Appendix:Afroasiatic Swadesh lists

This is a Swadesh list of Afroasiatic languages, specifically Arabic, Hebrew, Classical Syriac, Akkadian, Ge'ez, Coptic, Tarifit, Hausa, Oromo and Somali, compared with that of English.

Languages compared here are:

• Semitic branch: Arabic, Hebrew (Tiberian), Classical Syriac, Ge'ez, Akkadian
• Egyptian branch: Coptic
• Berber branch: Tarifiyt Berber, Tashelhit
• Chadic branch: Hausa
• Cushitic branch: West-central Oromo (Wallagga dialect), Somali

The Omotic branch is not yet included.

See also: Afroasiatic proto-languages Swadesh lists

See also Swadesh lists for specific Afroasiatic languages:

• Appendix:Akkadian Swadesh list
• Appendix:Amharic Swadesh list
• Appendix:Arabic Swadesh list
• Appendix:Tashelhit Swadesh list
• Appendix:Egyptian Swadesh list
• Appendix:Hausa Swadesh list
• Appendix:Hebrew Swadesh list
  • Appendix:Biblical Hebrew Swadesh list
  • Appendix:Modern Hebrew Swadesh list
• Appendix:Somali Swadesh list
• Appendix:Tigrinya Swadesh list

Notes on Semitic Romanization:

• â, ê, ô stand for the vowels of father , day and core in British English.
• a, e, i, o and u stand for the vowels of hat , get , heat , hot and fool .
• ā, ē, ī, ō and ū stand for the same vowels as without the macron, but pronounced longer. , , , ,
• b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, y and z stand for their equivalents in English.
• θ stands for the th of English thick.
• ð stands for the th of English this.
• j stands for the j of English job.
• g stands for the g of English good.
• x stands for the sound of German ch in Ach! or j in Spanish jota.
• ğ stands for the voiced counterpart of x, much as Spanish intervocalic g.
• š stands for the sh of English ship.
• ś stands for the sound of Welsh ll in Lloyd.
• ħ stands for the typical rough h sound of Semitic languages.
• ʿ stands for the voiced counterpart of ħ.
• ʾ stands for the glottal stop of cockney English boʼle ('bottle').
• q stands for a k sound produced from the back of the mouth.
• ṭ, ṣ, ḍ and ẓ stand for the sounds derived from t, s, d and z/ð. These are called the pharyngealized, emphatic, or velarized sounds. They affect the sound of the consonants and vowels that follow or precede; they are made by constricting the pharynx during the articulation of the sound. , , , /

Since this page contains mostly ancient languages, the Hebrew romanization has been chosen to correspond to the pronunciation of Tiberian (Biblical) Hebrew, rather than to modern Israeli Hebrew. This means that the following developments of Hebrew are not to be taken into account:

• ħ and x merge into x;
• w and v merge into v;
• q and k merge into k;
• ğ and g merge into g;
• ś and s merge into s;
• ð and d merge into d;
• θ, ṭ, and t merge into t;
• ʿ and ʾ merge into a glottal stop (ʾ);
• emphatic ṣ becomes a non-emphatic affricate ts.