Before 15,000 BCE: (The Horn of Africa as the Afrasian Homeland — The Geography of the Successive Branchings of the Afrasian Tree Putting It Beyond Reasonabl…

Before 15,000 BCE: (The Horn of Africa as the Afrasian Homeland — The Geography of the Successive Branchings of the Afrasian Tree Putting It Beyond Reasonable Doubt That the Family Originated in the Horn of Africa, with Speakers Spreading in a Step-by-Step Succession of Advances Outward, Proto-Afrasian Diverging First into Proto-Omotic and Proto-Erythraic, Then Proto-Erythraic into Proto-Cushitic and Proto-North Erythraic, with the North Erythraic Branch Encompassing Egyptian, Chadic, Amazigh, and the Sole Extra-African Subgroup Semitic): So how do these principles apply to the history of ancient Egyptian? The geography of the successive branchings of the Afrasian tree puts it beyond reasonable doubt, first, that the family originated in the Horn of Africa and, second, that the speakers of the languages of the family spread in a step-by-step succession of advances outward from the Horn. The tracking of that history begins with the first two divergences. The ancestral proto-Afrasian language diverged initially into proto-Omotic, ancestral to the Omotic branch, and proto-Erythraic, ancestral to the Erythraic branch consisting of all the rest of the languages of the family. At the second stage, proto-Erythraic itself diverged into proto-Cushitic and proto-North Erythraic — each ancestral to two further sub-branches. One comprises the modern-day Cushitic languages. The second sub-branch, North Erythraic, encompasses the whole remainder of the family: ancient Egyptian, the Chadic and Amazigh language groups of the Sahel, Sahara, and Maghreb, along with the solitary subgroup of the family — Semitic — that has languages spoken outside of the African continent. Let the implications of that tree structure settle. Every branch of the Afrasian family except Semitic is spoken exclusively in Africa. Omotic is in Ethiopia. Cushitic is in the Horn. Egyptian was in the Nile Valley. Chadic is in the Sahel. Amazigh is across the Sahara and Maghreb. The family’s center of gravity is overwhelmingly African, and the one branch that left the continent — Semitic — sits at the very tip of the tree, the most recent divergence, the last to separate. The language family that produced ancient Egyptian was born in Africa, grew up in Africa, and diversified across Africa. Semitic’s presence in the Levant and Arabia is the exception that proves the African rule.