Comparative Masai Word List: Nilotic-Nilo-Hamitic-Masai-Hamitic-Semitic

Opening Paragraph The classification of Masai and the Nilo-Hamitic languages with the Hamitic and JL Semitic language groups is a problem which is engaging the attention of linguists at the present time. In 1948 M. A. Bryan and A. N. Tucker, of London, published a short linguistic survey: Distribution of the Nilotic and Nilo-Hamitic Languages of Africa In this survey the generally accepted view was put forward that the Nilo-Hamitic and Nilotic languages, though they have a number of common features, show considerable differences. This theory is attacked by J. H. Greenberg of Columbia University, New York. In his opinion the relationship of the Nilotic and the ‘Great Lakes’ languages is so close that he combines both groups in the ‘Southern Branch’, i.e. one of the seven sub-groups of his ‘Eastern Sudanic’ language family; he rejects the term ‘Nilo-Hamitic’. In Volume III of the Handbook of African Languages , Tucker and Bryan refute the criticism of Greenberg, and put forward arguments to justify the distinction between ‘Nilotic’ and ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ and the retention of the term ‘Hamitic’ in the second title. A quite different approach to the problem in question may be found in the publications of A. Drexel and L. Homburger.