Talk:Afroasiatic languages

Contradictions

First, I think the presentation in the "homeland section" is not very encyclopedic, but rather seems to be, in part, ideologically influenced. The highlighting of Blench commentary for example does not seem relevant to the section, but rather as possible critic to the (West) Asian model.

Why Militarev views are only partially presented (West Asian farmers), while in the 2009 paper he says something totaly different. Militariev argues for West Asian pastoralists! This is also a rather different proposal based on new evidence, and not identical with the agriculturalists model. This must be corrected.

I also argue to include Hogdson et al. 2014, Mc Call 1984 and Pagani and Crevecoeur (2019), as this is obviously relevant. There is no clear cut between "African" and "Asian", and to think that the two are one coherent group without any influence from outside is quite shocking to me. As in my latest comment here, implying any "racialist" agendas here (as stating they may or may not be "Black African" or having "black apperance" or "white" or "yellow" or "green" is unecyclopedic and out of context).

My main concerns are that the paragraphs do partially not correspond with the cited references, nor do they give the full view. The agruments are partially outdated, with more recent studies clearly stating "Northeast African" (not my main point, but I still think it is dubious to not present that). And in regards to Ehret and co, they cite even older papers (inline 5-8), that hardly can represent the currenc linguistic concensus (if there is any). Krause96 (talk) 12:31, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

It is not true that more recent arguments present Asian as the dominant theory. See the intro of Ancient Egyptian and Afroasiatic: Rethinking the Origins (2023):

The Levantine hypothesis argues that Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken by the archaeological Natufian culture, which is known for introducing agriculture in the Near East. Alexander Militarev, the main proponent of this hypothesis, advanced glottochronological dates of Proto-Afroasiatic migrations in the ninth through the tenth millenium BCE based on his reconstruction of a plethora of farming and pastoral prehistoric vocabulary [...] This hypothesis has been contested by the authors of different theories involving an African origin of Afroasiatic, who accuse it of biased Mediterranean and philology centrism, doubt the convoluted Levantine migration scenario that would have resulted after the likely first split of the Omotic-Cushitic branch, and challenge the real validity of Militarev's reconstructed terms and evidence related to Proto-Afroasiatic agricultural practices. (p. 5)

The chapter goes on to discuss the theories of Ehret and Carsten Peust and while not taking a side between them, notes that Theories of African origin have an obvious advantage in that the overwhelming majority of Afroasiatic languages were or are currently spoken within the boundaries of this continent (ibid.)

The fact that Militarev has also reconstructed pastoralist terms for Proto-AA does not change the fact that he is primarily concerned with the Proto-Natufian farming culture. His new proposal is thus not a "compromise" as you put it. This is precisely how its summarized in the 2023 intro I cited above.

If you think things from other scholars should be added here (as opposed to at the dedicated Afroasiatic homeland article), then please provide quotations and page numbers so we can verify the information and how you are adding it.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:43, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd also note that despite your desire to removal the adjectival use of the words "African" and "Asian" from the article (for whatever reason), this is precisely the language we find scholars using in the passages I just quoted.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:46, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I did not say that "Asian" is more dominant - quite in contrary! I said that more recent studies call into question the dichotomy between "African" and "Asian". We know that there were massive pre-agriculturalist migration waves into Africa, before the development of Proto-Afroasiatic. We know that all modern Afroasiatic-speaking populations score high amounts of Taforalt and Natufian-like ancestry (which was not limited to the Levant, but found throughout Ancient Northern Africa). My point is that there is no clear cut between what is "African" and "Asian" here. As Pagani and Crevecoeur (2019) summarized quite well. The pre-agricultural migration long predated the later "Neo-Levantine" Neolithic wave. Although that is off-topic, only to clarify. I do not support an Asian origin at all.Krause96 (talk) 13:11, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I actually meant you should provide quotes here on the talk page before re-adding. I'm going to try to figure out how to fit your sources into the bibliography now and reformat.--Ermenrich (talk) 11:51, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm looking at your quotes and sources now, I'll provide them here. The first is from a chapter in here, a book I don't have immediate access to:

• Given the dually "deeply-rooted" presence of Afro-Asiatic languages both in Africa and in the Levant, the linguistic debate on the origin of this family is still open (Kitchen et al. 2009;Ehret et al. 2004) and probably settling on an intermediate "across-the-Sinai" solution. This shows that even relatively well studied cultural packages such as languages point to early interactions between Africa and the neighbouring Eurasian cultures or, in other words, to a geographical shrinking of what can currently be defined as "strictly African" in a long term perspective.

According to this quote, it is linguists who are settling on a "across-the-Sinai" solution - but this is contradicted by even a cursory look at what the linguists themselves are saying (e.g. the cited work by Kitchen and Ehret, see also the quote from 2023 above). This, again, does not appear to be what you are arguing.

The next quote is from this article from 2014. I've decided to supplement it with fuller context:

• We find that most of the non-African ancestry in the HOA can be assigned to a distinct non-African origin Ethio-Somali ancestry component, which is found at its highest frequencies in Cushitic and Semitic speaking HOA populations (Table 2, Figure 2). In addition to verifying that most HOA populations have substantial non-African ancestry, which is not controversial [11]–[14], [16], we argue that the non-African origin Ethio-Somali ancestry in the HOA is most likely pre-agricultural. In combination with the genomic evidence for a pre-agricultural back-to-Africa migration into North Africa [43], [61] and inference of pre-agricultural migrations in and out-of-Africa from mitochondrial and Y chromosome data [13], [32]–[37], [47], [99]–[102], these results contribute to a growing body of evidence for migrations of human populations in and out of Africa throughout prehistory [5]–[7] and suggests that human hunter-gatherer populations were much more dynamic than commonly assumed. [...] We close with a provisional linguistic hypothesis. The proto-Afro-Asiatic speakers are thought to have lived either in the area of the Levant or in east/northeast Africa [8], [107], [108]. Proponents of the Levantine origin of Afro-Asiatic tie the dispersal and differentiation of this language group to the development of agriculture in the Levant beginning around 12 ka [8], [109], [110]. In the African-origins model, the original diversification of the Afro-Asiatic languages is pre-agricultural, with the source population living in the central Nile valley, the African Red Sea hills, or the HOA [108], [111]. In this model, later diversification and expansion within particular Afro-Asiatic language groups may be associated with agricultural expansions and transmissions, but the deep diversification of the group is pre-agricultural. We hypothesize that a population with substantial Ethio-Somali ancestry could be the proto-Afro-Asiatic speakers. A later migration of a subset of this population back to the Levant before 6 ka would account for a Levantine origin of the Semitic languages [18] and the relatively even distribution of around 7% Ethio-Somali ancestry in all sampled Levantine populations (Table S6). Later migration from Arabia into the HOA beginning around 3 ka would explain the origin of the Ethiosemitic languages at this time [18], the presence of greater Arabian and Eurasian ancestry in the Semitic speaking populations of the HOA (Table 2, S6), and ROLLOFF/ALDER estimates of admixture in HOA populations between 1–5 ka (Table 1).

This is again not really what you're arguing: the authors "provisionally" argue that AA originated with an earlier migration out of Asia than Militarev. This is underscored when they say "migration back to the Levant".

You next cite an article from 1998 but without providing a quote. It appears to argue essentially the same thing: My prediction is that Africa will turn out to be the cradle of Afroasiatic, though the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic were a reflux population from Southwest Asia. This is more in line with your argument, but note that it is not really part of the discussion on the matter.

Finally, you cite a study on Asian migration into Africa during the paleolithic [1]. This study does not mention the question of AA origins at all and it's inclusion is therefore wp:SYNTH.

I'm going to conclude that the text as you have added it is both WP:UNDUE for this article (it's basically a reformulation of the Asian origins theory, but one that does not appear to have much traction in literature on AA) as well as has problems with WP:SYNTH. I'm accordingly going to remove it at least until we can develop a consensus here on whether or how it should be included in this article, and with what wording.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:21, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I understand your reasoning and arguments on this matter related to the Wikipedia policies. Thank you for going into details of the respective sources. I will try to propose a re-worded paragraph on that based on your arguments. I must note that I am not happy with the exclusion of relevant data on this topic, but per Wikipedia policies it is SYNTH and we will have to wait until reviews in the literature include the new findings.

My suggestion would be:

• Some scholars, while accepting an origin of Afroasiatic within Africa, argue that the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic can be linked to a Paleolithic and pre-agricultural migration wave into Africa from Western Asia, which subsequently dispersed in Africa, including a later back-migration by the Semitic-branch to the Levant. This view is broadly supported by archaeogenetic evidence.

Sources for this would be McCall and Hogdson et al. 2014.

Furthermore, it would be very usefull to include Pagani and Crevecoeur (2019):

• Pagani and Crevecoeur (2019) argue that given on the still open debate on the origin of Afroasiatic, the concensus will probably settling on an intermediate "across-the-Sinai" solution. They also note that the very early interactions between African and Eurasian cultures, point "to a geographical shrinking of what can currently be defined as "strictly African" in a long term perspective".

I think this gives a reliable and informative addition for the readers on this matter.Krause96 (talk) 13:40, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced that this is a major position in scholarship - note that the final study you cited (which does not mention AA) also mentions migrations from Africa to Asia. While we cannot cite this in the article due to WP:SYNTH, it still should inform how we present information, and the articles you cite appear nowhere in the 2023 volume when discussion is had of genetic evidence. It might belong at Afroasiatic Homeland.

I'll also note that the second chapter of that 2023 volume, by Chelsea Sanker, says Establishing a likely homeland of Afroasiatic can help inform subgrouping. Most evidence suggests that it was in the southeastern Sahara or closer to the coast, in the horn of Africa. Genetic data are also consistent with dispersion from this region. (p. 30). The first statement is cited to Diakonoff 1988 and Ehret at al. 2004. The statement on genetics is cited to Underhill et al. 2001, p. 55.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:55, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Your argumentation on this does not make any sense to me. Its not about any position at all. It is a representation on the specific analyses by Hogdson et al. 2014 and the earlier, similar view by McCall, on the formation of Proto-AA. They do not contradict the "origin model within Africa". The other papers (presented by you) on the homeland of Afroasiatic do not deal with this topic (the root of the specific populations), but rather say this or that region (and its inhabidants) are a valid group to be associated with the early AA speakers. - Yes, it mentions migrations from Africa to Asia, but carefully try to understand the respective meaning.

• While we cannot cite this in the article due to WP:SYNTH, it still should inform how we present information, and the articles you cite appear nowhere in the 2023 volume when discussion is had of genetic evidence. - I am sorry, I do not understand what you want to tell me.

To your last comment, how is this relevant to the points I raised, or the evidence described by Hogdson et al. 2014 or Pagani and Crevecoeur (2019)? A Y-chromosome study from 2001, which does not even talk about this topic but rather about possible places of origin for various haplogroups does not contradict that either. Lastly, your quote speaks about its place of dispersion! The Hogdson et al. 2014 study nor McCall nor Pagani and Crevecoeur (2019) (nor I) contradict that. The whole addition I presented is information to better understand the whole history and directly linked to PAA. There is no serious reason to not include this information. These are informative additions in a clear, short, and on-topic way (neither SYNTH nor UNDUE), and there is no reason to not include that way. I am also not sure with what exactly you disagree.

The studies and the 2023 volume do not contradict with my studies at all. They deal with the place of origin of AA and the place of its dispersion. The studies I want to add give further information on the earlier history of AA, PAA, and how it came to be (within Africa). Why you again point out to me that the papers support a place of dispersion in the southeastern Sahara or the adjacent HOA? I neither disputed that, nor do the papers I presented. In this regard I renew my argument from above: the papers give a reliable and informative addition for the readers on this matter and should be included. There is nothing per Wikipedia policies or topic-relevant issues to prevent the inclusion of these papers.Krause96 (talk) 18:26, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

As recently added by you: It might belong at Afroasiatic Homeland. Yes, in a more elaborated way. Here, the summary article, should mention this too. As it is relevant, informative, and does not do any harm to the reading flow or topic.Krause96 (talk) 18:30, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

As there has been no reply, I am going to include the relevant information inline with raised concerns and in agreement with the sections readingflow. CordialementKrause96 (talk) 06:59, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: Do you want to fool me? There is no reason to not include this (other than your obvious personal dislike for whatever reason), secondly, you did not reply for three days while obviously being active elsewhere, but fast at removing again without valid reasonings. It is on your side to give valid reasons why not to mention clearly relevant information! WP:NPOV. May I quote it for you here? All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.. That has been done by me, but you keep making excuses to remove it by personal arguments, rather factual! If you can not participate in a discussion, also not remove it! This is disruptive.Krause96 (talk) 10:25, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: requesting commentary of another user please.

This is properly sourced, on which reason this should not be added. Its directly relevant and does not contradict the section written by Ermenrich, but adds to it. Scholars, such as Hogdson et al., present archaeogenetic evidence in favor for a place of dispersion within Africa, but argue that the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic can ultimately be linked to a Paleolithic and pre-agricultural migration wave into Africa from Western Asia, and that the Semitic-branch represents a back-migration to the Levant. Similar arguments have already been raised before.

This points are to be presented in the article.

I may agree to not include this paragraph: Pagani and Crevecoeur (2019) argue that given on the still open debate on the origin of Afroasiatic, the concensus will probably settling on an intermediate "across-the-Sinai" solution. They also note that the very early interactions between African and Eurasian cultures, point "to a geographical shrinking of what can currently be defined as "strictly African" in a long term perspective"., but think it is strange why Ermenrich has such unconstructive and biased view here.Krause96 (talk) 10:46, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Not pinged, but replying. I have reverted your addition and will explain my (more than just procedural) rationale later today. Until then, I recommend to assume good faith on both sides. –Austronesier (talk) 10:50, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Krause96 I have already explained that I have not seen evidence that a "Back to Africa earlier than Militarev theory that allows us to still say AA originated in Africa" theory is widely supported in the scholarship. There is no citation of such a theory at all in any of the general descriptions of the problem I have seen - you are relying on two genetics studies (one from 1998 which makes very provisional conclusions) and one from 2014, and a more recent paper that questions the meaning of "African". Using these papers as examples of citations to each other is not convincing when they are not cited widely elsewhere. While it may be that scholars should question the meaning of "African", that is not what Wikipedia is for. It summarizes the opinion of academic sources, keeping in mind WP:DUE. This is an article about the Afroasiatic languages in general and should not be encumbered by theories that attract little note in the scholarly literature. Details like that belong in Afroasiatic homeland. Nor can we try to harmonize our description with this minor theory, which your edits adding things like "dispersal from" and removing the term "African" from "African origin" (a term found in the secondary literature) have done.--Ermenrich (talk) 11:11, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Here's my 2 cents: first of all, all detail about the Afroasiatic homeland belongs (surprise!) in the main article Afroasiatic homeland. The homeland section in this article can be reduced to a short summary of the key points of the main article, of course with due weight (which latter we collectively have to establish). As you will see, the genetics section of the main article is filled with WP:SYNTH Y-haplogroup "cruft" and badly needs a fresh breeze, so pieces like the introduction by Pagani and Crevecoeur are very welcome there (and even might be mentioned here if the text of Afroasiatic homeland is consolidated). But adding things only here and not there turns the summary section of this article into an undesirable WP:content fork.

One thing we should avoid is to bring in literature that does not directly address the AA homeland question, such as Fregel's chapter that was added at an earlier occasion[2]. A great work, but it's not ours to link this research to the AA homeland question unless other reliable sources do and that in turn we could cite. Since you haven't added it again, I presume that's spilled milk. Btw, a bit off-topic and OR/SYNTH on my part: why did you clip the quote from Fregel only to include the Loosdrecht part, but did not include the Lazaridis narative, which Fregel appears to consider just as plausible? The Dzudzuana ancestry is so old, that the "back migration" might have preceded the time when Proto-AA spoken by many, many millenia. That's a bit like tracing (pre-pre-)Proto-IE to Siberia based on the fact that the Yamnayans carried 50% EHG ancestry, which in turn largely derived from the ANE population of Siberia. Quite a stretch, isn't it (but well, some Old Kids on the Blogs still do these things...)?

Back to the core issue: this is the article about AA languages. We can mention things like the possibile location of the homeland (= source of dispersal; there is no other definition of homeland) and correlations with findings from population genetics (again, provided it's not us who do the correlation). Linguistic spread does not necessarily have to correlate one-to-one with demic spread that is detected via archeogenetics (language shift without much geneflow is very real and not as uncommon as many non-linguists apparently often believe), and we should not give undue weight to overly naive models that take Y-haplogroups (especially when restricted to present-day populations!) as infallible proxies of demic spread. But: Proto-AA is the deepest we can get linguistically, so this article does not need look farther back than that. Sure, reliable sources (well, at least one) do undertake the tenuous endeavor of further tracing the genetic ancestry of the presumed population of Proto-AA speakers back to earlier populations of completely (and principally) unknown linguistic affliation. These are details probably worth mentioning in Afroasiatic homeland, but not here, which IMHO is strictly about the linguistic subgroup. –Austronesier (talk) 19:02, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I know this has died down now, but I'm trying to get my hands on this book which contains a chapter by Gerrit Dimmendaal that will likely shed some further light on the matter. Potentially also useful for the Homeland article, which I haven't really looked at yet (my impression is that the edits by Krause there have been improvements). I suspect it and Proto-Afroasiatic could use some more work, but I'm not sure I can muster the energy to take that on myself--Ermenrich (talk) 13:55, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Ratcliffe table

@Ermenrich: I have removed the Table from Ratcliffe (2012) in the section "‎Consonant systems" with the edit summary "Since the prose of this section is about the synchronic typology of consonant systems in AA languages, this table is off-topic here. It also gives an inaccurate idea about the reconstruction of Proto-AA since visually, it might lead to the impression that Proto-AA in fact might have had such an impoverished inventory of consonants, whereas in Ratcliffe (2012), this table serves a different purpose".

In case you agree with this: maybe we can replace it with a table that visualizes the typological diversity of documented of historical and contemporary AA languages? It is not really necessary since the prose has it all, but if you have come across a table/checklist etc. in one of the sources, it might be a nice addition. We could of course do a feature-based table on our own based on the information in the sources (e.g. Lateral fricatives [y/n], pharyngeals [y/n], ejectives [y/n]), but such a DIY table would rightfully deem as OR to many WP editors, I guess. Austronesier (talk) 09:32, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

That seems reasonable - I’ve been trying to think of ways to improve the table anyway.—Ermenrich (talk) 11:45, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Numerals

Proto-Afroasiatic language now has a fairly detailed section on Numerals (which is basically just proposed cognates given the state of PAA reconstruction). My question is: is the section here with the numerals comparison still worth keeping? Is it giving our readers useful information? (I'm not arguing in favor of removing it necessarily, I'd just like to make sure that there isn't too much overlap/mismatched content between the articles).--Ermenrich (talk) 17:04, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I have similar questions about the current sections on derivational affixes. It seems to me that nisba, only found in two branches, would be better handled at Proto-Afroasiatic. The mV- prefix may deserve its own section, as may the verbal prefixes. Alternatively, we could simply have a "derivation" that could then also include other commonalities between the languages (nisba is found in two branches, but adjective-forming suffixes are found in more, for instance). I suppose some of the tables would have to go then due to space.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:48, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Afroasiatic homeland

The most recent sources from 2018 to 2023 clearly state that the majority of scholars place the origin in NORTHEAST Africa, not simply "Africa" in general. We should reflect what the studies actually say. This is what is stated in both proto-Afroasiatic and Afroasiatic homeland articles. Also, it is made clear that although the languages likely diversified from proto-Afroasiatic in northeast Africa, their ultimate origin prior to this is in the Levant in the Paleolithic, as per ALL of the genetic studies. The people who spoke proto-Afroasiatic are from the Paleolithic to early Neolithic Levant according to the sources, and that needs to be stated here. 50.100.222.203 (talk) 17:39, 1 August 2023 (UTC) "First, present-day ancestry in North Africans is characterized by an autochthonous Maghrebi component related to a Paleolithic back migration to Africa from Eurasia. ... This result suggests that Iberomaurusian populations in North Africa were related to Paleolithic people in the Levant..."

Please see the previous section "Contradictions" on the pre-AA migration of potentially proto-AA speakers. This is an article that should not go back any further than the ACTUAL origin of AA languages, not the pre-history of a potential Proto-Proto-Afroasiatic. As for the rest, you are adding material far beyond what you are suggesting here, and if you have a specific suggestion for a change (i.e. African vs. Northeast African - why does this matter to you?), you need to document it here on the talk page with sources rather than repeatedly reinstating your enormous amount of edits in an WP:EDIT WAR.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:56, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

The paleogenetic studies, amongst others, discuss the origins of the people who spoke "pre-proto-Afroasiatic". Why shouldn't the origins of proto-Afroasiatic not go back as far as is discussed in the relevant literature? It is important to include these studies, because some of the studies presented in your current format make conclusions at odds with the findings of genetic data, which clearly demonstrate a complete correlation between Afroasiatic languages and the spread of pastoralism and farming from West Asia into Africa. The current format wrongly discusses the Levantine origin hypothesis as a "significant minority". Several citations do show that the majority place some "origin" of proto-Afroasiatic in northeast Africa, but it obfuscates that many of these scholars also agree that the ultimate origin beyond this is likely in the Levant, and that the origins of these people themselves has been conclusively shown to be completely in West Asia in the Paleolithic, and the area between Egypt and the Levant with the greatest certainty (Natufian culture).

A similar comparison to this is how most scholars place the origin of proto-Indo-European in the Pontic Caspian steppe of Europe, but also acknowledge that the ultimate origin is likely in the Caucasus or northwestern Iran as per genetic studies and related hypotheses of the even earlier origins of pre-proto-Indo-European.

Finally, the current format of the article places too much of an emphasis on one recent work by Ehret, 2023, which ignores the overwhelming genetic data, as well as linguistic and archaeological data, which conclusively places the origins of the indigenous people of North Africa (including northeast Africa) in West Asia during the Paleolithic and early Neolithic. It is widely accepted by scholars that 1) the pre-agriculture population of North Africa was itself derived from West Asia in the Paleolithic, and 2) that the later spread of farming and pastoralism into North Africa from West Asia in the early Neolithic itself was accompanied by later migration and genetic changes. The paleogenetic studies at the proto-Afroasiatic and Afroasiatic homeland articles discuss this. 50.100.222.203 (talk) 18:52, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

This page is about Afroasiatic languages, not the potential prehistory of their speakers before they spoke Afroasiatic languages. Problems with associating those genetic markers with a clear Asian origin have been noted elsewhere on the talk page anyway. As a friend of mine noted, if we go back far enough everyone’s from Africa anyway - it’s absurd to assert that AS speakers came “originally” from somewhere else when even the people arguing for a previous migration from Asia don’t argue that those people spoke AA languages when they migrated. And besides, most of what you, a likely sock, are writing here is not at all what the scholarship says.—Ermenrich (talk) 10:55, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

In the light of this continuation of edit warring, especially by the IP using the sources I included previously to the article Afroasiatic homeland. I voice my disagreement with the IP. The case has been discussed and was closed, the reappearance of this dispute is bad faith. I advice the IP to stop it. Concenus is three users against you IP. Just stop it! The sources which mentioned North Africa or Northeast Africa were referenced inline to Ehret and Keita. It was discussed and explained why not to use Northeast Africa. Do us a favour and stop. This dispute was already dealt with.Krause96 (talk) 15:43, 2 August 2023 (UTC)