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Glite Dictionary
Afroasiatic language

Afroasiatic language

9.1
A group of related languages spoken in North Africa and Western Asia, like Arabic and Hebrew
  • noun
  • /ˌæfroʊˈeɪʒətɪk ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ/
  • Specialized
translation icon : lengua afroasiática
  • Amharic, spoken in Ethiopia, is classified as an Afroasiatic language.

Examples

  • Arabic is an Afroasiatic language with millions of speakers across the Middle East and North Africa.

  • Scholars have traced the origins of several Afroasiatic languages back thousands of years.

  • Arabic is an important Afroasiatic language.

  • Many people speak Afroasiatic languages in Ethiopia.

  • Arabic is one of the most widely spoken Afroasiatic languages in the world.

  • Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, belongs to the Afroasiatic language family.

  • The Afroasiatic language family also includes several dialects of Arabic spoken across North Africa.

Synonyms

Afrasian language
vsAfroasiatic language
  • Specialized
9.1

A language from a large family spoken in North Africa and parts of Western Asia

is the current, more common form of that family name

Surface Forms

Afroasiatic language singular
Afroasiatic languages plural

Morphology

Afroasiatic + language

The meaning is directly compositional: 'Afroasiatic' names a language family and 'language' denotes a member of that family, so a learner who knows both constituents will infer it refers to a language belonging to the Afroasiatic family. This noun-noun modifier + head pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows standard semantic composition, making it immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows the parts.

Etymology

The name Afroasiatic language comes from joining Afro- (for 'Africa') and -asiatic (for 'Asia'). So it simply means a family of languages spoken in parts of 'Africa' and 'Asia', like Arabic, Hebrew and Amharic.