Histoire des berberes

[Harrachi78]

@Bourgignon

Le berbere ne descend pas du punique mais du lybique, c'est seulement l'alphabet punique qui a influencé l'alphabet lybique donc juste pour l'écriture qui n'a jamais constitué un interêt important pour les berberes dont la tradition est essentiellement orale.

Mettons un peu d'ordre sur ce point. Au moment où arrivent les premiers Arabes, il n'y avait pas que des berbères au Maghreb. Il faut s'enlever cette idée de la tête.

Il y avait plus que cela, une population romano-africaine (latine) dans l'ensemble des villes (des centaines de villes) et peut-être encore des populations de langue punique dans certaines portions orientales (Tunisie, N.E. algérien). Tout ce beau monde, habitait le coin avec les berbères, et l'arabisation devait concerner tout le monde et non pas seulement les berbères.

[Harrachi78]

@Arbrefacom

Le lien n'est pas aussi étroit qu'on ne le pense, mais c'est un facteur non négligeable je pense car il ne fait aucun doute que dès lors le berbère assimile plus facilement la culture arabe que le turc par exemple, étant donné ces rapprochements.

Justement, c'est la molesse du lien qui rend difficile de croire qu'il ait pu conduire à un aussi profond résultat. C'est trop léger pour ce qu'on lui attribue.

S'il s'agissait d'un gap d'un siècle ou deux, j'aurais compris. Mais il s'agit d'un peuple qui s'est installé en Afrique du N. 1000 ans avant J.-C., qui s'est romanisé et latinisé (qu'importe le degrés) durant 800 ans, et qui au final était devenu chrétien en trés grande majorité. Difficile de croire qu'il reconnaisse un cousin dans un arabe au 7e s. !? C'est cela le problème.

D'autre part, même si on acceptait cela pour ce qui restait des Puniques africains, que faire des romano-africains et des Berbères promement dit ? N'ont-ils pas réagi de la même manière à l'assimilation progressive ? Leur langue ne partage pourtant pas grand chose avec l'arabe ?

[Bourguignon89]

Mettons un peu d'ordre sur ce point. Au moment où arrivent les premiers Arabes, il n'y avait pas que des berbères au Maghreb. Il faut s'enlever cette idée de la tête.

Ben les berberes c'est quand même l'ecrasante majorité de la population en afrique du nord à cette epoque tous les autres ne sont que des minorités faibles avant l'arrivée des arabes.

Voudrais-tu dire que, tous les berbères étaient nomades en même temps, et qu'ils sont tous devenus sédentaires en même temps ?

Du tout je dis qu'en general on passe de nomade à sedentaire au fil du temps mais pas de sedentaire à nomade.

Sinon je ne comprends pas cette manie de vouloir trouver des points communs entre les berberes et les arabes ? S'ils etaient si visibles on se poserait meme pas la question .. A la rigueur je veux bien qu'il y'ait des points communs avec les autres populations mediterrannéennes mais avec le desert d'arabie y'a rien.

[Harrachi78]

@Bourgignon

Ben les berberes c'est quand même l'ecrasante majorité de la population en afrique du nord à cette epoque tous les autres ne sont que des minorités faibles avant l'arrivée des arabes.

Ah, ca c'est toi qui le dis !

Techniquement, l'ensemble des habitants des villes et citées étaient latinophones, ce qui donne au moins 10% de la population totale. Mais attention, cetet répartition n'est pas homogène puisque, en Proconsulaire, en Byzacène et en Numidie du N., centres les plus anciens de présence romaine, la proportion était nettemement plus élevés que dans les Maurétanies, au S. de la Numidie ou en Tripolitaine.

Mais tu doit aussi compter avec la domination culturelle et économique que cette minorité citadine pouvait exercer sur le reste des habitants, surtout que l'Etat romain et l'administration impériale étaient encore représentés à travers l'Exarchat d'Afrique ... enfin, l'Empire "byzantin" quoi !

Bref, les romano-africains n'étaient donc peut-être pas aussi nombreux que les masses des tribus berbères, amis ils n'en étaient pas moins présent en assez grand nombre, et avec pas moins d'importance que les blancs d'Afrique du Sud par exemple.

Du tout je dis qu'en general on passe de nomade à sedentaire au fil du temps mais pas de sedentaire à nomade.

Et bien, même en admettant que ca soit la règle (ce qui est discutable, mais hors de ce sujet), tout ce qu'on a dit c'est que la masse berbère de l'époque concernée (7e au 12e s.) était clairement partagée entre une population sédentaires (depuis longtemps ou non), et un groupe tout aussi important de tribus nomades, totalement différentes dans leur mode de vie de la première catégorie, et même qu'une hostilité ancestrale opposait les uns aux autres ... du temps même du Christianisme.

Sommes-nous ai moins d'accord sur cela ?

Sinon je ne comprends pas cette manie de vouloir trouver des points communs entre les berberes et les arabes ? S'ils etaient si visibles on se poserait meme pas la question ... A la rigueur je veux bien qu'il y'ait des points communs avec les autres populations mediterrannéennes mais avec le desert d'arabie y'a rien.

Non, pas les Berbères avec les Arabes, mais une certaine catégorie de tribus berbères avec les groupes arabes arrivés à partir du 11e s.

Maintenant, si tu considère qu'un Gétule ressemble à un Samnite parceque les deux sont "méditérannéens", et qu'un Luwwata est dissemblable d'un Hilallite parceque l'un est asiatique et l'autre africain, que veux-tu que je te dise ?

[humanbyrace]

C'est quoi ces conneries encore humanbyrace, si tu veux faire ta théorie ils recrutent encore dans les jeunesses nazies en europe ...
En attendant l'Afrique du Nord c'est 80% au bas mot de matrice berbere.

je ne suis pas nazi ce sont des etudes genetiques, scientifiques.
l'afrique du nord est tres diverse, mais il ya le groupe humain mozabite qui est nord africain a 80%, je crois que du a on endogamy il a preserve une importante ancestry berbere

[humanbyrace]

on est tous melanges pour ce qui est interesse il peut voire ces resultats dans le site ci dessous.
http://dodecad.********.com/
remplacer les etoiles par ********
Par exemple puis je te questionner bourguignon combien d'apport Turc aurais tu cru pour l'Anatolie, grace a ces etudes on a decouvert qu'il est pres de 2,6%

[humanbyrace]

il n'ya pas eu d'assimilation mais melange+symbiose de divers populations.
la langue berbere date du neolithique et est arrive avec la diffusion du pastoralisme et agriculture et les habitants pre berbere ont adopte cette nouvelle langue.
voire ci dessous

[QUOTE]
Journal of Language Relationship • Вопросы языкового родства • 1 (2009) • pp. 95 – 106
Alexander Militarev
(Russian State University for the Humanities)
Proto-Afrasian Lexicon Confirming West Asian Homeland: Pastoralism
The article presents one more step towards the equation of the culture of speakers of Proto-Afrasian, reconstructed
on the basis of paleolinguistic data, with the early Neolithic Post-Natufian culture of the Levant. According
to the glottochronological method of S. A. Starostin, Proto-Afrasian is dated back to approximately 10 000 —
the same period as Post-Natufian (supposed to be the cradle of agriculture and livestock breeding on the planet), as
far as radiocarbon dating tells us. The article offers evidence for the presence of a layer of pastoral lexicon in Proto-
Afrasian, in the form of 26 reconstructed names for large and small cattle and various other pastoral terms. The
lexical data are preceded with a brief summary of the current state of affairs in Afrasian historical linguistics, as
well as a description of the author’s methodology of linguistic analysis and his approach to combining linguistic
and archaeological data in order to solve the “homeland” issue for proto-languages.
Introduction
The objective of the present paper is to present further evidence, this time referring to pastoralism
presumably practised by the Proto-Afrasian (Afroasiatic, Semito-Hamitic) speaking community,
for the identification of this community with the early Levantine villagers associated with the
early Neolithic Post-Natufian culture. These villagers left some of the earliest known archaeological
evidence for the cultivation of domesticated crops (cereals and pulse) and the raising of domestic
livestock (cf., for example, [Bar-Yosef]; [Hass.]; [Pelt.]). It is for archaeologists to evaluate the
correspondences between the archaeological evidence from the Levant, as well as adjacent regions,
and the reconstructed terminology referring to incipient agro-pastoralism in the Proto-Afrasian language,
dated by the new version of the linguistic method of glottochronology to approximately the
same period (12 000 – 10 500 BP) and presumably the same area.
This is part of a broader project aimed at drawing a most comprehensive picture featuring practically
all aspects of life of Early Neolithic people in the Near East which can be drawn from the reconstructed
Proto-Afrasian lexicon, namely, terms referring to people and society; economic life
and technology; intellectual culture; and natural and physical environments.
While the archaeology of the Levant is one of the most advanced fields in the domain of world prehistory,
Afrasian comparative linguistics has long been lagging behind such fields as Altaic or North
Caucasian, to say nothing of Indo-European comparative studies. As to comparative Afrasian lexicology
and etymology, their history and present state of knowledge can be described in short as follows. Sound
correspondences and etymologies proposed in the pioneer work by M. Cohen ([Coh.]) postulating the
Semito-Hamitic family are, as a whole, outdated. A lot of Common Afrasian lexemes were collected by
J. Greenberg in The Languages of Africa ([Gr.]) and other works, but his method of “mass comparison”,
opposed to the established comparative-historical method and aiming exclusively at genealogical
classification, does not care for establishing sound correspondences or reconstructing protoforms. A
number of reliable phonetic and lexical Afrasian correspondences were proposed in [I-S] and other studies
by V. Illich-Svitych, who included Semito-Hamitic resp. Afrasian into his Nostratic macrofamily
(the present author considers Afrasian and Nostratic two “sister” entities on the same taxonomic level)
and, especially, by A. Dolgopolsky ([Dolg. Cush.]), who adduced Afrasian parallels to his Cushito-
Omotic protoforms and paved the way to the elaboration of Proto-Afrasian phonological system.
The first study, however, to reconstruct the latter and establish regular sound corrspondences between
the primary branches and languages of Afrasian (its main bulk is still valid even today), was carried
out by a team of scholars headed by I. Diakonoff, of which the present author was a member; it
also adduced a few hundred Proto-Afrasian lexemes ([HCVA]). Although an important step for comparative

[humanbyrace]

Afrasian back in its day, now that over 20 years have passed, its many drawbacks are obvious
to everyone including its authors; some are due to many publication sources that were inaccessible in
Russia back then, others — to a lack of experience in dealing with such vast and heterogeneous material,
still others — to rather loose semantic criteria. Two comparative Afrasian dictionaries both published
in 1995 ([HSED] and [Ehr. PA]) enriched the field with more lexical data, yet again, each of the
two had its own flaws. [HSED], while replete with new and stimulating etymologies, was compiled
rather hastily and carelessly; C. Ehret’s method, on the other hand, involved postulating improbably
sophisticated proto-phonemes in combination with far-fetched semantic comparisons, such as his attempts
to relate words with meanings like ‛armpit’ and ‛to thatch’ (“the armpit is a covered area of the
body”), or ‛forest’ and ‛thirst’ (with the reconstructed meaning ‛waterless place, desolation’), ¤c.
Important contributions to the study of Afrasian lexicon have also been made by two hard-working
comparative linguists, V. Blažek (in many papers) and G. Takács ([EDE I, II and III] and various other
papers). Invaluable and enormous Afrasian lexical data are presented by one of the world’s leading macrocomparativists,
A. Dolgopolsky, in his massive Nostratic Dictionary (still unpublished on paper but
now available online at http ://www.dsp ace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/196512 courtesy of the McDonald Institute
for Archaeological Research at Cambridge); many Afrasian reconstructions offered there are,
however, in our opinion, debatable, due to Dolgopolsky’s adherence to the idea of Afrasian being an integral
part of Nostratic, which accounts for numerous cases of “forced” cognations. Anyway, the most
comprehensive collection of Afrasian etymological data (containing some 3 500 entries in the main database
and some 15 000 in subdatabases containing lexica of all the branches and lesser groups within
Afrasian), some of it representing properly verified etymologies and some serving as “raw material”
open to further research, can be found today in the general Afrasian database ([AADB]), accessible electronically
at http ://starling.rinet.ru. The database has been compiled by the present author and O. Stolbova
within the framework of the “Evolution of Human Languages” project of the Santa Fe Institute.
As to how this relates to all the work in progress elsewhere, it is worth mentioning that practically
all the researchers who tried to deal with the problem of original habitat, or “homeland”, of the
speakers of Proto-Afrasian, put forth arguments in favor of an African homeland. These arguments,
relying on general considerations like “economy of movement”, as well as scarce, chaotic and carelessly
compiled lexical examples, look very weak (see, for example, [Ehr. EEA] and studies by
R. Blench, such as [ALAP] and others); an exception can be made for I. Diakonoff’s study ([Diak.
ESA]) which is methodologically impeccable, but was outdated already at the moment of publication,
as far as lexical materials that underlie its conclusions are concerned. By that time, a lot of new
data contradicting these conclusions had already been accumulated — partly due to ongoing work
on comparative Afrasian lexicon, initiated and headed by Diakonoff himself. Later, he recognized
the validity of our arguments in favor of a West Asian homeland ([Diak. Sum.]).
Since the present paper is designed for a new periodical edition, devoted to issues of historical
and comparative linguistics, the author thinks it appropriate to precede the data with some theoretical
and methodological considerations. Namely, three different methods are used for different aspects
of the author’s research on Afrasian lexicon, including the one fragment that is represented by
the present paper, and on the investigation of the homeland of Proto-Afrasian speakers:
(1) The main method is, as in any other standard comparative study dealing with lexical reconstruction
of a protolanguage, the classic comparative-historical method elaborated for Indo-European
languages by the Neogrammarian School in the late 19
th century. Within this method, several principles
are strictly observed, some of them slightly innovative, some being universally accepted as something
that goes without saying — yet far from always followed either in etymological dictionaries for
individual Afrasian languages or in studies on Common Afrasian. These principles are as follows:
(1.1.) Selection of lexical terms to be labelled Proto-Afrasian. According to the author’s genetic
classification of Afrasian (first branching dated to the mid-10
th mill.), this macrofamily consists of
the following presumed branches and universally recognized families:
1. North Afrasian (NAA) (first branching dated to the mid 9
th mill. ):
1.1. Semitic.
1.2. African North Afrasian (ANAA):
1.2.1. Egyptian.
1.2.2. Chado-Berber:
1.2.2.1. Berber-Canarian.
1.2.2.2. Chadic.
2. South Afrasian (SAA):
2.1. Cushitic.
2.2. Omotic.
ProtoAfrasian Lexicon Confirming West Asian Homeland: Pastoralism
97
In accordance with this classification, PAA terms are those attested at least in one family belonging
to the NAA branch and one family belonging to the SAA branch; PNAA terms are those attested in Semitic
and at least one family belonging to the ANAA subbranch, provided the compared terms are not
suspected to have been borrowed (see below for criteria for borrowings). Terms attested only in ANAA or
only in SAA (both branching in late 8
th mill.) are not included, as they are irrelevant for the present study.
(1.2.) Ruling out borrowings.
To avoid reconstruction of “false” PAA or PNAA forms, the terms selected for inclusion should
not be suspected of having been borrowed, with all controversial and debatable cases marked as such.

[humanbyrace]

First of all, this principle makes the inclusion of Semitic cognates highly desirable; a lack of Semitic
parallels will make any form claimed to represent PAA less reliable, since cognate forms that are only
attested in African Afrasian languages, even in both ANAA and SAA, may have been borrowed from
a non-Afrasian African substratum. Apart from that, there can be several other situations with their
specific problems requiring individual treatment. Most difficult ones involve identifying Arabisms in
most spoken African Afrasian languages; Ethiopian and SAA interborrowings; Cushitic-Omotic, Berber-
Chadic, and Egyptian-Semitic interborrowings. In order to distinguish between inherited and borrowed
lexemes, the following criteria are proposed (cf. [SED I and II: Introduction, 1.11]):
(1.2.1.) A term may be reasonably claimed a loanword or suspected of having been borrowed
only if areal contacts between the languages in question are attested historically and linguistically
(e.g. between Arabic and Berber) or, in absence of historical evidence, only linguistically (e.g. between
Central Cushitic and Common Ethiopian) or are at least likely to have taken place for geographic
proximity (as between Egyptian and Chadic).
(1.2.1a.) Conversely, if in languages whose ethno-linguistic contacts are unknown, there occur
instances of matches unlikely to be either cognates or look-alikes, this can be only accounted for by
borrowing to serve as a basis for presuming and further investigating such contacts.
(1.2.2.) Instances of borrowing are often, though far from always, characterized by irregular
correspondences between consonantal phonemes of the recipient and source languages.
(1.2.3.) An identical morphological pattern in two languages that is typical of one of them, but
uncommon of the other, suggests borrowing.
(1.2.3a.) Conversely, difference in morphological patterns between the two terms speaks against
borrowing, save for a clear secondary change in a recipient language (e. g. pluralization).
(1.2.4.) A potential indication of borrowing is attestation of the term in question in the presumed
source and recipient languages only (i.e., the word is missing in other languages of the genetic
unit to which the recipient language belongs).
(1.2.4a.) On the contrary, if a term is attested in other branches of the family, it is expected to
have been inherited by all the daughter languages from the family proto-language. Qualifying this
term as a loan-word in the presumed recipient language implies a theoretically possible but somewhat
less feasible “double” process — loss and later reappearance as a borrowing.
(1.2.4b.) Attestation in other languages within the compact genetic unit to which the presumably
recipient language belongs speaks against borrowing under the following conditions:
— the languages of this compact genetic unit are presumed to have diverged prior to the period(
s) of contacts between the suspected recipient language and the source language;
— the languages in question have never undergone influence from the would-be source language;
— the languages in question did not undergo influence from the suspected recipient language
during and/or after the period(s) of the latter’s contact with the source language.
(1.2.5.) If the term in question belongs to certain semantic groups that are more open to borrowings,
this may be an argument in favour of such a borrowing (one must, however, warn against an
uncritical application of this criterion, which, in previous works, has sometimes led to an unwarranted
assumption of borrowing of a great part of the cultural lexicon in such languages as Arabic).
(1.2.6.) Unmotivated difference in vocalism between the two terms is an argument against borrowing.
Thus, Tigre nib ‛tooth’ can hardly be a borrowing from Arabic, where the attested form is
nāb-. Not only does the Arabic vocalism leave Tigre -i- unexplained, but the latter form perfectly
corresponds to Hebrew and Aramaic forms that also have -i-.
(1.2.7.) Semantic difference: if a secondary semantic development cannot be proved in a recipient
language, difference in meaning between the two terms is a strong argument against borrowing.
Alexander Militarev
98
(1.3.) Reconstruction of the meaning of the protoform.
Provided that regularity of phonetic correspondences is observed for a reconstructed protoform,
identifying its most feasible meaning (we omit the easier cases when the meanings of all cognates in the
daughter languages, on which the reconstructed protoform relies, are uniform) is of crucial importance
for convincing extralinguistic interpretations. Although it goes without saying that a certain meaning is
ascribed to each protoform based on close comparison of the complete scope of meanings in individual
languages, such an operation can hardly be called proper semantic reconstruction, since, unlike the relatively
strict, if not infallible, procedure of phonetic reconstruction, it relies not on a solid method, still
conspicuously absent in historical semantics, but rather on the etymologist’s intuition and common
sense. Anyway, while a dubious choice of a meaning for a protoform may be acceptable in a regular
comparative study, it is certainly unpardonable in a study that claims to draw extralinguistic information
from linguistic comparison. Thus, an ungrounded, forced assignment of a “cultural” notion to a protoform
makes a bias towards picturing a more advanced prehistoric society than it may have been in reality.
Recognizing that more “cultural” notions usually go back to more “primitive” notions (at least on a
pre-proto-language level), we accept the following guideline in our semantic reconstruction:
— faced with the choice between a “primitive” and a “cultural” meaning, e.g. between that of a wild
or domesticated animal or plant species, for a given protoform, the “cultural” meaning, i.e. that of a domesticated
species, is proposed only if this meaning is present in the cognate forms of all or nearly all
daughter languages. This principle is based on the assumption that independent shift from a “primitive”
meaning (wild species) to a “cultural” meaning (domesticated species) in each Afrasian branch and individual
language, while theoretically possible, is a far less probable process than the same shift as early as
in Proto-Afrasian, from which the “cultural” term was duly inherited by all the daughter languages. The
ambivalent cases, i. e. those when a term in question conveys a more “cultural” notion (refers to a domesticated
species) in some of the daughter languages, and a more “primitive” notion (refers to wild species)
in the others, cannot be used as arguments for ascribing a “cultural” meaning to the protoform.
(2) Another method used for dating the Proto-Afrasian language on the eve of its branching into daughter
languages is glottochronology, proposed by the American linguist Morris Swadesh in the 1950s ([Sw.
1952] and [Sw. 1955]) and radically improved, updated and tested on many languages belonging to various
language families by the recently deceased Russian linguist Sergei Starostin ([Star.]) and his successors.
According to Swadesh’s method, the most essential, representative, commonly used and, hence,
rarely borrowed lexemes are selected for each of the diagnostic 100 wordlist items, which convey
some of the most fundamental notions presumed to be present in any human language (personal pronouns,
numerals 1 and 2, certain body parts, natural objects, main color terms, several most current
verbs and adjectives, ¤c.). These lexemes are to be compared by means of the lexicostatistical procedure
to determine a percentage of etymologically identical units common to any pair of related languages.
The principle implies a preliminary stage of compiling a diagnostic wordlist that requests a
carefully measured selection of terms. In the Afrasian case, this involves (a) thorough philological
analysis of written monuments both in extinct Semitic languages, such as Akkadian, Ugaritic, Biblical
Hebrew, Syriac, Classical Arabic, Sabaic and Ge‛ez, and in Egyptian, and (b) equally detailed
analysis of lexical sources on modern living Afrasian sources, including, where possible, work with
active language speakers. For the most part, this preliminary stage has already been completed.
At the same time, unlike Swadesh, who paid little attention to precision and reliability of individual
etymologies, and avoided any detailed treatment of the complicated problem of borrowing, Starostin in his
method requires meticulous etymological analysis, not merely aimed at accurate and well-grounded establishment
of cognate terms, but also one that is supposed to disembarrass the list of potential cognates
from loanwords — which violate the “natural” algorithm of substitutions in the core lexicon. Tracing loanwords
and cogently distinguishing them from inherited lexemes implies high standards of etymological procedure,
as well as recurring to sociolinguistic and ethnocultural data. Sometimes, this operation also leads
to identifying certain “obscure” lexical items, which we cannot normally trace back to the proto-language
or to a reliable source of borrowing due to a lack of data, as potential borrowings from unknown sources.
(3) The third method is that of cross-checking linguistic and archaeological data. As applied to
Afrasian linguistics, it has been elaborated by the author in his previous publications, and is based
on the following main criteria of identifying “homelands”, or original habitats, of reconstructed
proto-language communities characterized by a specific archaeological culture (or several cultures):

[humanbyrace]

ProtoAfrasian Lexicon Confirming West Asian Homeland: Pastoralism
99
— one sine qua non condition of plausible identification is that dates estimated by both linguistic
and archaeological methods should basically coincide;
— the other sine qua non condition is that the general outlines of the material culture (as well
as elements of intellectual culture and social organization) and natural environment of the presumed
homeland, one reconstructed on the basis of the evidence of the proto-language lexicon, the other
through archaeological data, should be compatible;
— one strong argument for a particular homeland consists in revealing traces of linguistic contacts
between the proto-language in question and its early daughter dialects, on one hand, and other reconstructable
proto-languages or ancient languages, likely spoken in the area of the presumed homeland
and/or along the migration routes of daughter dialects during the corresponding periods, on the other;
— another strong argument is being able to show that the proposed routes of the daughter dialects’
movement towards their historically attested habitats correspond to the directions of cultural
expansion or artefact spreads that have been established archaeologically, and/or to the directions of
population migrations that have been established genetically.
This study has been carried out within the general framework of projects in comparative Semitic
and Afrasian linguistics, supported by the Russian Foundation for Sciences (Project 03-06-80435a),
the Russian Foundation for the Humanities (Project 06-04-00397a), The Santa Fe Institute (The
“Evolution of Human Languages” Project), and the Ariel Group (The “Tower of Babel” Project). My
gratitude goes to these institutions, as well as to my colleagues and collaborators in different projects
— Prof. O. Stolbova and Drs. L. Kogan and G. Starostin for consultations and discussions.
The Data
The following 26 entries is an incomplete selection of data that demonstrate, in our opinion, the most
reliable or promising Proto-Afrasian terms related to cattle-breeding. A lot of common Afrasian terms referring
both to domesticated and wild species in daughter languages, or attested in African Afrasian
branches only, are not included on purpose in accordance with the principles and considerations presented
above. Undoubtedly, more terms can be adduced and the quoted ones can be complimented and strengthened
by more data. I will be grateful to my colleagues for any additions, corrections and criticisms.
1. Livestock
1.1. Small cattle
1.1.1. *mar- ‛lamb; ram’
Sem. *ʔimmar- ‛lamb’: Akk. (’sheep; sheep and goats; ram’); Ugr.; Phoen., Hbr., Aram.; Arab.
Chad. W. *mar-: Tangale mara ‛(castrated) goat’, Diri mar ‛goat’, Bokkos maray, Tala màar,
Buli maro, Polchi mar ‛goat’.
Cush. E.: Saho, Afar márū ‛ram’.
Omot. N.: Wolayta mára ‛lamb’, Male màràyi ‛ram’, mármáro ‛lamb’, Koyra mará ‛ram’,
Bworo merḗrà ‛sheep’ (Blench OLT 72).
[[
]] Cf. [HSED: 1729]; [SED II: 5]; [AADB].
1.1.2. *kar(w/y)- ‛ram, goat; lamb, kid’
Sem. *ka/ir(r)- ‛ram, goat’: Akk. kirru (or girru) ‛a breed of sheep (?)’; Ugr. kr ‛ram’; Hbr. kar
‛(young) ram’, Aram. kr ‛sheep’.
(?) Egyp. (NK) kr-ty ‛horns’ (dual).
Berb. *kVrr ‛ram, goat’, *kVrw ‛lamb, kid’.
Chad. W. *kwar-/*karw- ∼ *kir-: Kofyar koor ‛castrated goat’, Angas kīr ‛fattening ram’, Dera
kwárà ‛goat’, Zaar karò ‛sheep’, Wangday kɛ´rò ‛ram’, ¤c.; E.: Tobanga (N. Gabri) karaŋ ‛goat’.
Cush. E.: Arbore kaary ‛heifer goat’, korat ‛male goat’, Dobase koren-te ‛female goat’ ,
Yaaku kurum- ‛goat, young; lamb’.
[[
]] Cf. [HSED: 1432]; [SED II: 118]; [AADB].
1.1.3. *ʕay/wp- ∼ *pi/aʕ- ’kid; goat; ram’
Sem.: Arab. faʕfaʕ-; ESA (Min.) fyʕ, Soq. ʕéyfif ‛kid’.
Egyp. (20
th Dyn.) ῾pwy ‛name of a holy ram’.
Alexander Militarev
100
Chad. C.: Hwona wufī-rā ‛she-goat’, Logone (Kotoko) húfu ‛goat’.
Cush. E.: Dobase piʕa-če ‛female goat’.
[[
]] See [SED II: 49]; [AADB].
1.1.4. *ʔayl- ∼ *ʔal(l)Vy- ‛ram, sheep’
Sem. *ʔayl- ‛ram’: Akk. (?); Ugr.; Hbr., Aram.; ESA; Tña. (perhaps < Saho-Afar).
Berb. *ti-Hilay- ‛sheep’: Ahaggar té-helé, Ghat či-hali, Taneslemt t-ilăy, ¤c.
Cush. N.: Beja alli, pl. illi ‛long-haired sheep’; E.: Saho ille, Afar illi ‛small cattle’, Arbore
ʔellém, Elmolo ʔélem ‛ram’ (both with -m suffixed); S.: Maʔa iʔalé ‛ram’, iʔalú ‛sheep’.
[[
]] Cf. [HSED: 67]; [Bla. Beja: 233 – 234]; [SED II: 24]; [AADB].
1.1.5. *(ya-)bVlaw/y- ‛ram, goat’
Sem. *yābil- (perhaps < *wābil-) ‛ram’: Phoen., Hbr., Aram.; Arab. (?).
Egyp. (OK, MK) ı᾿b᾿ ᾿ w ‛ovis tragelaphus)’.
Berb. *ḇ/bal(l)i ‛sheep, ram’: Ghadames ta-ḇali, Audjila te-ḇel, Gurara, Tuat, Tidikelt belli (pl.).
Chad. W.: Geji mbila ‛sheep’ (cf. *baHil-Vm- ‛horn’: Montol bulu, Bolewa ɓòolúm, Galambu
ɓàl, Maha belem); C.: Boka ɓwə` lə ‛goat’, Matakam bə´láw ‛race de mouton sp.’ (cf. Chibak tə-mbəlɛ´
‛horn’); E.: Lele bùlóbùló ‛he-goat’, Kabalai bâl, Migama bṑlyo, Sokoro bàl ‛goat’.
Cush. E.: Oromo bulal-ē ‛lamb’, Hadiya ambula ‛ram’, Kambatta ambula ‛goat, ram’.
(?) Omot. S.: Dime bal-tu, Galila baali ‛horn’.
[[
]] Cf. [HSED: 2570]; [SED II: 245]; [AADB].
1.1.6. *čaʔw- ∼ *ʔačVw- ‛small cattle; meat’
Sem. *ṯaʔ(w)-at- ‛ewe’: Ugr.; Aram.; Arab.; MSA.
(?) Berb.: Canarian (all islands) chivato, chiva ‛kid’ (rather < Spanish chibo).
Chad. W.: Kariya čiči ‛goat’, Gera čača ‛she-goat’ (redupl.); E.: Kwang čúwī ‛he-goat’.
Cush. E.: Somali soʔ, Oromo fooni, Baiso soʔo, Konso sowa, ¤c. ‛meat’ (Oromo f- points to *č).
Omot. N. *ʔačVw- ‛meat, flesh’: Koyra ʔaččo, Wolayta ʔašuwa, Ganjule ʔačo, Chara ačča,
Gimirra ʔač, Yamma aša, Dizi ʔač-ku.
[[
]] See [SED II: 236]; [AADB].
1.1.7. *(ʔa-)w/yVn- ‛sheep, goat’
Sem.: Gur.: Cha. onā, Ezha onnā ‛young male goat or sheep’ (though isolated in Sem., no
tenable source of borrowing observed).
Berb.-Can.: Tenerife ana, haña, jana ‛sheep’.
(?) Egyp. (NK) wny ‛calf (as a representation of Osiris)’.
Chad. W.: Siri yáàn ‛she-goat’ (cf. also *nVyVw- ‛horn’: Geji nowo, Boghom nyaw, Tule
nyewò, ¤c.); E.: Migama :ná, Jegu té-éné (pl. ʔéén), Birgit ʔàynéy ‛she-goat’.
Cush. N.: Beja ano ∼ naaʔ ‛sheep’; E.: Afar anaʕ-to ‛lamb (female)’ ( -ʕ in Auslaut is
unexpected as it is not confirmed by Som.), Somali wan, pl. wanan ‛ram’, Rendille onó ‛sheep’.
Omot. S.: Dime iin, (?) Ongota hoona ‛sheep’.
[[
]] Cf. [Bla. Beja: 234 – 235].

[humanbyrace]

1.2.Large cattle
1.2.1. *lawiʔ- ‛large cattle’
Sem. *lVʔ- (m.), *lVʔ-at- (f.) ‛head of large cattle’: Akk. littu (lītu); Ebl. l-a-núm ‛cow’; Arab.
lāʔa ‛wild bull, buffalo’; Mhr. ləháytən ‛cows’, Jib. léʔ, Soq. ʔélheh ‛cow’.
Egyp. (Pyr.) ı᾿w᾿ ᾿ ‛bull’ (if < *lVwVʔ-).
(?) Berb. Tuareg əlu ‛bull’ (quoted in [EDE I: 86] as “Tamasheq”, dialect name and source not specified).
Chad. W.: Dera láà ‛cow’, Pero ló ‛animal, meat’ (cf. also *laʔu ‛meat’); C.: Gude la ‛cow’.
Cush. C. *luway ‛cow’ (Bilin luwi, ¤c.); E.: Saho, Afar lā ‛cow, cattle’, LEC *loʔ(loʔ)- ‛cows’
(Somali loʔ, Konso low-aa, ¤c.), HEC *lal- ‛cows, cattle’ (Sidamo lalo, ¤c.), Dullay *loʔ-, pl. *leʔ-
‛cow’ (Tsamay lōʔō, pl. lēʔē, ¤c.), S.: Qwadza leʔa-mu-ko ‛bull’.
[[
]] Cf. [HSED: 1632]; [SED II: 142]; [AADB]. Cf. Austric *lVw ‛ox, cattle’ ([GlDB]). Cf.
metathetic *waʔVl- ‛calf, bull’: Cush. E.: Somali weeyl, Hadiya woʔl-a ‛calves’; Berb.: Izayan ṯawala
‛troupeau de boeufs, sangliers’ [Loub.: 583]. Cf. [EDE I: 86]; [HSED: 2595].
ProtoAfrasian Lexicon Confirming West Asian Homeland: Pastoralism
101
1.2.2. *(ʕ/ʔi-)gʷal- ‛calf; bull, cow’
Sem. *ʕigl- ‛calf’: Ebl. (?); Ugr.; Phoen., Hbr., Aram.; Arab.; Gez. (ʕ/ʔəgʷəl, Tgr. ʔəgal )
Egyp. ῾gny, cow depicted (very likely < *ʕVgVl- ).
Chad. W.: Sayanchi gāl, Geji gal ‛cow’; C.: Bura gyɛl ‛bull’.
Cush. S.: Dahalo ngólome ‛male buffalo’ (< *nV-gʷVl-Vm-?).
Omot. N.: Wolayta gallua, Zayse galó ‛calf’.
[[
]] Cf. metathetic *ʕVlag- ∼ *lVgʕ/ʔ- ‛calf, bull; (young of small cattle?)’: Sem.: Arab. ʕulǯūm- ‛old
bull’; Tgr. läga ‛male calf’, Tna lägaʕ ‛cow close to calving’; Chad. C. *lVg/ɣ- ‛bull’: Hidkala ə´lghə,
Bachama lugùlɛy, ¤c.; Cush. N.: Beja legha ‛calf’; (?) S. *lagiʔ- ‛goat’: Alagwa lagay, Burunge legeʔi.
Cf. [HSED: 1100]; [SED II: 28]; [AADB].
1.2.3. *bVr- ‛(young) bull’
Sem.: Akk. būru (pūru) ‛young calf’, bīru ‛bull (for breeding); young cattle (up to three
years)’; Mand. bira ‛domestic cattle’; Arab. (Yem. dial.) bārah ‛cow’; Tgr. bara ‛ox’, Amh. bare,
Har. bāra ‛ox, bull’, Gur. *bawr- ‛ox (for farming)’. Cf. *bVʕVr- ‛household animal; beast of
burden’ ([SED II: 53]), perhaps derived with a secondary -ʕ-.
(?) Egyp. b᾿ ᾿ wy ‛arena, battlefield for bull-fight’ (presumably a nisba < *bVr- ‛bull’, cf. [EDE II: 53 – 54]).
Chad. W.: Gera bara ‛buffalo’; E.: Mokilko búrú ‛bull’.
Cush. N.: Beja beʔray ‛bull, cow’ (< Eth.?); C. *bir- ‛ox, bull’ (Bilin birā, ¤c. < Eth.?); E.:
Afar abur ‛bull, ox’, HEC *bōr- ‛young bull’ (Sidamo boor-to, ¤c. < Eth.?)
Omot. N. *bariy- ‛bull’: Wolayta bóora ‛ox’, Gamo bóora ‛bull’, Zala bōrā ‛ox’ (acc. to
Blench OLT 68, all three < Gur.), Chara bira (acc. to Blench ibid., < Agaw), Kafa bariyō ‛calf’,
Mocha bariyo ‛steer’, Bworo berō, Sheko bariyo ‛bull’.
[[
]] Cf. [HSED: 183]; [Bla. Beja: 238]; [SED II: 53 notes.]; [EDE II: 54 – 55]; [AADB]. Cf.
Nostr. *bVrV: Alt. *biŏ´ŕu ‛calf, lamb’, Drav. *paḍḍ-/*baṟ- ‛heifer’ ([GlDB[).
1.2.4. *ʔi/arw- ‛calf; bull’
Sem. *ʔi/arw-ān- ∼ *ʔawr- ‛calf, bull’: Syr. ʔarwān- ‛calf’; Arab. ʔirān- ‛male oryx’ (šātu
ʔirānin ‛bull’); Amh. awra ‛male (animal), dominant or alpha male; bull’; Gur. *ʔaraʔ/y- ‛cows’.
Egyp. (MK) ı᾿r-t ‛calf’, (Dem.) ı᾿ry-t ‛milking cow’.
Berb. *-HirVy ‛calf’: Ayr ehəri, Shilḥ irey, ¤c.
Chad. W.: Dera wóré, ara ‛meat’, Sha ʔarwà ‛ox’.
Cush. N.: Beja oreo ‛bull, steer’, rēw ‛cow’; E.: Saho, Afar awr ‛bull’, LEC: Somali awr ‛hecamel’,
Rendille or ‛he-camel, bull’, Oromo oor-oo ‛burden camel’, Arbore ʔáar , Dasenech ar
‛bull’, ¤c., HEC: Burji arráy, arʔáy ‛bull’, ʔre ‛calf’; Yaaku rɛhɛʔ ‛calf’.
(?) Omot. N.: Malo hāri ‛cattle’, Oyda (h)arr ‛cow’.
[[
]] Cf. [Bla. Beja: 236, 269]; [SED II: 16]; [AADB].
1.2.5. *maray- ‛calf, (young) bull, steer’
Sem.: Akk. mīru ‛young bull’, mīrtu ‛cow’ (Hbr. mərī(ʔ) ‛fatted steer’ is not necessarily
related being probably derived from the verbal root mrʔ ‛to be fat’).
Egyp. (MK) mr(y) ‛fighting bull’.
Chad. C.: Matakam maray ‛bull (for sacrifice)’, Mofu-Gudur maray ‛bull fattened in a stable’.
Cush. E.: LEC: Rendille máar ‛male calf’, maár ‛fem. calf’, Arbore máar ‛calves’ (coll.), HEC: Hadiya
moora ‛older calf’, Dullay: Harso, Dihina maar-akkó, Tsamay maare ‛heifer’; S.: Maʔa -moro ‛steer’.
Omot. N.: Wolayta mārā, Dorze mar, Male marro ‛calf’, Yämma omoru ‛bull’; S.: Ongota
marte ‛calf (she)’.
[[
]] Cf. Chad. W.: Hausa marīri ‛white oryx’, E.: Toram múro ‛gazelle’. Cf. [HSED: 1728];
[SED II: 206]; [EDE III: 390 – 392]; [AADB]. Perhaps related to *(ʔV-)mar- ‛lamb; ram’ on the
Pre-Proto-Afrasian level. Cf. Drav. *mūr- ‛buffalo; cow’ ([GlDB]).
1.3. Common or mixed terms for small and large cattle
1.3.1. *(ʔa-)fVr- ‛small and large cattle’
Sem. *parr- (1) ‛lamb’ (Akk. parru; Syr. parr-, Mnd. par-; Arab. furār-, farūr-), (2) ‛cattle’ (Ugr.
pr ; Hbr. par ‛bull, steer’, pārā ‛cow’, Aram. (Sam.) pr ‛bull’, prh ‛cow’; Tgr. fərrət ‛pasturing herd’,
Alexander Militarev
102
mäfrär ‛herd (of cows)’, Amh. afʷarä ‛to become a yearling ox’; (?) MSA: Mhr. fōr (pl. fəhārīn)
‛young bull’, Jib. fɔ´ʕɔ´r ‛young bull, male calf’, Soq. fáʕhar ‛young bull’ (with a secondary -ʕ-).
Chad. C. *faray- ‛buffalo; cattle’: Mbara fàrày ‛cattle; dot (bride wealth)’; there are also Bura
fir, Kilba fur, Margi fúr ‛buffalo’, but they are considered < *fun-, about which I have some doubts.
Cush. E.: Yaaku apur ‛sheep’; S.: Asa ʔeferet, ʔoforok, Qwadza afulatu ‛he-goat’.
[[
]] Cf. [HSED: 1950]; [SED II: 181]; [AADB].
1.3.2. *ĉayw/ʔ- ‛(meat of) small or large cattle’
Sem. *ŝaw- ‛head of small cattle’: Akk.; Ugr.; Phoen, Hbr.; Arab.; ESA (Sab.).
Egyp. ( MK) š᾿ ᾿ y ‛pig’ (cf. also šw ‛ass’).
Chad. W. *ĉa- ‛cow’: Siri ẑáà-t, Jimi, Polchi ŝáa, Dwot, Buli, Zul, Ngizim ŝáa (cf. also *ĉaw-
‛meat’); C. *ŝa- ‛cow’: Tera ẑa, Bura, Margi, Gisiga ŝa, ¤c. (cf. also *ŝuw- ‛meat’)
Cush. S. *ŝaʔe- ‛cow’: Iraqw, Alagwa, Burunge ŝee, Asa ŝe-ok, Qwadza ŝae-ko.
Omot. N. *ʔayš- ∼ *šaʔ- ‛goat’: Bworo eyššà, Mao (Hozo) šaa, (Ganza) saʔa, Dizi ɛs-ku.
[[
]] Cf. [HSED: 517]; [SED II: 217]; [AADB].
1.3.3. *p/fVl- ‛(young of) hoofed domestic animals’
Sem. *pVlw/y- ‛foal, small of domestic animals’: Arab. filw-, faluww-, fuluww- ‛a yearling foal
or ass already weaned’; Tgr. fəlit ‛calf’, fəluy ‛calf weaned’; Soq. fólhi ‛a yearling calf’ (in Tgr. and
Soq.borrowing from Arabic is possible).
(?) Chad. W.: Guruntum fwull ‛cow’ (isolated term).
Cush. N.: Beja filay ‛she-camel just foaled’ (borrowing from Arabic or Tigre not to be ruled
out); C. *fiyal- ‛goat’ (Aungi fəyäli, ¤c.); E.: HEC *fillaʔ- ‛goat’ (Kambatta felle-čču, pl. felleʔu, ¤c.).
Omot. N.: Kafa fɛll ‛goat’ (Blench OLT 71) < HEC?
[[
]] Cf. [Bla. Beja: 246]; [SED II: 174]; [AADB].
1.3.4. *dVbal- ‛pig / boar, ram, goat, calf’
Sem.: Arb. dawbal- ‛wild boar, suckling pig’, Gez. dābelā ‛billy goat, bull, male of any
animal’, Tgr. däbela ‛ram’, Tña. dibäla, Amh. dabela, däbäl ‛billy goat’ ([LGz.: 120 – 121]; in view
of a tenable Arab. parallel, less likely < Cush. as Leslau asserts, while E. Cush.: Saho, Afar dabeéla
‛billy goat’ are rather borrowed from Eth.).
Cush. N.: Beja debala ‛yearling cow’; E.: Baiso dabaalo ‛heifer’ (cf. in [Bla. Beja: 243]).
[[
]] Cf. [Bla. Beja: 269]; [AADB].

[humanbyrace]

2. Pasturing, foraging and tending livestock
2.1. *g(ʷ)Vĉ- ‛to tend, drive livestock’ ∼ *giĉaĉ- ‛pasture’
Sem. *gʷVŝVy/ʔ- ‛to tend cattle’: (?) Arb. ǯšʔ ‛produce vegetation (soil); emigrate (tribe)’;
iǯtašša ‛be covered with dense grass (soil)’ (to be interpreted as ‛to migrate with the animals to
grassy pastures’?); Gez. gʷāsaya ‛to tend cattle’ ([LGz.: 205]: < Tña.?), Tña. gʷasäyä id., (?) Endegeñ,
Gyeto g išašä ‛field, plain, meadow, open space’ (according to [LGur.: 299], < Hadiya); Soq. geŝ ‛to
pasture, drive cattle’, géŝiŝ ‛pasture’.
Cush. C.: Kemant gəšəš ‛pasture’; E.: Hadiya gišaša, Burji giiš- ‛to graze’. Cf. E.: Somali goš-
‛to ply between two places’.
Omot. N.: Kafa gaš- ‛drive one’s cows to pasture’.
[[
]] [AADB].
2.2. *rVʕVy/w- ‛to pasture, tend livestock; chase; accompany, follow’
Sem. *rVʕVy- ‛to pasture, herd (trans.); be herdsman, friend, companion’: Akk. reʔû ‛to pasture, guard
livestock, herd, graze (trans.)’, rūʔu ‛friend, companion’; Ugr. rʕy ‛herdsman’, rʕ ‛friend, companion’;
Hbr. rʕy ‛to pasture, guard livestock, herd, graze; join, associate with’, rōʕǟ ‛herdsman’, rēaʕ ‛friend, companion’;
Syr. rəʕā ‛to pasture, herd’; ESA (Sab.) rʕy id.; Arab. rʕy id., rāʕ- ‛herdsman’; Gez. rəʕya ‛herdsman’,
raʕawa ‛to yoke, join’, Tigre räʕa ‛to pasture, herd’, räwʕa ‛have intercourse’; Mhr. rō ‛to pasture,
herd’, rēʕi ‛herder’, Jib. raʕe ‛to pasture, herd’, rɛ´ʕi ‛friend, companion’, Soq. reʕe ‛to pasture, herd’.
(?) Egyp. (OK) y᾿ ᾿ ῾, verb connected with handling calves ([EG I: 27]; [EDE III: 50]; related if < *yrʕ).
ProtoAfrasian Lexicon Confirming West Asian Homeland: Pastoralism
103
Chad. W.: Diri rawā(n), Tsagu rāʔa ‛to herd, graze’ (perhaps < Arab.); E.: Bidiya ʔaraw
‛chase’ (< *ʕaraw-, with metathesis ?).
Cush. E.: Somali raaʕ- ‛to accompany, go together’ (in view of other LEC parallels, hardly <
Sem.), Boni ráà, Rendille raḥ ‛to follow’, Oromo ariʔa ‛to pursue, chase’; S.: *ʕārō (met.?)
‛ruminated fodder, grass’ (Iraqw ʕaaroo, ¤c.)
[[
]] [AADB]. The original meaning may be ‛to pasture’ or ‛to chase, follow (wild ungulates)’.
2.3. *(na-)ḳid- ‛shepherd of small cattle’
Sem.: Akk. nāḳidu ‛herdsman’; Ugr. nḳd ‛shepherd’; Hbr. nōḳēd ‛shepherd, sheep-breeder’,
pB. ‛lamb’; Arab. naḳḳād- ‛shepherd’ ([HALOT]; not in [BK]), naḳad- ‛kind of ram’ (BK 2 1321; cf.
naḳd- ‛silver, money’ ibid.).
Berb.: Ayr, E. Tawllemmet ə-ɣadɣad ‛herd of goats’.
Omot. N.: Moča qiddo ‛shepherd’, Kafa qidō ‛guardian’.
[[
]] [AADB]. A promising root, though not quite reliable because of scarce data.
2.4. *cVḥ- ‛pasture, to pasture, to herd’
Sem.: Akk. saḫḫu (sāḫu) ‛meadow, waterlogged land’ (-ḫ- < *-ḥ- is possible--cf. Kog.); Arab.
sḥḥ ‛to be very fat (of rams)’; Tña. säwḥi ‛meadow, ever-green pasture’.
(?) Egyp. (OK) sḥ᾿ ᾿ -t ‛herd of donkeys’.
Chad. W.: Wrj. čiɣə, Siri cagu, Sha čó ‛to herd, graze’, (?) Dera ǯwà ‛herd’.
Cush. C.: Kemant sēḫā ‛prairie’.
[[
]] Cf. [HSED: 385]; [AADB]. Not quite reliable because of phonetic problems and semantic diversity.
2.5. *kwal- ‛forage, fodder; pasture; mowing, collecting, gleaning’
Sem. *kwalāʔ- ‛forage’, *kwVlVw- ‛to mow’: Akk. ukullû ‛cattle fodder, forage’; Arab. klʔ
‛abound in forage (area)’, kalaʔ- ‛forage (dry or fresh)’; Gez. kʷālawa ‛to reap, mow’ ([LGz.: 284[),
makala, makkola (acc. to Leslau, for makkʷala; secondary derivation with m- prefixed) ‛to cut with
a sickle, mow’ ([bd.: 339]), Tgr. mäklay ‛halm of durra, halm of corn’, Tña. mäḵälä ‛to mow, cut’,
Amh. kəlkəl ‛pasture’; cf. Jib. kélét ‛bush with edible twigs’.
Berb. *kVlkVl- ‛pick up, collect’: Ahaggar kelukelu , Ayr kələnkilet (with a secondary -n-).
Chad. W.: Hausa kala ‛gleaning’; E.: Lele kḗl ‛pick up, collect’.
Cush. C. (?) Khamir kilkil ‛pasture’ (likely a loan of Amh. kəlkəl) : E.: Oromo kalō ‛pasture
land’, Kambatta kalu, Sidamo, Burji kalo ‛pasture’ (probably borrowed from Oromo).
[[
]] [AADB]. To separate from *kal(aʔ)- ‛earth, land’ (see [Mil.: 23]).
2.6. *ʔVry- ‛cattle-shed’
Sem. *ʔu/arVy- ‛stall’: Akk. urû ‛stall’; Hbr. *ʔurwā (HALOT: “from Akk.-Sum. urû >
Aram > Arab.”) ‛stall’; Jud. ʔūryā, Syr. ʔōryā; Arb. ʔariy-, ʔiry- id.
Cush. E. *ʔari-t- ‛gate of animal pen’: Somali irid-i, Rendille ar it (< *arit Hei. 74).
[[
]] [AADB]. Not A promising root, though not quite reliable because of scarce data.
Products of stock-raising
*sim-an- ‛fat milk; to milk, suck; butter, oil, fat’
Sem. šamVn- ‛fat, oil, butter’: Akk. šamnu ‛oil, fat’; Ugr. šmn; Hbr. šämän ‛oil, fat’, Syr.
šumn, Mnd.šamin ‛fat’, Maʕlula šomna ‛butter’; Arab. samn- ‛fat; melted) butter’; Jib. šɛ˜n ‛fat’.
Egyp. (Med.) smy ‛fat milk, cream’.
Berb.-Can.: Ahaggar ésim ‛melted fat’, Ghat isim ‛animal fat’, Qabyle ṯa-ssəm-ṯ id., summ ‛to
suck’; Can. (Ferro) achemen ‛milk’.
Chad. W.: Somrai š -šə¯m, Sokoro ʔə´-smə` ‛to suck (sugar)’.
Cush. N: Beja simuum ‛suet, fatty covering of kidneys’; E.: LEC *siḥim- with a secondary -h-
?): Somali siḥin- ‛curds’, Rendille siḥme ‛butter’, Dullay *šinam-(met.?): Dalpena šiinán-ko, pl.
šiinam-aane ‛butter’, Gollango šiinan-ko, pl. šinam-aane ‛fat’; S.: Iraqw ismoo ‛nipple’, Qwadza
sum- ‛to milk’, Maʔa semu ‛breast’.
[[
]] Cf. [HSED: 2247]; [SED I: 248]; [AADB]; [Bla. Review: 505].
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*sVp/fVy- ‛churned milk, curds’
Sem.: Hbr. šəpōt ‛cheese or curds (made of cow’s milk)’.
Cush. N.: Beja šefi ‛drink milk’; E.: HEC *šaff- ‛to churn’ (Kambatta šaffo, ¤c.).
[[
]] [AADB].
Livestock as a socio-economic category
*g(ʷ)iʒʒ- ‛domestic animals as possessions, property’
Sem.: Arb. ǯwz ‛go, march, drive beasts of burden and riding animals, take them to watering
place’, IV ‛give so. a certain sum of money’; Gez. gāz, gāzā, gizān ‛treasury, wealth, money’ (acc. to
[LGz.: 210]: “< Greek γᾱ´ζᾱ; also occurs in Aram.-Syr. gazzā going back to Median ganza”, which is
questionable in view of Semitic and Afrasian parallels), Gafat gəzzä ‛cattle, money’, gäzzä ‛to master’,
Wol., Zw. gəzat, Sel. gəzāt ‛cows, domestic animals, cattle’, Muh., Gog., Sod. gəzz ‛cows, domestic
animals, cattle’, Sod. gəzzoday ‛shepherd’ (Acc. to Leslau: “probably passed into Cushitic... The root
could also be common to Semitic-Ethiopic and Cushitic”; the latter suggestion is more likely than the
former as the meaning ‛cattle’ is not attested in Amharic, a plausible source of borrowing into HEC and
N. Omot., which can hardly borrow terms meaning ‛cattle’ and ‛money’ from Gafat or Gurage dialects).
Berb.: Zenaga a-guzzīʰ ‛herd of sheep’.
Cush. E.: Kambatta gizza ‛cattle’, Tembaro gəzza ‛money, cattle’, Hadiya godda ‛cattle, property, wealth’.
Omot. N.: Kafa giǯǯō ‛livestock, money, welfare, possessions’, Chara gizā, giǯǯā id., She gĭz
‛welfare, possessions’, Mao (Sezo) gizzi, (Hozo) gitza ‛cattle’.
[[
]] [AADB]. Perhaps related to Eth. *giz(z)- ‛cattle, money’ is Eth. *gzʔ ‛to master, possess’:
Gez. ʔəgziʔ ‛master’, Tgr. gäzʔa ‛to possess, dominate’, Tña. gäzʔa ‛to possess, buy’, Amh. gäzza
‛to possess, buy, govern’ ([LGz. 210]), Gur. *gäza ‛to own, possess, govern, ¤c.’ ([LGur. 304]).
*mal- ‛livestock (as a source of milk or meat, or as a capital); tend livestock’:
Sem.: Arab. mwl ‛be rich, esp. in livestock’, māl- ‛herd of camels; richness’; ESA (Sab.) mly
‛to get, win, obtain as booty’, mlt ‛loot, booty, prize of war’; Tgr. mal ‛money, fortune, property’,
Tña. mal ‛herd (of livestock); goods, property, wealth’; Mhr. mōl ‛livestock, capital’, məlēt ‛shecamel’,
Jib. mol ‛livestock, capital’, Soq. māl ‛richness’. The N. Eth. and MSA forms meaning
‛livestock, capital’ are most probably Arabisms while Mhr. məlēt ‛she-camel’ is not necessarily so.
Cf. also Hrs. melēt ‛bride-price’ and Muh. muli (however, Chaha, Eža, Endegeñ, Gyeto muri) ‛boy
to whom a girl is given by her parents without being asked for by his parents’.
(?) Egyp. (ME) mnmn-t ‛herd’ (if < *mVlmVl-); mny (MK or NK) ‛herdsman’ (if < *mVly; cf.,
however, Coptic Fayumic mani id., with -n- instead of the expected -l-). Cf. mny ‛marry; endow with’ (in
[FAul.: 104] combined with ‛to moor’, ‛attach’, ‛save’ and ‛die’, semantic connections not quite clear).
Berb. *-malVy- ‛camel, stallion, not castrated animal’: Ghadames amāli ‛stallion camel’, Ghat
a-mali ‛stallion’, Ahaggar ǎmâli, Ayr əmaləy, E. Tawllemmet əmeləy (cf. Ahaggar əmhəl ‛to push
ahead, drive (animals, livestock)’, Ayr əmhəl ‛to advance, push ahead’ < *mVʔVl ?).
Chad. W.: Jimi màalo, Geji máal ‛goat’ (acc. to [EDE III: 42], < *mar-, see

[humanbyrace]

1.1.1); C.: Masa mòl- ‛to
assemble (a herd of animals)’; (?) E.: Mokilko máàlà ‛welth, dowry, property’ (máàládò, mâldò ‛my property,
my herd’), W. Dangla malá, E. Dangla màllē ‛herds, animals, cattle; riches’ (would be undoubtedly labelled
Arabisms if not for W. and C. Chad. forms that are evidently not, which leaves room for some doubts).
Cush. C.: Kemant, Qwara mält, Kailiña mil-d- ‛to look after (cattle), tend flocks’ (Bilin mal
‛herd, livestock, richness’ is, acc. to [Appl.: 83], from Tgr. or Tña.); E.: LEC: Somali màal ‛livestock
that provide milk’ (máal, Rendille m aal ‛to milk’), (?) Oromo mil- ‛to guard’; HEC: Burji
malāl- ‛to herd’, maalát-e ‛lending out of cattle’ (cf. also Sidamo, Darasa, Qabenna maal-a, Burji
máal-a ‛meat’); (?) Dullay: Gollango mila ‛fresh, cool milk’ .
Omot. N.: Haruro mālināy ‛herdsman’, Koyra mālē ‛cow’.
[[
]] Cf. [Lamb. 474]: Koyra (comp. to unrelated Omot. forms); HEC; Som. (Saho-Afar ‛money’ is
evidently < Arab.). Cf. [EDE III: 254, 294 and 72] (acc. to Takács, Berb. Tuareg forms meaning ‛stallion,
camel’ “look rather like *m- prefix participial derivations from Berb. *l-y ‛to mount’ = *ǎ-hlǔ/ǐ
y,
which looks rather far-fetched for several reasons, one being lack of h- in these forms, another,
strange semantic development).
ProtoAfrasian Lexicon Confirming West Asian Homeland: Pastoralism
105
A b b r e v i a t i o n s o f l a n g u a g e s a n d l a n g u a g e p e r i o d s
Akkadian; Amharic; Arabic; Aramaic; Berber; Central; Canarian; Chadic; Cushitic; Demotic;
Dynasty; East; Egyptian; ESA — Epigraphic South Arabian; Ethiopian; Gafat; Gez. — Geˁez; Gurage;
Harari; HEC — Highland East Cushitic; Hbr. — Hebrew; Hrs. — Harsusi; Jibbali; Judaic
Aramaic; LEC — Lowland East Cushitic; Medical Texts; Mhr. — Mehri; MK — Middle Kingdom;
Mnd. — Mandaic Aramaic; MSA — Modern South Arabian; North; NK — ew Kingdom; OK —
Old Kingdom; Omotic; Phoenician; Pyramid Texts; South; Sabaic; Selti; Semitic; Soddo; Soqotri;
Syrian Aramaic; Tña. — Tigriñña (= Tigray); Tgr. — Tigre; Ugr. — Ugaritic; West; Wolane.
B i b l i o g r a p h i c R e f e r e n c e s a n d A b b r e v i a t i o n s
AADB ― Afrasian Database, sites: http ://ehl.santafe.edu and http ://starling.rinet.ru.
APPL. ― D. A. Appleyard. Comparative Dictionary of the Agaw Languages Kuschitische Sprachstudien
∼ Cushitic Language Studies, Band 24. Köln. 2006.
BAR-YOSSEF ― O. Bar-Yossef. The Natufian Culture and the Early Neolithic: Social and Economic
Trends in South-Western Asia Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis / eds.
P. Bellwood ¤ C. Renfrew. McDonald Institute Monographs, Cambridge. 2002; pp. 113 – 126.
BK ― A. de Biberstein-Kazimirski. Dictionnaire arabe-français. Paris. 1860.
BLA. Beja ― V. Blažek. Fauna in Beja Lexicon: A Fragment of a Comparative-Etymological Dictionary
of Beja Studia Semitica: FS for A. Militarev (= Orientalia: Труды Института вос-
точных культур, III Papers of the Oriental Institute, III). Moscow. 2003; pp. 230 – 294.
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BLENCH ALAP ― R. Blench. Archaeology, Language and the African Past. Lanham. 2006.
BLENCH OLT ― R. Blench. Omotic Livestock Terminology and Its Implication for the History of Afroasiatic.
Semito-Hamitic Festschrift for A. B. Dolgopolsky and H. Jungraithmayr / Ed. G. Takács.
2008; pp. 63 – 78.
COH. ― M. Cohen. Essai comparatif sur le vocabulaire et la phonétique du chamito-sémitique. Paris. 1947.
DIAK. ESA ― I. Diakonoff. Earliest Semites in Asia. Agriculture and Animal Husbandry According to
Linguistic Data (VIIIth
– IVth Millennia B.C.) Altorientalische Forschungen, 8. 1981; pp. 23 – 74.
DIAK. Sum. ― И. М. Дьяконов. Шумеры и афразийцы глазами историка Вестник древней
истории, № 4. 1996; стр. 81 – 86 I. M. Diakonoff. Sumerians and Afrasians through the Eyes
of a Historian Journal of Ancient History, № 4. 1996; pp. 81 – 86.
DOLG. Cush. ― A. Б. Долгопольский. Сравнительно-историческая фонетика кушитских язы-
ков. М.. 1973 A. B. Dolgopolsky. Comparative-Historical Phonetics of Cushitic. Moscow. 1973.
EDE I ― G. Takács. Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, Volume One: A Phonological Introduction.
Leiden-Boston (Ma) & Cologne. 1999
EDE II ― G. Takács. Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, Volume Two. Leiden-Boston (MA) &
Cologne. 2001.
EDE III ― G. Takács. Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, Volume Three. Leiden-Boston. 2008.
EHR. EEA ― Ch. Ehret. Ethiopians and East Africans. The Problems of Contacts. Nairobi. 1974.
EHR. LFE ― Ch. Ehret. Language Family Expansions: Broadening our Understanding of Cause
from an African Perspective Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis / eds.
P. Bellwood ¤ C. Renfrew. McDonald Institute Monographs, Cambridge. 2002; pp. 163 – 176.
EHR. PA ― Ch. Ehret. Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian). Vowels, Tone, Consonants,
and Vocabulary. Berkeley, Los Angeles. 1995.
EG ― Wörterbuch der aegyptischen Sprache / Im Auftrage der deutschen Akademien hrsg. von Adolf
Erman & Hermann Grapow. Erster Band: 1961 [1971]; Zweiter Band: 1955 [1971]; Dritter Band:
1954 [1971]; Vierter Band: 1957 [1971]; Fünfter Band: 1954 [1971]; Sechster Band (Deutsch-Aegyptisches
Wörterverzeichnis. In alphabetischer und sachlicher Ordung. Nebst Verzeichnissen der koptischen,
semitischen und griechischen Wörter): 1950 [1957]; Siebenter Band (Rückläufiges Wörterverzeichnis
/ bearb. von W. F. Reineke): 1963 [1971]. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
FAUL. ― R. O. Faulkner. A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Oxford. 1962.
GlDB ― Global Database, sites: http ://ehl.santafe.edu and http ://starling.rinet.ru.
GR. ― J. Greenberg. The Languages of Africa. The Hague. 1963.
Alexander Militarev
106
HALOT ― L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament
I – III. Leiden, New York & Köln. IV – V. Leiden, Boston & Köln. 1994 – 1996, 1999 – 2000.
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Language Dispersal Hypothesis / Eds. P. Bellwood ¤ C. Renfrew. McDonald Institute Monographs,
Cambridge. 2002; pp. 127 – 133.
HCVA ——
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Journal of African Studies, 2 (1994): pp. 5 – 28; 3 (1994): pp. 5 – 26; 4 (1995): pp. 7 – 38;
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6/2. 1978. 23 – 116.
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On Irregular Reflexes of Proto-Semitic Laryngeals in Akkadian Вестник древней истории
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Journal of American Linguistics, 21; pp. 121 – 137.

[humanbyrace]

last part, historian,archeologist and linguist R.Blench

"Behrens suggest a date of 6000 bc for proto berber but the problem is:
a/berber shows surprisingly little internal differentiations as if it represented a recent expansion (personal remark: this could be explained by berber being a recent afrasan wave from western asian that imposed itself upon an earlier afarsan speaking population whose may have spoken a language close to tchadic and this would explain some berber-tchadic isoglosses and this scenario was proposed by Allen Bomhard or it could be that berbers were gathered around a strong state[perhaps the capsian culture]that resulted in their language kept stable for a long period before a consequent desintegration by migration[due probably to human or climatic phenomenon etc...])

Were the berbers capsians?
The term capsian applies both to populations that reached maghreb by 10.000 bc and the capsian neolithic livestock produces whose trace appear in sites in north africa around 6500 bc and onwards
There are strinking cultural between pre agricultural capsians and the natufians who extended in 10,500-8,300 bc in the near east and camps-fabrer argues that the natufians gave rise to the capsian culture.
The two most significant sites to understand the irruption of livestock production in the maghreb are haua fteah(libya) and grotte capretti(libya)the date given for first neolithic occupation in maghreb is 4580 bc
The argument is that the ruminant produces who spread from the nile 7000 years ago were speaking a form of proto berber
(the author then gives a table about the words for cattle in libyc languages and they all do have afarsanic cognates for example zamar=ram [Arabic=haml, semitic h=>libyc z] ighid=goat[Arabic=gady]also those cattle words are also present in Indo-European and Nilo-Saharan for example old germanic for ram is "hamal" and English for goat is "kid")
However although Siwa is the easternmost berber dialect it's not the most conservative one and it is likely that the poorly documented Libyan lects awgila and elfoqaha together with ghadames retain a great repertoire of archaic forms"

[Harrachi78]

@Humanbyrace

C'est bon, tu viens d'enterrer toute discussion ...