Talk:Proto-Afroasiatic homeland

Caspian

Apparently, the Capsian culture is a possible precursor to Afroasiatic. Wapondaponda (talk) 00:32, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

No, I would say not. The most widely accepted Urheimat for Afrasian is in Africa, far from the Caspian. (Taivo (talk) 04:48, 1 August 2009 (UTC))

First, there is no "most widely accepted Urheimat", it's completely moot; and second, you're confusing Capsian with Caspian...not the same thing at all. Jacob D (talk) 16:00, 23 July 2020 (UTC)Jacob D

There is an entry on the Capsian culture article indicating that Afroasiatic may be associated with it. Wapondaponda (talk) 07:33, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

The spelling error made some difference, but since no historical linguist places the Urheimat of Afrasian as far east and north as Algeria and Tunisia, that comment was both unsourced and false. I removed it from that article. (Taivo (talk) 10:24, 1 August 2009 (UTC))

The Capsian Industry was more widespread than the Maghreb. It is usually held that it was the ancestral group for the Berber and some holf for Afroasiatics in general. See Nouri Rahmanl's article. John D. Croft (talk) 18:58, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The Capsian appears to be distributed in Northwest Africa, whereas Afro-Asiatic seems to have dispersed from East/Northeast Africa. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Capsian culture spread as far as Eburran industry culture of Kenya where it may have preceded the Omotic languages. It covered the entire Sahara region. John D. Croft (talk) 06:35, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Proto-Semitic

The related article Proto-Semitic language may also require some attention. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Eliminate Martin Bernal References

Martin Bernal is not considered a reliable linguist and his theories should be eliminated from this article. John D. Croft (talk) 19:07, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

"This appeared in his controversial work Black Athena, and has not been extensively cited as a mainstream theory." Doesn't this choice of words violate NPOV? 'Controversial' is a characterisation - controversial to whom, and why? And what is 'a mainstream theory'? MrSativa (talk) 04:25, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Fusion with Afroasiatic languages suggested

Keeping this article separate is meaningless. No other language group has an article on its Urheimat independent from its linguistics. John D. Croft (talk) 19:01, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually see Indo-European Urheimat. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:05, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The linguistically inclined objected strenuously to having non-linguistic material being cited on linguistic articles, and insisted on the split. See the various talk pages. I have expressed doubts about the wisdom of for example now having an article with a couple of tables representing the proto language, but separate from the article about who might have spoken it. On the other hand, if someone will fill that little article up one day I see no major problem, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with wanting to have specialized articles, as long as there is enough material for them?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:17, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Topic of the article

The key point of having an article about any subject is to inform the unknowing about the subject. I followed a link to this title, and I am left scratching my head a bit, and inferring that Afroasiatic Urheimat refers to a language or language group. There should be an opening paragraph which actually defines or describes what Afroasiatic Urheimat is. This is typical of an encyclopedic article, which is what wikipedia strives for. I cannot write this paragraph obviously, as I don't really know what Afroasiatic Urheimat is. Someone who knows should do this, rather than letting the article simply open in the middle of a debate as it currently does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delibebek (talk • contribs) 11:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Good point. The opening sentence was never really polished up. I have made an attempt to improve it. How it is better?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Benammar-Elgaaied et al. 2010

Benammar-Elgaaied; et al. (2010). "Ancient Local Evolution of African mtDNA Haplogroups in Tunisian Berber Populations". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help) This new study adds to some of the current theories concerning the origin of Afroasiatic. An excerpt can be found in this blog. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:36, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

recent edits to the genetics section

There are a lot of recent edits to the genetics section which end up making the subject of the section seem rather disconnected to either the sources being cited, or the subject of this article. The aim seems to have been to somehow emphasize how "interesting" and "diverse" the Chadic group is, but while I have no problem with these assertions this does not seem to be working out with these edits. Here: before and after. Some remarks:

• In answer to this edit, E1b1b really is associated with most Afroasiatic branches and the Afroasiatic family "in general". That is what the sources say, and it is true. "In general" does not mean "completely".
• this edit claims to be making a claim less broad, but it does not appear to do so to me. It appears to be making a stronger claim.
• This edit just describes itself as adding Chadic data, but it garbles the whole section, and focuses it away from the subject of this article, which is Afroasiatic's origins, not Chadic's. It introduces sentences like "Interestingly the Chadic Language family is the most diverse branch of Afro-Asiatic taking up 195 out of 374 languages (52.14%)". This is not relevant and not written in an encyclopedic style.
• Haplogroup J has been pushed into the discussion without any sourcing. That it is common amongst many of the involved populations is not doubted, but it is generally considered to have spread later than Afro Asiatic, from somewhere in Asia? In any case we have no source for the association being made, and the edits were not well done, leaving in the word "both" even though there are 3 haplogroups for example.

I think that it was a good aim to include something about the latest information on Chadic and R1b, but this was not well done. This is not a genetics article. Genetics is a side issue here. I am going to roll it back, but I hope someone will have the time to work on it with more attention to detail. I should mention that I am reluctant to do it myself because I wrote one of the published comments on EJHG.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:43, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

After reverting I then tried to add in more information about Chadic and haplogroup J, but hopefully in a way which is not diverting too much from the real subject of this article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:52, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Genetics has no place in linguistic discussion

The question of a linguistic Urheimat is not a genetic question and never has been. Cavalli-Sforza's attempts to link genetics and language history are notoriously ill-conceived and downright wrong in many regards. --Taivo (talk) 06:36, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Taivo,

• First, you are wrong. All the reliable sources on this subject are multi-disciplinary, and genetics appears in reliable sources on this subject along with other disciplines. And that is just logical. Discussion of the geographical places and the real peoples, periods and cultures involved in the original dispersions of these languages is absolutely not a simple question of languages, is it?
• Second, disciplines do not get to "own" articles. And I'd like to make that point more firmly this time, because, to remind you of the history of this, the creation of this article came from an argument where you wanted discussion of the urheimat to be split out from Proto-Afroasiatic language, because you wanted a purely linguistic article, and hence that article became a stub. In other words, the split was shown to unjustified in the first place because there is hardly anything to say about the pure linguistics. I'd say that precedent shows how impractical and unreasonable this approach is. Where in Wikipedia guidelines or policies is there anything at all which justifies creating stubs so that articles can be controlled by one discipline? The answer is no where.
• Please discuss first before you start deleting whole sections or edit warring in future.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:26, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Taivo, correlation does not imply causation. Nobody proposes that genetic coherence causes linguistic coherence. The idea is that both are caused by something else, viz. population movements. You get your genes from your biological parents, and often you get your language from the community of your biological parents. This isn't necessarily the case, but the argument runs that this happens often enough for it to be worth to look into the correlation. If your speech community is not that of your biological parents, you either have been fostered or your generation has experienced language death (cultural assimilation). This happens rather often in world history (the people of Anatolian have largely "Anatolian" (or even "Hurrite") genes, but they now speak Turkish). But it is still rare enough to allow us to trace the major migration routes and the major language families with the help of genetics. As long as you do not misunderstand or misrepresent the claim to be based on causation (which is something that could only happen to people who are very ill-informed indeed), there is nothing wrong with this line of research.

This is an explanation of why it makes sense to look into population genetics. Of course, I don't have to explain this to you, as pointing you to WP:RS. Citing the opinions of Cavalli-Sforza (as opinions) beats citing the opinions of Wikipedian User:Taivo any day. --dab (𒁳) 08:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Main hypotheses

It turns out that the "North African" hypothesis doesn't propose a North African urheimat at all, it merely derives Semitic from pre-Berber, viz. a migration to the Levant via North Africa. Proto-Afroasiatic would still originate further south. So, basically there are two (or three) hypotheses worth mentioning:

• Levant (or Arabian Peninsula?) (Asiatic hypothesis)
• Cush (Area of Eritrea, Ethiopia and northern Sudan), i.e. eastern Sahel to the Red Sea coast.

Perhaps the second possibility can be split into "Eastern Sahara / Sudan" and "Red Sea /Horn of Africa", but the general region proposed is the same, and this may be aiming for excessive accuracy. The Black Athena proposal is of course ideological nonsense, and neither a North African nor a "Chadic" hypothesis seems to exist, so the two serious possibilities boil down to either "Cush" or "Levant", which can perhaps be expressed as "either side of the Red Sea". --dab (𒁳) 08:55, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

"'The Black Athena proposal is of course ideological nonsense," - what ideology would that be? I don't see anyone objecting to the inclusion of the Nostratic Theory, or demand that it is removed.MrSativa (talk) 18:18, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

The Most Likely Proto-Afrasian Homeland

This article should reflect the most recent state of scholarly knowledge as a whole regarding the homeland of proto-Afrasian with respect to liguistic, archaeological, and genetic evidence. In terms of linguistics the least moves principal does not make a Near Eastern origin less likely for the origin of proto-Afrasian only the African branches (Omotic, Cushitic, Chadic, Berber, and Egyptian). According to Igor Diakonoff, Semitic has hardly any words in common with the other branches of Afro-Asiatic (1). This shows that Semitic had a longer separation from the others branches. Diakonoff also shows that the Natufian is the best match for the proto-Afrasian culture, and that the Pre-pottery Neolithic Cultures i.e. Jericho, is the best match for the Earliest Semitic cultures. A further pitfall for the African origin hypothesis is that there are no archaeological cultures that expand into the Levant from Northeast Africa (and none that match the proto-Afrasian culture). Since culture and language are inseparably linked this is a major problem. Although it has been presumed that the Mushabian culture represents a migration from Africa this is no longer the case since it is now known that the Mushabian culture originated in the eastern Levant (2). Also, the Mushabian culture is far too early c. 14,000 BC (3) which is old enough to be proto-Afrasian. Since there is no doubt that an African migration did take place shortly before or after the Younger Dryas in which Y-Hg E-M78 entered the Levant, these migrants must have been assimilated into Levant cultures and thereafter would have spoken the languages of these cultures. Africanists such as Christopher Ehret see the spread of proto-Afrasian as the result of a specific innovation the intensive collection and processing of wild plants a cultural adaptation he presumes was invented in Africa by proto-Afrasians. At the time he wrote this hypothesis it had already been clearly out of date. He seems to try and force archaeological data to fit his least moves scenario by being oblivious to other well known archaeological evidence i.e. The Ohalo II site and others. The Ohalo II site is the oldest known evidence of intensive collection and processing of wild plants among them cereals (4). This cultural adaptation was already in existence in Israel 23,000 years ago and it reached its height in the Natufian significant enough so that the Natufians became semi-sedentary as a result of this even higher degree of plant usage. This adaptation spread into Africa c. 16,500 BC (5) i.e. Wadi Kubbaniya. This adaptation alone wasn't enough to be the cause of the spread of this language family, but only after this type of culture caused increased sedentism i.e. The Natufian. As a result proto-Afrasian cannot be older than the Early Natufian c. 13,000 BC. The Harifian culture c. 11,500 BC was a descendant of the Natufian that was characterized by Harif points and its variant, Ounan points. In North Africa Ounan points become quite common beginning around 8,000 BC (6). It should also be noted that there are Common Afrasian words for 'bow' and the word for 'arrow' is shared between Semitic and Kushitic (1). Since the Harif and Ounan points are the oldest known arrowheads it would seem that proto-Afrasians invented this technology and was a major cause of the spread of this language. From 8,000 to 6,500 BC North Africa also seems to acquire other Near Eastern arrowheads in its material culture (6). This constant contact beginning in 8,000 BC until the early Neolithic seems to show that they have been linked culturally and linguistically all that time which could explain the closer similarities in structure that Semitic has with Berber and Beja (1). Christopher Ehret has no archaeological reason to put the proto-Afrasian homeland on the southern Red Sea coast he only does this because he puts much more emphasis on his interpretation of the linguistic principal of least moves than on direct physical evidence. There has to have been more of a cultural breakthrough in order to cause proto-Afrasian to expand the way it did and intensive collection of wild plants alone couldn't have been the mechanism since it was already in existence since 23,000 years ago and still did not induce the increased sedentism of the Natufian level. Ehret and others make it clear that the proto-Afrasian language had terms for grindstone, grains, and flour. These terms by themselves put the location in the Levant since the cultures in that area were the first to intensively collect wild plants including grains in which they processed to make flour. The terms for sickle, bow, and dog came later during the Natufian and Harifian. The Natufian culture also has the oldest known evidence for the incipient domestication of the dog. Genetics also supports such a migration at the time in question during the Harifian beginning c. 11,500 BC. Y-Hg T1a in Egypt has been dated to 13.7 ka (7). It should also be noted that Y-Hg T1a is found in low to moderate frequencies in both Omotic and Cushitic speakers. Since the linguistic, archaeolgical, and genetic evidence support a Levant origin, hypotheses in which important evidence is ignored in order to crutch an unsubstantiated point of view should be abandoned.

(1) Diakonoff, Igor. The Earliest Semitic Society: Linguistic Data. Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. 43 Iss. 2 (1998). (2) Goring-Morris, Nigel et al. 2009. The Dynamics of Pleistocene and Early Holocene Settlement Patterns in the Levant: An Overview. In Transitions in Prehistory: Essays in Honor of Ofer Bar-Yosef (eds) John J. Shea and Daniel E. Lieberman. Oxbow Books, 2009. ISBN 9781842173404. (3) Richter, Tobias et al. 2011. Interaction before Agriculture: Exchanging Material and Sharing Knowledge in the Final Pleistocene Levant. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 21:1, 95–114. doi:10.1017/S0959774311000060 (4) Weiss E, Kislev ME, Simchoni O, Nadel D, and Tschauner H. 2008. Plant-food preparation area on an Upper Paleolithic brush hut floor at Ohalo II, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(8):2400-2414. (5) Wendorf, Fred et al. New Radiocarbon Dates and Late Palaeolithic diet at Wadi Kubbaniya, Egypt. Antiquity, Vol. 62 No. 235 June 1988. (6) Shirai, Noriyuki. The Archaeology of the First Farmer-Herders in Egypt: New Insights into the Fayum Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic. Leiden University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9789087280796. (7) Luis, J.R. et al. The Levant versus the Horn of Africa: Evidence for Bidirectional Corridors of Human Migrations. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 74:532–544, 2004. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.176.246.100 (talk) 23:03, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Some of these sources are not really about language and therefore for us to use them requires us to do the thinking. We should only be using sources that we can use without us needing to make any non-obvious synthesis of ideas. In the same way we pretty much need to mention Ehret because he is published and we are not meant to be taking sides. Can you try to restrict your proposals only to sources which mention clear proposals concerning Afroasiatic origins? Is the Diakonoff proposal any different to the Militarev one?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:38, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Harifian culture shows clear African links, including the Outacha retouch method for flaking arrowheads. They were a post PPNB culture and introduced hunting and gathering again into the Sinai, leading to a cultural fusion and the first nomadic pastoralism in the Near East. Juris Yarins has suggested that from the Munhata period that followed we see the spread of a Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex which sees the spread of Semitic languages. John D. Croft (talk) 07:19, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Archaeology is a major factor in determining the Proto-Afrasian homeland. That's the problem with the African origin hypothesis they think they can locate the homeland by relying almost exclusively of linguistics and interpreting the archaeological record however they choose. Of all scholars Ehret should be the one completely ignored when determining the homeland he is obviously oblivious of the archaeological record and how it relates to language. As an Africanist Ehret should have located the proto-Afrasian homeland between the Nile Delta and the First Cataract (one that includes Wadi Kubbaniya) since this is the location of the oldest evidence of intensive plant processing in Africa and is linked with the North African bladelet cultures and unlike the flake cultures typical of the Sudan. Ehret offers no evidence of this adaptation expanding from Eritrea. Diakonoff's is different than Militarev's hypothesis in that Diakonoff proposes that proto-Afrasian is the language of a non-agricultural population. The only point that comes close to favoring an African origin of Afrasian is the higher diversity of Afrasian in East Africa, but this should not be considered the homeland solely for this reason as I've said this doesn't make a Levant origin less likely for proto-Afrasian only the African branches.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.176.246.100 (talk • contribs) 13:13, 19 September 2013

Hi. I personally see no problem with citing archaeologists, but if we are citing them concerning a language's origins we need to make sure they actually mention that language's origins. You have to remember that Wikipedia needs a way of making a reasonable quality without its members even knowing each other and one way to do this is to be slightly unambitious: we have a policy of avoiding being original, and simply trying to summarize whatever is published, giving weight to its reputation in publications. (See WP:NPOV.) So we can't just ignore a widely cited author. What we can do is insert materials about any published criticisms. (But note: Ehret is not the only person who thinks Afro-asiatic originated in Africa, and the diversity issue is not just a minor issue.) It sounds like the Diakonoff would also be good for the article. Can you help out?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:26, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Sure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.176.246.100 (talk) 13:33, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. Can I ask you to remember to sign your talkpage posts? There are various ways of doing it. It just helps keep the discussions here well threaded. Also, you do not need to do it, but it might be helpful to set up a Wikipedia account where people can post messages for you. Concerning edits to the article you can try it yourself but people often experiment by posting drafts on the talkpage.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:41, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

The Asiatic Hypothesis

Supporters of a non-north or north east African origin for Afroasiatic are particularly common among those with a background in Semitic or Egyptological studies,[1] or amongst archaeological proponents of the "farming/language dispersal hypothesis" according to which major language groups dispersed with early farming technology in the Neolithic.[6][7] The leading linguistic proponent of this idea in recent times is Alexander Militarev. Arguments for and against this position depend upon the contested proposal that farming-related words can be reconstructed in Proto-Afroasiatic, with farming technology being widely thought to have spread from the Levant into Africa.

Militarev, who linked proto-Afroasiatic to the Levantine Natufian culture, that preceded the spread of farming technology, believes the language family to be about 10,000 years old. He wrote (Militarev 2002, p. 135) that the "Proto-Afrasian language, on the verge of a split into daughter languages", meaning, in his scenario, into "Cushitic, Omotic, Egyptian, Semitic and Chadic-Berber", "should be roughly dated to the ninth millennium BC".

Diakonoff, also proposed an Asiatic origin for proto-Afrasian in the late 1990s linking it with the Natufian culture as well, but it differs from Militarev's hypothesis in that it was a non-agricultural expansion into North Africa, this could explain sites like Tushka in Upper Egypt where intensive collection and processing of wild plants is found in the Qadan culture at about the same time (12,000 BC). Diakonoff points out that there are Common Afrasian words that could only match the cultures of the Near East at the time such as: sickle, hoe, wild wheat and barley, stone grain-graters, bow, and dog i.e. The Natufian and related cultures. Proto-Semitic which by then had acquired a distinction between wild and domestic animals and domestic plants best fits the Pre-pottery Neolithic Cultures i.e. Jericho. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aikavol3265381519 (talk • contribs) 15:03, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Is this okay? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aikavol3265381519 (talk • contribs) 15:09, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

So the proposal is to add the third paragraph above after the Militarev discussion in the present article? Can you name a publication by Diakonoff which we can refer to for this? By the way, to automatically sign a post you can type in "~~~~" at the end. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:28, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Diakonoff, Igor. The Earliest Semitic Society: Linguistic Data. Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. 43 Iss. 2 (1998). 150.176.246.100 (talk) 20:47, 19 September 2013 (UTC)Aikavol3265381519 (talk) 20:49, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I just noticed that we mentioned Diakonoff as a proponent of an African origin. Did he change his position during his career?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:38, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Provision of needed citation

I have just provided a citation for the section that was asked for in July this year. John D. Croft (talk) 01:27, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. It appears that your second edit suffers from bad syntax. I don't want to redo it, as it seems relevant, but the way it shows now is probably not what you intended. Can you fix it? Landroving Linguist (talk) 08:26, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

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Cyrene in 500 BC was Greek

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the region of Cyrene colonized by the Greeks. If that is the case, then we should set the date back to like 700 BC or something close. Sarsath3 (talk) 03:37, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

"Genetics has no place in linguistic discussion" – part 2

I basically agree with the statement, yet we have to acknowledge that a homeland discussion cannot not entirely rest on linguistic evidence, but inevitably entails assumptions (ranging from bold to plausible) about correlating "silent" evidence (ecology, archaeological cultures, genomic structure of ancient and present specimen) with linguistic evidence. But these assumptions should come from reliable sources without any WP:SYNTH and WP:OR.

Much of what is found in the current section is about uniparental markers which were en vogue 20 years ago (due to sampling and computational limitations), but which have proven to be highly susceptible to bottlenecks and founder effects and thus quite unreliable, and which have been become mostly supplanted by autosomal full genomic methods when it comes to studying the ancestral makeup of populations. In short: much of the stuff is outdated "cruft", at least in undue weight given to Y-haplogroups. And even worse, most of the papers cited here are not directly concerned with the Afroasiatic homeland; some do talk about more localized migrations, but hardly any of the papers cited here actually covers the question of the ultimate Afroasiatic homeland. Additionally, we have big a WP:SYNTH issue in that tabulated data is assembled from multiple sources, data that is not directly comparable due to differences in methods and the geographic scope covered in the individual sources.

So my suggestion is WP:TNT. Delete the whole thing, and eventually rebuild a new section based on the best sources that directly cover the topic of the Afroasiatic homeland without haste and SYNTH/OR.

@Skllagyook, Landroving Linguist, Andrew Lancaster, and TaivoLinguist: Thoughts? (Pinging the former two from the recent edit history, excluding socks; the latter two as participants of an old but still relevant discussion.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Austronesier (talk • contribs) 12:12, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion as to how much we should or shouldn't allow genetic information in linguistics articles, which is mostly due to a lack of knowledge on my part. My contribution so far in these matters was reverting egregious disruptive editing, like yesterday, or, rarely, following up on a source to see whether it really says what the inserting editor claims it says (often it doesn't). But when I see that a source actually supports a claim, I usually let it go. I like your TNT suggestion, but my suspicion is that many of the troublesome editors and their sockpuppets are driven by nationalist sentiments, and therefore they will attempt to put in their contributions as much as before – a constant policing effort will still have to follow any new build-up of content, in the same way as we have it now. LandLing 10:48, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Amateur language enthusiast here. I agree that the genetics section is too long. I also think that since there isn't a consensus in the field of linguistics on the origin of AA, it would make sense to use archaeological and genetic data to support the various arguments. On the matter of the Natufians, which has apparently been a point of contention, I thought I'd cite this quote from Ehret here:

"The family divides on this evidence into two primary branches, a southern and entire Ethiopian branch consisting of Omotic alone and a northern branch for which the name Erythraic has been resurrected, containing all the rest of the family, thus: [AA family tree figure]. It is the early Erythraic locations which actually would correspond territorially with those of the early intensive grass collectors, whereas Omotic would stand off both linguistically and geographically. The first stage of Erythraic break-up and expansion, according to this scheme, would have given rise to three groupings - one in the northern Horn from which Cushitic was eventually to derive; a second to the west of the Nile, the only remaining descendant subgroup of which is a much later southern offshoot, the Chadic languages; and a third, North Afroasiatic branch, probably spoken northward down the Nile. Only considerably later would the last of the these three have produced a further Asian offshoot ancestral to Semitic. The Cushitic languages could thus be interpreted as deriving ultimately from the speech of the early intensive grass collectors of the northern Horn; the Chadic languages, as a relatively late southern extension of a descendant form of the speech of the original Ibero-Maurusians; and the earliest Semitic, or else the proto-Semito-Berber speaking communities, as makers of the Natufian culture."

Additionally, Ehret postulates that pastoralism, particularly sheep herding practices, could have been a proto-Afroasiatic development later in the article. Efekadu (talk) 21:12, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

@Efekadu: in reply to your question first on the DNA: I am all for being cautious about DNA evidence, and you are right to be especially cautious of Y DNA. Still, I personally don't agree with the quote you've used as a title, and as in the past I think that such a strong position is not going to get any consensus. Note that the sources you're talking about (including the article I wrote) are much more recent than the work of Cavalli-Sforza (whose methods were earlier still). There are occasions where Y DNA is still believed to give insights. (For example a branch of R1b is also seen as being strongly associated with the entry of IE into Europe.) Second, on the linguists, I have no problem personally with Ehret or anyone else but I think we have to be careful not to try to pick a winner unless we can find strong evidence that the field itself has picked a winner. My impression is that there is not much consensus on this topic, and indeed it is working with pretty fuzzy evidence sometimes? If that is the case then surely we should just give up-to-date summaries on whatever the main theories are.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster To be clear, I did not start this thread or create the title. I disagree with the statement that genetics does not belong in a linguistic discussion, especially here since there isn't a consensus in the field. My quote above regarding the Natufian issue was regarding a separate incident where it was thought the statement in the main article was WP:Synth. I wanted to present that it was not because the entirety of the statement was supported by Ehret. Thanks for your response and I'm glad we're on the same page Efekadu (talk) 16:13, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I think we are actually all on the same page (at least largely). One frustrating thing is that after the 2004 exchange between Ehret (linguist) et al. and Bellwood (archaeologist) in Science (doi:10.1126/science.306.5702.1680c), linguists hardly have brought forward any new arguments against or in favor of either hypothesis (one major exception being Blench). The Afroasiatic homeland question indeed has been dominated by non-linguists since then, and we have to reflect this is some way or another (even if we are not really happy about this situation).

Here's a recent summary of the state of affairs from the linguist's perspective:

"Given the spread of Afroasiatic over two continents, another problematic issue concerns the homeland and culture of the implied proto-speech community. One proposal is based predominantly on striking lexical isoglosses with Indo-European languages in West Asia, including the domain of food production, so that the modern Afroasiatic distribution is conceived of as the result of a neolithic expansion starting in the Middle East (e.  g., Militarev 2002). The other majority view focuses on linguistic data internal to Afroasiatic as well as the fact that it is simpler to assume movement by the single lineage Semitic into Asia rather than by all others into Africa (see, e.  g., Ehret, Keita, and Newman 2004). Under such a scenario, Proto-Afroasiatic is expected to have been spoken by African foragers." – The Languages and Linguistics of Africa, Tom Güldemann (2018), De Gruyter Mouton, p. 311.

It would be great if we can manage to convey this perspective to the reader, with some carefully selected additional material from other disciplines which explicitly addresses the Afroasiatic homeland question. –Austronesier (talk) 19:01, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm on board with the above approach for the AA homeland summary on the main AA article. As for applicable genetics articles I would nominate Ibrahim:

The striking association between the Y-chromosome haplogroup E, pastoralist culture and the Afro-Asiatic family of languages has been suggested to have sprouted from a common culture that flourished in the Sahara during the AHP.

And Hodgson et al.:

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. 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. 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. 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 and the relatively even distribution of around 7% Ethio-Somali ancestry in all sampled Levantine populations.

Efekadu (talk) 07:43, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Linguistic articles should not be more centered on genetics compared to linguistic evidence, other than the genetic data is clearly linked to linguistic models, which is largely not the case here. This is merely a kind of WP:OR and WP:Synth merging several different sources into a statement without much basis in the linguistic area. Furthermore there are even paragraphs about archaeogenetic samples, of which the source does not even mention any models about the origin and spread of Afroasiatic.WikiEdit2204 (talk) 05:50, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with user Austronesier that we must base the article (including Afroasiatic languages) on actual linguistic data and sources first, eventually citing some information from population genetic papers secondary. The current version is a mess in my eyes, which I tried to balance, but some editors seem to stick to their genetic based version (but even than wrong sourced content must be corrected). This paper is relevant and summarize all models, without the need of any genetic paper. I suggest to shorten the sections respectively and using this linguistic source (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110421668/) instead (as the articles in dispute are linguistic topics).WikiEdit2204 (talk) 05:55, 14 June 2022 (UTC)--WikiEdit2204 (talk) 08:16, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Forget my proposal, do what you want... WikiEdit2204 (talk) 08:16, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

@WikiEdit2204:, @Efekadu:, the paper Hodgson et al.2014 suggests that Proto-Afroasiatic was spreaded by a population with significant ancestry from an "Ethio-Somali" component, which is described as non-African (West-Eurasian) ancestry and split from other West-Eurasian lineages of the Middle East ~23,000 years ago, while arriving to Northeast Africa pre-agricultural (~12,000-22,000 years ago). This information should be more clear mentioned. The paper basically says that Afroasiatic spreaded from Africa, but had considerable amounts of West-Eurasian admixture already in pre-agricultural periods, ie. long before the expansion of actual Levant farmers. Quotes:

The non-African ancestry in the HOA, which is primarily attributed to a novel Ethio-Somali inferred ancestry component, is significantly differentiated from all neighboring non-African ancestries in North Africa, the Levant, and Arabia. The Ethio-Somali ancestry is found in all admixed HOA ethnic groups, shows little inter-individual variance within these ethnic groups, is estimated to have diverged from all other non-African ancestries by at least 23 ka, and does not carry the unique Arabian lactase persistence allele that arose about 4 ka. Taking into account published mitochondrial, Y chromosome, paleoclimate, and archaeological data, we find that the time of the Ethio-Somali back-to-Africa migration is most likely pre-agricultural. ... While this Ethio-Somali IAC is found primarily in Africa, it has clear non-African affinities (Text S1). ... The most recent divergence date estimates for the Ethio-Somali ancestral population are with the Maghrebi and Arabian ancestral populations at 23 and 25 ka.

Furthermore:

The Ethio-Somali ancestry is more likely to have arrived during an earlier hunter-gatherer phase, when a smaller migration could make a significant contribution. ... One possible indication of ancient Ethio-Somali admixture might be found in studies of Late Pleistocene Nubians (∼12 ka) from the Nile River Valley, who have been variously interpreted as sharing affinities with contemporaneous North African Iberomaurusians [97] and with sub-Saharan Africans [98]. Admixture of Ethio-Somali ancestors with African-origin populations in this region might explain these divergent interpretations of this Late Pleistocene Nubian population. ... A single prehistoric migration of both the Maghrebi and the Ethio-Somali back into Africa is the most parsimonious hypothesis. That is, a common ancestral population migrated into northeast Africa through the Sinai and then split into two, with one branch continuing west across North Africa and the other heading south into the HOA.

Finally and most relevant:

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.

Source:

This should be made more clearly, regardless of which hypothese one sticks to.2001:4BC9:805:83B7:4021:52CC:9E23:1A95 (talk) 06:27, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the summary. I'd say that in this article we can't go too far into all this speculation but indeed the last sentence you have in bold is relevant. But we shouldn't ignore that the sentence is talking about a population who might NOT have been in the HOA (but was probably close). This how it continues. 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). So they are proposing two waves of expansion from 2 genetically related populations in or near the HOA, 1 pre-agricultural, and 1 post-agricultural. And Proto-Semitic might have African origins in the second wave. It is speculative but then again so are most of the hypotheses about this topic. I think it is in any case important for us to make that clear.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:01, 15 June 2022 (UTC)