Topic summary
Proto-Berber
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Proto-Berber language.
History
Proto-Berber shows features that clearly distinguish it from all other branches of Afroasiatic, but modern Berber languages are relatively homogeneous. Whereas the split from the other known Afroasiatic branches was very ancient, on the order of 10,000~9,000 years BP, according to glottochronological studies, Proto-Berber might be as recent as 3,000 years BP. Louali & Philippson (2003) propose, on the basis of the lexical reconstruction of livestock-herding, a Proto-Berber 1 (PB1) stage around 7,000 years BP and a Proto-Berber 2 (PB2) stage as the direct ancestor of contemporary Berber languages. It was restructured several times during the almost 10,000 years that separated Proto-Afroasiatic from the modern Berber languages, which have preserved few relics.