É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.

JUNGRAITHMAYR, Hermann: Hamitosemitic Features of Chadic

HAMITOSEMITIC FEATURES OF CHADIC The identification and recognition of the Hamitosemitic features in Chadic It has been a long and stony way from F.W. Newman's 'Hebraeo-African' family (1844) and Rev. J.F. Schön's decision "to style the Hausa a Semitic language" (1862: XII) as well as C. Meinhofs (1912) 'Hamitic' family via Vycichl's paper on "Hausa und Ägyptisch" (1934) and J. Lukas' establishment of a Chadic or Chadohamitic family (e.g. 1938) to the recognition of Chadic as a full member of the Hamitosemitic language stock by J. H. Greenberg (1955, etc.), Otto Rössler (1979), Chaim Rabin (1982), Igor Diakonoff (1965) and others. We may say that up to the early fifties of the 20th century there was no strong support for the inclusion of Chadic into the Hamitosemitic language phylum. Langues du monde ancien et moderne (1981) still placed Chadic within its section on Subsaharan languages next to '

Les langues de l'Afrique Noire' and 'Les langues khoisan\ thus allowing the editor(s) to elegantly get around a clear decision as to its definitive classification. This inspite of the full-fledged list of convincing arguments and proofs presented by Greenberg as early as 1955! Intensive research carried out during the past forty years by scholars like Carl Hoffmann, Paul Newman, Russell Schuh, Daniel Barreteau. Henry Tourneux, Dimytr Ibriszimow, Rudolf Leger and myself have brought to light so many significant data that my intention to speak today about Hamitosemitic features in Chadic met with great surprise by a Chadistic colleague who asked me questions like "Why do you give a special talk about something that is an established fact? Isn't that like 'Eulen nach Athen tragen'? Chadic is, after all, Hamitosemitic! You don't have to be apologetic!" Well, such a rigid view is certainly understandable if expressed by an insider. It remains, however, difficult to find a Semitist who, after looking at a typical Chadic language like Tumak, Angas, Tangale or Mofu, would readily accept its surface appearance as a reflection of what he more or less justly considers to be a common or even a Proto-Hamitosemitic heritage. The example of Wolf Leslau as quoted above and numerous others speak for themselves. Semitists like Chaim Rabin and Aharon Dolgopolsky, who already at a rather early stage came to support the Chadic cause with great emphasis (see e.g. Rabin 1982), belong to a tiny minority. For practical purposes I will now give a summary of some of the principal arguments and features which clearly testify to the Hamitosemitic character of the Chadic languages. Hamitosemitic pronouns in Chadic Probably the most convincing piece of a Hamitosemitic heritage in Chadic languages is a set of common pronominal morphemes, particularly in the singular number. Thus, the following morphemes are to be found widespread among Chadic languages, e.g. in Hausa: 147