How we could show that Hadza is Afroasiatic: a response to Militarev’s “Hadza as Afrasian?”

George Starostin (HSE University, Moscow, Russia; gstarst1@gmail.com)

Journal of Language Relationship, № 21/1-2, 2023 - p.110-116

Abstract: In this brief response to Alexander Militarev’s paper on the Afroasiatic (Afrasian) affiliation of Hadza, I attempt to identify the major theoretical issues with his lexicostatistical analysis of the similarities between Hadza and the various branches of the Afroasiatic family, explaining why this analysis cannot be accepted as conclusive, and suggesting some steps that could be taken in order to weed out insignificant evidence (e.g. more attention toward meticulous step-by-step reconstruction of the proto-wordlists potentially involved in such a comparison).

Keywords: language isolates, Hadza language, Khoisan languages, Afroasiatic languages, long-distance relationship, lexicostatistics

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