Should Afro-Asiatic be disbanded?

[MARAQ DIGAAG]

Dude you are making so many assumptions without any evidence. How come I can understand so many words and even can guess the subject etc. when it comes to Geez based languages and I can't even detect a word of a language that is supposedly is the same language with Amharic? That doesn't make any sense to me. Anyway I am not a language expert what I am saying is based on what I am experiencing. What people claim online and what I personally experience simply doesn't match. Even basic words like numbers, body parts or many other basic words of Amharic are simply different from Agew or Oromo. So, I am just puzzled where you get the narrative of Amharic is basically agew from? For example when you listen the numbers being counted in Oromo and Af Somali, you will find so many similarities but nothing like this with Agew and Amharic. Forget Sidaamo, I don't even go there and you are the first person to make such connection ever. So forget it.

The video backs up what you’re saying.

 

[Prince Abubu]

Brother, you got it all wrong. Amhara is part of the Ethio-Semitic langauge while Sidamo is part of highland eastern Cushitic language closely related to Hadiye and Kambaata. Plus, Agew is part of the central Cushitic language.

Breaking down into the Ethio-Semitic languages. Tigrinya, Tigre and Ge'ez are on one sub-group while Amharic, Argobba, Harari, Silte and Gurage languages are a different sub-group.

By the way, the closest Cushitic people to Somalis are Afar and Saho genetically, culturally and linguistically. Oromos may be from the same branch of Somalis within lowland eastern Cushitic but you have to consider it has sub-groups since lowland eastern Cushitic is the biggest branch among all Cushitic speaking people.

Lol I know. I didn't say Amharic was Cushitic. I said Amharic was heavily influenced by Agew. This is because most Amharic people are just language-shifted Agews.

@xabashi I think you're getting confused here. Languages don't have to be mutually intelligible to be related. English is a Germanic language but was heavily influenced by Norman French. The same with the Ethiosemitic languages. They are Semitic languages that wrre heavily influenced by the surrounding Cushitic languages.

 

[James Dahl]

The over-arching language families like Indo-European or Afro-Asiatic aren't really significant for intelligibility, German and Italian are extremely different languages for instance, from two very different branches of Indo-European.

Language groupings like this are held up as highly significant because 19th and 20th century nationalism was based on language, so it's political what language family you're in, not exactly scientific.

Perfect example of this is Occitan and Catalan. Occitan and Catalan are actually the same language with different dialects, but it's mutually intelligible. Catalan and Occitan are not mutually intelligible with Spanish or French, it's a whole other, third language. Due to politics and nationalism however, Catalan is officially a dialect of Spanish and Occitan is a dialect of French. It's all bullshit.

Similarly in Germany there are two "Low German" or Plattdeutsch "dialects" which are not mutually intelligible with German, they are Low Franconian and Low Saxon. Low Franconian, Dutch and Flemish are all mutually intelligible and are essentially dialects of the same language, but again politics rears its head. Flemish isn't Dutch because Belgian nationalism says Flemish is a different language, similarly Low Franconian is a German dialect rather than a Dutch one because again, politics. Low Saxon isn't even considered a language again politics.

Then you have dialects which are treated as separate languages. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are all dialects of the same language, but because nationalism they are different languages.

"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" - Antoine Meillet

 

[Prince Abubu]

The over-arching language families like Indo-European or Afro-Asiatic aren't really significant for intelligibility, German and Italian are extremely different languages for instance, from two very different branches of Indo-European.

Language groupings like this are held up as highly significant because 19th and 20th century nationalism was based on language, so it's political what language family you're in, not exactly scientific.

Perfect example of this is Occitan and Catalan. Occitan and Catalan are actually the same language with different dialects, but it's mutually intelligible. Catalan and Occitan are not mutually intelligible with Spanish or French, it's a whole other, third language. Due to politics and nationalism however, Catalan is officially a dialect of Spanish and Occitan is a dialect of French. It's all bullshit.

Similarly in Germany there are two "Low German" or Plattdeutsch "dialects" which are not mutually intelligible with German, they are Low Franconian and Low Saxon. Low Franconian, Dutch and Flemish are all mutually intelligible and are essentially dialects of the same language, but again politics rears its head. Flemish isn't Dutch because Belgian nationalism says Flemish is a different language, similarly Low Franconian is a German dialect rather than a Dutch one because again, politics. Low Saxon isn't even considered a language again politics.

Then you have dialects which are treated as separate languages. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are all dialects of the same language, but because nationalism they are different languages.

"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" - Antoine Meillet

I think AA is so old that comparing to Indo-European languages might be a mistake. Apparently, it could be as old as 18000 years.

 

[Crow]

We never had an indigenous writing system Same thing for oromos. We used the Arabic script for over 600 years so it should be our official script

We actually have an ancient writing system and it was considered when deciding on the official script. It was never deciphered however and I think it was related to the same South Arabian script that Ge'ez was born from.

Geel/gaal might be a borrowed word, though. Someone told me camel in Yemeni dialect of Arabic is "Gaal".

Sounds like they're the ones who borrowed it.

To be honest, I feel most European languages are just dialects of one another, rather than distinct languages. They don't need to all be considered a different language. To me, Spanish/Portuguese are just dialects, Balkan languages are just different dialects of Serbian. Dutch/Frisian/Flemish are just dialects of German etc.

I wonder how close Spanish/Portuguese are compared to Af Maxaa/Af Maay.

 

[James Dahl]

Spanish and Portuguese are divergent dialects, however Portuguese and Galician are mutually intelligible and essentially the same language (to the extent that Galician linguists attend Portuguese linguistic events and conferences).

"Spanish" refers to the Castillian dialect of Spanish. Castillian, Aragonese, Portuguese (and Galician) and Leonese are mutually intelligible (though some with difficulty, Portuguese is the most different from Castillian though both can talk to a Leonese speaker)

 

[government]

We actually have an ancient writing system and it was considered when deciding on the official script. It was never deciphered however and I think it was related to the same South Arabian script that Ge'ez was born from.

Sounds like they're the ones who borrowed it.

I wonder how close Spanish/Portuguese are compared to Af Maxaa/Af Maay.

Wow that's interesting do you Know what it was called

 

[Prince Abubu]

I just had a random thought. If AA numbers are so divergent, it means they must have separated befirebefire agriculture and even animal husbandry was discovered by humans. Otherwise, a pastoral scoiety would have devised number system.

 

[government]

I just had a random thought. If AA numbers are so divergent, it means they must have separated befirebefire agriculture and even animal husbandry was discovered by humans. Otherwise, a pastoral scoiety would have devised number system.

Yes it either diverged when agriculture just started or even before that people forget how old Afro Asiatic is