ref search on various glossogenetic affiliations in Africa

[Steven Schaufele]

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Dear Colleagues,
 
Recent browsing in some general texts has made me aware that there are
or have been recently some questions raised about certain putative
affiliations amongst certain languages on the African continent.  Not
being an Africanist, this is in no way an area i am particularly
knowledgeable about, but i have hopes someday of teaching a seminar in
which students are called upon to examine critically the literature
arguing pro & con certain hypotheses in the field of historical
linguistics, and i would therefore like some references to good
discussions in the literature on the following topics:
 
1. There is presumably no question that all the so-called `Cushitic'
languages are members of the Afro-Asiatic family.  But do they constitute
a well-defined sub-family, or are they merely a `miscellaneous' category?
 
2. Are the so-called `Nilo-Saharan' languages a well-defined glosso-
genetic family or merely a geographically-defined group?
 
3. Ditto the `Khoisan' languages.
 
Thanks for any suggestions wrt literature on these issues.  If there is
sufficient interest, i'll post a summary on HISTLING.
 
Best,
Steven
---------------------
Dr. Steven Schaufele
712 West Washington
Urbana, IL  61801
217-344-8240
fcosws at prairienet.org
http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html
 
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