The Proto-Afroasiatic homeland is the hypothetical place where speakers of the Proto-Afroasiatic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into separate distinct languages. Afroasiatic languages are today mostly distributed in parts of Western Asia and North Africa.
The contemporary Afroasiatic languages are spoken in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, parts of the Sahara and Sahel, and Malta in Europe. The various hypotheses for the Afroasiatic homeland are distributed throughout this territory; that is, it is generally assumed that Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken in some region where Afroasiatic languages are still spoken today, although this is not unanimous. However, there is disagreement as to which part of the contemporary Afroasiatic speaking areas corresponds with the original homeland. The majority of scholars today contend that Afroasiatic languages arose somewhere in Northeast Africa or Western Asia.
Date of Proto-Afroasiatic There is no consensus as to when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken.Meyer, Ronny; Wolff, H. Ekkehard (2019). "Afroasiatic Linguistic Features and Typologies". In Wolff, H. Ekkehard (ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. pp. 246–325. The absolute latest date for when Proto-Afroasiatic could have been extant is c. 4000 BC, after which Egyptian and the Semitic languages are firmly attested. However, in all likelihood these languages began to diverge well before this hard boundary.Gragg, Gene (2019). "Semitic and Afro-Asiatic". In Huehnergard, John; Pat-El, Na'ama (eds.). The Semitic Languages (2 ed.). Routledge. pp. 22–48. The estimations offered by scholars as to when Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken vary widely, ranging from 18,000 BC to 8,000 BC. According to Igor M. Diakonoff (1988: 33n), Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken 10,000 BC. According to Christopher Ehret (2002: 35–36), Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken c. 11,000 BC at the latest, and possibly as early as c. 16,000 BC. These dates are older than dates associated with most other proto-languages. An estimate at the youngest end of this range still makes Afroasiatic the oldest proven language family.Nichols, Johanna (2003). "Diversity and Stability in Language". In Joseph, Brian D; Janda, Richard D. (eds.). The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Blackwell. pp. 283–310. . Contrasting proposals of an early emergence, Tom Güldemann has argued that less time may have been required for the divergence than is usually assumed, as it is possible for a language to rapidly restructure due to areal contact, with the evolution of Chadic (and likely also Omotic) serving as pertinent examples.
Urheimat hypotheses No consensus exists as to where Proto-Afroasiatic originated. Scholars have proposed locations for the Afroasiatic homeland across parts of Africa and western Asia.Frajzyngier, Zygmunt; Shay, Erin (2012). "Introduction". In Frajzyngier, Zygmunt; Shay, Erin (eds.). The Afroasiatic Languages. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–17. A complicating factor is the lack of agreement on the subgroupings of Afroasiatic (see Further subdivisions) – this makes associating archaeological evidence with the spread of Afroasiatic particularly difficult. Nevertheless, there is a long-accepted link between the speakers of Proto-Southern Cushitic languages and the East African Savanna Pastoral Neolithic (3000 BC), and archaeological evidence associates the Proto-Cushitic speakers with economic transformations in the Sahara dating c. 8,500 years ago, as well as the speakers of the Proto-Zenati variety of the Berber languages with an expansion across the Maghreb in the 5th century AD.Ehret, Christopher; Vyas, Deven N.; Assefa, Shiferaw; Gaston, J. Lafayette; Gleason, Tiffany; Kitchen, Andrew (2023). "Ancient Egyptian's Place in the Afroasiatic Language Family". In Almansa-Villatoro, M. Victoria; Štubňová Nigrelli, Silvia (eds.). Ancient Egyptian and Afroasiatic: Rethinking the Origins. Eisenbrauns. pp. 255–277. . More hypothetical links associate the proto-Afroasiatic-speakers with the Kebaran and the Mushabian culture, while others argue for a possible affiliation between proto-Afroasiatic and the Natufian culture.Militarev, Alexander (2002). "The Prehistory of a Dispersal: The Proto-Afrasian (Afroasiatic) Farming Lexicon". In Bellwood, Peter S.; Renfrew, Colin (eds.). Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Militarev, Alexander (2009). "Proto-Afrasian Lexicon Confirming West Asian Homeland: Pastoralism". Journal of Language Relationship. 1: 95–106.
The linguistic view on the location of the homeland of Afroasiatic languages is largely divided into proponents for a homeland within Northeast Africa, and proponents for a homeland in Western Asia. A homeland within Northeast Africa is favored by some scholars, while other scholars support a homeland in western Asia.
Pagani and Crevecoeur (2019) argue that, given the still open debate on the origin of Afroasiatic, the consensus will probably settle on an intermediate "across-the-Sinai" solution. They also note that the very early interactions between North African and Eurasian cultures, point "to a geographical shrinking of what can currently be defined as 'strictly African' in a long term perspective."What is Africa? A Human Perspective. (part of: Modern Human Origins and Dispersal, edited by Yonatan Sahle, Hugo Reyes-Centeno, Christian Bentz) April 2019 In book: Modern Human Origins and Dispersal (pp.15–24)Publisher: Kerns Verlag Tübingen https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332735884_What_is_Africa_A_Human_Perspective_part_of_Modern_Human_Origins_and_Dispersal_edited_by_Yonatan_Sahle_Hugo_Reyes-Centeno_Christian_Bentz
Western Asian homeland theory Levant agriculturalists
Supporters of a western Asian origin for Afroasiatic are particularly common among those with a background in Semitic or Egyptological studies, and amongst archaeological proponents of the "farming/language dispersal hypothesis" according to which major language groups dispersed with early farming technology in the Neolithic, the birthplace of the Neolithic Revolution being in West Asia. The leading linguistic proponent of this idea in recent times is Alexander Militarev, who argues that Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken by early agriculturalists in the Levant, Mesopotamia and Anatolia and subsequently spread to North Africa and Horn of Africa. Militarev associates the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic with the Levantine Post-Natufian Culture, arguing that the reconstructed lexicon of flora and fauna, as well as farming and pastoralist vocabulary indicates that Proto-AA must have been spoken in this area. Scholar Jared Diamond and archaeologist Peter Bellwood have taken up Militarev's arguments as part of their general argument that the spread of linguistic macrofamilies (such as Afroasiatic, Bantu, and Austroasiatic) can be associated with the development of agriculture; they argue that there is clear archaeological support for farming and associated tools and domesticated animals spreading from the Levant into Africa via the Nile valley.
Militarev, who linked proto-Afroasiatic to the Levantine Natufian culture, that preceded the spread of farming technology, believes the language family to be about 10,000 years old. He wrote (Militarev 2002, p. 135) that the "Proto-Afrasian language, on the verge of a split into daughter languages", meaning, in his scenario, into "Cushitic, Omotic, Egyptian, Semitic and Chadic-Berber", "should be roughly dated to the ninth millennium BC". Support for the migration of agricultural populations, according to linguists, are the word for dog (an Asian domesticate) reconstructed to Proto-Afroasiatic as well as words for bow and arrow, which according to some archaeologists spread rapidly across North Africa once they were introduced to North Africa from the Near East, viz. Ounan points.
Lexicon linked to a pastoralist society (cattle-breeding) reconstructed for proto-Afroasiatic also support a western Asian homeland, possibly indicating an earlier pastoralist migration.
Northeast African homeland theory
A Northeast African homeland has been proposed by linguists as the origin of the language group largely because it includes the geographic center of its present distribution and the majority of the diversity observed among the Afroasiatic language family, sometimes considered a telltale sign for a linguistic geographic origin. Within this hypothesis there are a number of competing variants:
Red Sea coast
Christopher Ehret has proposed the western Red Sea coast from Eritrea to southeastern Egypt. While Ehret disputes Militarev's proposal that Proto-Afroasiatic shows signs of a common farming lexicon, he suggests that early Afroasiatic languages were involved in the even earlier development of intensive food collection in the areas of Ethiopia and Sudan. In other words, he proposes an even older age for Afroasiatic than Militarev, at least 11,000 years old, and believes farming lexicon can only be reconstructed for branches of Afroasiatic. Ehret argues that Proto-Afroasiatic speakers in Northeast Africa developed subsistence patterns of intensive plant collection and pastoralism, giving the population an economic advantage which impelled the expansion of the Afroasiatic languages. He suggests that a Proto-Semitic or Proto-Semito-Berber-speaking population migrated from Northeast Africa to the Levant during the late Paleolithic.
In the next phase, unlike many other authors Ehret proposed an initial split between northern, southern and Omotic. The northern group includes Semitic, Egyptian and Berber (agreeing with others such as Diakonoff). He proposed that Chadic stems from Berber (some other authors group it with southern Afroasiatic languages such as Cushitic ones).
Ethiopia Roger Blench has proposed a region in the adjacent Horn of Africa, specifically in modern day Ethiopia, arguing that Omotic represents the most basal branch and displays high diversity. Others have however pointed out that Omotic displays strong signs of contact with non-Afroasiatic languages, with some arguing that Omotic should be regarded as an independent language family.I. M. Diakonoff (1998) Journal of Semitic Studies 43:209: "It is quite evident that cultural ties between Proto-Semitic and the African branches of the Afrasian macrofamily must have been severed at a very early date indeed. However, the grammatical structure of [Common Semitic] (especially in the verb) is obviously close to that of Common Berbero-Libyan (CBL), as well as to Bedauye. (Bedauye might, quite possibly, be classified as a family distinct from the rest of Kushitic.) The same grammatical isoglosses are somewhat more feebly felt between Semitic and (the other?) Kushitic languages. They practically disappear between the Semitic and the Omotic languages, which were formerly termed Western Kushitic, but which actually may not be Afrasian at all, like their neighbours the Nubian languages and Meroitic."Rolf Theil (2006) Is Omotic Afro-Asiatic? pp 1–2: "I claim to show that no convincing arguments have been presented [for the inclusion of Omotic (OM) in Afro-Asiatic (AA)], and that OM should be regarded as an independent language family. No closer genetic relations have been demonstrated between OM and AA than between OM and any other language family." Like Ehret, Blench accepts that Omotic is part of the Afroasiatic grouping and sees the split of northern languages from Omotic as an important early development. Güldemann (2018) does not accept Omotic as unified group, but argues for at least four distinct groupings.
Sahel/Sahara