Six Protolanguages Compared: A Concise Look at Afroasiatic, Amerind, Dené-Caucasian, Eurasiatic, Niger-Congo & Nilo-Saharan

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SIX PROTOLANGUAGES COMPARED
Afroasiatic, Amerind, Dené-Caucasian, Eurasiatic, Niger-Congo & Nilo-Saharan

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Six Protolanguages Compared
according to the qualities of six macrofamily protolanguages and
their living language descendants
Afroasiatic, Amerind, Dené-Caucasian, Eurasiatic, Niger-Congo & Nilo-Saharan
Pieter Uys

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Contents
Introduction 3
Sprachbund 5
Consonant Inventory 6
Vowel Inventory 7
Vowel Harmony 8
Ejectives & Implosives 10
Gender & Noun Classes 11
Clusivity of “we” 15
Word Order 16
Morphological Typology 18
Thoughts 21
Bibliography 24
Maps & Illustrations
Sprachbund 5
Consonants 6
Vowels 7
Vowel Harmony 9
Ejectives & Implosives 10
Gender 12
Affixes 13
Adpositions 14
Incl & Exclusive We 15
Subject – Object – Verb 17
Vowel Harmony illus. 8
Table: Comparison 24

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Intro
Genetic linguistics is an approach to linguistics in which languages are classified according to their family relationships. The world’s languages are
divided into families, each of which has developed from a common ancestral protolanguage. The larger families are further divided into subfamilies.
A language family is a group of languages which is genetically related on the basis of a common ancestor, or protolanguage. Such a group of
languages shares features and vocabulary inherited from the ancestor. Historical linguists employ the comparative method to reconstruct a
protolanguage. By examining related languages for cognates (words bearing a resemblance on account of their common descent), linguists can
postulate the original forms from which the cognates emerged. This method uses lexical categories like pronouns, body parts, kinship terminology
and numbers, that are the most stable terms and most resistant to change. Morphological features are equally important for establishing kinship.

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Sprachbund
A sprachbund is an ensemble of neighbouring languages within a defined geographical area and without a close genetic heritage, which
share certain structural features. The correspondences or similarities arise from language contact. Areal linguistics is about the diffusion of
structural features across the languages and dialects of a defined geographical area.

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Consonant Inventory
The largest consonant inventories are found in Southern Africa (Khoisan and Niger-Congo families), the Caucasus and the northwest of North
America, the last two belonging to or areally influenced by Dene-Sino-Caucasian descendants. Several Ntu languages (part of the Niger-Congo
family) in the southern part of the continent, such as Sotho and Xhosa, have enlarged their consonant inventory by borrowing clicks and other
sounds from languages of the Khoisan group.
As for Protolanguages, the formidable consonant inventory of Dené-Sino-Caucasian stands out. For one thing, all of its stops and all of its
affricates have the choice of voiced or not or ejective. All in all the arsenal comprises 50 phonemic consonants and eight phonemic vowels. This
majestic phonology encompasses complex sibilant-affricate and resonant combinations, of which the cognates in Eurasiatic pale in their simplicity.
Another of its treasures is the wealth of lateral affricates like / dl, tl and tl’/. All of them survive in the East Caucasian languages Avar, Andi and Tsez,
and in Na-Dene, in words like Navajo ‘dloo’ “ground squirrel”, ‘-tle/-tlee’ “socks” and ‘tl’ee’ “night”. Three series of sibilants and sibilant-affricates
appear before the phonemes /s, c, c̓ , ʒ/, before the palatals /ś, ć, ćʼ/ and after /š, č, čʼ, ǯ/, of which the traces linger in Basque. Plus a series of uvulars
/ʁ ɢ x, χ/ which is rare elsewhere.

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Vowel Inventory
The average number of monoftongs in the world’s languages is five, and the most frequent vowel system has five qualities.
Certain small language groups, such as the Berber languages (Afro-Asiatic) and the Northwest Caucasian languages have as few as two vowels.
European languages like English, French, Danish and German have large inventories. The 26 vowel phonemes of Standard Danish (14 short and 12
long) correspond to 21 morphophonemes (11 short and 10 long). The European area also includes a number of languages with vowel harmony
restrictions on the distribution of their vowels, such as Finnish, Hungarian and Turkish and its relatives which extend to the East.
In Africa, large vowel inventories predominate in a broad band between the Sahara and the Equator, among Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan and Afro-
Asiatic languages.

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Vowel Harmony
Some languages in Asia, Europe and Africa employ vowel harmony. It means that a word may contain only the approved vowels of a certain set. The
criterion may be front or back position, nasal or palatal articulation, lip rounding or the position of the tongue root. Vowel harmony is a process of
assimilation in which the sounds of a word are shaped aesthetically. The result is called metaphony and it serves Eurasiatic, Niger-Congo and the Nilo-
Saharan languages very well.
In Eurasiatic languages it usually means that a word has either front or back vowels and that the vowels of the suffixes or declensions get in line with the
“Anlaut” of the root. Some languages employ lip rounding harmony too, which occurs together with front-back harmony. African and Mongolian
languages tend to use tongue root position (ATR) harmony.
The Niger-Congo languages that have two sets of vowels: /i e ə o u/ and /i ε a ɔ υ/ use only one set in a word. Even in languages without vowel
harmony, restrictions are often placed on a word’s second vowel. Nilo-Saharan might have borrowed tongue root position harmony from the Niger-Congo
family but it might also be an ancient inherent trait of Proto-Nilo-Saharan.
Vowel harmony is strongest in the Uralo-Siberian (Finnish, Hungarian) and Transeurasian (Turkic, Mongolic) branches of Eurasiatic, and in the Niger-Congo
family. It does not seem to be important to the Afroasiatic family although there are Arabic dialects with vowel harmony, and historically the phenomenon
of Babylonian vowel harmony is well known. That was after the Akkadian language gained a fourth vowel, /e/ (on top of /a/, /u/ and /i/) by virtue of Sumerian
which in many ways was the polar opposite of Akkadian.

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Vowel Harmony
https://linguisticmaps.tumblr.com/post/120811630523/31-vowel-harmony-very-characteristic-of-turkic
Linguistic maps featuring several grammatical and phonological features, created by R. Pereira, a graduated linguist and conlanger.

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Ejectives and implosives
Ejectives are voiceless stops (plosives) or affricates, while implosives tend to be voiced stops. Ejective stops are written with a raised apostrophe after
the symbol that is used to represent the mouth action; thus /p’/ represents a bilabial ejective stop and /k’/ a velar ejective stop. Ejectives abound in
the Northwest and Northeast Caucasian languages and in Kartvelian, and are also found in Amerind.
Implosives occur in sub-Saharan Africa and in Southeast Asia. The phonetic symbols for implosives are the letters used for voiced stops modified by
a hook to the right at the top, as in /ɓ, ɗ, ɠ/.
Implosives and ejectives are found in the following African language groups: Chadic, Khoisan, Ntu (Zulu), Cushitic (Oromo in Ethiopia, Iraqw in
Tanzania and Dahalo in Kenya ) in Nilo-Saharan (Komo and Ik) and in Omotic (Kullo and Hamer).

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Gender & Noun Classes
Proto-Dene-Sino-Caucasian had noun classes, marked with prefix *u- for male and *i- for female, while prefix *w-/*b-/*m- encompasses parts of the body,
bodily fluids and some animals. Prefixes *r/*d cover more animals and natural phenomena with *s and *a. This system is robust among the languages of
the Northeast Caucasus, and far to the east where the Hindu Kush and Karakoram meet, and even in Siberia on the banks of Yenisei. Elsewhere relics of the
class markers cling to a few Basque and Tibetan nouns.
The number of noun classes in Niger-Congo languages can reach 23. They accommodate male, female, animacy, inanimacy, places, plants, more animals,
diminutives and abstractions.
On the other hand, Eurasiatic and Nilo-Saharan had no such thing, not even her or him. Only much later did some Nilotic tongues like Turkana and Bari pick
them up from speakers of Afroasiatic. And the Indo-Europeans acquired three genders, most probably from the Nakh-Dagestani languages.
So that leaves one family who’s had him and her from the start – Afroasiatic in whose prototongue is proof.

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Gender, Animate & Inanimate
https://linguisticmaps.tumblr.com/

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Affixes
An affix is a bound morpheme that occurs before or within or after the base of a word. An affix may thus be a prefix, infix or suffix that modifies the
meaning of a word.
https://linguisticmaps.tumblr.com/

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Adpositions
Prepositions and postpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations or designate various semantic roles.
https://linguisticmaps.tumblr.com/image/184464412838

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Inclusive & exclusive “we”
In Eurasia, only a few Dené-Sino-Caucasian languages in the Caucasus make a distinction between “we with hearer included” and “we with listener
excluded”. In the Americas, nearly half of all languages have it. Dravidian and Munda languages have an inclusive/exclusive distinction, while
languages in northeast Asia with such a distinction include Evenki, Ainu and Nivkh.
Just off the Asian mainland, the feature is found in most Austronesian languages and in non-Pama-Nyungan of northern Australia. It is nearly
universal in both groups and frequent among the Pama-Nyungan languages. In Africa, it’s rare.
In many Amerind languages, the inclusive-exclusive distinction is reflected in the verb.

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Word Order
Gell-Man and Ruhlen prove that the Mother Tongue had SOV word order. Except for instances of diffusion, the direction of syntactic change is mostly from
SOV to SVO. After that phase, SVO becomes VSO/VOS before reversion to SVO through diffusion, although diffusion is not the most important factor in the
development of word order. The two rarest word orders – OVS and OSV – derive directly from SOV.
Five of the six branches of the Dené-Sino-Caucasian macrofamily have exclusive SOV word order. (Subject-Object-Verb). The other branch, Sino-Tibetan,
has mainly SOV except Chinese, Bai and Karen with SVO (Subject-Verb-Object).
In Eurasiatic, 149 languages have SOV, 59 have SVO and 6, (the Island Celtic languages), have VSO. This remains a mystery and the search for substrates
continue.
Nilo-Saharan has SOV, SVO and VSO. Songhai and Saharan have SOV while Kuliak and the Nilotic languages have predominantly VSO.
Niger-Congo has 35 SOV and 264 SVO, and the Ntu-group has 1 SOV and 118 SVO.
‘The distribution of word order types in the world’s languages, interpreted in terms of the putative phylogenetic tree of human languages, strongly supports the
hypothesis that the original word order in the ancestral language was SOV. Furthermore, in the vast majority of known cases (excluding diffusion), the direction
of change has been almost uniformly SOV > SVO and, beyond that, primarily SVO > VSO/VOS. There is also evidence that the two extremely rare word orders,
OVS and OSV, derive directly from SOV.’*
*Gell-Man, Murray & Ruhlen, Merritt. (2011). The origin and evolution of word order. Santa Fe Institute, Stanford University.

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SOV Word Order
https://linguisticmaps.tumblr.com/post/130564019038/sov-word-order-most-common-word-order-and-present

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Morphological Typology of the Protolanguages
Different morphological types emerge from the known macrofamily protolanguages. For example, the highly polysynthetic Proto-Dené-Sino-
Caucasian is the ancestor of the isolating Chinese languages, and of the polysynthetic North Caucasian languages.
Agglutination and fusion are forms of inflection; agglutination is one-dimensional while fusion is multidimensional. Languages with a high frequency
of inflection are called “synthetic languages”. Languages with so much inflection that it’s difficult to distinguish an inflected word from a sentence
are called polysynthetic languages.
Finnish is an example of an agglutinating synthetic language while Sanskrit is an example of a fusional synthetic language. In this paradigm, English
would be an analytical language with fusional elements.
Proto-Dené-Sino-Caucasian was a highly polysynthetic language employing both agglutination and fusion, which used both prefixes and suffixes.
The noun class system included masculine, feminine, animate and inanimate. Among its descendants are analytical languages like Chinese,
polysynthetic inflectional languages like the NW and NE Caucasian languages, and the agglutinative inflectional tongues Basque, Burushaski and
Navajo.
Its vast phonological system of 50 consonants included three series of sibilant-affricate and resonant combinations, as well as lateral affricates / dl, tl
and tl’/ plus an uvular series /ʁ ɢ x, χ/. The presence of ejectives is a feature it had in common with Amerind and Afro-Asiatic. Another possible
correspondence is the distinction between inclusive and exclusive “we.”
The verbal system accommodated up to four prefix positions before the root. Prefixes indicated categories like aspect, tense, mode, valence, and
pronominal agents and/or patients.

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The Proto-Amerind language was polysynthetic, using both prefixes and suffixes. The noun could take a series of suffixes and prefixes to indicate
diminutive, demonstrative, kinship, age, reciprocal and more. Also, a gender ablaut and age-differential Ablaut system. Four-vowel systems (lacking
the /u/) occur frequently). Proto-Amerind had glottalized consonants. Well-known Amerind languages with ejectives include Cochabamba
Quechua, Yucatec Mayan and Navajo. Implosive glottal consonants are found in nine Native American languages. Two-thirds of the languages with
glottalized resonants are in the Americas. Inclusive vs Exclusive “we” has a high incidence.
Proto-Eurasiatic was an inflectional agglutinating language that used ablaut and preferred suffixes to prefixes. Among its descendants are fusional
inflectional languages like Proto-Indo-European, Latin and Sanskrit, agglutinating inflectional languages like Finnish and Turkish, and analytical
languages with elements of fusional inflection, like English.
Proto-Afroasiatic was a fusional inflectional language that used ablaut, prefixes, infixes and suffixes. Among its descendants are the modern Arabic
dialects that are analytic with inflectional elements of both a fusional and agglutinating nature. Grammatical gender (he/she) is inherent in the
protolanguage. One of the most notable features of Afro-Asiatic phonology is the system of triads in the stops and affricates; each series is
composed of three contrasting members: (a) voiceless (aspirated), (b) voiced, and (c) glottalized (ejectives called “emphatics” in Semitic grammar).
According to Ehret the system included 40 consonants:
b, c, c', d, dl, dz, f, g, gw, y, yw, h, 1}, j, k, kW, k', kW', 1, t, m, n, Jl, tJ, tJw, p, p', r, s, s', s, t, t', tl', ts, w, x, xw, y, z, ?, £.
Proto-Nilo-Saharan was a fusional inflectional language that used both prefixes and suffixes. Among its descendants are analytical languages like
Central Sudanic and inflectional agglutinating languages like Nilotic and Nubian. According to Ehret, the protolanguage had 44 consonants, and 6
or 7 vowels. Nilo-Saharan languages are tonal with complex vowel systems; some use tones to mark inflections like case, aspect and person.
Although the north-western group displays analytical elements and agglutination, they retain the core characteristics of the inflectional type,
especially root-internal vowel change. The verb frequently involves extensive marking for features like person, voice, number, tense, aspect, or voice,
where consonant mutation often accompanies such morphological processes. In general, Nilo-Saharan has suffixes than prefixes but declensional
and derivational prefixes show greater resistance against phonetic erosion or merger with lexical roots than the suffixes.

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Proto-Niger-Congo was an inflectional agglutinating language. Among its descendants are inflectional agglutinating languages like the Ntu Group
and isolating languages like those of the Kwa and Benue branches. Proto-Ntu has been reconstructed with a small set of 11 consonants and seven
vowels: *p *t *c *k *b *d *g *j *m *ɲ; *i *ɪ *e *a *o *ʊ *u; plus High- and Low tones.
Consonant inventories expand substantially, especially in the Southern African groups that borrowed clicks and other consonants from the Khoesan
languages. Zulu has 50 consonant phonemes, Xhosa 66 and SeSotho 39. Advanced Tongue Root vowel harmony is prevalent. In the root structure
written (N)CV(V), (N) represents the nasal in combinations like /mb, nd, nt; ɲj, ɲc ŋg, ŋk/.
One of the most important morphological features of the Ntu Group is the system of nominal classes, of which the proto-language probably had 23.
Each of the classes has a pronoun, prefix and a set of concords to integrate adverbs, adjectives and verbs. The verbal stem has a set of prefixes and
sometimes an inflected ending. Closed syllables are avoided. Word order is overwhelmingly SVO.

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Macrofamily Amerind
Dené-
Caucasic
Afroasiatic Eurasiatic
Nilo-
Saharan
Niger-Congo
Proto-Ntu data
Gender/
Class
?
Four noun classes:
Animate M + F
Inanimate I Inanimate II
M + F
Latent: Anatolian:
Animate vs Inanimate
Later: PIE
M + F + N
Noun classifier system
(Blench)
19 noun classes in
Proto-Ntu
Affixation: Mostly
prefixes; infixes or
suffixes
Equal P & S Equal P & S More suffixes More suffixes
More suffixes than
prefixes
More prefixes than
suffixes in Proto-Ntu
Vowel inventory
i u
e o
a
i ɨ u
e ə o
ä /æ/
i u
a
i u
e o
a
i, ɪ, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, ʊ, u i, ɪ, e, ɛ, ə, a, o, ɔ, u, ʊ
Consonant inventory
Large 50+
32
[Bomhard 36 (6])
23? 40+ (Ehret) 11
Emphatic, Glottal or
Pharyngeal Set
Yes Yes Yes ? Yes No
Vowel
harmony
No No No Latent ATR ATR
Rounded front vowels No Yes Yes Yes No No
Morphological
typology
Fusional and
agglutinating inflexion
Fusional and
Fusional and
Fusional and
Fusional and
Agglutinating inflexion
Verbal Agent &
Patient marking
Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes
Inclusive + Exclusive
WE
Yes Yes Yes ? ? No

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Conclusion
The oldest protolanguage of Africa (Proto-Nilo-Saharan), and the oldest one of Europe (Proto-Dené-Sino-Caucasian) were contemporaneous with Afroasiatic.
(Estimated chronology: 16,000 BC to 9,000 BC)
Some millennia later, the largest language family of Africa (Niger-Congo) and the largest one of Eurasia (Eurasiatic) were also contemporaries. The difference
between the younger ones and the older ones is that both of the younger ones had a less complex phonological and morphological structure.
The distributional pattern in Africa reveals that Nilo-Saharan was spoken over a contiguous area of North and North-Central Africa which was penetrated and
broken up by Niger-Congo.
Dené-Sino-Caucasian dominated the Eurasian landmass north of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, including the Karakorum
and the Hindu Kush.
Eventually Eurasiatic languages like Indo-European, Uralic and Transeurasian displaced the Dené-Sino-Caucasian languages so that only the Basque area, the
North Caucasus, the Hunza and Nagar Valleys of Pakistan, and a few remote spots along the banks of the Yenisei River in Siberia remained.
Afroasiatic first expanded into North Africa with the Chadic branch which took a northern route through the Sinai peninsula, and encountered Nilo-Saharan on
the way. Then the Cushitic branch in the Arabian Peninsula crossed the Bab-el-Mandeb to settle the Horn of Africa. Here also Afroasiatic encountered Nilo-
Saharan languages. (Omotic might have arrived before Cushitic).
The next migration from the Near East involved Berber and Egyptian. Egyptians settled in the Nile Valley while Berbers spread over the Maghreb and Sahara and
did not stop until they reached the Canary Islands.
Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo have a strong connection to Borean, as Wim van Binsbergen claimed. The question arises whether Dené-Sino-Caucasian and Nilo-
Saharan were direct successors of Borean. And when and why did the younger group displace the older one on both continents? It seems that Niger-Congo
might have displaced Nilo-Saharan in the Sahel and North Central Africa only after the Chadic disruption in West Africa.

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Is also seems that Afroasiatic did not displace Dené-Sino-Caucasian anywhere in Eurasia unless Sumerian was of PDSC lineage.
Closer to historical times the Semitic branch lived in close proximity to the Proto-Indo-European in northern Mesopotamia and eastern Anatolia, with Proto-
Kartvelian nearby.
Despite the vast age difference, remarkable correspondences tie Eurasiatic to Amerind, while the phonology of Amerind most closely resembles that of the Dene-
Sino-Caucasian family.

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protolanguage boreal borean historical linguistics genetic linguistics protolanguages language contact areal linguistics
sprachbund Nilo-Saharan languages Niger-Congo languages Niger-Saharan Dené-Sino-Caucasian Eurasiatic comparative
linguistics language in prehistory language families linguistic convergence borean roots Nostratic mother tongue
grammatical gender genetic linguistics Chadic Cushitic Semitic Omotic Berber Egyptian Akkadian Sumerian Sino
Caucasian Chadic Cushitic Semitic Omotic Genetiese taalkunde historiese taalkunde boriese stamme vokaalharmonie
vowel harmony ablaut uralo-siberian phonology altaic semantic shift proto-world mother tongue proto-human proto-
sapiens language macrofamily Uralo-Siberian Transeurasian Altaic Uralic Athabascan Kartvelian Nakh-Dagestanian

Six Protolanguages Compared: A Concise Look at Afroasiatic, Amerind, Dené-Caucasian, Eurasiatic, Niger-Congo & Nilo-Saharan

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Six Protolanguages Compared: A Concise Look at Afroasiatic, Amerind, Dené-Caucasian, Eurasiatic, Niger-Congo & Nilo-Saharan