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Cushitic
Geographic distribution	Egypt, Sudan, Horn of Africa, East Africa
Linguistic classification	Afro-Asiatic Cushitic
Proto-language	Proto-Cushitic
Subdivisions	North Central East South ? Dahalo
Language codes
ISO 639-2 / 5	cus
Glottolog	cush1243
Distribution of the Cushitic languages in Africa
Map of the Cushitic languages

The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2012, the Cushitic languages with over one million speakers were Oromo, Somali, Beja, Afar, Hadiyya, Kambaata, and Sidama.

Official status

The Cushitic languages with the greatest number of total speakers are Oromo (37 million), Somali (22 million), Beja (3.2 million), Sidamo (3 million), and Afar (2 million).

Oromo serves as one of the official working languages of Ethiopia and is also the working language of several of the states within the Ethiopian federal system including Oromia, Harari and Dire Dawa regional states and of the Oromia Zone in the Amhara Region.

Somali is the first of two official languages of Somalia and three official languages of Somaliland. It also serves as a language of instruction in Djibouti, and as the working language of the Somali Region in Ethiopia.

Beja, Afar, Blin and Saho, the languages of the Cushitic branch of Afroasiatic that are spoken in Eritrea, are languages of instruction in the Eritrean elementary school curriculum. The constitution of Eritrea also recognizes the equality of all natively spoken languages. Additionally, Afar is a language of instruction in Djibouti, as well as the working language of the Afar Region in Ethiopia.

Origin and prehistory

Christopher Ehret argues for a unified Proto-Cushitic language in the Red Sea Hills as far back as the Early Holocene. The explansion of Cushitic languages of the Southern Cushitic branch into the Rift Valley is associated with the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic.

Typological characteristics

Phonology

Most Cushitic languages have a simple five-vowel system with phonemic length (/a a: e e: i i: o o: u u:/); a notable exception are the Agaw languages, which do not contrast vowel length, but have one or two additional central vowels. The consonant inventory of many Cushitic languages includes glottalic consonants, e.g. in Oromo, which has the ejectives /pʼ tʼ tʃʼ kʼ/ and the implosive /ᶑ/. Less common are pharyngeal consonants /ħ ʕ/, which appear e.g. in Somali or the Saho–Afar languages.

Most Cushitic languages have a system of restrictive tone also known as ‘pitch accent’ in which tonal contours overlaid on the stressed syllable play a prominent role in morphology and syntax.

Grammar

Nouns

Nouns are inflected for case and number. All nouns are further grouped into two gender categories, masculine gender and feminine gender. In many languages, gender is overtly marked directly on the noun (e.g. in Awngi, where all female nouns carry the suffix -a).

The case system of many Cushitic languages is characterized by marked nominative alignment, which is typologically quite rare and predominantly found in languages of Africa. In marked nominative languages, the noun appears in unmarked "absolutive" case when cited in isolation, or when used as predicative noun and as object of a transitive verb; on the other hand, it is explicitly marked for nominative case when it functions as subject in a transitive or intransitive sentence.

Possession is usually expressed by genitive case marking of the possessor. South Cushitic—which has no case marking for subject and object—follows the opposite strategy: here, the possessed noun is marked for construct case, e.g. Iraqw afé-r mar'i "doors" (lit. "mouths of houses"), where afee "mouth" is marked for construct case.

Most nouns are by default unmarked for number, but can be explicitly marked for singular ("singulative") and plural number. E.g. in Bilin, dəmmu "cat(s)" is number-neutral, from which singular dəmmura "a single cat" and plural dəmmut "several cats" can be formed. Plural formation is very diverse, and employs ablaut (i.e. changes of root vowels or consonants), suffixes and reduplication.

Verbs

Verbs are inflected for person/number and tense/aspect. Many languages also have a special form of the verb in negative clauses.

Most Cushitic languages distinguish seven person/number categories: first, second, third person, singular and plural number, with a masculine/feminine gender distinction in third person singular. The most common conjugation type employs suffixes. Some languages also have a prefix conjugation: in Beja and the Saho–Afar languages, the prefix conjugation is still a productive part of the verb paradigm, whereas in most other languages, e.g. Somali, it is restricted to only a few verbs. It is generally assumed that historically, the suffix conjugation developed from the older prefix conjugation, by combining the verb stem with a suffixed auxiliary verb. The following table gives an example for the suffix and prefix conjugations in affirmative present tense in Somali.

Syntax

Basic word order is verb final, the most common order being subject–object–verb (SOV). The subject or object can also follow the verb to indicate focus.

Classification

Overview

The phylum was first designated as Cushitic in 1858. Traditionally, Cushitic has been divided into North Cushitic (consisting solely of Beja), Central Cushitic (the Agaw languages), and the large East Cushitic group. Greenberg (1950) argued for the inclusion of the South Cushitic group. The Omotic languages, once classified as West Cushitic, have almost universally been reclassified as a separate branch of Afroasiatic.

• Cushitic
  • North Cushitic (Beja)
  • Central Cushitic (Agaw)
  • East Cushitic
  • South Cushitic

This classification has not been without contention. For example, it has been argued that Southern Cushitic belongs in the Eastern branch, with its divergence explained by contact with Hadza- and Sandawe-like languages. Hetzron (1980) and Fleming (post-1981) exclude Beja altogether, though this is rejected by other linguists. Some of the classifications that have been proposed over the years are summarized here:

For debate on the placement of the Cushitic branch within Afroasiatic, see Afroasiatic languages.

Beja

Beja constitutes the only member of the Northern Cushitic subgroup. As such, Beja contains a number of linguistic innovations that are unique to it, as is also the situation with the other subgroups of Cushitic (e.g. idiosyncratic features in Agaw or Central Cushitic). Hetzron (1980) argues that Beja therefore may comprise an independent branch of the Afroasiatic family. However, this suggestion has been rejected by most other scholars. The characteristics of Beja that differ from those of other Cushitic languages are instead generally acknowledged as normal branch variation.

Didier Morin (2001) assigned Beja to Lowland East Cushitic on the grounds that the language shared lexical and phonological features with the Afar and Saho idioms, and also because the languages were historically spoken in adjacent speech areas. However, among linguists specializing in the Cushitic languages, the standard classification of Beja as North Cushitic is accepted.

An early form of Beja – mostly attested through onomastic evidence, but also directly by a small text on an ostracon from Saqqara – was spoken by the Blemmyes, an ancient people of Lower Nubia that appears in the Egyptian historical records from the 6th century BCE onwards. It is also likely that the Medjay spoke a language that was ancestral to Beja.

Omotic

Cushitic was formerly seen as also including most or all of the Omotic languages. An early view by Enrico Cerulli proposed a "Sidama" subgroup comprising most of the Omotic languages and the Sidamic group of Highland East Cushitic. Mario Martino Moreno in 1940 divided Cerulli's Sidama, uniting the Sidamic proper and the Lowland Cushitic languages as East Cushitic, the remainder as West Cushitic or ta/ne Cushitic. The Aroid languages were not considered Cushitic by either scholar (thought by Cerulli to be instead Nilotic); they were added to West Cushitic by Joseph Greenberg in 1963. Further work in the 1960s soon led to the putative West Cushitic being seen as typologically divergent and renamed as "Omotic".

Today the inclusion of Omotic as a part of Cushitic has been abandoned. Omotic is most often seen as an independent branch of Afroasiatic, primarily due to the work of Harold C. Fleming (1974) and Lionel Bender (1975); some linguists like Paul Newman (1980) challenge Omotic's classification within the Afroasiatic family itself.

Other divergent languages

There are also a few languages of uncertain classification, including Yaaku, Dahalo, Aasax, Kw'adza, Boon, Ongota and the Cushitic component of Mbugu (Ma'a). There is a wide range of opinions as to how the languages are interrelated.

The positions of the Dullay languages and of Yaaku are uncertain. They have traditionally been assigned to an East Cushitic subbranch along with Highland (Sidamic) and Lowland East Cushitic. However, Hayward thinks that East Cushitic may not be a valid node and that its constituents should be considered separately when attempting to work out the internal relationships of Cushitic. Bender (2020) suggests Yaaku to be a divergent member of the Arboroid group.

The Afroasiatic identity of Ongota has also been broadly questioned, as is its position within Afroasiatic among those who accept it, because of the "mixed" appearance of the language and a paucity of research and data. Harold C. Fleming (2006) proposes that Ongota is a separate branch of Afroasiatic. Bonny Sands (2009) thinks the most convincing proposal is by Savà and Tosco (2003), namely that Ongota is an East Cushitic language with a Nilo-Saharan substratum. In other words, it would appear that the Ongota people once spoke a Nilo-Saharan language but then shifted to speaking a Cushitic language while retaining some characteristics of their earlier Nilo-Saharan language.

Hetzron (1980) and Ehret (1995) have suggested that the South Cushitic languages (Rift languages) are a part of Lowland East Cushitic, the only one of the six groups with much internal diversity.

Hypothesized Cushitic substrate languages

Some of the ancient peoples of Nubia are hypothesized to have spoken languages belonging to the Cushitic group, especially the people of the C-Group culture. Given the scarcity of data (all omomastic or toponymic), however, these hypotheses remain speculative.

Christopher Ehret (1998) proposed on the basis of loanwords that South Cushitic languages (called "Tale" and "Bisha" by Ehret) were spoken in an area closer to Lake Victoria than are found today.

Also, historically, the Southern Nilotic languages have undergone extensive contact with a "missing" branch of East Cushitic that Heine (1979) refers to as Baz.

Reconstruction

Christopher Ehret proposed a reconstruction of Proto-Cushitic in 1987, but did not base this on individual branch reconstructions. Grover Hudson (1989) has done some preliminary work on Highland East Cushitic, David Appleyard (2006) has proposed a reconstruction of Proto-Agaw, and Roland Kießling and Maarten Mous (2003) have jointly proposed a reconstruction of West Rift Southern Cushitic. No reconstruction has been published for Lowland East Cushitic, though Paul D. Black wrote his (unpublished) dissertation on the topic in 1974. Hans-Jürgen Sasse (1979) proposed a reconstruction of the consonants of Proto-East Cushitic. No comparative work has yet brought these branch reconstructions together.

Comparative vocabulary

Basic vocabulary

Sample basic vocabulary of Cushitic languages from Vossen & Dimmendaal (2020:318) (with PSC denoting Proto-Southern Cushitic):

Numerals

Comparison of numerals in individual Cushitic languages:

See also

• Cushitic speaking peoples
• List of Proto-Cushitic reconstructions (Wiktionary)
• Meroitic language

Notes

1. Mous (2012), pp. 343–345.
2. Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2021). "Oromo". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Twenty-fourth ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
3. Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2021). "Somali". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Twenty-fourth ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
4. "Bedawiyet". Ethnologue. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
5. "Sidamo". Ethnologue. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
6. "Afar". Ethnologue. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
7. Shaban, Abdurahman. "One to five: Ethiopia gets four new federal working languages". Africa News. Archived from the original on 15 December 2020. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
8. "Ethiopia". The World Factbook (2024 ed.). Central Intelligence Agency. 6 June 2022. (Archived 2022 edition.)
9. ^ "Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia" (PDF). Government of Ethiopia. pp. 2 & 16. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 June 2015. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
10. "Somaliland profile". BBC News. 14 December 2017. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
11. "The Constitution of the Somali Republic (as amended up to October 12, 1990)" (PDF). Government of Somalia. p. 2. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 23 November 2017. "The Transitional Federal Charter of the Somali Republic" (PDF). Government of Somalia. p. 5. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
12. ^ "Journal Officiel de la République de Djibouti – Loi n°96/AN/00/4èmeL portant Orientation du Système Educatif Djiboutien" (PDF). Government of Djibouti. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
13. Graziano Savà; Mauro Tosco (January 2008). ""Ex Uno Plura": the uneasy road of Ethiopian languages toward standardization". International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 2008 (191): 117. doi:10.1515/ijsl.2008.026. S2CID 145500609. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
14. "The Constitution of Eritrea" (PDF). Government of Eritrea. p. 524. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 December 2017. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
15. Stevens, Chris J.; Nixon, Sam; Murray, Mary Anne; Fuller, Dorian Q. (July 2016). Archaeology of African Plant Use. Routledge. p. 239. ISBN 978-1-315-43400-1.
16. Ambrose (1984), p. 234.
17. ^ Appleyard (2012), p. 202.
18. Mous (2012), p. 353.
19. ^ Mous (2012), p. 355.
20. Mous (2012), p. 350–351.
21. Appleyard (2012), pp. 204–206.
22. König (2008), p. 138.
23. Appleyard (2012), pp. 205.
24. Mous (2012), p. 369.
25. Mous (2012), pp. 373–374.
26. Appleyard (2012), p. 204.
27. Mous (2012), pp. 361–363.
28. Mous (2012), p. 389.
29. Appleyard (2012), pp. 207–208.
30. Appleyard (2012), pp. 254–255.
31. Appleyard (2012), pp. 210–211.
32. Mous (2012), pp. 411–412.
33. Lipiński, Edward (2001). Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar Volume 80 of Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta. Peeters Publishers. p. 21. ISBN 90-429-0815-7. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
34. Greenberg, Joseph (1963). The Languages of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University. pp. 48–49.
35. ^ Hetzron (1980).
36. Ehret, Christopher (2011). History and the Testimony of Language. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 138, 147. ISBN 978-0-520-26204-1.
37. ^ Zaborski, Andrzej (1988). Fucus – "Remarks on the Verb in Beja". John Benjamins Publishing. p. 491. ISBN 90-272-3552-X. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
38. Treis, Yvonne; Vanhove, Martine (31 May 2017). Similative and Equative Constructions: A cross-linguistic perspective. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 189. ISBN 978-90-272-6597-5.
39. Vanhove, Martine (2016). "North-Cushitic". Halshs.
40. Güldemann (2018), pp. 327–328.
41. Vanhove, Martine. "North-Cushitic". LLACAN, CNRS-INALCO, Université Sorbonne Paris-Cité. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
42. Rilly 2019, pp. 131–134.
43. Lamberti, Marcello (1991). "Cushitic and its Classifications". Anthropos: 552–561.
44. ^ Richard Hayward, "Afroasiatic", in Heine & Nurse, 2000, African Languages
45. Bender, M. Lionel. (2020). Cushitic Lexicon and Phonology. ed. Grover Hudson. (Schriften zur Afrikanistik / Research in African Studies, 28). Berlin: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-60089-4
46. "Harrassowitz Verlag – The Harrassowitz Publishing House". Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
47. Savà, Graziano; Tosco, Mauro (2003). "The classification of Ongota". In Bender, M. Lionel; et al. (eds.). Selected comparative-historical Afrasian linguistic studies. LINCOM Europa.
48. Sands, Bonny (2009). "Africa's Linguistic Diversity". Language and Linguistics Compass. 3 (2): 559–580. doi:10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00124.x.
49. Robert Hetzron, "The Limits of Cushitic", Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 2. 1980, 7–126.
50. Rilly (2019), pp. 134–137.
51. Kießling, Roland; Mous, Maarten; Nurse, Derek (2007). "The Tanzanian Rift Valley area". In Bernd Heine; Derek Nurse (eds.). A Linguistic Geography of Africa. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
52. Schoenbrun, David L. (1993). "We Are What We Eat: Ancient Agriculture between the Great Lakes". The Journal of African History. 34 (1): 1–31. doi:10.1017/S0021853700032989. JSTOR 183030. S2CID 162660041.
53. Güldemann (2018).
54. Heine, Bernd, Franz Rottland & Rainer Voßen. 1979. Proto-Baz: Some aspects of early Nilotic-Cushitic contacts. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 1. 75‒92.
55. Ehret, Christopher. 1987. Proto-Cushitic Reconstruction. In Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 8: 7–180. University of Cologne.
56. Hudson, Grover (1989). Highland East Cushitic Dictionary. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. ISBN 3-87118-947-2.
57. Appleyard, David (2006). A Comparative Dictionary of the Agaw Languages. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. ISBN 3-89645-481-1.
58. Kießling, Roland; Mous, Maarten (2003). The Lexical Reconstruction of West-Rift Southern Cushitic. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. ISBN 3-89645-068-9.
59. Black, Paul (1974). Lowland East Cushitic: Subgrouping and Reconstruction (PhD). Yale University.
60. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1979). "Consonant Phonemes of Proto East Cushitic". Afro-Asiatic Linguistics. 7 (1): 1–57.
61. Vossen, Rainer and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). 2020. The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
62. Roper, E.M. (1928). Tu Beḍawiɛ: Grammar, texts and vocabulary. Hertford: Stephen Austin and Sons.
63. Kieβling, Roland (2002). Iraqw texts. (Archiv afrikanistischer Manuskripte, 4.) Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
64. Kieβling, R., and Mous, M. (2003). The Lexical Reconstruction of West-Rift Southern Cushitic. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
65. Mahdi Hamid Muudee (1995). Oromo Dictionary I. Atlanta: Sagalee Oromoo Publishing.
66. Puglielli, A. & Mansuur, C. (2012). Qaamuuska Af-Soomaaliga. Roma: RomaTrE-Press.
67. Appleyard, D. (2006). A Comparative Dictionary of the Agäw Languages. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
68. Zelealem Leyew (2003). The Kemantney Language: A sociolinguistic and grammatical study of language replacement. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
69. Chan, Eugene (2019). "The Niger-Congo Language Phylum". Numeral Systems of the World's Languages.

References

• Ethnologue on the Cushitic branch
• Ambrose, Stanley H. (1984). "The Introduction of Pastoral Adaptations to the Highlands of East Africa". In Clark, J. Desmond; Brandt, Steevn A. (eds.). From Hunters to Farmers: The Causes and Consequences of Food Production in Africa. University of California Press. pp. 212–239. ISBN 0-520-04574-2. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
• Appleyard, David (2012). "Cushitic". In Edzard, Lutz (ed.). Semitic and Afroasiatic: Challenges and Opportunities. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 199–295. ISBN 978-3-447-06695-2.
• Bender, Marvin Lionel. 1975. Omotic: a new Afroasiatic language family. Southern Illinois University Museum series, number 3.
• Bender, M. Lionel. 1986. A possible Cushomotic isomorph. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 6:149–155.
• Bender, M. Lionel (2019). Grover Hudson (ed.). Cushitic Lexicon and Phonology. Schriften Zur Afrikanistik – Research in African Studies. Vol. 28. Berlin: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-60089-4.
• Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne (2000). "Linguistic evidence for the prehistory of livestock in Sudan". In Blench, Roger; MacDonald, Kevin (eds.). The Origins and Development of African Livestock: Archaeology, Genetics, Linguistics and Ethnography. Routledge. pp. 449–461. ISBN 978-1-135-43416-8. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
• Cooper, Julien (2017). "Toponymic Strata in Ancient Nubia Until the Common Era". Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies. 4: 197–212. doi:10.5070/D64110028.
• Fleming, Harold C. 1974. Omotic as an Afroasiatic family. In: Proceedings of the 5th annual conference on African linguistics (ed. by William Leben), p 81-94. African Studies Center & Department of Linguistics, UCLA.
• Greenberg, Joseph H. (1950). "Studies in African linguistic classification: IV. Hamito-Semitic". Southwestern Journal of Anthropology. 6 (1): 47–63.
• Güldemann, Tom (2018). "Historical linguistics and genealogical language classification in Africa". In Güldemann, Tom (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of Africa. The World of Linguistics, Volume 11. Berlin: De Mouton Gruyter. pp. 58–444.
• Hetzron, Robert (1980). "The limits of Cushitic". Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika. 2: 7–126.
• Kießling, Roland & Maarten Mous. 2003. The Lexical Reconstruction of West-Rift Southern Cushitic. Cushitic Language Studies Volume 21
• König, Christa (2008). Case in Africa. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-923282-6.
• Lamberti, Marcello. 1991. Cushitic and its classification. Anthropos 86(4/6):552-561.
• Mous, Maarten (2012). "Cushitic". In Frayzingier, Zygmunt; Shay, Erin (eds.). The Afroasiatic Languages. Cambridge University Press. pp. 342–422.
• Newman, Paul. 1980. The Classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic. Universitaire Pers.
• Rilly, Claude (2008). "Enemy brothers. Kinship and relationship between Meroites and Nubians (Noba)". In Godlewski, Włodzimierz; Łajtar, Adam (eds.). Between the Cataracts. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference for Nubian Studies Warsaw University 27 August-2 September 2006. Part 1. Main Papers. Warszawa: PAM Supplement Series. pp. 211–225. doi:10.31338/uw.9788323533269.pp.211-226. ISBN 978-83-235-3326-9.
• Rilly, Claude (2011). "Recent Research on Meroitic, the Ancient Language of Sudan" (PDF). ITYOPIS – Northeast African Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (NEAJ). 1: 10–24.
• Rilly, Claude (2016). "The Wadi Howar Diaspora and its role in the spread of East Sudanic languages from the fourth to the first millenia BCE". Faits de Langues. 47: 151–163. doi:10.1163/19589514-047-01-900000010.
• Rilly, Claude (2019). "Languages of Ancient Nubia". In Dietrich Raue (ed.). Handbook of Ancient Nubia. Berlin: Walter de Gryuter. pp. 129–151.
• Zaborski, Andrzej. 1986. Can Omotic be reclassified as West Cushitic? In Gideon Goldenberg, ed., Ethiopian Studies: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference, pp. 525–530. Rotterdam: Balkema.
• Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary (1995) Christopher Ehret

Further reading

• Skoglund, Pontus; Thompson, Jessica C.; Prendergast, Mary E.; Mittnik, Alissa; Sirak, Kendra; Hajdinjak, Mateja; Salie, Tasneem; Rohland, Nadin; Mallick, Swapan (21 September 2017). "Reconstructing Prehistoric African Population Structure". Cell. 171 (1): 59–71.e21. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2017.08.049. ISSN 0092-8674. PMC 5679310. PMID 28938123.

External links

• Encyclopædia Britannica: Cushitic languages
• BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HIGHLAND EAST CUSHITIC
• Faculty of Humanities – Leiden University

• Cushitic languages
• Afroasiatic languages