Afro-Asiatic Languages

Afro-Asiatic Languages are a family of 374 languages, including the sub-families of Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic, and Semitic languages. Of these, all except for the Semitic branch are confined to Africa, and even within Semitic branch (a classification that includes Hebrew and Arabic), 12 of the 19 surviving languages are confined to Ethiopia. Speakers of Afro-Asiatic languages may have been involved in domesticating the crops native to Ethiopia (khat, teff, noog, ensete, finger millet, and coffee) and they certainly introduced the crops domesticated in the Fertile Crescent (wheat, barley, peas, beans, and grapes) to North Africa.

External Resources

 * Language Family Trees