Editing Afroasiatic languages (section)

====Grammatical gender and number====
The assignment of nouns and pronouns to either masculine or feminine gender is present in all branches – but not all languages – of the Afroasiatic family.{{sfn|Frajzyngier|2012|p=522}} This sex-based gender system is widely agreed to derive from Proto-Afroasiatic.{{sfn|Güldemann|2018|p=319}} In most branches, gender is an inherent property of nouns.{{sfn|Frajzyngier|2012|p=523}} Additionally, even when nouns are not cognates, they tend to have the same gender throughout Afroasiatic ("gender stability").{{sfn|Meyer|Wolff|2019|p=266}} In Egyptian, Semitic, and Berber, a feminine suffix -t is attested to mark feminine nouns; in some Cushitic and Chadic languages, a feminine -t suffix or prefix (lexicalized from a demonstrative) is used to mark definiteness.{{sfn|Souag|2023|p=308}} In addition to these uses, -t also functions as a [[diminutive]], [[pejorative]], and/or [[singulative]] marker in some languages.{{sfn|Frajzyngier|2012|p=522}}
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:smaller;"
|+ Use of T on feminine nouns, using data from {{harvnb|Souag|2023}}
! Kabyle (Berber) !! Hausa (Chadic) !! Beja (Cushitic) !! Egyptian !! Arabic (Semitic)
|-
| wəl-t 'daughter' || yārinyà-r̃ 'the girl' (r̃ < final -t)<br>  || ʔo:(r)-t 'a daughter'<br> t-ʔo:r 'the daughter' || zꜣ-t 'daughter' || bin-t 'daughter'
|}
Afroasiatic languages have a variety of ways of marking plurals; in some branches, nouns change gender from singular to plural (gender polarity),{{sfn|Meyer|Wolff|2019|p=266}} while in others, plural forms are ungendered.{{sfn|Frajzyngier|2012|p=253}} In addition to marking plurals via a number of affixes (with the suffixes -*uu/-*w and -*n(a) widely attested), several AA languages make use of internal vowel change ([[apophony]]) and/or insertion ([[epenthesis]]).{{sfn|Meyer|Wolff|2019|pp=266–267}} These so-called [[broken plural|"internal-a" or "broken" plurals]] are securely attested in Semitic, Berber, Cushitic, and Chadic, although it is unclear if the Chadic examples are an independent development.{{sfn|Gragg|2019|pp=40–41}}{{efn|As Egyptian is spelled without vowels, it is difficult to know whether it had internal change plurals. There is some evidence from Coptic, but this may be unrelated to AA. There is also some evidence from [[cuneiform]] transcriptions of Egyptian words.{{sfn|Peust|2012|p=243}}}} Another common method of forming plurals is reduplication.{{sfn|Frajzyngier|2012|p=538}}
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:smaller;"
|+ Some examples of internal plurals in AA, using data from {{harvnb|Gragg|2019}} and {{harvnb|Meyer|Wolff|2019}}
! Language !! Meaning !! Singular !! Plural
|-
| Geʽez (Semitic) || king || nɨgus || nägäs-t
|-
| Teshelhiyt (Berber) || country || ta-mazir-t || ti-mizar
|-
| Afar (Cushitic) || body || galab || galo:b-a
|-
| Hausa (Chadic)|| stream || gulbi || gulà:be:
|-
| Mubi (Chadic) || eye || irin || aràn
|}