Difference between revisions of "Афроазиятски говоры"

==Classification history==

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]] [[Theodor Benfey|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 (linguist)|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 accepted his classification. In 1969 [[Harold Fleming (scholar)|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 (scholar)|Harold Fleming]] (1981), and [[Joseph Greenberg]] (1981) all agree that the Omotic branch to split from the rest first. Otherwise:

*Ehret groups Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic together in a North Afro-Asiatic subgroup;

*[[Paul Newman (professor)|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 [[Ongota language|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.

==See also==

* [[African languages]]

==Etymological bibliography==

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. [http://www.ilx.nl/blonline/blonlinesearch2.php?ficheid=101010209591]

==Sources==

* 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.

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=89997 Ethnologue]

* Russell G. Schuh, ''[http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/schuh/Papers/Chadic_overview.pdf Chadic Overview]''.

* [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/roger_blench/Archaeology%20data/Africa%20language%20history%20text.pdf African Language History] (pdf), [[Roger Blench]]

==External links==

*[http://www.nacal.org NACAL] The North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics, now in its 35th year.

* [http://www.tufs.ac.jp/ts/personal/ratcliffe/comp%20&%20method-Ratcliffe.pdf A comparison of Orel-Stolbova's and Ehret's Afro-Asiatic reconstructions]

*[http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1680c The Origins of Afroasiatic] by Paul Newman (Requires Science Magazine subscription)

* [http://community.livejournal.com/terra_linguarum/95880.html Afro-Asiatic and Semitic genealogical trees], 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; [http://community.livejournal.com/terra_linguarum/95627.html short annotations of the talks given there]{{ru icon}})

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=89997 family tree at ethnologue.com]

[[Category:Afro-Asiatic languages| ]]