Afro-Asiatic languages

The Afro-Asiatic languages are a language family of about 240 languages and 285 million people widespread throughout North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia. Other names sometimes given to this family include "Afrasian", "Hamito-Semitic" (deprecated), "Lisramic" (Hodge 1972), "Erythraean" (Tucker 1966.)

Related Topics:
Language family - North Africa - East Africa - Sahel - Southwest Asia

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The following language subfamilies are included:

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• Berber languages
• Chadic languages
• Egyptian languages
• Semitic languages
• Cushitic languages
• Beja language (subclassification controversial; widely classified as part of Cushitic)
• Omotic languages (controversial; sometimes argued to be outside Afro-Asiatic)

The Ongota language is often considered to be Afro-Asiatic, but its classification within the family remains controversial (partly for lack of data). Harold Fleming tentatively suggests that it is an independent branch of non-Omotic Afro-Asiatic.

Related Topics:
Ongota - Harold Fleming

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It is not generally agreed on where Proto-Afro-Asiatic was spoken; Africa (e.g., Igor Diakonoff, Lionel Bender) has often been suggested, particularly Ethiopia based on the high diversity of its Afro-Asiatic languages, but the western Red Sea coast and the Sahara have also been put forward (e.g., Christopher Ehret). Alexander Militarev suggests that their homeland was in the Levant (specifically, he identifies them with the Natufian culture).

Related Topics:
Africa - Igor Diakonoff - Lionel Bender - Ethiopia - Red Sea - Sahara - Christopher Ehret - Alexander Militarev - Levant - Natufian culture

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The Semitic languages are the only Afro-Asiatic subfamily based outside of Africa; however, in historical or near-historical times, some Semitic speakers crossed from South Arabia back into Ethiopia, so some modern Ethiopian languages (such as Amharic) are Semitic rather than belonging to the substrate Cushitic or Omotic groups. (A minority of academics, e.g. A. Murtonen (1967), dispute this view, suggesting that Semitic may have originated in Ethiopia.)

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Tonal languages are found in the Omotic, Chadic, and South & East Cushitic branches of Afro-Asiatic, according to Ehret (1996). The Semitic, Berber and Egyptian branches are not tonal.

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Afro-Asiatic languages: Common features and cognates ►