Hey, John,
Listen, relating genetics and language origins together, especially in a
general sense such as this is purely coocoo. Genetics will always be
genetics, and language will not be. It remains simple fact that we aren't
genetically programmed to speak one language or another. Always remember the
English-speaking Mexicans, my friend, yes, never forget the English-speaking
Mexicans...
Caveat pensator.
John:
>I would refer you here to Greenberg who showed of the six families of
>the Afro-Asoiatic language, five of the six (comprising some 220
>languages) are confined to Africa. This strongly suggests an African
>origin).
It doesn't strongly suggest an African origin at all. It could mean that the
four or five of the branches moved into Africa early on. Let's see, if I
remember, there is Chadic, Cushitic, Semitic, Egyptian, Berber and Omotic.
May I offer a hazard as to a possibility?
Couldn't Omotic, Chadic, Berber and Cushitic be more closely related to each
other than to Egyptian or Semitic? If so, these four branches would be
settled in Africa already as one large dialect, whereas an Egypto-Semitic
would be settled in the MiddleEast.
Thus early on, AfroAsiatic would have had its foot on both continents.
As time goes on, the four African branches spread out and divide, whereas
Egyptian splits into Egypt over already established African-based AA
languages where it develops seperately from Semitic through substratum
influence and thus looks like a seperate "branch" to most linguists with its
own querky hodge-podge features. Isn't that a pretty explanation? Thus, AA
in all would come from the Middle-East, not Africa, and ultimately from the
Middle-Eastern Nostratic.
Another puzzle solved, the Glen way.
-gLeN
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