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The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a
language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...
of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic
subregion A subregion is a part of a larger region or continent and is usually based on location. Cardinal directions, such as south are commonly used to define a subregion. United Nations subregions The Statistics Division of the United Nations (UN) ...
s of
Western Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
,
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara/
Sahel The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid c ...
. With the exception of its Semitic branch, all branches of the Afroasiatic family are exclusively native to the African continent. Afroasiatic languages have over 500 million native speakers, which is the fourth-largest number of native speakers of any language family (after
Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
,
Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...
, and Niger–Congo). The phylum has six branches:
Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
,
Chadic The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, the Central African Republic, and northern Cam ...
,
Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...
,
Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
, Semitic, and Omotic. The most widely spoken modern Afroasiatic language or dialect continuum by far is
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
, a ''
de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' group of distinct language varieties within the Semitic branch. The languages that evolved from
Proto-Arabic Proto-Arabic is the name given to the hypothetical reconstructed ancestor of all the varieties of Arabic attested since the 9th century BC. There are two lines of evidence to reconstruct Proto-Arabic: *Evidence of Arabic becomes more frequent i ...
have around 313 million native speakers, concentrated primarily in the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
and North Africa. 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 Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
,
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, Phoenician, other
Canaanite languages The Canaanite languages, or Canaanite dialects, are one of the three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Ugaritic, all originating in the Levant and Mesopotamia. They are attested in Canaanite inscription ...
,
Amorite The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied lar ...
,
Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologis ...
and
Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
. While there is no consensus among
historical linguists Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...
concerning the original homeland of the Afroasiatic family or the period when the parent language (i.e.
Proto-Afroasiatic Proto-Afroasiatic, sometimes also referred to as Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto-language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. Though estimations vary widely, it is believed by scholars to have been spoken as a si ...
) was spoken, most agree that it was located within a region of
Northeast Africa Northeast Africa, or ''Northeastern Africa'' or Northern East Africa as it was known in the past, is a geographic regional term used to refer to the countries of Africa situated in and around the Red Sea. The region is intermediate between North ...
. Proposed specific locations include the Horn of Africa,
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, the eastern Sahara, and the
Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
.


Etymology

In the early 19th century, linguists grouped the
Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
,
Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...
and
Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
languages within a "Hamitic" phylum, in acknowledgement of these languages' genetic relation with each other and with those in the Semitic phylum. The terms "Hamitic" and "Semitic" were etymologically derived from the
Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning") ...
, which describes various Biblical tribes descended from
Ham Ham is pork from a leg cut of pork, cut that has been food preservation, preserved by wet or dry Curing (food preservation), curing, with or without smoking (cooking), smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. Lo ...
and
Shem Shem (; he, שֵׁם ''Šēm''; ar, سَام, Sām) ''Sḗm''; Ge'ez: ሴም, ''Sēm'' was one of the sons of Noah in the book of Genesis and in the book of Chronicles, and the Quran. The children of Shem were Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, L ...
, two sons of
Noah Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
. By the 1860s, the main constituent elements within the broader Afroasiatic family had been worked out. Friedrich Müller introduced the name "Hamito-Semitic" for the entire language family in his ''Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft'' (1876).
Maurice Delafosse Maurice Delafosse (20 December 1870 – 13 November 1926) was a French ethnography, ethnographer and colonial official who also worked in the field of the languages of Africa. In a review of his daughter's biography of him he was described as "one ...
(1914) later coined the term "Afroasiatic" (often now spelled "Afro-Asiatic"). However, it did not come into general use until
Joseph Greenberg Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages. Life Early life and education Joseph Greenberg was born on ...
(1950) formally proposed its adoption. In doing so, Greenberg sought to emphasize the fact that 'Hamitic' was not a valid group and that language
cladistics Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...
did not reflect race. In current scholarly usage, the most commonly used names are "Afroasiatic", "Hamito-Semitic", and "Semito-Hamitic". Individual scholars have also called the family "Erythraean" (Tucker 1966) and "Lisramic" (Hodge 1972). In lieu of "Hamito-Semitic", the Russian linguist
Igor Diakonoff Igor Mikhailovich Diakonoff (occasionally spelled Diakonov, russian: link=no, И́горь Миха́йлович Дья́конов; 12 January 1915 – 2 May 1999) was a Russian historian, linguist, and translator and a renowned expert on th ...
later suggested the term "Afrasian", meaning "half African, half Asiatic", in reference to the geographic distribution of the family's constituent languages.


Distribution and branches

Scholars generally treat the Afroasiatic language family as including at least the following five branches: *
Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
*
Chadic The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, the Central African Republic, and northern Cam ...
*
Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...
*
Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
* Semitic A sixth family's inclusion in Afroasiatic is disputed by a minority of scholars: * Omotic Although there is general agreement on these six families,
linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
who study Afroasiatic raise some points of disagreement, in particular: * The Omotic language branch is the most controversial member of Afroasiatic because the grammatical formatives to which most linguists have given the greatest weight in classifying languages in the family "are either absent or distinctly wobbly" (Hayward 1995). Greenberg (1963) and others considered it a subgroup of Cushitic, whereas others have raised doubts about its being part of proper Afroasiatic at all (e.g. Theil 2006). * The Afroasiatic identity of Ongota is also broadly questioned, as is its position within Afroasiatic among those who accept it, due to the "mixed" appearance of the language and a paucity of research and data. Harold Fleming (2006) proposes that Ongota constitutes a separate branch of Afroasiatic. Bonny Sands (2009) finds the proposal by Savà and Tosco (2003) the most convincing: namely that Ongota is an East Cushitic language with a
Nilo-Saharan The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50–60 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. T ...
substratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
. In other words, it would appear that the Ongota people once spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, then shifted to speaking a Cushitic language but retained some characteristics of their earlier Nilo-Saharan language. * Beja, sometimes listed as a separate branch of Afroasiatic, is more often included in the Cushitic branch, which has a substantial degree of internal diversity. * There is no consensus on the interrelationships of the five non-Omotic branches of Afroasiatic (see § Subgrouping below). This situation is not unusual, even among long-established language families: scholars also frequently disagree on the internal classification of the
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, for instance. * The extinct
Meroitic language The Meroitic language () was spoken in Meroë (in present-day Sudan) during the Meroitic period (attested from 300 BCE) and became extinct about 400 CE. It was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphabet: Meroitic Cursive, which was written wit ...
has been proposed (
Bruce Trigger Bruce Graham Trigger (June 18, 1937 – December 1, 2006) was a Canadian archaeologist, anthropologist, and ethnohistorian. He was appointed the James McGill Professor at McGill University in 2001. Life Born in Preston, Ontario (now part of Cam ...
, 1964,Trigger, Bruce G., ''‘Meroitic and Eastern Sudanic: A Linguistic Relationship?’'', Kush 12, 1964, 188–194. 1977Trigger, Bruce, G.,''‘The Classification of Meroitic: Geographical Considerations’'', Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur des Alten Orients 13, 1977, 421–435.) as an unclassified Afroasiatic language, because it shares the
phonotactics Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...
characteristic of the family, but there is not enough evidence to secure a classification (Fritz Hintze, 1974,Hintze, Fritz, ''‘Some Problems of Meroitic Philology’'', Abdel Gadir Mahmoud Abdalla (ed.), Studies of the Ancient Languages of the Sudan, Sudanese Studies 3, Khartoum University Press, Khartoum, 1974, 73–78.) * The classification of Kujargé within Afroasiatic is not agreed upon. Blench (2008) notes that much of the basic vocabulary looks
Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...
, and speculates that Kujargé could even be a conservative language transitional between Chadic and Cushitic.


Demographics

In descending order of the number of speakers, widely-spoken Afroasiatic languages include: *
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
( Semitic), the most widely spoken Afroasiatic language today, has over 300 million native speakers; additionally,
Classical Arabic Classical Arabic ( ar, links=no, ٱلْعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ, al-ʿarabīyah al-fuṣḥā) or Quranic Arabic is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notab ...
, an archaic form of the language, is the
liturgical language A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives. Concept A sacre ...
of
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
, the world's second-largest religion. *
Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also * ...
(
Chadic The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, the Central African Republic, and northern Cam ...
), the dominant language of northern
Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
and southern
Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languageslingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' by another 20 million across West Africa and the
Sahel The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid c ...
. * Oromo (
Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...
), spoken in
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
and
Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...
by around 34 million people. *
Amharic Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth ...
( Semitic), official
working language A working language (also procedural language) is a language that is given a unique legal status in a supranational company, society, state or other body or organization as its primary means of communication. It is primarily the language of the dail ...
of
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
, with over 25 million native speakers in addition to millions of other Ethiopians speaking it as a
second language A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a fo ...
. * Somali (Cushitic), spoken by 21.8 million people in
Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
,
Djibouti Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red ...
, eastern Ethiopia and northeastern Kenya. *
Tigrinya (; also spelled Tigrigna) is an Ethio-Semitic language commonly spoken Eritrea and in northern Ethiopia's Tigray Region by the Tigrinya and Tigrayan peoples. It is also spoken by the global diaspora of these regions. History and literatur ...
(Semitic), spoken by around 9.73 million people in
Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
and
Tigray Region The Tigray Region, officially the Tigray National Regional State, is the northernmost regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob, and Kunama people. Its capital and largest city is Mekelle. Tigray is ...
of Ethiopia. * Afar (Cushitic), spoken by around 7.5 million people in Ethiopia, Djibouti, and
Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
. * Shilha (
Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
), spoken by around 7 million people in
Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
. * Kabyle (Berber), spoken by around 5.6 million people in
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
. *
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
(Semitic), spoken by around 5 million native speakers, and additionally by 4 million second-language speakers in
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and the
Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( he, תְּפוּצָה, təfūṣā) or exile (Hebrew: ; Yiddish: ) is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of t ...
;
Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of ...
is the
liturgical language A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives. Concept A sacre ...
of
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
and of
Samaritanism Samaritanism is the Abrahamic, monotheistic, ethnic religion of the Samaritan people, an ethnoreligious group who, alongside Jews, originate from the ancient Israelites. Its central holy text is the Samaritan Pentateuch, which Samaritans ...
. *
Central Atlas Tamazight Central Atlas Tamazight or Atlasic (also known as Central Morocco Tamazight, variant of tashelhit, Middle Atlas Tamazight, Tamazight, Central Shilha and, rarely, Beraber or Braber; native name: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ ''Tamazight'' , ) is a Be ...
(Berber), spoken by around 4.6 million people in Morocco. * Riffian (Berber), spoken by around 4.2 million people in Morocco. *
Gurage languages The Gurage languages (Gurage: ጉራጌ), also known as Guragie, is a dialect-continuum language, which belong to the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by the Gurage people, who inhabit the Gurage Zone within t ...
(Semitic), a group of languages spoken by more than 2 million people in
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
. * Tigre (Semitic), spoken by around 2 million people in
Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
. * Wolaitta (Omotic), spoken by around 1.6 million people in
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
. * Maltese (Semitic), spoken by around half a million people in
Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
and the
Maltese diaspora Emigration from Malta was an important demographic phenomenon throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading to the creation of large Maltese communities in English-speaking countries abroad. History Nineteenth century Mass emi ...
. It descended from
Siculo-Arabic Siculo-Arabic ( ar, الْلهجَة الْعَرَبِيَة الْصَقلِيَة), also known as Sicilian Arabic, is the term used for varieties of Arabic that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century, ...
independently from modern
Arabic dialects The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variati ...
, features
Romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...
superstrates and has been written in the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
since at least the 14th century. *
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic Suret ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ) ( su:rɪtʰor su:rɪθ, also known as Assyrian or Chaldean, refers to the varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by ethnic Assyrians, including those identifying as religious groups rather than eth ...
(Semitic), a variety of
modern Aramaic The Neo-Aramaic or Modern Aramaic languages are varieties of Aramaic that evolved during the late medieval and early modern periods, and continue to the present day as vernacular (spoken) languages of modern Aramaic-speaking communities. Within ...
, spoken by more than 500,000 people in the
Assyrian diaspora Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...
.


Classification history

In the 9th century the Hebrew grammarian Judah ibn Quraysh of
Tiaret Tiaret ( ar, تاهرت / تيارت; Berber: Tahert or Tihert, i.e. "Lioness") is a major city in northwestern Algeria that gives its name to the wider farming region of Tiaret Province. Both the town and region lie south-west of the capital o ...
in
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
became the first to link two branches of Afroasiatic together; he perceived a relationship between Berber and Semitic. He knew of Semitic through his study of Arabic, Hebrew, and
Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
. In the course of the 19th century, Europeans also began suggesting such relationships. In 1844,
Theodor Benfey :''This is about the German philologist. For Theodor Benfey (born 1925) who developed a spiral periodic table of the elements in 1964, see Otto Theodor Benfey.'' Theodor Benfey (; 28 January 1809, in Nörten near Göttingen26 June 1881, in Göttin ...
proposed a language family consisting of Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic (he called 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'' ("Outline of Linguistics"), and defined it as consisting of a Semitic group plus a "Hamitic" group containing Egyptian, Berber, and Cushitic; he excluded the Chadic group. It was the
Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...
Karl Richard Lepsius Karl Richard Lepsius ( la, Carolus Richardius Lepsius) (23 December 181010 July 1884) was a pioneering Prussian Egyptologist, linguist and modern archaeologist. He is widely known for his magnum opus ''Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien'' ...
(1810–1884) who restricted Hamitic to the non-Semitic languages in Africa, which are characterized by a grammatical
gender system Gender systems are the social structures that establish the number of genders and their associated gender roles in every society. A ''gender role'' is "everything that a person says and does to indicate to others or to the self the degree that o ...
. This "Hamitic language group" was proposed to unite various, mainly North-African, languages, including the Ancient
Egyptian language The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead language, dead Afroasiatic languages, Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large Text corpus, corpus of surviving texts which were made acces ...
, the
Berber languages The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber commun ...
, the Cushitic languages, the Beja language, and the Chadic languages. Unlike Müller, Lepsius saw
Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also * ...
and Nama language, Nama as part of the Hamitic group. These classifications relied in part on non-linguistic anthropological and racial arguments. Both authors used the skin-color, mode of subsistence, and other characteristics of native speakers as part of their arguments for grouping particular languages together. In 1912, Carl Meinhof published ''Die Sprachen der Hamiten'' ("The Languages of the Hamites"), in which he expanded Lepsius's model, adding the Fula language, Fula, Maasai language, Maasai, Bari language, Bari, Nandi languages, Nandi, Sandawe language, Sandawe and Hadza language, Hadza languages to the Hamitic group. Meinhof's model was widely supported in the 1940s. Meinhof's system of classification of the Hamitic languages was based on a belief that "speakers of Hamitic became largely coterminous with cattle herding peoples with essentially Caucasian origins, intrinsically different from and superior to the 'Negroes of Africa'." However, in the case of the so-called Nilo-Hamitic languages (a concept he introduced), it was based on the typological feature of gender and a "fallacious theory of mixed language, language mixture". Meinhof did this although earlier work by scholars such as Lepsius and Johnston had substantiated that the languages which he would later dub "Nilo-Hamitic" were in fact Nilotic languages, with numerous similarities in vocabulary to other Nilotic languages. Leo Reinisch (1909) had already proposed linking Cushitic and Chadic while urging their more distant affinity with Egyptian and Semitic. However, his suggestion found little acceptance. Marcel Cohen (1924) rejected the idea of a distinct "Hamitic" subgroup and included
Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also * ...
(a Chadic language) in his comparative Hamito-Semitic vocabulary. Finally,
Joseph Greenberg Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages. Life Early life and education Joseph Greenberg was born on ...
's 1950 work led to the widespread rejection of "Hamitic" as a language category by linguists. Greenberg refuted Meinhof's linguistic theories and rejected the use of racial and social evidence. In dismissing the notion of a separate "Nilo-Hamitic" language category, in particular, Greenberg was "returning to a view widely held a half-century earlier". He consequently rejoined Meinhof's so-called Nilo-Hamitic languages with their appropriate Nilotic siblings. He also added (and sub-classified) the Chadic languages, and proposed a new name, "Afroasiatic", for the family. Almost all scholars have accepted this classification as the new and continued consensus. Greenberg developed his model fully in his book ''The Languages of Africa'' (1963), in which he reassigned most of Meinhof's additions to Hamitic to other language families, notably Nilo-Saharan. Following Isaac Schapera and rejecting Meinhof, he classified the Hottentot language, Khoekhoe language as a member of the Khoisan languages, a grouping that has since proven inaccurate and excessively motivated on the presence of Click consonant, click sounds. To Khoisan he also added the Tanzanian Hadza language, Hadza and Sandawe language, Sandawe, though this view has been discredited as linguists working on these languages regard them as Language isolate, linguistic isolates. Despite this, Greenberg's classification remains a starting point for modern work on many languages spoken in Africa, and the Hamitic category (and its extension to Nilo-Hamitic) has no part in this. Since the three traditional branches of the Hamitic languages (Berber, Cushitic and Egyptian) have not been shown to form an exclusive (Monophyly, monophyletic) phylogenetic unit of their own, separate from other Afroasiatic languages, linguists no longer use the term in this sense. Each of these branches is instead now regarded as an independent subgroup of the larger Afroasiatic family. In 1969, Harold Fleming proposed that what had previously been known as Western Cushitic is an independent branch of Afroasiatic, suggesting for it the new name Omotic languages, "Omotic". This proposal and name have met with widespread acceptance. Based on typological differences with the other Cushitic languages, Robert Hetzron proposed that Beja has to be removed from Cushitic, thus forming an independent branch of Afroasiatic. Most scholars, however, reject this proposal, and continue to group Beja as the sole member of a Northern branch within Cushitic. ''Glottolog'' does not accept that the inclusion or even unity of Omotic has been established, nor that of Ongota or the unclassified Kujarge. It therefore splits off the following groups as small families: South Omotic languages, South Omotic, Mao languages, Mao, Dizoid languages, Dizoid, Gonga–Gimojan languages, Gonga–Gimojan (North Omotic apart from the preceding), Ongota, and Kujarge language, Kujarge.


Subgrouping

Little agreement exists on the subgrouping (linguistics), subgrouping of the five or six branches of Afroasiatic: Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, and Omotic. However, Christopher Ehret (1979), Harold Fleming (1981), and Joseph Greenberg (1981) all agree that the Omotic branch split from the rest first. Otherwise: * Paul Newman (linguist), Paul Newman (1980) groups Berber with Chadic and Egyptian with Semitic, while questioning the inclusion of Omotic in Afroasiatic. Rolf Theil (2006) concurs with the exclusion of Omotic but does not otherwise address the structure of the family. * Harold Fleming (1981) divides non-Omotic Afroasiatic, or "Erythraean", into three groups, Cushitic, Semitic, and Chadic-Berber-Egyptian. He later added Semitic and Beja to Chadic-Berber-Egyptian and tentatively proposed Ongota as a new third branch of Erythraean. He thus divided Afroasiatic into two major branches, Omotic and Erythraean, with Erythraean consisting of three sub-branches, Cushitic, Chadic-Berber-Egyptian-Semitic-Beja, and Ongota. * Like Harold Fleming, Christopher Ehret (1995: 490) divides Afroasiatic into two branches, Omotic and Erythrean. He divides Omotic into two branches, North Omotic and South Omotic. He divides Erythrean into Cushitic, comprising Beja, Agaw, and East-South Cushitic, and North Erythrean, comprising Chadic and "Boreafrasian." According to his classification, Boreafrasian consists of Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic. * Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova (1995) group Berber with Semitic and Chadic with Egyptian. They split up Cushitic into five or more independent branches of Afroasiatic, viewing Cushitic as a Sprachbund rather than a
language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...
. * Igor M. Diakonoff (1996) subdivides Afroasiatic in two, grouping Berber, Cushitic, and Semitic together as East-West Afrasian (ESA), and Chadic with Egyptian as North-South Afrasian (NSA). He excludes Omotic from Afroasiatic. * Lionel Bender (linguist), Lionel Bender (1997) groups Berber, Cushitic, and Semitic together as "Macro-Cushitic". He regards Chadic and Omotic as the branches of Afroasiatic most remote from the others. * Alexander Militarev (2000), on the basis of lexicostatistics, groups Berber with Chadic and both more distantly with Semitic, as against Cushitic and Omotic. He places Ongota in South Omotic.


Date of Afroasiatic

The earliest written evidence of an Afroasiatic language is an Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian inscription dated to c. 3400 BC (5,400 years ago). Symbols on Gerzeh culture, Gerzean (Naqada II) pottery resembling Egyptian hieroglyphs#History and evolution, Egyptian hieroglyphs date back to c. 4000 BC, suggesting an earlier possible dating. This gives us a minimum date for the age of Afroasiatic. However, Ancient Egyptian is highly divergent from
Proto-Afroasiatic Proto-Afroasiatic, sometimes also referred to as Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto-language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. Though estimations vary widely, it is believed by scholars to have been spoken as a si ...
, and considerable time must have elapsed in between them. Estimates of the date at which the Proto-Afroasiatic language was spoken vary widely. They fall within a range between approximately 7500 BC (9,500 years ago), and approximately 16,000 BC (18,000 years ago). According to Igor M. Diakonoff (1988: 33n), Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken wikt:circa, c. 10,000 BC. Christopher Ehret (2002: 35–36) asserts that Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken c. 11,000 BC at the latest, and possibly as early as c. 16,000 BC. These dates are older than those associated with other proto-languages.


Afroasiatic Urheimat

The Afroasiatic ''urheimat'', the hypothetical place where Proto-Afroasiatic language speakers lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before the original language dispersed geographically and divided into distinct languages, is unknown. Afroasiatic languages are today primarily spoken in Western Asia, West Asia,
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the
Sahel The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid c ...
. Their distribution seems to have been influenced by the Sahara pump theory, Sahara pump operating over the last 10,000 years. There is no definitive agreement on when or where the original homeland of the language family existed, but some link the first speakers to the first farmers in the
Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
who would later spread to North and East Africa. Others argue the first speakers were pre-agricultural and based in
Northeast Africa Northeast Africa, or ''Northeastern Africa'' or Northern East Africa as it was known in the past, is a geographic regional term used to refer to the countries of Africa situated in and around the Red Sea. The region is intermediate between North ...
. Shared features with
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
in West Asia related to food production are suggested by some scholars to support a Levantine origin for Afroasiatic languages. The Levantine hypothesis does not account for the domestication of plants endemism, endemic to the Horn of Africa such as teff, Ensete ventricosum, ensete, and Guizotia abyssinica, niger seed or for the lack of evidence for intrusive agricultural populations or the cultivation of wheat, barley, or sorghum there prior to 3000 BC. A Northeast African origin is supported by the majority of scholars today. The region includes the majority of the diversity of the Afroasiatic language family and has very diverse groups in close geographic proximity, which is sometimes considered a telltale sign for a linguistic geographic origin. Igor M. Diakonoff placed the origin of the Afro-Asiatic languages in northeast Africa, with older strands south of Egypt, and newer elements straddling the Nile Delta and Sinai. Christopher Ehret argues that Proto-Afroasiatic speakers in Northeast Africa developed subsistence patterns of intensive plant collection and pastoralism, which gave the population an economic advantage that impelled the expansion of the Afroasiatic languages. Ehret suggests that a Proto-Semitic- or Proto-Semito-Berber-speaking population migrated from Northeast Africa to the Levant during the late Paleolithic and eventually gave rise to the Natufian culture. The linguist Roger Blench proposed southwestern Ethiopia as the most likely homeland of Afroasiatic, in part because of the high internal diversification of the Omotic branch spoken in that region. Various scholars have hypothesized on the origins of Afroasiatic based on genetic evidence. Haplogroup E-M215 (Y-DNA), Y Haplogroup E-M215 is common among modern Afroasiatic-speaking groups and has been associated with an ancestral Afroasiatic population in Northeast Africa. In a 2014 autosomal DNA study, Hodgson et al. postulate that the Afroasiatic languages may have been spread by an ancestral population(s) carrying a newly-identified non-African genetic component, which the researchers dub the "Ethio-Somali". The genetic component is prevalent among modern Afroasiatic-speaking populations and is found at its highest levels among those in the Horn of Africa. The researchers suggest that the original Ethio-Somali carrying population(s) probably migrated from the Near East to Northeast Africa in the pre-agricultural period (~12–23 ka) and that a descendant population migrated back to the Levant prior to 4000 BC and developed the Semitic branch of Afroasiatic.


Similarities in grammar and syntax

Widespread (though not universal) features of the Afroasiatic languages include: * A set of emphatic consonants, variously realized as glottalized, pharyngealized, or implosive. * Verb–subject–object, VSO linguistic typology, typology with subject–verb–object, SVO tendencies. * A two-grammatical gender, gender system in the singular, with the feminine marked by the sound /t/. * All Afroasiatic subfamilies show evidence of a causative affix ''s''. * Semitic, Berber, Cushitic (including Beja), and Chadic support possessive suffixes. * Arabic nouns and adjectives#Nisba, Nisba derivation in ''-j'' (earlier Egyptian) or ''-ī'' (Semitic) * Morphology (linguistics), Morphology in which words inflect by changes within the root (vowel changes or gemination) as well as with prefixes and suffixes. One of the most remarkable shared features among the Afroasiatic languages is the prefixing verb conjugation (see the table at right), with a distinctive pattern of prefixes beginning with /ʔ t n j/, and in particular a pattern whereby third-singular masculine /j-/ is opposed to third-singular feminine and second-singular /t-/. According to Ehret (1996), tonal languages appear in the Omotic and Chadic branches of Afroasiatic, as well as in certain Cushitic languages. The Semitic, Berber and Egyptian branches generally do not use tones phoneme, phonemically. The Berber and Semitic branches share certain grammatical features (e.g. alternative feminine endings *-ay/*-āy; 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)). Whether this proto-language is ancestral to Berber and Semitic only, or also to other branches of Afroasiatic, still remains to be established.


Shared vocabulary

The following are some examples of Afroasiatic cognates, including ten pronouns, three nouns, and three verbs. :'' Source:'' Christopher Ehret, ''Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). :''Note:'' Ehret does not make use of Berber in his etymologies, stating (1995: 12): "the kind of extensive reconstruction of proto-Berber lexicon that might help in sorting through alternative possible etymologies is not yet available." The Berber cognates here are taken from the previous version of the table in this article and need to be completed and referenced. :''Abbreviations:'' NOm = 'North Omotic', SOm = 'South Omotic'. MSA = 'Modern South Arabian', PSC = 'Proto-Southern Cushitic', PSom-II = 'Proto-Somali, stage 2'. masc. = 'masculine', fem. = 'feminine', sing. = 'singular', pl. = 'plural'. 1s. = 'first person singular', 2s. = 'second person singular'. :''Symbols:'' Following Ehret (1995: 70), a caron ˇ over a vowel indicates rising Tone (linguistics), tone, and a circumflex ^ over a vowel indicates falling tone. V indicates a vowel of unknown quality. Ɂ indicates a glottal stop. * indicates Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed forms based on Comparative method (linguistics), comparison of related languages. There are two etymological dictionaries of Afroasiatic, one by Christopher Ehret, and one by Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova. The two dictionaries disagree on almost everything. The following table contains the thirty roots or so (out of thousands) that represent a fragile consensus of present research:


Etymological bibliography

Some of the main sources for Afroasiatic etymologies include: * Cohen, Marcel. 1947. ''Essai comparatif sur le vocabulaire et la phonétique du chamito-sémitique.'' Paris: Champion. * Diakonoff, Igor M. et al. 1993–1997. "Historical-comparative vocabulary of Afrasian," ''St. Petersburg Journal of African Studies'' 2–6. * Ehret, Christopher. 1995. ''Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary'' (= ''University of California Publications in Linguistics'' 126). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. * Orel, Vladimir E. and Olga V. Stolbova. 1995. ''Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary: Materials for a Reconstruction.'' Leiden: Brill. .


See also

* Afroasiatic phonetic notation * Languages of Africa * Languages of Asia * Proto-Afroasiatic language * Nostratic languages * Borean languages


References


Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


General references

*Anthony, David. 2007. ''The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World.'' Princeton: Princeton University Press. * *Bender, Lionel et al. 2003. ''Selected Comparative-Historical Afro-Asiatic Studies in Memory of Igor M. Diakonoff.'' LINCOM. * *Bomhard, Alan R. 1996. ''Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis.'' Signum. *Diakonoff, Igor M. 1988. ''Afrasian Languages.'' Moscow: Nauka. *Diakonoff, Igor M. 1996. "Some reflections on the Afrasian linguistic macrofamily." ''Journal of Near Eastern Studies'' 55, 293. *Diakonoff, Igor M. 1998. "The earliest Semitic society: Linguistic data." ''Journal of Semitic Studies'' 43, 209. *Dimmendaal, Gerrit, and Erhard Voeltz. 2007. "Africa". In Christopher Moseley, ed., ''Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages''. *Ehret, Christopher. 1995. ''Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary.'' Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. *Ehret, Christopher. 1997
Abstract
of "The lessons of deep-time historical-comparative reconstruction in Afroasiatic: reflections on ''Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic: Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary'' (U.C. Press, 1995)", paper delivered at the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the North American Conference on Afro-Asiatic Linguistics, held in Miami, Florida, on 21–23 March 1997. *Finnegan, Ruth H. 1970. "Afro-Asiatic languages West Africa". ''Oral Literature in Africa'', pg 558. *Fleming, Harold C. 2006. ''Ongota: A Decisive Language in African Prehistory.'' Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. *Greenberg, Joseph H. 1950
"Studies in African linguistic classification: IV. Hamito-Semitic."
''Southwestern Journal of Anthropology'' 6, 47–63. *Greenberg, Joseph H. 1955. ''Studies in African Linguistic Classification.'' New Haven: Compass Publishing Company. (Photo-offset reprint of the ''SJA'' articles with minor corrections.) *Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. ''The Languages of Africa''. Bloomington: Indiana University. (Heavily revised version of Greenberg 1955.) *Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. ''The Languages of Africa'' (2nd ed. with additions and corrections). Bloomington: Indiana University. *Greenberg, Joseph H. 1981. "African linguistic classification." ''General History of Africa, Volume 1: Methodology and African Prehistory'', edited by Joseph Ki-Zerbo, 292–308. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. *Greenberg, Joseph H. 2000–2002. ''Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1: Grammar, Volume 2: Lexicon.'' Stanford: Stanford University Press. *Hayward, R. J. 1995. "The challenge of Omotic: an inaugural lecture delivered on 17 February 1994". London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. *Heine, Bernd and Derek Nurse. 2000. ''African Languages'', Chapter 4. Cambridge University Press. *Hodge, Carleton T. (editor). 1971. ''Afroasiatic: A Survey.'' The Hague – Paris: Mouton. *Hodge, Carleton T. 1991. "Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic." In Sydney M. Lamb and E. Douglas Mitchell (editors), ''Sprung from Some Common Source: Investigations into the Prehistory of Languages'', Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 141–165. *Huehnergard, John. 2004. "Afro-Asiatic." In R.D. Woodard (editor), ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages'', Cambridge – New York, 2004, 138–159. *Militarev, Alexander. "Towards the genetic affiliation of Ongota, a nearly-extinct language of Ethiopia," 60 pp. In ''Orientalia et Classica: Papers of the Institute of Oriental and Classical Studies'', Issue 5. Moscow. (Forthcoming.) *Newman, Paul. 1980. ''The Classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic.'' Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden. *Theil, R. 2006
Is Omotic Afro-Asiatic?
Proceedings from the David Dwyer retirement symposium, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 21 October 2006. * * * *Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2020). Revivalistics, ''Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond''
Oxford University Press
/


External links


Afro-Asiatic
at the Linguist List MultiTree Project (not functional as of 2014): Genealogical trees attributed to Delafosse 1914, Greenberg 1950–1955, Greenberg 1963, Fleming 1976, Hodge 1976, Orel & Stolbova 1995, Diakonoff 1996–1998, Ehret 1995–2000, Hayward 2000, Militarev 2005, Blench 2006, and Fleming 2006

presented by Alexander Militarev at his talk "Genealogical classification of Afro-Asiatic languages according to the latest data" at the conference on the 70th anniversary of V.M. Illich-Svitych, Moscow, 2004
short annotations of the talks given there

The prehistory of a dispersal: the Proto-Afrasian (Afroasiatic) farming lexicon
by Alexander Militarev in "Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis", eds. P. Bellwood & C. Renfrew. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2002, p. 135–50.
Once More About Glottochronology And The Comparative Method: The Omotic-Afrasian case
by Alexander Militarev in "Aspects of Comparative Linguistics", v. 1. Moscow: RSUH Publishers, 2005, pp. 339–408.
Root Extension And Root Formation In Semitic And Afrasian
by Alexander Militarev in "Proceedings of the Barcelona Symposium on comparative Semitic", 19-20/11/2004. Aula Orientalis 23/1-2, 2005, pp. 83–129.
Akkadian-Egyptian lexical matches
by Alexander Militarev in "Papers on Semitic and Afroasiatic Linguistics in Honor of Gene B. Gragg." Ed. by Cynthia L. Miller. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 60. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2007, p. 139–145.
A comparison of Orel-Stolbova's and Ehret's Afro-Asiatic reconstructions

"Is Omotic Afro-Asiatic?"
by Rolf Theil (2006)
NACAL
The North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics, now in its 35th year

of Roger Blench (wit
family tree
. {{DEFAULTSORT:Afroasiatic Languages Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic peoples, * Language families Ethnic groups in Africa Ethnic groups in Asia Ethnic groups in Europe