posted
Actually, I am beginning to believe that the so-called Northern Semitic branch of languages is really of NO relation to the other branches at all. It seems to me that this is more of an effort to LINK Egypt to the Levant as the SOURCE of its culture and civilization, that has long been discarded but the linguistic constructs used to support it are still maintained. I view the true Semitic languages as those that originated among those from Sudan and Ethiopia and spread to South West Asia from Arabia.
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quote:Actually, I am beginning to believe that the so-called Northern Semitic branch of languages is really of NO relation to the other branches at all.
posted
I think Steven Brandt and Juris Zarins put it appropriately:
"Neolithic Afro-Asiatic speaking nomadic pastoralists from North-eastern Africa were the first to introduce “proto-Semitic” languages and an African form of nomadic pastoralism to Arabia, perhaps from multiple dispersal points along the Red Sea and Sinai."
^Proto-Semitic speakers must have initially used the Nile Valley route to the Levantine, and thereafter, throughout time, the interactions between either side of the Red Sea allowed for further dispersal of the language and its derivatives. Come to think of it, it is not surprising to see that the oldest proto-Sinaitic type alphabets were recovered in Upper Egypt, while the later dated types in the Sinai region, and yet later, in the Levant [dubbed as "Canaanite"]; testament to the ongoing movement of people along the Nile into the Levant.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Supercar, are you saying that there was an Afrasan language in SW Asia that was replaced by Semitic?
What gave you that idea?
Evergreen Writes:
It is obvious that at least COMMON AFRO-ASIATIC (CAA)spread into SW Asia before the Neolithic in this region ~ 12,000 ky. This is evidenced by the fact that CAA terms for cultural artefacts such as the sickle diffused from this language into Sumerian. You seem to imply that a language anncestral to both Semitic, Ethio-Semitic, Berber and Egyptian diverged in the Red Sea area and spread both north into SW Asia and south into Ethiopia.
Why is Ethio-Semitic closer linguistically to SW Asian Semitic than Beja if it derived from Beja?
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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It is obvious that at least COMMON AFRO-ASIATIC (CAA)spread into SW Asia before the Neolithic in this region ~ 12,000 ky. This is evidenced by the fact that CAA terms for cultural artefacts such as the sickle diffused from this language into Sumerian.
Proto-Semitic is what went onto the Levant before the Neolithic. Proto-Semitic would have derived from a Proto-Afrasan language, where the CCA terms were picked up.
quote:Evergreen:
You seem to imply that a language anncestral to both Semitic, Ethio-Semitic, Berber and Egyptian diverged in the Red Sea area and spread both north into SW Asia and south into Ethiopia.
Which Red Sea area; and what post of mine gives you this impression?
quote:Evergreen:
Why is Ethio-Semitic closer linguistically to SW Asian Semitic than Beja if it derived from Beja?
What is your source for this bizarre claim?
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quote:Originally posted by Supercar: [QUOTE]Proto-Semitic is what went onto the Levant before the Neolithic. Proto-Semitic would have derived from a Proto-Afrasan language, where the CCA terms were picked up.
Evergreen Writes:
Did Ethio-Semitic derive from this proto-Semitic that made its way into the Levant before the Neolithic?
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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Did Ethio-Semitic derive from this proto-Semitic that made its way into the Levant before the Neolithic?
Yes, it would have derived from this same parent language.
Evergreen Writes:
Do you believe that Ethio-Semitic has greater affinity to SW Asian Semitic or the Beja languages of this Red Sea area from which you claim proto-Semitic derives?
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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Do you believe that Ethio-Semitic has greater affinity to SW Asian Semitic or the Beja languages of this Red Sea area from which you claim proto-Semitic derives?
Where did I make that claim [highlighted]?
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Do you believe that Ethio-Semitic has greater affinity to SW Asian Semitic or the Beja languages of this Red Sea area from which you claim proto-Semitic derives?
Where did I make that claim [highlighted]?
Evergreen Writes:
I assumed that you were aware that the Beja are the indigenous people of the Red Sea area. Were you unaware of this fact?
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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Do you believe that Ethio-Semitic has greater affinity to SW Asian Semitic or the Beja languages of this Red Sea area from which you claim proto-Semitic derives?
Where did I make that claim [highlighted]?
Evergreen Writes:
I assumed that you were aware that the Beja are the indigenous people of the Red Sea area. Were you unaware of this fact?
I can see that this doesn't answer the question you are replying to, but were you unaware of this fact?
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Do you believe that Ethio-Semitic has greater affinity to SW Asian Semitic or the Beja languages of this Red Sea area from which you claim proto-Semitic derives?
Where did I make that claim [highlighted]?
Evergreen Writes:
I assumed that you were aware that the Beja are the indigenous people of the Red Sea area. Were you unaware of this fact?
I can see that this doesn't answer the question you are replying to, but were you unaware of this fact?
Evergreen Writes:
I take it you refuse to answer the question directly. This is wise given the holes in your theory...
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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I take it you refuse to answer the question directly. This is wise given the holes in your theory...
Your claims just keep getting bizarre for every new post, because you show your inability to do a simple thing as reading a post. I asked you to provide a citation of where I made a claim you attributed to me, and you didn't answer. Instead, I'm now the one who refuses to answer the question you didn't or were incapable of answering? LOL.
To prove that I have holes in theorey, you have to demonstrate first that you understand the posts that you purportedly read.
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Note.... This exert is from the text "Amharic Verb Morphology: A Generative Approach" by Lionel Bender and Hailu Fulass. The introduction covers the origins and development of the Ethio-Semitic languages in what was probably the best theory arrived at at the time of publication (1978), and may still be the best so far. The book is also cited as a reference at the Library of Congress web pages on Ethiopia. The origins are given as "possible history", some of the theory will be most surprising if you have not encountered it before. Also note that the national census taken a few years after the publication of this text did show the numbers of people who speak a given language was quite different from estimates made prior to the census. I have omitted section 1.3 which does describe a little more history, but for the most part discusses the degree to which the Ethiopian languages are "Semitic" and means of measurement -this section became overly reliant on phonetic symbology to reproduce well here.
This is copyrighted material. Naturally, you may not redistribute in any form for profit. The authors and reference must be cited in any of your own work that refers to material in this posting. Typos herein are my own, from what I failed to clean up from OCR scans -sorry
AMHARIC VERB MORPHOLOGY: A GENERATIVE APPROACH by Lionel Bender & Hailu Fulass 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Linguistic Setting All but a relative handful of Ethiopians are native speakers of languages of one genetic super-family: Afroasiatic. Updating my BBCF (1976: 16) figures, I estimate the number of speakers of non-Afroasiatic languages to be about 400,000 out of an approximate 1976 total of 28,000,000. Of the more than 98% who are first-speakers of Afroasiatic languages, about 13,000,000 speak Amharic or Tigrinya, two closely-related Semitic languages. Another 9,000,000 speak Oromo or Somali, two related Cushitic languages. These four account for nearly 4/5 of all Ethiopians. The remainder mostly speak demographically smaller Semitic or Cushitic languages, with about 1,500,000 others speaking languages of the Omotic Family. One Omotic language, Welaita (Welamo), with its many local varieties, approaches 1,000,000 speakers. Three Highland East Cushitic languages, Hadiyya, Kembata, and Sidamo, number more than 500,000 speakers each. The eight named languages might be considered the major Ethiopian languages: they account for about 5/6 of the total population, and no other language exceeds 500,000 speakers. Not only are the languages spoken by most Ethiopians genetically related, but (as Ferguson 1970 and 1976 has shown) the phenomenon of diffusion of traits over a large area has resulted in even more sharing of common features than one would expect among languages of three coordinate branches of a super-family. In fact, the Afroasiatic languages of Ethiopia and adjoining countries constitute an impressive example of a language area, clearly set off from surrounding Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Kordofanian languages by the features identified by Ferguson. This phenomenon gives rise to a problem of cause and effect in discussing other-language influence on Amharic, as we shall see in section 1.3 below.
In order to keep the relationship of languages clear in what is to follow, simplified family-tree diagrams will be presented here. Names of languages and groups with Ethiopian representation are underlined.
Semitic Family _______________________|_____________________ | | East Semitic West Semitic (Akkadian) | ____________________________________| | | South Semitic Central Semitic _______|____________ ______|_____ | | | | South Ethio-Semitic Arabo- Aramaic Arabian ------------- Canaanite languages _____|______ | | Arabic Canaanite ------ (Hebrew and Phoenician) [[ Cushitic and Omotic Trees Omitted ]]
1.2 The History of Amharic and Related Languages A brief summary of a possible history of the origin and development of Amharic follows. For more details, see Bender forthcoming and the references therein. In the first three centuries A.D., Semitic-speaking people were building a "South Arabian" (or "North Ethiopian") type of civilization in Eritrea, later centering about Aksum in Tigrai Province. As early as the middle of the fourth century, military expeditions may have reached the area later known as Amhara. By the mid-ninth century, a distinctive Amhara region was recognized. The conquering Semitic-speakers spoke a language which was perhaps only four to seven centuries removed from a common origin with Giiz, the classical language of the Aksum Empire and of Medieval Ethiopian religion and literature. This pre-Amharic may have been as similar to Giiz as Icelandic is to Norwegian, or even more so. But meanwhile an interesting process was taking place among the subjugated peoples. The military forces were drawn from a number of diverse ethnic groups: perhaps largely Agew, but with significant numbers of speakers of other Cushitic and Omotic languages -- they may have had Nilo-Saharan-speaking servants, slaves, and artisans. A lingua franca based on "Cushomotic" syntax (i.e., verb-final) and Semitic lexicon was being used for communication in the ranks and among many of the Agew peasants of Amhara.
This situation may have persisted for centuries, as have similar situations in the Caribbean and elsewhere. In short, a complicated diglossic situation had been created, with the ruling elite speaking a slowly changing Semitic tongue out of old Aksum, the military ranks using a creole based on Semitic (plus use of their own native tongues) and the peasantry using the creole and also Agew. As the Agew slowly began to fuse with their conquerors, and military and Orthodox Christian missionary campaigns extended ever further - west, south, and east, other linguistic groups were added to the creole brew and it was shifting, but ever based on Semitic lexicon and Cushomotic syntax.
An Agew dynasty known as Zagwe came to power after upwards of seven centuries of this diglossic situation. This may have meant a resurgence of Agew speech, but it also meant an acceleration of the process of the creole impinging on the "standard" Semitic language. By the four-teenth century, the standard itself would be as far removed in time from its common origin with Giiz as present-day English is from that of Alfred the Great. It seems that the creole displaced both the "standard" and Agew as the dominant language of the nascent state. This language is now by the accidents of history, a post-creole and the national language of Ethiopia. It is first attested in some fourteenth-century songs praising the kings at that time. The creole nature of the language of these songs has caused great difficulties to scholars, especially if one looks on the language as an orthodox linear ancestor of Amharic, as first suggested by Hailu Fulass.
Meanwhile, according to Hetzron 1972, a sister language to Giiz was diverging into two Northern languages, which unlike Giiz, are still spoken. Tigre was influenced by the Beja of one of the "barbarian" tribes whose onslaughts toppled Aksum. It is now spoken in northwest Eritrea by about 140,000 Muslim agricultural pastoralists. Tigrinya was influenced by the local Agew populations and is now the dominant language in Eritrea and Tigre Provinces, spoken by nearly 4,000,000 persons there and in urban settlements throughout Ethiopia. Tigrinya-speakers are mostly Orthodox Christians, but there is also a sizable number of Muslims (known as Jabarti) who are Tigrinya-speakers. Note that Tigre (actually Tigré a language of extreme northern Eritrea that Tigrai is a province in which Tigrinya (not Tigre) is spoken. In other parts of Ethiopia, Tigrinya-speakers are often called Tigres, after the former name of the province.
When Aksum was under pressure from the Beja and other invaders, he main retreat route was to the south. The southerners passed through Agew-gpeaking territory, and this meant Agew influence on the language also. The picture gets more complicated: a vanguard group went far south and this migration led to the eventual development of most of the "Gurage" languages, with Highland East Cushitic as main "sub-stratum". From an unspecified center further north, at a later date, another group moved southeast and split into two: one section went south and under Sidamo or Somali or other influence, gave rise to Harari and East Gurage languages. The other group remained in touch with the old northern civilization, and inherited it when the' northern empire collapsed. These were the people who brought Semitic speech to the Amhara region, as outlined above. Note that the above outline is quite controversial and that many problems remain to be resolved.
Amharic is spoken as a "mother-tongue" by about 9,000,000 persons. No one has made a scientific estimate of the number of non-native speakers of Amharic (of course the estimate would depend partly on how much competence is required for inclusion). A figure often mentioned is "half the total Ethiopian population": this would mean about 5,000,000 additional speakers. Amharic speakers are mainly Orthodox Christians, but the number of followers of other beliefs is significant, especially among non-native-speakers. As the national language, Amharic is spoken in every province, but the indigenous areas are those radiating out from the old province of Amhara in southwestern Wello to Wello, Begemidir. Gojjam, and into Shewa and Harerge. The question of other language influences on Amharic is the subject of the next section. Regional variation in Amharic is relatively slight b for such a far-flung language (see Hailu et al. 1976). There is a considerable body of literature.
Amharic does have one quite divergent dialect: Argobba. This is probably best considered as a Muslim dialect, spoken by perhaps 1-2,000 people in some villages on and below the eastern edge of the great central Ethiopian escarpment north-east of Addis Ababa. The Argobba community near Harer in eastern Ethiopia seems to have given up the dialect except in some songs, which are no longer well-understood (Sidney Waldron, p.c., 1975). Contrary to earlier reports, Argobba seems to be holding its own in its western area (Stitz 1975).
Gafat may still be spoken by a few old persons in the vicinity of the Blue Nile in southwestern Gojjam Province. Wolf Leslau was able to find four elderly informants in 1947. He places Gafat linguistically closest to some "Gurage" varieties, based on his work with informants and study of documents (Leslau 1945a, 1956).
Harari is spoken by about 15,000 of the Muslim inhabitants of the old walled city of Harer in the highlands of eastern Ethiopia. Harari shows Arabic influence, and as mentioned above, earlier "sub-stratum" influence, especially from Highland East Cushitic. Though Harer is an area of high multilingualism (Amharic, Oromo, Somali, Arabic) Harari is holding its own because of the extreme solidarity of the Harari community (Waldron 1975). There are sizable Harari settlements "outside the walls" in Harer and in other urban centers such as Addis Ababa and Jimma, and the total number of speakers may exceed 30,000. Harari is one of the remnants of a probable East Gurage continuum extending from the present East Gurage area south of Addis Ababa to Harer.
Aside from specific terms such as "North Gurage" and "East Gurage", Hetzron (1972: 6, 126 note 3) argues that Gurage makes sense only as a name for a group of persons speaking several Semitic languages in south-central Ethiopia. Most of these languages are spoken in a compact mountainous area in Shewa Province south of Addis Ababa. According to Hailu Fulass, most of the speakers are bilingual in their Gurage variety and Amharic. Some scholars have argued for a special Gurage link to the northern languages, but this is based on a few striking shared archaisms only (cf. Hetzron1972: 126, note 3) and some rather shaky historical peculation. Certainly the Gurage languages and Amharic) show great phonological deviations from the northern languages and from Semitic in general. The origin of the Gurage communities is an unsettled issue: there is good reason to believe that they are the outgrowth of ancient military colonies from the north, though some reject this (Hudson 1977). Many speakers of Gurage varieties are found in urban centers, especially Addis Ababa. The total number is hard to estimate: a 1976 figure of 1,000,000 may not be unreasonable. Speakers of Chaha and mutually intelligible varieties may exceed 100,000. Gurage peoples are about evenly divided between Orthodox Christian and Muslim, with traditional beliefs also still very much alive.
-------------------- Black Roots. Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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I take it you refuse to answer the question directly. This is wise given the holes in your theory...
Your claims just keep getting bizarre for every new post, because you show your inability to do a simple thing as reading a post. I asked you to provide a citation of where I made a claim you attributed to me, and you don't answer. Instead, I now the one who refuses to answer, the question you didn't answer? LOL.
Evergreen Writes:
Bottom line, your theory is weak. It is highly improbable that proto-Semitic would diverge in the Red Sea area over 14,000 years ago with one branch heading north into the Levant and anothetr branch heading south into the Ethiopian Highlands and then see a closer affinity between Ethio-Semitic and SW Asian Semitic than the other Cushitic languages found in Ethiopia.
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Supercar: ^^Not sure how this Bender post helps you.
Evergreen Writes:
Relax, it is simply a post regarding the topic being discussed. What has "helped" is the fact that your model is full of holes and incoherent.
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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If my theory was weak, you would have had coherent answers to the fact that Beja, Egyptic, and Berber groups are relatively closer to the Semitic languages, than other Afrasan groups. You never had answer to this.
quote:Evergreen:
It is highly improbable that proto-Semitic would diverge in the Red Sea area over 14,000 years ago with one branch heading north into the Levant and anothetr branch heading south into the Ethiopian Highlands and then see a closer affinity between Ethio-Semitic and SW Asian Semitic than the other Cushitic languages found in Ethiopia
Why so? What does the Red Sea area entail to you?
I suppose with your usual reading deficit, you missed the part that Ethio-Semitic language came to have some similarities with South Arabian groups via interactions later on, after the development of Ethio-Semitic languages from the proto-Semitic languages that were already on the continent. If not, show us how Ethio-Semitic language were imported from SW asia, via replica of "agricultural", "pastoral", "tooling" terms, and grammatical structure. It should largely be a replica of South Arabian languages, if it were imported.
Ps - Another fact that escaped you, is that Ethio-Semitic language have heavily been influenced by the Cushitic languages.
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If my theory was weak, you would have had coherent answers to the fact that Beja, Egyptic, and Berber groups are relatively closer to the Semitic languages, than other Afrasan groups. You never had answer to this.
Evergreen Writes:
Of course Egyptian, Beja, Berber and Semitic have greater affinity. This is congruent with the model of a Cushitic language spreading down the Nile during the pre-Holocene. These languages diverged from one another in NE Africa after the high-Nile flood disrupted the culture prevelant in the Kom Ombo basin. This Cushitic tongue diverged into Egyptian in the Upper Egyptian/Lower Nubia area; into Berber in the northern Western Desert area; into Beja along the Red Sea and into Semitic in the Egyptian Delta/Palestine region.
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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If my theory was weak, you would have had coherent answers to the fact that Beja, Egyptic, and Berber groups are relatively closer to the Semitic languages, than other Afrasan groups. You never had answer to this.
Evergreen Writes:
Of course Egyptian, Beja, Berber and Semitic have greater affinity.
Than what, and why?
quote:Evergreen:
This is congruent with the model of a Cushitic language spreading down the Nile during the pre-Holocene.
Egyptic, and Berber languages don't cluster closely with Cushitic [in relative terms, barring overall macro-language family affinities], and even the Beja is "cautiously" placed in the "Cushitic" group as a relatively distant relative. This renders your point about Egyptic, Berber, and Beja languages stemming from "Cushitic", useless. It makes more sense, that these developed from a proto-language that diverged from "proto-Afrasan". And what about the Omotic and Chadic languages branches?
quote:Evergreen:
These languages diverged from one another in NE Africa after the high-Nile flood disrupted the culture prevelant in the Kom Ombo basin.
Which came from which; Semitic from Egyptic, Beja from Egyptic, or Egyptic and Beja from Semitic?
quote:Evergreen:'
This Cushitic tongue diverged into Egyptian in the Upper Egyptian/Lower Nubia area; into Berber in the northern Western Desert area; into Beja along the Red Sea and into Semitic in the Egyptian Delta/Palestine region.
See post above about "Cushitic".
In the meantime...
Two other lessons have particular applicability to Afroasiatic. For one, the northerly Afroasiatic languages (Semitic, Berber, Egyptian) appear together to form just one sub-branch of the family, and if relied upon to the exclusion of the other, deeper, branchings of the family, give a misleading picture of overall Afroasiatic reconstruction. In addition, Afroasiatic is a family of much greater time depth than even most of its students realize; its first divergences trace back probably at least 15,000 years ago, not just 8,000 or 9,000 as many believe. - Ehret: Reflections on Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic: Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary
..and why not add, the seemingly forgotten other excerpts cited on the first page of this topic:
“The Semitic family can also trace their origins from this area in north-eastern Africa. Most modern experts hold the theory that the Semitic precursor-language must have at first existed in a cluster with ancient Egyptian and Berber, before exiting into its unique form. However the timing for these events is quite difficult to discern. The Semitic language-precursor being, for our purposes, the "last" language in formation, was somehow transported into Arabia and further east into central and northern Asia.”
Tonal languages appear in the Omotic, Chadic, and South and East Cushitic branches of Afro-Asiatic, according to Ehret (1996). The Semitic, Berber, and Egyptian branches do not use tones phonemically.Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I think Beja Berber & Egyptic is more closely related to the ethio-semitic than to the Semitic of the Levant as i am a speaker of Beja and have seen much closer affinities between Arabic and Tigre & Tigrinia than Beja is to Arabic.
that Beja, Egyptic, and Berber groups are relatively closer to the Semitic languages, than other Afrasan groups.
To the above statement i would have to agree that Beja Egyptic and Berber are much closer related to the Semitic languages than to the other Afro-Asiatic languages.
-------------------- Hikuptah Al-Masri Posts: 526 | From: Aswan Egypt | Registered: Jun 2006
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Berber is often regarded as equally related to Chadic and Semitic.
I'm sure they are closely related ultimately, given common origins, save for the point that neither Semitic or Berber are tonal languages, as Chadic groups are considered to be. Even those linguists who make that characterization, as stated above, generally agree on this point.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I'm sure they are closely related ultimately, given common origins, save for the point that neither Semitic or Berber are tonal languages, as Chadic groups are considered to be. Even those linguists who make that characterization, as stated above, generally agree on this point.
Given the largely tonal language groups in the Cushitic, Omotic, and Chadic branches vs. Egyptian, Semitic and "Berber" branches, the question that follows, is one which examines whether the proto-Afrasan language from which all the groups ultimately diverged, was generally tonal or otherwise.
I think it is safe to suggest that given the language groups within the Afrasan macro-family are largely tonal vs. the non-tonal, the parent language would have likely been tonal to some degree. But then again, this could simply be the matter of the relatively greater diversification of branches that developed a visibly tonal nature. In this regard, perhaps modal haplotypes might come in handy. Older E3b lineages for example, appear to be more frequent in Afrasan sub-families that are considered to have more tonal languages, i.e. if E3b lineages can to some degree, be considered as correlating with the spread of Afrasan languages.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I take it you refuse to answer the question directly. This is wise given the holes in your theory...
Your claims just keep getting bizarre for every new post, because you show your inability to do a simple thing as reading a post. I asked you to provide a citation of where I made a claim you attributed to me, and you don't answer. Instead, I now the one who refuses to answer, the question you didn't answer? LOL.
Evergreen Writes:
Bottom line, your theory is weak. It is highly improbable that proto-Semitic would diverge in the Red Sea area over 14,000 years ago with one branch heading north into the Levant and anothetr branch heading south into the Ethiopian Highlands and then see a closer affinity between Ethio-Semitic and SW Asian Semitic than the other Cushitic languages found in Ethiopia.
Cushitic diverged from Proto-AA before Semitic. Ethio-Semitic would have been grouped with SW Asian Semitic in the Red Sea Area when Omotic and Cushitic had already split off from the AA branch, then spread into the North Ethiopian area as Semitic spread into SW Asia.
The situation you're proposing involves each farther away branch from the hearth being a newer branch of a closer larger branch. Hence, using your logic, Omotic would be a branch of Cushitic and Berber would be a branch of Egyptian. This is not the case (Omotic split off before Cushitic).
Posts: 1024 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
From Olga Kapeliuk, perhaps worth taking note of...
"The relative verb accompanied by its headnoun, forming a relative clause which functions as the equivalent of an adjective, is the normal construction in the Semitic languages. In Ge‘ez, however, it is the substantivized relative clause, in which the headnoun is missing, that is the most diversified in its function and probably statistically more frequent. These are the correlative clauses. They present some specific morpho-syntactic features; thus the feminine relative pronoun is not encountered in them and the number of the relative pro-noun is consistently accorded with the putative headnoun. In the regular relative clauses the headnoun is a noun or an independent pronoun but also suffixed pronouns and whole sentences may be qualified by a relative clause. Nominal sentences are common as relative or correlative clauses. In case the predicate of the nominal clause is a substantive, a pronoun with copulative function is introduced preventing the confusion between the construction in question and a possessive complex with nota genetivi." - Notes on relative and correlative constructions in Ge‘ez [Vol. 6, 177-191]
"In ancient Ethiopic there is a possibility of using a participle in the accusative for describing the state of a person during the performance of another action, just as in Classical Arabic. However, contrary to Arabic, the Ge'ez participle is a passive one (at least in historical terms) and the use of the accusative case in mandatory. On the other hand, the Ge'ez participle is provided with a "possessive" suffix pronoun which refers to the person whose state is being defined. Also certain (non-substantivized) adjectives, which specifically refer to the state of the body or soul are followed by a suffix pronoun. Suffixation of "possessive" pronouns to real adjectives and non-transitive participles seems to be restricted to the Ethiopian branch of the Semitic languages. The study deals with the function of this suffix pronoun in Ge'ez and with the reflections of the construction in question in the modern Ethio-Semitic languages. Finally, the possibility of comparing this construction with Neo-Aramaic ptix-li is discussed." - A Special Construction of State (haal) in Ethio-Semitic
Pieces from Stuart Munro-Hay, which are instructive imo, given the artifacts date well into the historic period during Ethio-Sabean interactions across the Red Sea:
"The inscriptions dating from this period in Ethiopia are apparently written in two languages,
pure Sabaean and another language with certain aspects found later in Ge`ez (Schneider 1976). All the royal inscriptions are in this second, presumably Ethiopian, language."
"Only the word YG`DYN, man of Yeg`az, might hint that the Ge`ez or Agazyan tribe was established so early..."
"Some of the other apparently tribal names also occur in both groups of inscriptions.
The usual way of referring to someone in the inscriptions is `N. of the family N. of the tribe N.', possibly also reflected later by the Aksumite `Bisi'-title; `king N. man of the tribe/clan (?) N.' (Ch. 7: 5)."
quote:Genetic influences in either regions, for instance in terms of paternal lineages, are largely ancient, though not exclusively. A factor that can result in subsequent frequency of such ancient lineages vs. the relatively younger coalescent counterparts, can be attributed to genetic drift.
From A. Kitchen et al.
Inference of the history of the Semitic language family has long been controversial. In order to address this problem, we have taken an interdisciplinary approach in which genetic and linguistic evolutionary relationships are compared through independent phylogenetic reconstructions of genetic and lexical data.
Our phylogenetic analyses of genetic data (mitochondrial control region DNA sequence from three Semitic-speaking populations) demonstrates that Ethiopic Semitic populations are basal relative to non-African Semitic-speakers. While greater antiquity of African populations relative to non-Africans is not surprising, genetic diversity has never been explicitly compared between African and non-African Semitic-speakers. This result suggests that if Ethiopian Semitic did originate in Arabia, it may have been introduced to Ethiopia in the absence of significant gene flow from a less diverse and evolutionary younger non-African population.Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Doug M the first video u have is in Tigrinia but the Raya Dialect they are very close to the Afars as u can tell by there way of dress. Raya is in NorthEastern Tigray u can see the Afar region from Raya. The second video u have is in the Tigrinia of Eritrea/Tigray but the RAya dialect is no different from the Tigrinia spoken by all Tigrinia speakers in North Ethiopia and Eritrea just the way they speak is a little different but always understood by all the people of Tigray.
Supercar is Beja & Berber related languages i have never heard what berber sounds like but i see Beja having more closer affinites to Tigre & Tigrinia than to any of the languages spoken in Sudan or Egypt were the Beja also live there are no languages in Sudan that have loan words are words taken from Beja. Beja is a very strange lanugage just like Kunama which has no closely related language anywhere. Another the Beja have only mixed with ARabs & people from the HOrn of AFrica as the Tigre of Eritrea are just Habeshi BEja.
-------------------- Hikuptah Al-Masri Posts: 526 | From: Aswan Egypt | Registered: Jun 2006
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From what I can tell, they are indeed closely related; Beja seems to be grammatically more similar to the "Berber" languages than other Cushitic languages. This is understandable if "Berber" and "Beja" diverged from a branch of an already differentiated "Proto-Afrasan" language, with perhaps Beja being the older. Indeed, there might well be something to Sforza's observation that Tuaregs ["Berber" speakers] were least genetically distant to the Beja. The non-tonal languages of Egyptic, 'Berber' and 'Semitic' branches cluster relatively closely in comparison to other Afrasan languages, while they are more grammatically similar to Beja than other groups under the Cushitic sub-family. Omotic, Chadic and Cushitic sub-families largely consist of tonal languages, perhaps exemplifying [possibly older] branches relatively closer to the ancestral proto-Afrasan language. Chadic and Berber may have seen enough inter-influences via interactions of moving populations, to entice some scholars to closely associate them; however, again, Berber languages are considered non-tonal, while Chadic groups are largely considered otherwise. Ethio-Semitic languages too have heavily been influenced by Cushitic languages like say, the Agaw.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Perhaps we should get an expert's opinion. Like inviting Ehret over.(?)
Posts: 26267 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Ehret has already been clear on this issue, even if there are some who refused to see it...
What I see here is that earlier Middle Eastern polytheism is influencing Semitic religion. After all, the early Semites were just a few Africans arriving to find a lot of other people already in the area. So they're going to have to accommodate. Some groups, maybe ones who live in peripheries, in areas with lower population densities, may be able to impose the henotheistic religion they arrived with. - A Conversation with Christopher Ehret
...and you might want to avail yourself of his work in, Reconstructing Proto-Afro-Asiatic (University of California Press, Berkeley, C.A.,1995), which is in line with the viewpoint he expressed above, with regards to the African origins of the Semitic family [via migration of proto-Semites into SW Asia of course].
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Recalling on the "sub-Saharan" cranial affinities of Natufians...
Biological Relations of Egyptians and Eastern Mediterranean Populations during pre-dynastic and Dynastic Times
Journal of Human Evolution 1972 (1) pg 307-313:
“Against this background of disease, movement and pedomorphic reduction off body size one can identify Negroid (Ethiopic or Bushmanoid?) traits of nose and prognathism appearing in Natufian latest hunters (McCown, 1939) and in Anatolian and Macedonian first farmers (Angel, 1972), probably from Nubia via the **predecesors** of the Badarians and Tasians....".
...tells me that the "proto-Semitic" speakers came from deep up the Nile River regions...and they would have likely arrived in the lower portions of the Nile Valley with their proto Afrasan affiliated language.
-------------------- Truth - a liar penetrating device! Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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^I am also curious as to how many points of settlement early Afrasians made to Southwest Asia. The evidence as shown by the Natufians is one in the Levant, is there proof of others in Yemen or other areas of Arabia?
Posts: 26267 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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^I am also curious as to how many points of settlement early Afrasians made to Southwest Asia.
It has been ongoing, and significant during the Upper Paleolithic and in the lead up to the Neolithic period, i.e. with considerable flow of African populations into the Levant and Arabian peninsula via the Nile Valley and across the Red Sea; only now, and since the post dynastic period, it appears to be more in significant from the other direction, with people from Palestine and in some Gulf Arab states moving into northern Egypt than Nile Valley inhabitants settling in the Gulf.
quote:Djehuti:
The evidence as shown by the Natufians is one in the Levant, is there proof of others in Yemen or other areas of Arabia?
Natufians are descendants of African Levantine settlers and in situ populations therein. And of course, there African settlers in SW Asia today. As for Yemen, as an example, there is the Tihama complex, wherein East African presence has been dated to ca. 5 kya.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Natufians are descendants of African Levantine settlers and in situ populations therein. And of course, there African settlers in SW Asia today. As for Yemen, as an example, there is the Tihama complex, wherein East African presence has been dated to ca. 5 kya. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The song is called Gumeysiga Ethiopia, and talks about Ethiopias oppression of Ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden regions inhabeted by Somalis.
Posts: 265 | From: UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Natufians are descendants of African Levantine settlers and in situ populations therein. And of course, there African settlers in SW Asia today. As for Yemen, as an example, there is the Tihama complex, wherein East African presence has been dated to ca. 5 kya.
Please be specific. There are two different points made above; if it is the Natufians, didn't I already discuss them with you in a thread you already created, aside from the basically ad infinitum discussions on these groups? If it is the Tihama complex, didn't you know that such existed?
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What other areas did Africans cross into Western Asia, other than the Levant and Yemen? I've heard that they crossed parts of the Red Sea other than the two mentioned points.
Posts: 26267 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Now everyone thinks that the tea ceremony or coffe ceremony is an "Arab" tradition, but how can it be when the Arabs didnt get coffee until the Ethiopians showed it to them. The first place in the world where coffee grew naturally was Ethiopia. The tea/coffee ceremony of the Arabs is ACTUALLY an Ethiopian tradition and an ancient national pastime of Ethiopia:
Also notice that these coffee ceremonies feature women dressed in traditional attires, usually white dresses with colored fringes, almost exact replicas of the dresses women wore in ancient Egypt.
Posts: 8896 | Registered: May 2005
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Doug all arabs and even Sudanese & Beja know that the Coffee and Tea tradition came from Ethiopia. The Beja drink coffee just like Habshi and its a very important part of there lives.
-------------------- Hikuptah Al-Masri Posts: 526 | From: Aswan Egypt | Registered: Jun 2006
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^All the above said as well as what Supercar stated:
quote:Originally posted by Supercar: Interesting thing is that the East African presence in SW Asia, as it pertains to archeology, seem to be older than anything vice versa.
..And it makes you wonder how people could ever claim the opposite and try to make East and Northeast Africa a part of Southwest Asia when it should be the other way around!
Posts: 26267 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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..And it makes you wonder how people could ever claim the opposite and try to make East and Northeast Africa a part of Southwest Asia when it should be the other way around!
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