Cushitic languages

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.[19][20] 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/.[21] Less common are pharyngeal consonants /ħ ʕ/, which appear e.g. in Somali or the Saho–Afar languages.[19][21]

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.[19][22]

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).[23]

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.[24] 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.[25][26]

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.[27]

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.[28][29]

Verbs are inflected for person/number and tense/aspect. Many languages also have a special form of the verb in negative clauses.[30]

Most 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.[31] The following table gives an example for the suffix and prefix conjugations in affirmative present tense in Somali.[32]

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.[33][34]

The phylum was first designated as Cushitic in 1858.[35] The Omotic languages, once included in Cushitic, have almost universally been removed. The most influential recent classification, Tosco (2003), has informed later approaches. It and two more recent classifications are as follows:

Tosco (2000, East Cushitic revised 2020)[36][37]

• North Cushitic (Beja)
• Central Cushitic (Agaw)
• South Cushitic
  • Maʼa (Bantu hybrid & partially a planned language, difficult to classify)
  • Dahalo (divergent; possibly not Southern Cushitic)
  • Rift
• East Cushitic
  • Highland
  • Lowland
    • Saho–Afar
    • Southern
      • (nuclear Southern)
        • Omo–Tana
        • Oromoid
      • Peripheral (?)
        • Yaaku
        • Dullay

Appleyard (2012)[38]

• North Cushitic (Beja)
• Central Cushitic (Agaw)
• South Cushitic
• East Cushitic
  • Lowland East Cushitic
  • Highland East Cushitic
  • Yaaku–Dullay
  • Dahalo

Bender (2019)[39]

Geographic labels are given for comparison; Bender's labels are added in parentheses. Dahalo is made a primary branch, as also suggested by Kiessling and Mous (2003). Yaaku is not listed, being placed within Arboroid. Afar–Saho is removed from Lowland East Cushitic; since they are the most 'lowland' of the Cushitic languages, Bender calls the remnant 'core' East Cushitic.

• North Cushitic (Beja)
• Central Cushitic (Agew)
• Dahalo
• South Cushitic
• East Cushitic
  • Afar–Saho
  • Highland East Cushitic
  • Lowland East Cushitic ('core' East Cushitic)
    • Dullay
    • SAOK
      • Eastern Omo–Tana (Somaloid)
      • Western Omo–Tana (Arboroid)
      • Oromoid (Oromo–Konsoid)

These classifications have 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 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).[43][44][45] Hetzron (1980) argues that Beja therefore may comprise an independent branch of the Afroasiatic family.[41] However, this suggestion has been rejected by most other scholars.[46] The characteristics of Beja that differ from those of other Cushitic languages are instead generally acknowledged as normal branch variation.[43]

Didier Morin (2001) assigned Beja to Lowland 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.[47]

There are also a few poorly-classified languages, including Yaaku, Dahalo, Aasax, Kw'adza, Boon, the Cushitic element of Mbugu (Ma'a) and Ongota. There is a wide range of opinions as to how the languages are interrelated.[48]

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.[48]

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.[49] 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.[50][51]

Hetzron (1980)[52] 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.

Cushitic was formerly seen as also including the Omotic languages, then called West Cushitic. However, this view has been abandoned. Omotic is generally agreed to be 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.

Sample basic vocabulary of Cushitic languages from Vossen & Dimmendaal (2020:318) (with PSC denoting Proto-Southern Cushitic):[75]

Comparison of numerals in individual Cushitic languages:[83]