The constitute a
Language Family (
Languages Of Africa ) with about 375 languages (
SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout
North Africa ,
East Africa ,
West Africa ,
Central Africa , and
Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of
Arabic ). Other names sometimes given to this family include "Afrasian", "Hamito-Semitic" (French and European scholars), "Lisramic" (Hodge 1972), "Erythraean" (Tucker 1966).
The family includes the following language subfamilies:
Many people regard the
Ongota language as Omotic, but its classification within the family remains controversial, partly for lack of data.
Harold Fleming tentatively suggests treating it as an independent branch of non-Omotic Afro-Asiatic.
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No agreement exists on where and
Lionel Bender ) have proposed
Ethiopia , because it includes the majority of the diversity of the Afro-Asiatic language family and has very diverse groups in close geographic proximity, often considered a telltale sign for a linguistic geographic origin. Other researchers (such as
Christopher Ehret ) have put forward the western
Red Sea coast and the
Sahara . A minority (such as Alexander Militarev) suggest a linguistic homeland in the
Levant (specifically, he identifies Afro-Asiatic with the
Natufian Culture ), with Semitic being the only branch to stay put.
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The complex, spreading south along the shore of the Red Sea, and north eastwards around the edge of the "
Fertile Crescent ". In the Levant this development appears as the Minhata, and later Yarmoukian culture, which came from the same semi-arid zone as did the later Ghassulian and Semitic Amorites culturesPerrot J. (1964), "Les deux premieres campagnesde feuilles a Munhata" ''Syria'' XLI pp323-45Mellaart, James (1975), ''The Neolithic of the Near East'' (London: Thames and Hudson), pp. 239-241.
Tonal Language s appear in the Omotic, Chadic, and South and East Cushitic branches of Afro-Asiatic, according to Ehret (1996). The Semitic, Berber, and Egyptian branches do not use tones
Phonemically . Given the diversity that exists within the Afro-Asiatic group, and the lack of common vocabulary for agricultural items, it is suggested that the languages dispersed before the commencement of the Neolithic. The finding of a common vocabulary for pottery containers, however, suggests that this technology was known.
- k'ad-ah-'' "vessel", found in Arabic ''kadah'' "drinking bowl, cup, goblet, glass, tumble"; Sabaean ''m-kdh(m,n)'' "cup; Ethiopic / Geez ''kadho'' "vessel, gourd", ''ma-kdeht'' "jar, jug, bucket"; Lowland East Cushitic ''---k'adad-'' "vessel, gourd''; Oromo ''k'odaa'' "vessel, gourd''; Egyptian ''qd'' "pot"; Lowland East Kushitic ''---k'od-'' "receptical"; Oromo ''k'odaa'' "receptical"; West Chadic ''---k'wad-'' "calabash"; Dangla ''koda'' "pot" gives Proto-Afro-Asiatic ''---k'ud-/---k'od-'' "Vessel, pot"Bomhard, Alan R (1996), "Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis" (Signum).
Ehret Ehret, Christopher (1982), "On the antiquity of agriculture in Ethiopia" ''Journal of African History'' (Uni of Calif. Berkeley Press) suggests that early Afro-Asiatic languages were involved in the domestication of Ethiopian food crops, but this is disputed by others who suggest these words were found only in the found in this area show significant Afro-Asiatic characteristics, linguist Lionel Bender suggests that it was out of this area of the Southern Nile that was the centre for dispersion of the Afro-Asiatic languages occurredBender, Lionel (1997), "Upside Down Afrasian"''Africanistiche Arbeitspapiers'' 50, pp19-34. The dates of pottery and agriculture sets approximate early and late dates for this linguistic dispersal. Climatically this was a period of a "wet Sahara" phase with large rivers and lakes. The dispersal of Afro-Asiatic may thus have been a response to the recent operation of the "
Sahara Pump "Fagan, Brian (2004), ''The Long Hot Summer: how climate changed civilisation'' (London: Grant Books)Burroughs, William J. (2005), ''Climate Change in Prehistory:the end of the reign of Chaos'' (Cambridge University Press).
Common features of the Afro-Asiatic languages include:
- a two- Gender system in the singular, with the feminine marked by the /t/ sound,
- VSO Typology with SVO tendencies,
- a set of Emphatic Consonant s, variously realized as glottalized, pharyngealized, or implosive, and
- a templatic Morphology in which words inflect by internal changes as well as with prefixes and suffixes.
Some cognates include:
- ''b-n-'' "build" (Ehret: ---''bĭn''), attested in Chadic, Semitic (''---bny''), Cushitic (---''mĭn''/---''măn'' "house"), Berber (---''bn'') and Omotic (Dime ''bin-'' "build, create");
- ''m-t'' "die" (Ehret: ---''maaw''), attested in Chadic (for example, Hausa ''mutu''), Egyptian (''mwt'' ''---muwt'', ''mt'', Coptic ''mu''), Berber (''mmet'', pr. ''yemmut''), Semitic (---''mwt''), and Cushitic (Proto-Somali ---''umaaw''/---''-am-w(t)-'' "die"). (Also similar to the PIE base ''---mor-/mr-''. "die", evidence in favor of both the Afro-Asiatic and Indo-European language families' classification in the hypothetical Nostratic superfamily.)
- ''s-n'' "know", attested in Chadic, Berber, and Egyptian;
- ''l-s'' "tongue" (Ehret: ''---lis' '' "to lick"), attested in Semitic (---''lasaan/lisaan''), Egyptian (''ns'' ---''ls'', Coptic ''las''), Berber (''ils''), Chadic (for example, Hausa ''harshe''), and possibly Omotic (Dime ''lits'-'' "lick");
- ''s-m'' "name" (Ehret: ---''sŭm'' / ---''sĭm''), attested in Semitic (---''sm''), Berber (''ism''), Chadic (for example, Hausa ''suna''), Cushitic, and Omotic (though some see the Berber form, ''ism'', and the Omotic form, ''sunts'', as Semitic Loanword s.) The Egyptian ''smi'' "report, announce" offers another possible cognate.
- ''d-m'' "blood" (Ehret: ---''dîm'' / ---''dâm''), attested in Berber (''idammen''), Semitic (---''dam''), Chadic, and arguably Omotic. Compare Cushitic ---''dîm''/---''dâm'', "red".
In the verbal system, Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic (including Beja) all provide evidence for a prefix conjugation:
All Afro-Asiatic subfamilies show evidence of a causative affix ''s'', but a similar suffix also appears in other groups, such as the
Niger-Congo Languages .
Semitic, Berber, Cushitic (including Beja), and Chadic support
Possessive Suffix es.
Medieval scholars sometimes linked two or more branches of Afro-Asiatic together; as early as the
9th Century the Hebrew grammarian
Judah Ibn Quraysh of
Tiaret in
Algeria perceived a relationship between Berber and Semitic (the latter group known to him through Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic).
In the course of the 19th century Europeans also began suggesting such relationships; thus in
1844 Th. Benfey suggested a language family containing Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic (calling the latter "Ethiopic"). In the same year, T. N. Newman suggested a relationship between Semitic and Hausa, but this would long remain a topic of dispute and uncertainty.
Friedrich Müller named the traditional "Hamito-Semitic" family in
1876 in his ''Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft'', and defined it as consisting of a Semitic group plus a "Hamitic" group containing Egyptian, Berber, and Cushitic; he excluded the Chadic group. These classifications relied in part on non-linguistic anthropological and racial arguments. (See also
Hamitic Hypothesis .)
Leo Reinisch (1909) proposed to link Cushitic and Chadic, while urging a more distant affinity with Egyptian and Semitic, thus foreshadowing Greenberg; but his suggestion found little resonance.
Marcel Cohen (1924) rejected the idea of a distinct "Hamitic" subgroup, and included Hausa (a Chadic language) in his comparative Hamito-Semitic vocabulary.
Joseph Greenberg (1950) strongly confirmed Cohen's rejection of "Hamitic", added (and sub-classified) the Chadic languages, and proposed the new name Afro-Asiatic for the family; almost all scholars have accepted his classification. In 1969
Harold Fleming proposed the recognition of
Omotic as a fifth branch, rather than (as previously believed) a subgroup of Cushitic, and this has met with general acceptance. Several scholars, including Harold Fleming and
Robert Hetzron , have since questioned the traditional inclusion of Beja in Cushitic, but this view has yet to gain general acceptance.
Little agreement exists on the sub-classification of the five or six branches mentioned; however,
Christopher Ehret (1979),
Harold Fleming (1981), and
Joseph Greenberg (1981) all agree that the Omotic branch split from the rest first. Otherwise:
- Ehret groups Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic together in a North Afro-Asiatic subgroup;
- Paul Newman (1980) groups Berber with Chadic and Egyptian with Semitic, while questioning the inclusion of Omotic;
- Fleming (1981) divided non-Omotic Afroasiatic, or "Erythraean", into three groups, Cushitic, Semitic, and Chadic-Berber-Egyptian; he later added Semitic and Beja to the latter, and proposed Ongotá as a tentative new third branch of Erythraean;
- Lionel Bender (1997) advocates a "Macro-Cushitic" consisting of Berber, Cushitic, and Semitic, while regarding Chadic and Omotic as the most remote branches;
- Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova (1995) group Berber with Semitic, group Chadic with Egyptian, and split Cushitic into five or more independent branches of Afro-Asiatic, seeing Cushitic as a Sprachbund rather than a valid family;
- Alexander Militarev (2000), on the basis of Lexicostatistics , groups Berber with Chadic and both, more distantly, with Semitic, as against Cushitic and Omotic.
Some of the main sources for Afro-Asiatic etymologies include:
- Marcel Cohen, ''Essai comparatif sur la vocabulaire et la phonétique du chamito-sémitique'', Champion, Paris 1947.
- Igor M. Diakonoff et al., "Historical-Comparative Vocabulary of Afrasian", ''St. Petersburg Journal of African Studies'' Nos. 2-6, 1993-7.
- Christopher Ehret. ''Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary'' (''University of California Publications in Linguistics 126''), California, Berkeley 1996.
- Vladimir E. Orel and Olga V. Stolbova, ''Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary : Materials for a Reconstruction'', Brill, Leiden 1995. ISBN 90-04-10051-2. {Link without Title}
- Barnett, William & Hoopes, John (Eds.) (1995). ''The Emergence of Pottery''. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1-56098-517-8
- Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse, ''African Languages,'' Cambridge University Press, 2000 - Chapter 4
- Merritt Ruhlen, ''A Guide to the World's Languages'', Stanford University Press, Stanford 1991.
- Lionel Bender et al., ''Selected Comparative-Historical Afro-Asiatic Studies in Memory of Igor M. Diakonoff'', LINCOM 2003.
- Ethnologue
- Russell G. Schuh, '' Chadic Overview ''.
- African Language History (pdf), Roger Blench
- Carleton T. Hodge (ed.), ''Afroasiatic: a survey''. The Hague - Paris: Mouton 1971.
