Asia or Africa? Locating the Afrasian Homeland

 
Код статьиS086954150016797-6-1
DOI10.31857/S086954150016797-6
Тип публикации Статья
Статус публикации Опубликовано
Авторы
Аффилиация: Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences
Адрес: Russian Federation, St. Petersburg
Название журналаЭтнографическое обозрение
Выпуск№4
Страницы253-266
Аннотация

To test the competing theories of the Afrasian homeland, the matrix of pairwise lexical matches between 58 Afrasian languages based on short (50-item) wordlists from The Tower of Babel: The Global Lexicostatistical Database, compiled by G.S. Starostin, A.S. Kassian, and M.A. Zhivlov, was subjected to several multivariate analyses. Rooted and unrooted networks were constructed, and the quasi-spatial model, which had rarely been used in lexicostatistics, was applied. A gradual relaxation of requirements to classification (from a rooted to an unrooted network, and from a hierarchical to a non-hierarchical ordering) reveals a southern cluster consisting of two families – Cushitic and Omotic. Under a more stringent approach there is no such cluster because Omotic proves the earliest branch of Afrasian, strengthening the African homeland theory. However, a comparison with dental, archaeological, and population genetic data tilts the balance somewhat in favor of Alexander Militarev’s Natufian scenario. At the next stage, his own materials, based on 100-item lists will be subjected to the same analyses.

Ключевые словаLexicostatistics, Afrasian languages, Semitic languages, Middle Egyptian, Berber languages, Chadic languages, Cushitic languages, Omotic languages, dental anthropology, archaeology, population genetics
Источник финансированияThis article is a translation of: Козинцев А.Г. Азия или Африка? О локализации афразийской прародины // Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie. 2021. No 4. P. 24–41. DOI: 10.31857/S086954150016696-5
Получено22.09.2021
Дата публикации28.09.2021
Кол-во символов33943
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1 Afrasian classification: which model should be preferred?
2 The discussion about the location of the Afrasian (AA) homeland does not subside, and the balance of forces shifts now in favor of Western Asia, now in favor of Africa. The most influential proponent of the first point of view is A. Y. Militarev. In his opinion, Proto-Afrasian (PAA) was spoken by people associated with the Natufian culture of the Levant1. After the disintegration of PAA in the 11th–10th millennia BC, the Proto-Cushito-Omotes migrated to Africa. Afrasians who had remained in the Levant and created the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A there became the ancestors of the Semites, and those of them who had later migrated to Africa became speakers of languages of the Egyptian-Berber-Chadic branch (Militarev, Shnirelman 1984; Militarev 2002). This point of view was supported by V. Blažek (Blažek 2013a, 2013b) and P. Bellwood (Bellwood 2013: 111, 171–172). One of the important arguments in favor of the Western Asian theory is based on the Eurasian (Nostratic) ties of the AA macrofamily, which some linguists even included in the Nostratic group (Illich-Svitych 1971: 46-52; Dolgopolsky 2013: 49-63; Bomhardt 2018: 169-210). Other arguments are parallels of Afrasian (non-Semitic) languages with Sumerian (Militarev 1995), Elamite (Blažek 1999; Starostin 2002) and North Caucasian languages (Militarev, Starostin 1984). 1. The archaeological part of this hypothesis was elaborated under the participation of V. А. Schnirelmann.
3 An active advocate of the African homeland theory is C. Ehret. He ascribes a considerable ideological significance to this idea, since, in his opinion, it forces us to discard the long-standing prejudice that the ancient history of North Africa was only a reflection of the history of Western Asia. Ehret estimates the antiquity of the AA macrofamily at 15 thousand years, and places its homeland in the Horn of Africa. Proto-Semitic, according to Ehret, was its late northern branch (Ehret 2011: 16, 136, 139-140, 155-158). Indeed, as new glottochronological calculations show, it separated no earlier than late 6th millennium BC (Militarev 2005; Kitchen et al. 2009)2, which, however, does not mean that there were no Afrasians in Western Asia before that. The earliest branch of the Semitic family – Akkadian – split off in the early 4th millennium, and other Semitic languages appeared in Arabia and Northeast Africa even later (Ibid.). A generally positive attitude to Ehret’s theory was expressed by G. S. Starostin (Starostin 2017: 226). The position of H. C. Fleming (Fleming 2006: 140–142) and R. Blench (Blench 2006: 159–160) is rather similar. There are other versions of the African theory, in particular, southeastern Sahara (Diakonoff 1965: 993; Bender 1997) and the Maghreb (McBurney 19754; Fellman 1993). 2. See: Diakonoff 1965: 101 for a similar assessment.

3. Subsequently, the views of I. M. Diakonoff changed and became closer to those of A. Y. Militarev. He began to associate Afrasians with the Natufian culture as well as the Sebilian and some other Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic industries of Upper Egypt (Diakonoff 1998). Diakonoff regarded the culture of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Jericho as Semitic and even West Semitic. Similar views were expressed by J. Zarins (Zarins 1990). Such an early separation of the Semitic branch is not confirmed by glottochronological data (Militarev 2005; Kitchen et al. 2009).

4. C.B.M. McBurney, based on archaeological parallels, believed that Proto-Afrasians had migrated to Maghreb from Southern Europe, in particular from Sicily, during the Upper Paleolithic. This idea was initially perceived positively (McBurney 1975: 506-511), but it has no linguistic confirmation, and was later refuted by genetic facts (Loosdrecht et al. 2018).
4 Not being a linguist, I will nevertheless try to demonstrate the informative potential of some lexicostatistical methods that have not yet been widely used in the study of AA languages, but may be able to help solve the AA problem. In addition, I will point out new archaeological and biological data important in this context.
5 The work is based on a statistical analysis of a matrix of pairwise lexical correspondences according to short (50-word) lists. The matrix, kindly provided to me by G. S. Starostin, A. S. Kassian and M. A. Zhivlov, derives from their database The Global Lexicostatistical Database (GLD-1 n.d.). Lexical data on the following languages were used5: 5. Classifications that I relied on were taken mainly from the works by A. Y. Militarev (Militarev 2005), R. Blench (Blench, Dendo 2006) and P. Newman (Newman 2013).
6 I. Semitic: 1 – Northwest Semitic, 2 – Akkadian, 3 – Arabic, 4 – Modern South Arabian, 5 – Ethiosemitic.
7 II. Middle Egyptian.
8 III. Berber: 1 – East Berber, 2 – Tuareg, 3 – Zenaga, 4 – North Berber.
9 IV. Chadic: — East: 1— Tumak-Somrai, 2— Lai, 3— Kera-Kwang, 4— Mokilko, 5— Ubi-Sokoro, 6— Mubi, 7— Dangla-Migama; –– Central: 8 – Tera, 9 – Bura-Marghi, 10 – Higi, 11 – Mandara, 12 – Matakam, 13 – Sukur, 14 – Daba, 15 – Bata, 16 – Kotoko, 17 – Musgu, 18 – Gidar; — Masa: 19 – Masa –– West: 20 – Hausa, 21 – Bole-Tangale, 22 – Angas-Sura, 23 – Ron, 24 – Bade-Ngizim, 25 – North Bauchi, 26 – South Bauchi.
10 V. Cushitic: –– North: 1 – Beja; –– Central: 2 – Agaw; –– East: 3 – Saho-Afar, 4 – Somaloid, 5 – Dasenech-Arbore, 6 – Oromoid, 7 – Werizoid, 8 – Highland East Cushitic, 9 – Yaaku; –– South: 10 – West Rift, 11 – Qwadza; –– Other: 12 – Dahalo, 13 – Ma'a .
11 VI. Omotic: –– South: 1– South Omotic; –– North: 2 – Maoid, 3 – Dizoid, 4 – Kefoid, 5 – Yemsa, 6 – Bench-She, 7 – Chara, 8 – Ometo.
12 VII. Ongota.
13 The key question on which the solution of the AA homeland problem depends is the following: are the Omotic and Cushite families sisters? А. Y. Militarev answers this in the positive (Militarev 2005: 398)6; he not only attributes the Omotic languages to the AA macrofamily, which some linguists deny (Theil 2012)7, but also considers it possible to speak about the former Cushomotic clade that arose in Western Asia. This opinion is shared by V. Blažek (Blažek 2013a, 2013b). According to this point of view, the specificity of the Omotic family was exaggerated by previous authors (in particular, H. C. Fleming); in addition, it is augmented by substratal influences, mainly from the Nilo-Saharan languages. 6. See the family tree of AA languages compiled by him at: >>>> (last accessed 12.01.2021).

7. G. S. Starostin, without directly denying the AA-affiliation of the Omotic languages, considers it far from obvious (Starostin 2013: 38; cf.: Ibid.: 148, 447, 449).

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