Re: Afro-Asiatic

John:

>Why could not proto-Nostratic have orginally been an
>African family that moved north into the steppe in the period from
>15,000 to 8,500 BCE?

Hmm, interesting proposal. It would mean that Kartvelian and Eurasiatic are
seperate from AfroAsiatic which would have developed in situ. Based on my
linguistic explanation of a three-branched Nostratic - this doesn't quite
work unless Eurasiatic and Kartvelian developed in Africa too - quite
unlikely. At the very least, Nostratic must be situated near the mouth of
Africa to Eurasia, negating your hypothesis.

It would also mean that the lower NigerK was attempting to "get out" too.
What about NigerK? And why are there these similarities in NigerK languages
with Burushaski, as I had stated prior? A belt from the Burushaski homeland
to the mouth of Africa would set up a bed for eventual dialects like NigerK
(west), Nostratic (central), and BuruYen (east). The position for Nostratic
is justified based on language dispersal in the last 25,000 years.

>The Middle East remains the homeland of Nostratic only if you >continue to
>adhere to a Middle Eastern origin of Afro-Asiatic. If >Afro-Asiatic had an
>African homeland (which on genetic, cultural and >even linguistic evidence
>is a possibility) Africa would be the >origin of the Nostratics, not the
>Middle East.

But this is simply not the case on linguistical grounds.

Glen (ME):

>[...] the Middle East are not obstructed from each other and I can't
>see why it's not possible for language to have spread into Africa >despite
>any population movement.

John:

>True, from what I understand, the Egyptian language has a non-Semitic
>substratum, with later additions of Semitic loan words that probably
>did come across the Sinai at different periods. But the substratum
>language shows no Asiatic links and is totally African.

Then Egyptian developed in Africa along with Berber, Cushitic, Chadic and
Omotic with Semitic laying outside in the Middle East. However, back to the
Ice Age again, if people were trying to get out of Africa as you say for a
warmer climate (and more resources), then they would have been needy people
- perfect for trade! As such, any language outside of Africa amongst more
resources would be a valuable language to learn, n'est-ce pas? Could it be
that AfroAsiatic was there at the right time?

Glen (ME):

>Of course, AA's movement into Africa would have happened after the
>last ice age and one wonders how much population existed at the time
> >anyway - anyone have answers?

John:

>Yes, population demographics indicates that at about 10,000 BCE we >are
>talking of a total planetary population of about 10 million >people world
>wide.

Making language displacement easier than ever because there are less people
to "convert".

>But Glen, if Afro-Asiatic is one of the first (if not the first) to
>split from the Nostratic core, then we have a destinct movement >north -
>from Africa, through the middle east, onto the Eurasiatic >steppe lands.
>This movement accords well with archaeology as it is >understood in the
>period from 15,000 to about 8,500 BCE (the period >in which you yourself
>propose a split of the Nostratic languages).

It only works if we... gulp... propose that Omotic, Chadic, Berber and
Egyptian are seperate with the rest of Nostratic (including Semitic) having
migrated outside. Semitic develops to the south of the dialect area with
Kartvelian and Eurasiatic to the north - making the northern dialects
"innovative" (the use of *mu instead of *nu for first person; the use of
only *tu in Eurasiatic for second person and loss of *ku; Eurasiatic
converts ejectives to tense stops). In this scenario, we should expect
Omotic, Chadic, Berber and Egyptian to contain the most archaic features of
Nostratic, perhaps even more so than Semitic...

Hmm, this idea has somewhat of an "alien conspiracy" feel though. The Middle
East hypothesis is less messy. I will consider this African hypothesis some
more. Thanks John.

- gLeN

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