Proto-Afroasiatic, sometimes also referred to as Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...

from which all modern

Afroasiatic languages 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 of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...

are descended. 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. The

reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

of Proto-Afroasiatic is problematic and remains largely lacking. Moreover, no consensus exists as to the location of the

Afroasiatic Urheimat The Afroasiatic ''Urheimat'' is the hypothetical place where speakers of the proto-Afroasiatic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into sep ...

, the putative homeland of Proto-Afroasiatic speakers, but the majority of scholars 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 ...

Urheimat

Phonology

The consonants of Proto-Afroasiatic, as given by Bomhard (2008): NOTE: #Orël''–''Stolbova (1995) reconstructs /t͡ʃ’/, /t͡ʃ/, /d͡ʒ/ for /tʲ’/, /tʲ/, /dʲ/, respectively, #Orël''–''Stolbova (1995) doesn't reconstruct labialized consonants. Bomhard (2008) lists ten vowels for the language: /i/, /iː/, /e/, /eː/, /a/, /aː/, /o/, /oː/, /u/, /uː/.

Consonant correspondences

The following table shows consonant correspondences in Afroasiatic languages, as given in Dolgopolsky (1999), along with some reconstructed consonants for Proto-Afroasiatic. # under special conditions NOTE: # = #Symbols with dots underneath are

emphatic consonant In Semitic linguistics, an emphatic consonant is an obstruent consonant which originally contrasted with series of both voiced and voiceless obstruents. In specific Semitic languages, the members of this series may be realized as uvularized or ...

s (variously

glottalized Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consonan ...

ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...

pharyngealized Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicated ...

). #Transcription of Ancient Egyptian follows Allen (2000); see

Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian As used for Egyptology, transliteration of Ancient Egyptian is the process of converting (or mapping) texts written as Egyptian language symbols to alphabetic symbols representing uniliteral Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieroglyphs or their hieratic and D ...

. The following are possible values for the non-IPA symbols used for Ancient Egyptian: = ; = ; = , or ejective .

Pronouns

reconstructs the following pronouns, most of which are supported by at least five of the six branches:

Numerals

reconstructs the following cardinal numbers (Ehret does not include Berber in his reconstruction): The first root for "two" has been compared to Berber (Tamazight) . There are other proposed cognate sets: *"six": Egyptian , Proto-Semitic , Berber (Tamazight) . *"seven": Egyptian , Proto-Semitic , Berber (Tamazight) .

Grammar

It has been proposed that Proto-Afroasiatic had

marked nominative In linguistic typology, marked nominative alignment is an unusual type of morphosyntactic alignment similar to, and often considered a subtype of, a nominative–accusative alignment. In a prototypical nominative–accusative language with a g ...

case marking, where the subject was overtly marked for nominative case, while the object appeared in unmarked default case. Marked nominative case marking is still found in languages of the

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 ...

, Omotic and

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 ...

branches. Its syntax possibly featured an exclusively default, strict word ordering of VSO. Although some Afroasiatic languages have developed free

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

, it is generally surmised that PAA was originally a

VO language Vo or VO may refer to: Businesses and brands * Austrian Arrows (2003-2015, IATA airline code VO) * VLM Airlines Slovenia (2016-2018, IATA airline code VO) * Seagram's VO Whiskey Language * Volapük language (ISO 639-1 code vo) * VO language, a ...

. Open-acces
preprint version
available.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * {{Authority control

Afro-Asiatic 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 of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...

Afroasiatic languages