Also known as Hamito-Semitic languages, Afroasiatic languages are spoken by 175 million persons representing a wide range of cultures through most of the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, North Africa, and large portions of West Africa. The languages include Arabic and Hebrew. Afroasiatic is commonly divided into five main branches based on ancient roots: Egyptian, Semitic, Cushitic, Berber, and Chad. Omotic, formerly called West Cushitic, has recently been suggested as constituting a sixth branch. These languages differ in their particulars, and the exact relationship among the branches has not yet been established. Scholars postulate, however, that all are derived from an unknown ancestor language that was probably spoken in northeast Africa or the Sahara about the 6th millennium BC. EGYPTIAN Egyptian is the oldest attested language of the family and has the longest known continuous history. As a written language it proceeded in five distinct stages. The first three--Old Egyptian (c.3000 to c.2200 BC), Middle Egyptian (c.2200 to c.1200 BC), and Late or Neo-Egyptian (c.1300 to c.700 BC)--were all written in \Thieroglyphics\t. Demotic (c.700 BC to AD c.300) was written in a simplified cursive script based on hieroglyphics and spoken by early Christians. Coptic (from AD 300), written in an alphabet based on Greek and comprising many dialects, was still widely spoken in the 16th century and in some places possibly as late as the 19th century. One Coptic dialect, Bohairic, is now the liturgical language of the Christian Monophysite Coptic Church. SEMITIC Semitic was originally confined to the Near East but gradually spread to the Horn of Africa and then throughout North Africa. It comprises two major groups, which in turn comprise many smaller affinity groups. Semitic embraces the languages used by a number of cultures prominent in ancient times, including the people of the \TBible\t, as well as modern Arabic and Hebrew. East Semitic includes Akkadian, the language of the Assyro-Babylonians that was spoken in Mesopotamia from c.3000 to c.400 BC. It was written, usually from left to right, in a cuneiform script. West Semitic can be further divided into central and southern branches and embraces the Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, South Arabian, and Ethiopian languages. Most languages in this group were or still are written from right to left in a consonantal script without marked vowels. As Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic further developed, users added diacritical vowel symbols or "points," which are now optional. The main branches of Central Semitic are Aramaic, Arabic, and Canaanite. Aramaic One of the branches of Central Semitic, Aramaic was once the colloquial language of the Near East after the decline of Akkadian. It was the native tongue of Jesus Christ and the language of the Jewish Talmud. Syriac, one of its eastern branches, was used to transmit early Christian culture up to the 13th century. Today eastern Aramaic is still spoken by about 100,000 persons--many of whom are Jacobite and Nestorian Christians--in northeast Iran and neighboring areas of Iraq and the \TUSSR\t, as well as by Jews from the same region who have immigrated to Israel. Mandaic, the language of a Gnostic sect, is also still spoken in the region. Arabic As a literary language, Arabic dates back to the 7th century AD. It is the language of the \TKoran\t, the holy book of \TIslam\t, and thus assumed tremendous importance because it was adopted by most of the peoples conquered and converted by Muslim Arabs. Arabic has also been spoken by the Christian and Jewish minorities of the Islamic world. A North African branch, spoken by Christians and written in Roman characters, is the official language of Malta. A modernized version of classical Arabic, Modern Literary Arabic, is used in education, literature, and mass communication by about 100 million persons. Canaanite Canaanite comprises Hebrew and such ancient languages as Phoenician-Punic, Moabite, and Ugaritic. Hebrew, attested from the 10th century BC to the present, is the language of Judaism and the Old Testament Bible. Its original domain included what is now Israel and nearby areas. Biblical Hebrew is found in texts dating from c.1000 to 400 BC. Mishnaic (Rabbinical) Hebrew (AD c.200) is the language of the \TMishnah\t, the first great legal document of Judaism, and shows the influence of vernacular Aramaic. Medieval Hebrew (6th to 13th century) was the written language of religious literature and poetry of Arabic-speaking Jews, notably in Spain. Early modern Hebrew developed in the 18th century and became the vehicle for a secular literature and for correspondence between Jews, mainly in Eastern Europe. The Zionist settlers of Palestine (Israel) also adopted it as a colloquial language, as a result of the systemization of modern Hebrew by Eliezer \TBen-Yehudah\t early in this century. Today, Israeli Hebrew is spoken by about 3 million persons in Israel. Phoenician-Punic was spoken in what is today Lebanon, from the 10th century BC to the beginning of the Christian era. Phoenicians brought their language to the colonies that they established around the Mediterranean, the most famous of which was \TCarthage\t. Moabite, which was related to biblical Hebrew, died out long ago, as did Ugaritic. Written in a cuneiform consonantal script, Ugaritic was the language of the city of \TUgarit\t up to the 14th century BC. Its affiliations, as well as those of Amorite and of the recently discovered language of \TEbla\t, remain disputed. South Semitic South Semitic is represented by three branches whose exact relationship has not yet been discerned. The original language of the southern half of the Arabian peninsula was South Arabian and not Arabic. Epigraphic South Arabian is known only from short inscriptions dating from the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. Its main varieties were Sabaean (Sheba), Minean, Awsani, Qatabani, and Hadramauti. Modern South Arabian is not a descendant of the former. These languages are spoken by about 25,000 people in the Dhofar and on the island of Socotra (Soqotri). Ethiopian Spoken in Ethiopia and Sudan in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopian languages were transplanted to the area from South Arabia, possibly around 2000 BC. They were greatly transformed by the indigenous populations that adopted them. The script, written from left to right, is a continuation of the South Arabian consonantal script. Here, however, a character stands for a consonant-vowel group, and the vowel is marked by a modification of the basic shape of the consonantal letter. Ethiopian languages comprise northern and southern branches. In the North Ethiopic group--Ge'ez, Tigrinya, and Tigre--Ge'ez was the language of civilization centering on Aksum. First attested in inscriptions from the 4th century AD, it died out as a spoken language in the 9th century but continued to be used as a literary language and as the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Tigrinya still has several million speakers in Eritrea and the administrative region of Tigre; the Tigre language is spoken by less than a million people, mostly Muslims. The South Ethiopic group comprises two branches: Transversal South Ethiopic and Outer South Ethiopic. The chief language of the Transversal South Ethiopic branch is Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, with more than 8 million, mainly Christian, speakers. This branch also includes the almost extinct Argobba language, Harari--spoken in the Muslim city of Harar--and East Gurage. Outer South Ethiopic includes the recently extinct Gafat and the rest of the so-called Gurage languages (Soddo, Chaha, and others). CUSHITIC Cushitic is the most heterogeneous of the Afroasiatic languages. It comprises about 40 different languages spoken by 15 million persons in the Horn of Africa and surrounding areas. Beja or Bedauye, spoken in eastern Sudan and northern Ethiopia by a small number of Muslims, has been classified as North Cushitic but may be an independent branch of Afroasiatic. Central Cushitic, comprising the Agau languages, is spoken within enclaves of predominantly Semitic Ethiopia. East Cushitic, the largest member of the group, with about 2 million speakers in South Central Ethiopia, comprises Highland East Cushitic (Burji, Sidamo, Hadiyya, and others) and Lowland East Cushitic, which is the most widespread. Its northern branch comprises the Afar-Saho or Dankali dialect cluster, with about 500,000 speakers located in south Eritrea and the Republic of Jibuti. The other branch contains the widest diversity. Somali, with about 4 million speakers, is the official language of Somalia and is also spoken in the Republic of Jibuti, in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia, and in the northwestern territory of Kenya. It is written in Roman script, although Arabic and an indigenous script have also been used. Its closest relatives are Boni and Rendille in Kenya. The most widely spoken Cushitic language is Oromo, or Galla, with about 8 million speakers. It is spoken in the southern half of Ethiopia and in the adjacent areas of Kenya. It is written in the Ethiopian script and is grouped with the Konso cluster. South Cushitic comprises Dahalo or Sanye, Ma'a or Mbugu (a mixture of Cushitic and Bantu), both of which are spoken in Kenya. Iraqw, Asax, and Quadza are spoken in Tanzania. OMOTIC About 30 Omotic languages are spoken in the Omo valley in southern Ethiopia by more than a million people. Once considered to constitute West Cushitic, the Omotic languages are so different from the other Afroasiatic languages that their inclusion in the family has been questioned. The most important of these languages is Walamo, followed by Gonga (Kafa) and Janjero. BERBER The Berber languages (formerly Numidian and Libyan) at one time dominated the whole of North Africa, west of Egypt. Today the separate Berber languages are spoken in Arabic-speaking territories across North Africa by perhaps 10 million speakers. Tuareg is spoken in southern Algeria, Niger, and Mali. Morocco has the largest concentration of Berber speakers--with 6 million speakers of the Tamazight, Tashelhit, and Tarifit dialects--followed by Algeria, with 2.5 million Kabyles, Chowiya, and other Berber tribes. These dialects are written in Arabic script, although the consonantal writing of Libyan inscriptions still survives. (See \TBerbers\t.) CHAD The Chadic languages are spoken in west central Africa in the area around Lake Chad. Hausa, with 15 million speakers, is the most widely spoken, mainly in northwestern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and northern Ghana. It is written in Roman script, although Arabic script is also used. The other Chadic languages, between 100 and 200 with a total of 7 million speakers, are located in areas east of the Hausa territory. Chadic languages comprise West Chadic (including Hausa, Bole, Kanakuru, Angas, Ron, Bade, Ngizim, Wanji), Biu-Mandara (including Tera, Margi, Higi, Mandara, Bata, Kotoko, Musgu), East Chadic (including Somrai, Dangla, Mubi, and Sokoro), and Masa as a separate branch. CHARACTERISTICS OF AFROASIATIC Despite grammatical differences, the kinship among the various branches of Afroasiatic can be seen through basic similarities in their structures and vocabularies. For example, all branches except Egyptian have a set of emphatic consonants in addition to voiced and voiceless consonants. Lateral consonants (for example, tl, dl) are found in some languages. The Cushitic, Omotic, and Chadic languages also have tones. All branches of the family have masculine and feminine gender distinction, usually characterized by the feminine marker t (Arabic: kalb/kalbat, "dog/bitch"); gender distinction in the plural, however, has disappeared in many of the languages. Ancient Egyptian and classical Semitic had not only singular and plural forms but a grammatical distinction for "two" or "double." Egyptian, Semitic, Berber, and, in remnants only, Cushitic use a system in which a root comprising two, three, or four consonants is used to create different words; this is done by superimposing on it a pattern comprising vowels, and often of further consonants. Thus, in Arabic, the root k-t-b, meaning "write," is used in various combinations to form allied words, such as "writer" (ka:tib-) or "written" (maktu:b-). This root-and-pattern system is particularly important in the verbal system: an original root m-w-t produces in Arabic the words ma:ta/yamu:tu to express "he died/dies." In Semitic, Berber, and, to a limited extent, Cushitic, basic verbal conjugations are characterized by the addition of prefixes and suffixes. Root vocalization marks tense. Egyptian, by contrast, has no prefix conjugation; its verbal system is of nominal origin--of the type "I am on/in/to doing," "is done by me," "I am a doer of" for various tenses and aspects of "I do." In Chadic, a typical conjugation comprises a preposition containing a subject marker and a tense-and-aspect marker, followed by one of the major stem forms of the verb. Verbal derivation is quite rich in all these languages. A passive formation in t and a causative in s or its developments; a reduplication of the verb, of a syllable, or of a consonant for repeated actions; and other methods of word formation are attested everywhere. In many languages, the verb has special negative forms. Likewise, different verbal forms for main and subordinate clauses are found in several branches. In the Cushitic and Omotic languages, the verb typically occupies the final position in the sentence, and subordinate clauses precede the main one. Ethiopian Semitic has adopted the same order of elements. In old Egyptian, Berber, and classical Semitic, the verb is at the beginning of a sentence. Akkadian, an exception, placed the verb in the final position. Coptic, modern Arabic dialects, Aramaic, and Hebrew now use a subject-verb-object order, as do almost all the Chadic languages. In Hebrew and Arabic, adjectives follow the noun and agree with it in gender, number, and definiteness. Case marking is prepositional in Chadic, Berber, Egyptian, and Semitic, though classical Semitic has some residual suffixal cases; Cushitic and Omotic use suffixes, but Somali expresses most case relations by means of preverbal particles. Similarity of numerals occurs only between Semitic and Berber. In both branches, nouns following smaller numerals are in the plural, but after large numbers they are in the singular. In Semitic, numerals having a feminine ending occur with masculine nouns and vice versa. LINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION The formal study of Hebrew and Arabic has an extensive history. Motivated by the study of Judaism and Islam, it spread widely among scholars with the influence of the two religions. Ge'ez and Amharic were first studied in the 17th century. Investigation into most of the other Afroasiatic languages grew from contact between indigenous speakers and Europeans--first travelers, then missionaries and colonial administrators, and ultimately scholars whose motives were purely intellectual. The extinct languages--Egyptian, Libyan, and those of the Semitic group--were preserved in inscriptions that were copied and, with the help of bilingual inscriptions or of known related scripts, deciphered by scholars mainly during the past 100 years (see \Twriting systems, evolution of\t). In recent years an upsurge has occurred in the study of Cushitic and Chadic languages in particular. Modern advances in general linguistic theory have greatly stimulated the investigation of all branches. Two periodicals are devoted exclusively to the Afroasiatic language family: the Comptes Rendus of the Groupe Linguistique d'Etudes Chamito-Semitiques (Paris), founded in 1931; and Afroasiatic Linguistics (Malibu, Calif., 1974- ). The Afroasiatic Dialects series (Malibu, Calif.) publishes introductory grammars of these languages. Every 4 years an International Hamito-Semitic Congress is held. Robert Hetzron Bibliography: Bender, Marvin L., ed., The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia (1976); Bynon, James, ed., Current Progress in Afro-Asiatic Languages (1984); Bynon, James and Theodora, eds., Hamito-Semitica (1975); Diakonoff, Igor M., Semito-Hamitic Languages (1965); Gardiner, Alan N., Egyptian Grammar, 3d rev. ed. (1978); Gesenius, Wilhelm, Hebrew Grammar, ed. by E. Kautzsch (1963); Greenberg, Joseph H., The Languages of Africa (1966); Hodge, Carleton T., ed., Afroasiatic, a Survey (1971); Moscati, Sabatino, et al., An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of Semitic Languages (1964); Newman, P. and R. M., eds., Papers in Chadic Linguistics (1977); Wright, William, A Grammar of the Arabic Languages (1967).