Talk:Afroasiatic languages

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Campbell and Hodge

@Daniel Power of God:. I do not believe that the source given for Campbell's views is a good one. It is a summary of his thoughts and not the original source, for one thing. It is primarily discussing Nilo-Saharan for another. And thirdly, Campbell, while a highly respectable historical linguist, is not a specialist in Afroasiatic linguists. I believe his views on Afroasiatic have been discussed elsewhere on this page or at Proto-Afroasiatic possibly and that in most publications he appears to accept the family.

As for Hodge, his book was published in 1990. Quite a bit has happened since then. Furthermore, I do not believe that Hodge was cited fairly, as the intention appeared to be to make the existence of Afrosasiatic appear questionable, (and possibly to suggest that scholars are afraid to say this?). What Hodge actually says is: For position [that Afroasiatic cannot be reconstructed] we have only occasional statements, often unpublished. Presumably those holding this view consider the time depth too great for sufficient comparable material to have survived. The way this was framed in the edit suggested instead that those who believed that Afroasiatic cannot be reconstructed questioned the validity of the family, like Campbell is implied to have done via indirect citation. We already have more recent statements here and at Proto-Afroasiatic that show that many scholars are skeptical of Afroasiatic reconstructions due to time depth.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:19, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that Campell's views are not quite adequately represented in Schadeberg's chapter; while C. lists several families and macro-families that he considers unproven, he does not necessarily put them on par. A better impression of Campbell's views can be taken from Campbell & Poser (2008), Language Classification: History and Method. Their skepticism (NB not entire rejection) is mentioned in Güldemann (2018) and thus might also be woven in here with a short mention (note that even the "splitter" Güldemann considers Campbell & Poser's skepticism as exaggerated). –Austronesier (talk) 18:41, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Campbell and Poser conclude their discussion of Afroasiatic in the book that Austronesier mentions above by saying Afroasiatic probably is a valid genetic grouping, at least large parts of what is postulated to belong in it, even though we are reticent to accept traits that may have other explanations and thus are not fully persuasive of that relationship. While he's clearly more skeptical than most Afroasianists, he does not reject the group.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:04, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wilson-Wright's essay

I just came across this review of Ancient Egyptian and Afro-Asiatic: Rethinking the Origins which is for the most part a response to Wilson-Wright's denial of AA in that volume: [1] . Basically, it refutes all of Wilson-Wright's argumentation. As such, I feel that we've made the right decision not giving more space to her ideas (see the earlier discussion of the issue in the archives).--Ermenrich (talk) 16:11, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another negative assessement of Wilson-Wright's chapter is by Takács (2023). Note that Takács presents her study in the wider context of what he calls the "rather introverted and fossilized special branch of comparative studies that has been arbitrarily focusing on a forced comparison of just Semitic and Egyptian" that completely ignores the full breadth of AA studies. (Rememeber also how her paper was heavily (and erroneously) promoted a few years ago as a critique of the AA macro-family in toto by an editor who was totally tunnel-visioned on the AA affiliation of the Egyptian branch only). –Austronesier (talk) 20:06, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Takacs is quite polemic in all of his writings. You should check out his Egyptian Etymological dictionary some time - for various proposed etymologies he only states things like "Ridiculous". He also routinely attacks Ehret. Nevertheless, I think we can say that Wilson-Wright's critique has landed with a thud rather than an explosion (and even I, non-specialist though I am, found the essay pretty questionable in parts of its argumentation). That being the case, it's best kept off the article. AA studies definitely has some problems, but I think we've already included comment on most of them in the article.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:46, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Branches chart

@Remsense: I was wondering if you'd be amenable to redoing the table of AA languages. I have a specific source in mind that would be useful as a modal, you can find it in [ https://www-degruyter-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/document/doi/10.1515/9783110420388-007/html "Languages of Ancient Nubia"] p. 130 (fig. 1). You can find that via the Wikimedia library on the De Gruyter website by searching "Languages of Ancient Nubia" if that link doesn't work. It includes the subgroupings within each group as well as a list of some languages in each. Also, after having looked into it, the distinction between "dead" and "extinct" languages is a Wikipedia-ism (or at least an internet-ism) that we should exclude from the table.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:59, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Arabic, if counted as a single language"

I noticed a dispute about whether this parenthetical should be included in the lead, and wanted to request discussion. I checked the cited source and noticed it doesn't make this qualification. Almansa-Villatoro & Štubňová Nigrelli 2023 write "Arabic, the most widely spoken modern Afroasiatic language by far, can boast the third-millenium Akkadian as its oldest attested ancestor." (I'm not sure whether we should be citing this sentence at all since I think it's imprecise at best to call Akkadian, an East Semitic language, an "ancestor" of Arabic, a Central Semitic language.)

Personally, I don't think "if counted as a single language" is necessary here since it is obvious that you need to count Arabic as a single language in order for it to be eligible to for the title of "most spoken Afroasiatic language". If it is necessary to address this question, can a source be provided to back up the point about Arabic being potentially counted as one vs. multiple languages? Another obvious follow-up question that it would be nice to have an answer to: if Arabic is counted as multiple languages, which one of these languages (if any) would qualify as the most spoken Afroasiatic language? Urszag (talk) 02:22, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To the source: We aren’t citing the source to describe the relationship of Arabic to Akkadian, so I think that’s neither here nor there. The source is cited for the number of speakers of Arabic and its status as most spoken AA language.

As to the broader question: I’m sure we can find some sources on that and it’s a good point about which language would then be most spoken. I’ll try to dig into it later.—-Ermenrich (talk) 12:16, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]