( 2) solitary counterclaim of proto-Afroasiatic cultivation. [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". [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. p-Jebel [181] Other commonalities are masculine and feminine forms used in both the second and third persons, except in Cushitic and Omotic. p-Songhay p-Agaw [131] This sex-based gender system is widely agreed to derive from Proto-Afroasiatic. [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. However, since the 1970s and '80s, comparisons of other Chadic subject pronouns with the Hausa ones have convinced most scholars that the similarity to the prefix conjugation is incidental. [91] Typically, syllables only begin with a single consonant. Defaka 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). 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. 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. Semitic and Berber are quite closely related, and both are more distantly connected to Cushitic.

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