Indo-Semitic

Indo-Semitic is a once popular but now largely abandoned hypothesis that the Indo-European languages form a family with the Semitic languages. The main problem with this is that Semitic is now widely accepted to form a unit - the Afroasatic family - with the Egyptian, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic and Omotic languages of northern Africa. This does not exclude the possibility of a relationship between Indo-European and Afroasiatic, but there are no significant grammatical similarities between the two units, and lexical resemblances between Indo-European and Semitic are better explained as Neolithic Wanderwörter. Also, further language fmailies may be part of the relationship, as in the Nostratic hypothesis.

See also

• Nostratic