Re: IE, Uralic, SinoTibetan and incompetent sources

From: John Croft
Message: 1213
Date: 2000-01-28

Glen wrote in reply to my
> >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.

Glen even if this reconstruction is correct (and I suspect that there
is as much if not more divergence between the African families and
Semitic), one has the problem as to when the Afro-Asiatic language
group entered Africa, and by what routes. Interested in your
explanations.

Regards

John