Talk:Cushitic languages

message: Has anyone here heard of a Proto-Cushitic language? I've come across vague references on the internet. Gringo300 (talk) 19:09, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Within historical linguistics, a "Proto-" language is the reconstructed ancestor of a group of languages.  Thus, we have Proto-Indo-European, the reconstructed ancestor of the Indo-European languages.  Proto-Cushitic is the reconstructed ancestor of the Cushitic languages.  (Taivo (talk) 20:02, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Could it go back to the first Homo sapiens, before they migrated out of Africa? 2A00:23C1:C11A:D500:E0A5:9324:40CF:A2B4 (talk) 21:22, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

text: What Taivo said above is a good explanation of a proto-language. Christopher Ehret attempted a reconstruction of Proto-Cushitic in 1987, with a 1995 update.
Pathawi (talk) 06:03, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Proto-Cushitic language?

message: To the anonymous IP who added some questionable material:  This article is about Cushitic, not about whatever POV you are pushing with that last addition.  I will assume good faith, but you must demonstrate how that information you added is relevant to the topic at hand.  Rewrite it or discuss it here first or I will continue to remove it as irrelevant.  It is so far-fetched from the topic, I don't even know where to begin to rewrite it.  Make it relevant or leave it out.  Perhaps it is more relevant at Afar language.  (Taivo (talk) 16:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Continuing to add irrelevant and unsourced material to this article is not proper practice.  What is the relevance of the material you are insisting on adding?  It is not at all clear why it is here.  Please elaborate before you go adding it back in.  As far as I can tell, it might be relevant on the Afar language page, but without a paragraph describing its relevance, it doesn't appear to belong here.  Stop your personal attacks.  (Taivo (talk) 18:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irrelevant Material 

message: Adding all that material about Nilo-Saharan languages in ancient Cush is immaterial to this article.  The name "Cushitic" is from the ancient region of "Cush" and that's all that need be said.  The article does not claim that all the languages of the ancient region of Cush were Cushitic or even Afro-Asiatic.  It just says that's the source of the name.  Entering all that irrelevant information about Nilo-Saharan languages being spoken in Cush as well borders on POV pushing.  --Taivo (talk) 15:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: This article so far is all about classification but seems to be lacking in linguistic description or analysis such as chracteristic phonology, syntax and so on. Alas I am not qualified to fill the gap but it is surely missing essential information.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arberryday (talk • contribs) 02:53, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs linguistic description 

message: Here are explanations of my most recent revision, concerning official statuses of Cushitic languages:
# Only Somali is listed as a national language in the Somali constitution. Arabic is also given an official status. It is correct that Somali is the national language of Somalia, & that's the info that's pertinent to this paragraph.
# I re-checked the Eritrean Constitution, & I can't find any citation of languages by name at all. Where in the Constitution areBeja, Afar, Blin, and Saho recognised? I see 'The equality of all Eritrean languages is guaranteed.'
# In Djibouti, the Constitution only recognises French and Arabic. I don't know that an e-government portal should be considered a better source. It's clear that the Djiboutian government is involved in active work to promote Somali, such as participation in and hosting of the Regional Somali Language Academy, but this is not a legislative enshrinement of the language's status. English "national language" and French "langue nationale" are not equivalent in the post-colonial African context. When someone writes in French that such-&-such is a "langue nationale" of an African country, it doesn't necessarily follow that that language is official: In fact, it's likely not to be. This is one of the ways "national language" is used in English, but that's clearly not the context of the paragraph. I've tried to clarify this by saying that Somali is the only Cushitic language constitutionally accorded national language status, which should eliminate the need to say anything at all about Djibouti.
# After undoing Soupforone's revisions, I went back to their most recent revision, copied the population info, & pasted it back into a new revision.
Pathawi (talk) 06:07, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Official Status

message: I'm a graduate student who works on Beja. I haven't published anything, and I have not incorporated my divergent views into this article or Beja language. The section on the classification of Beja strikes me as really unnecessarily large. Robert Hetzron argued in 1980 that Beja was not Cushitic. Hetzron was a legitimate, influential linguist, & his viewpoint matters, but I think that the identification of Beja as a Cushitic language is basically accepted by all living linguists working on Cushitic languages. Every other linguist mentioned in this section identifies/d Beja as a Cushitic language. This isn't a matter of active dispute. I think this section may have undue prominence from its length. I propose eliminating the second ¶ entirely until the final two sentences, which I'd rewrite as:
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pathawi (talk • contribs) 08:10, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, this definitely needs to be trimmed. Much of the text leans heavily on Vanhove's overview in the Oxford Handbook of African Languages, bordering on WP:close paraphrasing; maybe you can build in a citation to that chapter for those interested in more detail. –Austronesier (talk) 09:34, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

text: I also agree. But a lot hinges on that Güldemann quote in the first paragraph, where the rejection of Hetzron's hypothesis is summarized, and that reference is currently reported as broken. Landroving Linguist (talk) 11:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

text: BTW, all the best for your studies on Beja! Good to hear that someone is looking into that. Landroving Linguist (talk) 11:28, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I broke everything. I'll fix it. Pathawi (talk) 12:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed it. Pathawi (talk) 13:07, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Status of Beja

message: In the current version of this article, in section 3.2.1 (Typological characteristics/Phonology/Nouns), we read:
: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 dəmmura "several cats" can be formed.
Unless I'm missing something, this example seems particularly ill-chosen, with the singulative and plural forms identical. Maybe it's a mistake, but even if not, can we get a more appropriate example? --Ekaterina Colclough (talk) 20:11, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I have checked the source: it's a just typo (I have written the typology section, so my dumb)! Fixed now. –Austronesier (talk) 21:04, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Great. Thanks for fixing that. --Ekaterina Colclough (talk) 07:43, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Singulative/plural: better example needed 

message: That wasn't me who added that information that was @105.163.2.211 so I don't know why your mentioning me. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 21:21, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I am worried that you have serious comprehension problems (not for the first time, see my talk page). I restored the last good version, which happens to be the version after your last edit. Upon reverting, the author of the restored version is automatically mentioned in the edit summary. –Austronesier (talk) 21:42, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: You mentioned my username when you reverted back the edit on the cushitic languages section and I don't have any comprehension issues.Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 22:04, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit for Cushitic languages 

message: I'd like to remove the Britannica reference on Cushitic languages being tonal. The Appleyard & Mouss sources describe Cushitic languages as having pitch accent, which can be meaningfully different from tone in some theoretical approaches. Under those approaches, it would be inaccurate to describe any Cushitic language as tonal. I think Britannica, as a tertiary source, doesn't strengthen what's already supported by two secondary sources (WP:RSPRIMARY), & the added term could be confusing. Are you okay with removing this? Pathawi (talk) 00:09, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I already removed it. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 00:46, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: @Pathawi Can you archieve it than? Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 13:32, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I don't follow. Achieve what? Pathawi (talk) 13:36, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry: I misread that! I don't think it needs to be archived yet: It's the most recent conversation on the Talk page. We can just mark it done. In general, we don't blank Talk pages, & they usually get archived in temporal order. Pathawi (talk) 13:38, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tone