[Piotr to Gerry]:
<<As for the dating and placing of Proto-Afroasiatic, opinions vary. J. Nichols
(1998) maintains it is 12000 years old, but most specialists propose less
ambitious dates. As Proto-Semitic seems to date back to the fifth millennium BC
or thereabouts (Akkadian was already spoken in Mesopotamia about 3000 BC), and
Old Egyptian certainly existed well before 3000 BC, Proto-Afroasiatic must be
substantially older. I trust that Alexander will know something about the
archaeological cultures which could be associated with Proto-Afroasiatic or
Proto-Semitic speakers.>>
[Alexander]:
There are 2 main poins of view on the place of the Proto-Afroasiatic origin:
1) Somewhere in North Africa (the general argument: 4 of 5 groups of the
Afroasiatic linguistic family live only in Africa, a part of the 5th
group -Semitic - also lives there);
2) Somewhere in the Near East (the general argument: only this can explain very
early contacts - kindred or areal - of Proto-Afroasiatic with
Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Kartvelian, Proto-Uralic, Proto-Altaic and
Proto-Dravidian - irrespective of one's belief or disbelief in the Nostratic
theory).
You can guess I share the second point of view. If so we can take the appearence
of the cultures which definitely migrated from Asia in North Africa as a sign of
Proto-Afroasiatic splitting. Such cultures can be surely distinguished from
native African cultures due to such marks as goats, sheep, wheat and barley. It
is commonly accepted by archaeologists that the species mentioned were
domesticated in Asia (sheep has no wild progenitor in Africa at all). The
earliest sites of such kind in NE Africa I know are Haua Fteah in Cyrenaica
(5650 BC) and Faiyum oasis (5300 BC). So we obtain the 6th millenium BC (or some
earlier) as an estimation of the Afroasiatic disintegration. Theoretically these
cultures could be non-Afroasiatic but I find the probability of this rather low.
There must be several vawes of different Afroasiatic groups to form 4 ancient
branches in Africa and probably Pre-Egyptians were the last among them. The
Badarian culture in Upper Egypt (Egyptian predynastic cultural phase) developed
about 4000 BC and its direct predecessor - the Tasian culture - is known since
4500 BC.
However if one believes in the African origin of Proto-Afroasiatic all I wrote
above doesn't have sense for him/her.
<<As for *nüs-, I can only cite Allan Bomhard's (1999) opinion that "the meaning
'woman' appears to be secondary". Bomhard is a well-known American Nostraticist,
so if he questions the equation with PIE *snuso-, it isn't because of any
anti-Nostratic prejudices. Orël & Stolbova have some other PA 'woman' terms as
wel, e.g. *süt- 'adult woman; woman of high social status'. I know really too
little about Afroasiatic to assess their evidence and comment on the
reconstructed forms.
[Piotr to] Alexander:
Are you by any chance related to Olga Stolbova, the co-author of the Afroasiatic
etymological dictionary?>>
[Alexander]:
I don't know her. I think we are not relatives, but I should ask my father to be
sure.