{"id":1127,"date":"2010-12-05T10:00:53","date_gmt":"2010-12-05T08:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2010-09-24T09:34:33","modified_gmt":"2010-09-24T07:34:33","slug":"afroasiatic-protolanguage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1127","title":{"rendered":"Afroasiatic protolanguage"},"content":{"rendered":"
Afroasiatic protolanguage: <\/strong>An attempt at a combined phylogenetic and historical-comparative reconstruction with anthropological objectives.<\/strong> By Gyula Decsy<\/strong>. (Biblioteca Nostratica 12.) Bloomington, IN: Eurolingua, 2002. Pp. 136. ISBN 9780931922701<\/a>. $35.<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Peter Freeouf<\/strong><\/a>, Chiang Mai University<\/em><\/p>\n

This work is an attempt to summarize one of the various proto-languages that would have been descended in turn from the proposed Nostratic proto-language. It joins Gyula Decsy\u2019s recent volumes on other proto-languages: Indo-European, Chinese, Turkic and Uralic. This volume on the Afroasiatic proto-language is, as he states in the introduction (6), based on Christopher Ehret\u2019s Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, tone, consonants, and vocabulary<\/em> (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995).<\/p>\n

D notes \u00a0that by necessity a reconstructed proto-language is more regular than a modern language and has a smaller vocabulary due to the operation of analogy, borrowing and word loss (5). A specific problem with the Afroasiatic proto-language in comparison with other proposed proto-languages is the much greater time-depth of the former; while Turkic can be traced back 1,000 years and Uralic and Indo-European 6,000 years, Afroasiatic can be traced back 14,000 years (5).<\/p>\n

Much attention is devoted to the reconstruction of the phonemic system of Proto-Afroasiatic (7\u201329). D posits a very simple system with three basic stops (\/p, t, k\/), two nasals (\/m, ng\/), one liquid (\/l\/ or \/r\/), and two glides (\/j, w\/). Additional candidates for the sound inventory include \/s\/, \/h\/, and \/n\/, the first two of which are possible allophonic variants of the archiphonemes \/t\/ and \/k\/, respectively (11). A simple triangular vowel system \/u, a, i\/ can be reconstructed, followed by the development of the mid vowels \/e, o\/, as well as possible length distinctions (9). Ablaut variation is posited as an important word formation process (27). Here, D notes the obvious parallel with Indo-European languages. Possible phoneme sequences are discussed as well as the basic syllable types (CV(C)) that can be reconstructed for Proto-Afroasiatic.<\/p>\n

Turning to morphology and syntax (29\u201337), D makes the bold claim that Proto-Afroasiatic was an isolating and \u2018analytic language without patterned grammar similar to present-day Standard Chinese or English\u2019, but with a well-developed word building system (29). He reconstructs pronominal forms, adpositions (relational words), numerals, and derivational affixes. In the next chapter, Vocabulary (38\u201348), 130 Proto-Afroasiatic roots that are attested in all five branches of Afroasiatic are reconstructed and grouped into related word fields. A short chapter on semantics (48\u201353) attempts to connect some of the basic vocabulary with elementary concepts and natural processes.<\/p>\n

The bulk of the book consists of two wordlists, Proto-Afroasiatic\u2014English (55\u201388) and English\u2014Proto-Afroasiatic (89\u2013133). These wordlists are no more than alphabetical indices to Ehret (1995) and no attested forms or intermediate reconstructions are given.<\/p>\n

This book is a concise introduction to one of the proto-languages on which the proposed Nostratic Ursprache is based and thus will be of interest to those who want to learn more about the Nostratic hypothesis. It is unfortunate, however, that the book bristles with typographical errors, some of which are such that they affect the clarity of the publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Afroasiatic protolanguage: An attempt at a combined phylogenetic and historical-comparative reconstruction with anthropological objectives. By Gyula Decsy. (Biblioteca Nostratica 12.) Bloomington, IN: Eurolingua, 2002. Pp. 136. ISBN 9780931922701. $35. Reviewed by Peter Freeouf, Chiang Mai University This work is an attempt to summarize one of the various proto-languages that would have been descended in turn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1128,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions\/1128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}