Talk:Proto-Afroasiatic language

Improvements
Thoughts for improvement of this article: This is a new article, but it does need a lot of attention to get to an acceptable standard. I post this here to give some thoughts to other editors as well. --Gareth Hughes 17:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Proto-Afro-Asiatic is not solid ground, so the entire article should reflect this.
 * 2) The article should engage thoughtfully with the Afro-Asiatic languages.
 * 3) The article currently mentions Nostratic in almost every paragraph. The relationship with such a widely-rejected hypothesis should not be so pervasive. Discussion of Nostratic should be limited to one lower section of the article.
 * 4) The article needs sections, sources and references, and to be formatted correctly.
 * As far as I know, the Afro-Asiatic family is widely accepted among linguists. Nostratic, on the other hand, is still very controversial, as you said. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.246.140.247 (talk) 06:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Gareth

I have substancially edited parts of the Proto-Afro-Asiatic page to take into account your difficulties (above). Unfortunately as a new user I have difficulty understaning how to use the sources and referencing format used by Wikipedia and would appreciate any help you can give.

Warm regards

John Croft

Alternative Theories?
As far as I know, there's no doubt about the Homeland of Proto-Afro-Asiatic with regards to whether it is in the Middle East or Africa (it is most certainly the latter). The article needs to reflect this and focus more on the characteristics of Proto-Afro-Asiatic as a language and perhaps more specifically where in Africa (probably NE, maybe in the Sahara as well) it originated, with alternative theories (like all the Nostraic & Middle Eastern stuff) relegated to a few paragraphs at the end of the article.

Yom 18:42, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * "Evidence of Cushitic being formerly spoken in the south of Arabia also speaks for a Middle Eastern origin, but some proposals also claim Northern Africa or the Horn of Africa.[6][7]" Not it doesn't. When East, South and Central Cushitic are all spoken in East Africa, and other Afro-Asiatic language families are also in East Africa/Nile Valley, like Omotic, Beja and Ancient Egyptian, the fact that Cushitic is also spoken in neighboring South Arabia does not "speak for a Middle Eastern origin,". 83.84.100.133 (talk)

Why no linguistics?
The majority of this article is about the Proto-Afro-Asiatic homeland. It is not about the form of the language as reconstructed. Shouldn't the latter be the primary topic? 82.33.152.5 20:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree there is no linguistics on the whole page. This article needs to be rewritten. Azalea pomp 18:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Getting to work
I have changed a big part of the article today, based on work I was also doing on the Origins section of the Afro-Asiatic article, which was a better starting point. This article is still very poorly sourced and structured, but I believe this new skeleton will allow us to build something better. To those whose material I have removed, sorry, but if you can source it properly and fit it into a flow of discussion then why not try to fit it back in?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:09, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Update on latest edits: and question of genetics
When I started working here, this article's main section actually says less about Afro-Asiatic origins than the Afro-Asiatic article. So I have started out on the latter page, and just transferred the results to here. Obviously however, if this current article is to continue existing it should be more detailed. There are many facets of discussion which could be expanded.

It is time to have a separate consideration of this supposedly more specialized page.

One subject that has been proposed by User:Wapondaponda is genetics. This has been objected to on the Afro-Asiatic article, but maybe it would fit discussion here?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:05, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It has even less relevance here than on the Afro-Asiatic page. This page is about the phonology and grammar of the reconstructed proto-language.  Genetics has absolutely zero relevance to this article.  Indeed, the Urheimat discussion isn't even as relevant here as it is on the other page.  (Taivo (talk) 11:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC))


 * Can you explain the basis of your announcement that this article must be limited to discussion of phonology and grammar? BTW it is not currently limited to such discussions. Will you be consistent and delete everything about proposed homelands? And shouldn't you really re-name the article so that the limiting of the subject matter is clear? Just my opinion but your comment could be resolved by splitting this article into two new ones, one about the language itself, and one about the homeland question (which is of course not a purely linguistic question). However, is there enough to be written about both these related subject in order to justify such a split?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Look at the Proto-Indo-European language page. The Urheimat question is briefly discussed there, but the majority of the page is about the phonology, grammar, and historical development of the proto-language.  This article needs no further discussion of Urheimat, but much more discussion on what has been reconstructed.  (Taivo (talk) 11:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC))


 * I am sorry but that is not an argument, and indeed you are now being inconsistent. You now apparently admit that the article can be about more than phonology and grammar, but how do we then decide where to draw the line? One editor proclaiming a commandment is not likely to get us to a better article. And please explain where discussion of the Urheimat theories should go? Or do you say they should not be on Wikipedia at all?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:57, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a separate article for Indo-European Urheimat theories. The theories of Afro-Asiatic's homeland are varied enough to warrant such an article.  But this article isn't the place for details of the Urheimat (other than the outline already there), and especially not for the genetics issue.  (Taivo (talk) 12:04, 19 July 2009 (UTC))


 * Others should perhaps also comment. There is also a proposal to change name of this article so no need to rush on actually splitting up the article. Taivo, can I suggest that while splitting the article is being discussed it is better to reinsert the information that might soon be moved off to a new article?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:17, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I will oppose any mention of irrelevant genetics in this article. Genetics has no place in a discussion of language.  (Taivo (talk) 12:43, 19 July 2009 (UTC))


 * Your personal opinion is fine by me, but of course Ehret did raise genetics as part of his discussion of Proto Afro Asiatic's homeland, and discussion of that homeland is currently in THIS article. Is Ehret a person important in this subject or not?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:45, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not my "personal opinion", but the opinion of the vast majority of historical linguists. Ehret's quoted comment (either here or at Talk:Afro-Asiatic languages is very, very careful in its wording.  He very clearly does not equate the presence of X gene with a speaker of Afro-Asiatic.  Indeed, he doesn't use genetics as the foundation of his argument at all.  He merely says, "Here is my appraisal of where Proto-Afro-Asiatic was spoken.  It happens to coincide with the presence of X gene."  Don't read more into that comment than what is there.  He doesn't even say that "the presence of X gene proves the homeland of Proto-Afro-Asiatic".  Bender downplays the value of genetics in historical linguistics over the course of a couple of pages in The Nilo-Saharan Languages.  You're just not going to find historical linguists using genetics to make any of their arguments.  So write a new article, but don't include that information here.  (Taivo (talk) 12:51, 19 July 2009 (UTC))

If reliable sources include theories on genetics, then there is no reason not to include them. Wapondaponda (talk) 13:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * We seem to be talking past each other. It seems you are not going to be nice about helping me do this split nicely, so I shall do it quickly, and I hope no one objects to me doing it after only one Wikipedian demanded it. Nothing you mention is relevant to the question at hand which is concerning a Wikipedia article. Because an opinion is unpopular does not make un-notable, and anyway this is basically a simple administrative question of waiting while we finish discussion about splitting the article (assuming no one objects to your proposal).
 * Your comments about Ehret are curious because over on the Afro-Asiatic talk page you did not seem to have read the letter. Nothing you write above seems to show you have any knowledge of it. Here is what Ehret wrote:


 * So hopefully you'll not keep flogging the dead horse over on the new article. It is not important whether this is the "foundation" of his argument. The point is that it is given a significant position in his argument. Removing all mention of this from Wikipedia would not be according to neutrality policies.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:12, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I looked at the suggested example of Indo European articles, and I notice it is subject to a merger proposal, and has therefore been controversial. It would have been nice to hear some real argument about why the articles need to be kept in such small distinct units like Taivo is demanding. It is not like Taivo is out there filling the articles with too much material to be contained in one article? Taivo, could I ask you to look over WP:SPLIT and present your case in the terms of Wikipedia policy explained there? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:16, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I want to point, now that I consider this further and how it might work, that one result that would be clearly against Wikipedia policy, would be to have different articles containing different sets of theories about the Urheimat. For example if this article about Proto Afro Asiatic continues to contain a SUB-set of theories, being only the ones proposed by linguists, then it would be a WP:FORK. How do we avoid that?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:36, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Why is this article named "Proto-Afro-Asiatic" anyway, and not "Proto-Afro-Asiatic language"? That's only bound to invite extraneous content. Considering what the article currently looks like, this would make a good base for a homeland article actually; there's so little on actual linguistics.
 * Anyway, linguistic arguments and genetic arguments have no definit connection. Why should they share an article any more than, say, archeological arguments? If a separate article isn't coming on one of these, the content should obviously be merged to the main family article, not one of the articles on other topics. -- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 14:31, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I think this is a straightforward practical question for which Wikipedia has policies. One aspect of discussion about of Proto Afro Asiatic, is WHERE and WHEN it was spoken, and this so called Urheimat aspect is never discussed in a purely linguistic way. So we can choose to split discussion into several articles or we can have one article with several sections. Can people please explain their positions on this simple basis, with reference to Wikipedia policy on splitting articles?
 * My own position, after starting to try to do a split as per the demand of Taivo, is that a split will be problematic in this case, and will create articles that might end up being stubs or POV:forks. One key issue is that in all discussion about Proto-Afro-Asiatic there is a lot of debate about whether the reconstructions are being tailored to fit a personal theory about when and where the homeland was (e.g. in the cases of Militarev and Ehret). A split also does not get around the problem of needing an agreement about what to do concerning Bernal. He is an issue that needs handling. Making a special article where only homeland discussions written by linguists are mentioned would be a definite no-no (WP:FORK).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:42, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The article Proto-Indo-European_Urheimat_hypotheses does have a genetics section, I see no reason why we shouldn't incorporate one here as well. Wapondaponda (talk) 14:45, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Wait a bit please. First I think we should decide what the name of this present article is going to be, and whether it needs to be split. Of course whichever article will contain discussion of the Urheimat should be able to discuss genetics evidence I suppose, as well as archaeological etc. I can't imagine anyone would oppose that?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:48, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Then that is simple, we can have Proto-Afro-Asiatic language and Proto-Afro-Asiatic Urheimat, in a manner that parallels Proto-Indo-European. Wapondaponda (talk) 14:56, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I won't stop you, but I do want to point out that if this leads to parallel "linguists only" Urheimat sections in either this article or else the Afro-Asiatic article then the new article would effectively be facilitating the creation of a POV fork. No Urheimat sections should be included anywhere on Wikipedia which obey this silly demand not to mention the input of non linguists into serious academic debate.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:27, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * If you notice the Urheimat article for Indo-European, you will see that there is some genetics and archeology discussion. This is an appropriate place for such things.  But language does not equal culture or biology.  This is a common fallacy among non-linguists.  Language is like arrowheads and house styles--they can change without a change of biology and can cross genetic boundaries.  I read your paper and can tell that you are a capable geneticist apparently, but are not a linguist.  Only linguistic evidence is relevant for an article on Proto-X language.  (This article should be called "Proto-Afro-Asiatic language".)  (Taivo (talk) 17:05, 19 July 2009 (UTC))

Perhaps we are coming to a plan everyone can agree with. I have absolutely no problem renaming this article and/or splitting out the Urheimat discussion, which was all I was working on, given that it was in a very poor state when I arrived. BUT I will object (unless someone convinces me I am wrong) to any attempt to maintain a POV fork "linguists only version" of the Urheimat article within any other article. Summaries of the Urheimat material, if deemed appropriate, could of course be included in any relevant articles, but it should not be in a biased "linguists only" form. Urheimat discussion can not be "linguists only". I do hope we do not end up with two stubs and lots of merge proposals, but that would be less silly than having parallel forks.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:26, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The easy bit is done. All materials not related to phonology and grammar moved to a new article. This article now looks like a stub, and so it will presumably need to either now be merged back into Afro-Asiatic, or else some short remarks can be inserted to fill the article up, about whatever "phonology and grammar" the article's linguistics experts think is allowed, but I repeat that any attempt to turn it into a parallel article about what only SOME authors think about the Urheimat (which is not a purely linguistic field) will not be according to clear Wikipedia guidelines. See WP:FORK.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * What about moving this page to "language" and leaving this as a disambiguation page. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * This article should be renamed "Proto-Afro-Asiatic language" to be consistent with other reconstructed languages (like Proto-Indo-European). (Taivo (talk) 08:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC))


 * I think everyone agrees on this. I'm not sure Ill have time so if someone else wants to do the honours...--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:55, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Merge
this article appears to have no content other than a table of phonemes. Until there is any material to add, it should just be merged into the Afro-Asiatic languages article. --dab (𒁳) 13:29, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems to me that there is so much which could be written in this article that it would be a shame to have to merge it back. Mo-Al (talk) 17:30, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a lot that can be added still and it shouldn't be merged. Azalea pomp (talk) 21:58, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Should it be merged until someone has the time to create a proper article? I am not taking a position on this but just mentioning one possible line of action.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Bi and tri consontantal roots
I am not the linguistics expert but in what I have read there seems to be some discussion, albeit controversial, about roots which had 3 versus 2 consonants. If this is important in the literature why is not mentioned in any Wikipedia articles?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Numbers
Have there been any attempts to reconstruct the words for numbers in Proto-Afroasiatic?

If there have, which numbers are the most certain, and which most difficult to determine? Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 22:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I just happened to have a close look at the numbers (up to ten only, even) in various Afro-Asiatic branches and there are no resemblances at all (with the possible exception of "two" in the northern branches), once you weed out the obvious loans from Semitic (Arabic and Ethiopian Semitic) in some branches. Even the Eastern Cushitic branches have totally different words, so you couldn't even reconstruct a proto-Eastern-Cushitic number set. The Chadic languages are an even bigger mess. Loans from various other African language probably complicate the picture additionally, and quite considerably so. So, basically, zero probability to find something to reconstruct.
 * Why should this be so? Don't forget that Afro-Asiatic is an extremely large and, most importantly, extremely old language family. Speakers of a proto-Afro-Asiatic language at the time of its disintegration must still have been nomadic foragers (as the modern speakers of Omotic still are) and the development of agriculture as well as pastoral nomadism was still many millennia in the future. Primitive hunter-gatherers usually have no fixed set of numbers available in their languages. They count using various other means. Therefore, sets of numbers never reconstruct far into the past, especially not higher numbers, even if other parts of the language might. The speakers of proto-Indo-European, proto-Semitic and proto-Austronesian practiced sophisticated agriculture or animal husbandry, so they did have need for advanced counting methods involving conventionalised sets of numbers, but we're talking about a period of time 5000–6000 years into the past, which isn't that much in terms of human prehistory, and the Chalcolithic of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, or Southern China respectively. In earlier times, or even in the same period in other parts of the world that were less advanced in terms of agriculture, proto-languages cannot be expected to have reconstructible number sets – it's not a failure of the comparative method, but a cultural circumstance. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:28, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Looking at the proto-Berber reconstructions of the low numbers in Guanche language, however, I have to admit that most of those do resemble the proto-Semitic reconstructions quite strikingly, and surprisingly few display no resemblance. Nor are, however, the resemblances close enough to conclude that they could be borrowings (which is also geographically unlikely because Semitic did not border proto-Berber, being separated from it by Egypt), so they seem indeed to be cognates. Contrast Guanche arba and kansa, which look like genuine borrowings from Arabic. So at least Semitic and Berber seem to have separated after developping a number set below 10. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:38, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Alternatively, however, the numerals could be borrowings from Phoenician (they don't resemble Phoenician), though, which would considerably complicate things. I don't even have any idea about the time-depth of Berber - if proto-Berber didn't break up until the Arabic conquest of North Africa, it cannot even be excluded that the numerals are early borrowings from Arabic (although you'd expect Arabic borrowings to look different). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:33, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I added a section about numbers. Florian, I completely agree with what you say.--Schreiber91 (talk) 23:55, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Empty boxes
Most of the boxes on the left have no consonants or letters of any sort in them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.254.83 (talk) 13:35, 15 May 2010 (UTC) At the moment, there is no box for vowels, although Ehret claims to have considered them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.254.83 (talk) 14:08, 15 May 2010 (UTC) There is no box for tones, also studied by the same Ehret. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.254.83 (talk) 14:10, 15 May 2010 (UTC) There are no tones in Berber languages, making it hard to study them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.41.51.240 (talk) 12:21, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Recent
The Berber numerals for Tamazight for 6 and 7 are quoted on the assumption that they are old. They seem to be recent borrowings from Arabic. If so, they have no significance for ancient times. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.75.172 (talk) 13:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Use of self-published works by Bomhard
The article currently uses self-published works by Allan Bomhard, a proponent of the fringe Nostratic hypothesis, to discuss the phonology of Proto-AA. This has two problems: This last point is also the case when we give proposed consonant correspondences between the languages.
 * 1) Bomhard and his self-published works are not cited by other scholars working on Afroasiatic. If he is cited, it is usually to say that most Afroasiaticists reject the Nostratic theory;
 * 2) Using one scholar gives the misleading impression that there is some kind of consensus on Proto-AA phonology.

In short: Bomhard should be removed and replaced with the (incompatible) reconstructions of both Ehret and Orel/Stolbova. Those two should probably supplement the correspondences given from Dolgopolsky as well, if we even want to keep that information - Ratcliffe does give a set of consonants where Ehret and Orel/Stolbova agree and that would probably be a better basis for showing correspondences.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:28, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll also note that even for Semitic and Egyptian, the two earliest attested branches, there are two very divergent proposed sets of consonant correspondences, the "traditional" set (championed today by Gabor Takacs) and the "neuere Komparativistik" proposed by Rössler and especially popular in Germany. If there isn't even agreement here, then correspondences for the whole language family are obviously going to be a problem.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:54, 10 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Agree While I don't think that Bomhard's reconstruction looks egregiously off the mark (it's typologically neat and elegant), it is clearly made to "fit" what he considers top-down evidence, since he considers Proto-Afroasiatic a descendant of Proto-Nostratic. This, together with the fact that his reconstruction is self-published and apparently not cited in the specialist literature about AA, makes its inclusion here undue. –Austronesier (talk) 18:01, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
 * What do you think about keeping the consonant correspondences by Dolgopolsky? I haven't seen his reconstruction referenced elsewhere. I'd like to replace both the phonology and consonant correspondences sections with something like I have in my sandbox at present, since it's impossible to separate the reconstruction from the correspondences.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:11, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, Dolgopolsky (1998) is cited by Bomhard, but then, we should also have citations outside of the Nostratic bubble. I'll have a look at what you have in your sandbox so far. –Austronesier (talk) 11:29, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I hadn't realized he was also a Nostraticist. His book is cited 39 times on Google scholar, not an insignificant number. But compare that to 290 for Ehret and 289 for Orel and Stolbova. Moreover, it looks to me like most people citing Dolgopolsky are Nostratic-curious if not Nostraticists themselves. All these sources, however, are dwarfed on the Semitic languages by Lipinski's Comparative Grammar, with 705 cites (but not sound correspondences). So I'd say that Dolgopolsky is a marginal figure in Semitic studies even if he's managed to get cited 39 times.
 * Actually, the Russian "Moscow school" is pretty involved in AA studies, so I guess that's not surprising. Still, the most widely discussed correspondences clearly come from the two etymological dictionaries. The only other comparable undertaking would be Gabor Takacs's proposals, which are not really systematicized for the whole branch though, just Egyptian and Semitic (you could probably comb through the millions of articles he's published to find other correspondences if you wanted, but he doesn't lay them out anywhere and his reconstructions and sound correspondences haven't been received any better than the other two).--Ermenrich (talk) 15:08, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm going to go ahead and make the switch since no one seems to object. I'll make other improvements as well as time goes on.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:57, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Outstanding overview of the current perspectives on Proto-Afroasiatic. I don’t know who and where objects and proposes on Wikipedia, since I only manage Wiktionary, but I reckon that praise is apt anywhere. 2023 is the year where things have went better, even if scaring away people from overconfident projections. Fay Freak (talk) 09:10, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you !—-Ermenrich (talk) 12:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Relying on self-published works is a problem, but much of Bomhard's views on PAA can be found in his peer-reviewed works as well, in particular his two-volume monograph Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic (Brill, 2008). His self-published A Comprehensive Introduction to Nostratic Linguistics (going on 5 editions so far) is extended from this, mostly by longer indices and some additional etymologies, and his Afrasian Comparative Phonology and Vocabulary then seems to be basically edited down from that by removing anything non-Afrasian. So you'll find almost all of its content from the Brill book as well — and thus I'd recommend still covering his views as well. Really he seems rather more diligent than Dolgopolsky or Ehret in acknowledging existing research. I would not obsess over citation counts when really PAA reconstruction is already itself a "fringe topic" (personally I find most work on it not very impressive but that's a story for a review paper someday). -- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 10:47, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
 * On a brief re-reading I think he's not adding much of his own into the basic outline of reconstruction though, he is mostly in line with O&S except for a proposal that there's a common innovation palatalizing *k *g *kʼ into (O&S's) *tʃ *dʒ *tʃʼ in Semitic+Egyptian+Berber, when before original *i or *u. Very buried in his data though and would probably require closer review by someone else. Several examples are restricted to these three and seem to actually have an original velar reconstructed rather from alleged Nostratic cognates. -- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 12:40, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Reference error
@Ermenrich, could you double-check the footnotes to Frajzyngier & Shay (2010), added first here, and either correct them or add the details of the missing source? Thanks, Wham2001 (talk) 11:04, 1 July 2023 (UTC)


 * , sorry about that, I’ve corrected the year to 2012. I’m still getting an error for one instance, but it could be because I’m on my phone- I’ll have another look on the computer later.—Ermenrich (talk) 11:42, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! The remaining error was a typo, which I've fixed along with two more sfns – when you're back to your computer could you check my work?  The diff is here.  Thanks again   Wham2001 (talk) 11:45, 1 July 2023 (UTC)