Afroasiatic Language

An Afroasiatic Language is a Language Family that comprises about 300 languages that are widely spoken in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara.

• AKA: Hamito-Semitic Language, Semito-Hamitic Language, Afrasian Language, Erythraean Language, Lisrami Language.
• Example(s):
  • Berber Language,
  • Chadic Language,
  • Cushitic Language,
  • Egyptian Language,
  • Omotic Language,
  • Semitic Language,
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Borean Language,
  • Indo-European Language,
  • Sino-Tibetan Language,
  • Niger-Congo Language,
  • Nostratic Language.
• See: Proto-Afroasiatic Languages, Afroasiatic Phonetic Notation, Africa, Asia, Afroasiatic Urheimat.

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References

2022

• (Wikipedia, 2022) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afroasiatic_languages Retrieved:2022-10-4.
  • 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 Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara/Sahel. With the exception of its Semitic branch, all other branches of the Afroаsiatic family are spoken exclusively on 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, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo).The phylum has six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Omotic. The most widely spoken modern Afroasiatic language or dialect continuum by far is Arabic, a de facto group of distinct language varieties within the Semitic branch. The languages that evolved from Proto-Arabic have around 313 million native speakers, concentrated primarily in the Middle East 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, Hebrew, Phoenician, other Caananite languages, Amorite, Ugaritic and Aramaic. While there is no consensus among historical linguists concerning the original homeland of the Afroasiatic family or the period when the parent language (i.e. Proto-Afroasiatic) was spoken, most agree that it was located within a region of Northeast Africa. Proposed specific locations include the Horn of Africa, Egypt, the eastern Sahara, and the Levant.

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