Cushitic-speaking peoples

Cushitic-speaking peoples are the ethnolinguistic groups who speak Cushitic languages natively. Today, Cushitic languages are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north and south in Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Cushitic-speaking peoples
Map of the ethnic groups who speak Cushitic languages
Regions with significant populations
Egypt, Sudan, Horn of Africa, East Africa
Languages
Cushitic languages
Religion
Islam (Sunni), Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Traditional religion(s): (Waaqeffanna)

History

Donald N. Levine held that Proto-Cushitic was spoken on the Ethiopian Highlands by 5000–4000 BC.[1] Roger Blench hypothesizes that speakers of Cushitic languages may have been the producers of "Leiterband" pottery, which influenced the pottery of the Khartoum Neolithic.[2] Eric Becker, in a 2011 investigation of human remains at the Wadi Howar Leiterband site, finds the hypothetical connection of Leiterband pottery to speakers of a Cushitic language improbable.[3]

North Cushitic

The nomadic Medjay and the Blemmyes—the latter possibly a subgroup of the former—are believed by many historians to be ancestors of modern-day speakers of Beja; there appears to be linguistic continuity, suggesting that a language ancestral to Beja was spoken in the Nile Valley by the time of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt.[4] From an analysis of the lexicon of the Nubian languages, Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst proposes that when Nubian speakers first reached the Nile Valley ca 1500 BC, they encountered Cushitic-speaking peoples from whom they borrowed a large number of words, mainly connected with livestock production.[5]

Possible Lost Branch

Roger Blench proposes that an extinct and otherwise unattested branch of Cushitic may be responsible for some of the pastoral cultural features of Khoekhoe people ca 2000 years BP. As there are very few Khoekhoe words for which a Cushitic etymology is possible based on existing Cushitic languages, Blench proposes that the contact was with speakers of a now extinct and otherwise unattested Cushitic language which was replaced through assimilation during the Bantu expansion.[6]

Contemporary Ethnic groups

Speakers of North Cushitic

Speakers of Agaw languages

Speakers of Lowland East Cushitic languages

Speakers of Highland East Cushitic languages

Speakers of West Rift Southern Cushitic languages

References
  1. Levine, Donald (2000). Greater Ethiopia (2 ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 27–28. ISBN 0-226-47561-1.
  2. "The westward wanderings of Cushitic pastoralists : explorations in the prehistory of Central Africa" (PDF). Retrieved 2021-12-20.
  3. Becker, Eric A. (2011). The prehistoric inhabitants of the Wadi Howar: An anthropological study of human skeletal remains from the Sudanese part of the Eastern Sahara (PhD). Johannes Gutenberg-Universität.
  4. Rilly, Claude (2019). "Languages of Ancient Nubia". Handbook of Ancient Nubia. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 9783110420388. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  5. Blench, R. (1999). "The westward wanderings of Cushitic pastoralists : explorations in the prehistory of Central Africa". S2CID 131599629. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. Blench, Roger (2009). "Was there an Interchange between Cushitic Pastoralists and Khoesan Speakers in the Prehistory of Southern Africa and how can this be Detected?". Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika. 20: 31–49. ISSN 0170-5946.
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