LEXICA AFROASIATICA VIII

• Authors: Takacs Gabor
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Comparative-historical Afro-Asiatic linguistics has undergone a significant development over the past half century, since the appearence 'Essai comparatif sur le vocabulaire et la phonétique du chamito-sémitique' (1947) by Marcel Cohen. This revolutionary and fundamental synthesis concluded the second great period of the comparative research on Afro-Asiatic lexicon (the so-called 'old school', cf. EDE I 2-4). During the third period (second half of the 20th century), whose beginning was hallmarked by the names of J.H. Greenberg and I.M. Diakonoff, a huge quantity of new lexical material (both descriptive and comparative) has been published, including a few most recent attempts (either unfinished or rather problematic) at compiling an Afro-Asiatic comparative dictionary (SISAJa I-III, HCVA I-V, HSED, Ehret 1995). During the author current work on the 'Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian' (EDE), he collected a great number of new AA parallels, which have not yet been proposed in the literature. Along the EDE project he started collecting AA roots (not attested in Egyptian) for a separate Afro-Asiatic root catalogue in late 1999. The series “Lexica Afroasiatica” has started in 20021 for communicating new Afro- Asiatic lexical correspondences, which may later serve as basis of a new synthesis of the Afro-Asiatic comparative lexicon. The present part of this series is a collection of additional new Afro-Asiatic etymologies with the Proto- Afro-Asiatic initial bilabial nasal (*m-). The numeration of the etymological entries is continuous beginning from the first part of the series 'Lexica Afroasiatica'. Each entry is headed by the proposed PAA root. Author names are placed after the quoted linguistic forms in square brackets mostly in an abbreviated form (a key can be found at the end of the paper). The lexical data in the individual lexicon entries have been arranged in the order of the current classification of the Afro-Asiatic daughter languages (originating from J.H. G r e e n b e r g 1955; 1963 and I.M. D i a k o n o f f 1965) in 5 (or 6) equivalent branches: (1) Semitic, (2) Egyptian, (3) Berber, (4) Cushitic, (5) Omotic (sometimes conceived as West Cushitic), (6) Chadic. Since we know little about the Proto-Afro-Asiatic vowel system, the proposed list of the reconstructed Proto-Afro-Asiatic forms is arranged according to consonantal roots (even the nominal roots). Sometimes, nevertheless, it was possible to establish the root vowel, which is given in the paper additionally in brackets. The lexical parallels suggested herein, are based on the preliminary results in reconstructing the consonant correspondences achieved by the Russian team of I.M. D i a k o n o f f as well as on author's own observations refining the Russian results.

Keywords

EN

AFRO-ASIATIC ETYMOLOGIES; AFRO-ASIATIC LINGUISTICS; AFRO-ASIATIC PARALELS

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Rocznik Orientalistyczny
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 62
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 26-125
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Takacs Gabor

• Gabor Takacs, Department of Egyptology, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

10PLAAAA077926