Proto-Afroasiatic, sometimes also referred to as Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unatte ...
from which all modern
Afroasiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic ...
are descended. Though estimations vary widely, it is believed by scholars to have been spoken as a single language around 12,000 to 18,000 years ago (12 to 18
kya
Kya, kya or KYA may also refer to:
People or fictional characters
* Kya Lau, chef and contestant on ''MasterChef Junior'', season 4
* Kya, mother of Katara and Sokka, in ''Avatar: The Last Airbender''
* Kya, daughter of Aang and Katara in ''The ...
), that is, between 16,000 and 10,000
BC. The
reconstruction of Proto-Afroasiatic is problematic and remains largely lacking. Moreover, no consensus exists as to the location of the
Afroasiatic Urheimat, the putative homeland of Proto-Afroasiatic speakers, but the majority of scholars agree that it was located within a region of
Northeast Africa
Northeast Africa, or ''Northeastern Africa'' or Northern East Africa as it was known in the past, is a geographic regional term used to refer to the countries of Africa situated in and around the Red Sea. The region is intermediate between North ...
.
Urheimat
Phonology
The consonants of Proto-Afroasiatic, as given by Bomhard (2008):
NOTE:
#Orël''–''Stolbova (1995) reconstructs /t͡ʃ’/, /t͡ʃ/, /d͡ʒ/ for /tʲ’/, /tʲ/, /dʲ/, respectively,
#Orël''–''Stolbova (1995) doesn't reconstruct labialized consonants.
Bomhard (2008)
lists ten vowels for the language: /i/, /iː/, /e/, /eː/, /a/, /aː/, /o/, /oː/, /u/, /uː/.
Consonant correspondences
The following table shows consonant correspondences in Afroasiatic languages, as given in Dolgopolsky (1999), along with some reconstructed consonants for Proto-Afroasiatic.
# under special conditions
NOTE:
# =
#Symbols with dots underneath are
emphatic consonants (variously
glottalized,