Editing Cushitic languages (section)

==Classification==
===Overview===
The phylum was first designated as ''Cushitic'' in 1858.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lipiński|first1=Edward|title=Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar Volume 80 of Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta|date=2001|publisher=Peeters Publishers|isbn=90-429-0815-7 |page=21 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IiXVqyEkPKcC&pg=PA21|access-date=21 November 2016}}</ref> Traditionally, Cushitic has been divided into North Cushitic (consisting solely of [[Beja language|Beja]]), Central Cushitic (the [[Agaw languages]]), and the large [[East Cushitic languages|East Cushitic]] group. Greenberg (1950) argued for the inclusion of the [[South Cushitic languages|South Cushitic]] group. The [[Omotic languages]], once classified as West Cushitic, have almost universally been reclassified as a separate branch of Afroasiatic.

{{tree list}}
* '''Cushitic'''
** North Cushitic ([[Beja language|Beja]])
** Central Cushitic ([[Agaw languages|Agaw]])
** [[East Cushitic languages|East Cushitic]]
** [[South Cushitic languages|South Cushitic]]
{{tree list/end}}

This classification has not been without contention. For example, it has been argued that Southern Cushitic belongs in the Eastern branch, with its divergence explained by contact with [[Hadza language|Hadza-]] and [[Sandawe language|Sandawe]]-like languages. Hetzron (1980) and Fleming (post-1981) exclude Beja altogether, though this is rejected by other linguists. Some of the classifications that have been proposed over the years are summarized here:

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:smaller; float:center"
|+ Other subclassifications of Cushitic
|-
! Greenberg (1963)<ref>{{cite book|last1=Greenberg|first1=Joseph|title=The Languages of Africa|url=https://archive.org/details/languagesofafric00gree|url-access=registration|date=1963|publisher=Indiana University|location=Bloomington|pages=[https://archive.org/details/languagesofafric00gree/page/48 48–49]}}</ref> !! Hetzron (1980){{sfnp|Hetzron|1980}} !! Orel & Stolbova (1995) !! Ehret (2011)<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ehret|first1=Christopher|title=History and the Testimony of Language|date=2011|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=978-0-520-26204-1|pages=138, 147}}</ref>
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
{{tree list}}
* Cushitic
** Northern Cushitic (Beja)
** Central Cushitic
** Eastern Cushitic
** Western Cushitic ([[Omotic languages|Omotic]])
** Southern Cushitic
{{tree list/end}}
|
{{tree list}}
* Beja (not part of Cushitic)
* Cushitic
**Highland
***Rift Valley (= Highland East Cushitic)
***Agaw
**Lowland 
***Saho–Afar
***Southern
****Omo-Tana
****Oromoid
****Dullay
****Yaaku
****Iraqw (i.e. Southern Cushitic)
{{tree list/end}}
|
{{tree list}}
* Cushitic
** Omotic
** Beja
** Agaw
** Sidamic<br/>(i.e. Highland East Cushitic)
** East Lowlands
** Rift (Southern)
{{tree list/end}}
|
{{tree list}}
* Cushitic
** North Cushitic (Beja)
** Agäw–East–South Cushitic
*** Agäw
*** East–South Cushitic
**** Eastern Cushitic
**** Southern Cushitic
{{tree list/end}}
|}

For debate on the placement of the Cushitic branch within Afroasiatic, see [[Afroasiatic languages]].

===Beja===
{{main|Beja language#Classification}}

Beja constitutes the only member of the Northern Cushitic subgroup. As such, Beja contains a number of linguistic innovations that are unique to it, as is also the situation with the other subgroups of Cushitic (e.g. idiosyncratic features in [[Agaw languages|Agaw]] or Central Cushitic).<ref name="Zaborski1988">{{cite book|last1=Zaborski|first1=Andrzej|title=Fucus – "Remarks on the Verb in Beja"|date=1988|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|isbn=90-272-3552-X|page=491|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F5G74rBLJE4C&pg=PA491|access-date=30 September 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Treis|first1=Yvonne|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-FYnDwAAQBAJ|title=Similative and Equative Constructions: A cross-linguistic perspective|last2=Vanhove|first2=Martine|date=2017-05-31|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company|isbn=978-90-272-6597-5|page=189|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Vanhove|first=Martine|date=2016|title=North-Cushitic|url=https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01485896/document|journal=Halshs}}</ref> [[Robert Hetzron|Hetzron]] (1980) argues that Beja therefore may comprise an independent branch of the Afroasiatic family.{{sfnp|Hetzron|1980}} However, this suggestion has been rejected by most other scholars.{{sfnp|Güldemann|2018|pp=327–328}} The characteristics of Beja that differ from those of other Cushitic languages are instead generally acknowledged as normal branch variation.<ref name="Zaborski1988"/>

Didier Morin (2001) assigned Beja to Lowland East Cushitic on the grounds that the language shared lexical and phonological features with the Afar and Saho idioms, and also because the languages were historically spoken in adjacent speech areas. However, among linguists specializing in the Cushitic languages, the standard classification of Beja as North Cushitic is accepted.<ref name="Vanhove2016">{{cite web|last1=Vanhove|first1=Martine|title=North-Cushitic|url=https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01485896/document|publisher=LLACAN, CNRS-INALCO, Université Sorbonne Paris-Cité|access-date=12 November 2017}}</ref>

[[Blemmyan language|Blemmyan]], an early form of Beja – mostly attested through [[onomastic]] evidence, but also directly by a small text on an [[ostracon]] from [[Saqqara]] – was spoken by the [[Blemmyes]], an ancient people of Lower Nubia that appears in the Egyptian historical records from the 6th century BCE onwards. It is also likely that the [[Medjay]] spoke a language that was ancestral to Beja.{{sfn|Rilly|2019|pp=131–134}}

===Omotic===
Cushitic was formerly seen as also including most or all of the [[Omotic languages]]. An early view by [[Enrico Cerulli]] proposed a "Sidama" subgroup comprising most of the Omotic languages and the Sidamic group of Highland East Cushitic. Mario Martino Moreno in 1940 divided Cerulli's Sidama, uniting the Sidamic proper and the Lowland Cushitic languages as East Cushitic, the remainder as West Cushitic or ''ta/ne'' Cushitic. The [[Aroid languages]] were not considered Cushitic by either scholar (thought by Cerulli to be instead [[Nilotic languages|Nilotic]]); they were added to West Cushitic by [[Joseph Greenberg]] in 1963. Further work in the 1960s soon led to the putative West Cushitic being seen as typologically divergent and renamed as "Omotic".<ref>{{cite journal|first=Marcello|last=Lamberti|year=1991|title=Cushitic and its Classifications|journal=Anthropos|pages=552–561}}</ref>

Today the inclusion of Omotic as a part of Cushitic has been abandoned. Omotic is most often seen as an independent branch of Afroasiatic, primarily due to the work of [[Harold C. Fleming]] (1974) and [[Lionel Bender (linguist)|Lionel Bender]] (1975); some linguists like [[Paul Newman (linguist)|Paul Newman]] (1980) challenge Omotic's classification within the Afroasiatic family itself.

===Other divergent languages===

There are also a few languages of uncertain classification, including [[Yaaku language|Yaaku]], [[Dahalo language|Dahalo]], [[Asa language|Aasax]], [[Kw'adza language|Kw'adza]], [[Boon language|Boon]], [[Ongota language|Ongota]] and the Cushitic component of [[Mbugu language|Mbugu]] (Ma'a). There is a wide range of opinions as to how the languages are interrelated.<ref name=Hayward>Richard Hayward, "Afroasiatic", in Heine & Nurse, 2000, ''African Languages''</ref>

The positions of the Dullay languages and of Yaaku are uncertain. They have traditionally been assigned to an East Cushitic subbranch along with Highland (Sidamic) and Lowland East Cushitic. However, Hayward thinks that East Cushitic may not be a valid node and that its constituents should be considered separately when attempting to work out the internal relationships of Cushitic.<ref name=Hayward/> Bender (2020) suggests Yaaku to be a divergent member of the Arboroid group.<ref>Bender, M. Lionel. (2020). Cushitic Lexicon and Phonology. ed. [[Grover Hudson]]. (Schriften zur Afrikanistik / Research in African Studies, 28). Berlin: Peter Lang. {{ISBN|978-3-631-60089-4}}</ref>

The Afroasiatic identity of [[Ongota language|Ongota]] has also been broadly questioned, as is its position within Afroasiatic among those who accept it, because of the "mixed" appearance of the language and a paucity of research and data. [[Harold C. Fleming]] (2006) proposes that Ongota is a separate branch of Afroasiatic.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/pcgi/a.cgi?ausgabe=index&T=1235007315045%7Bhaupt_harrassowitz%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.harrassowitz-verlag.de%2Ftitle_3277.ahtml%3FT%3D1235007315045%7D |title=Harrassowitz Verlag – The Harrassowitz Publishing House<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=16 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716072622/http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/pcgi/a.cgi?ausgabe=index&T=1235007315045%7Bhaupt_harrassowitz%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.harrassowitz-verlag.de%2Ftitle_3277.ahtml%3FT%3D1235007315045%7D |archive-date=16 July 2011 }}</ref> Bonny Sands (2009) thinks the most convincing proposal is by Savà and Tosco (2003), namely that Ongota is an East Cushitic language with a [[Nilo-Saharan languages|Nilo-Saharan]] [[Substratum (linguistics)|substratum]]. In other words, it would appear that the Ongota people once spoke a Nilo-Saharan language but then shifted to speaking a Cushitic language while retaining some characteristics of their earlier Nilo-Saharan language.<ref name=Sava2003>{{cite book|last1=Savà|first1=Graziano|last2=Tosco|first2=Mauro|title=Selected comparative-historical Afrasian linguistic studies|year=2003|publisher=LINCOM Europa|editor-last=Bender|editor-first=M. Lionel|chapter=The classification of Ongota |display-editors=etal}}</ref><ref name=Sands2009>{{cite journal|last=Sands|first=Bonny|year=2009 |title=Africa's Linguistic Diversity|journal=Language and Linguistics Compass|volume=3|issue=2|pages=559–580|doi=10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00124.x}}</ref>

[[Robert Hetzron|Hetzron]] (1980)<ref>Robert Hetzron, "The Limits of Cushitic", ''Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika'' 2. 1980, 7–126.</ref> and [[Christopher Ehret|Ehret]] (1995) have suggested that the South Cushitic languages (Rift languages) are a part of Lowland East Cushitic, the only one of the six groups with much internal diversity.