Maps of Semitic
African Ethnic Groups (Public Content)
Ethnic Groups of Africa
Source: Africa Ethnic Groups
Data Source: Murdock, G. P. 1959. Africa, Its Peoples and Their Culture History. McGraw Hill.
Usage Notes/Copyright Status: This work is in the public domain in the United States under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.
Date Downloaded: 1996
Map Description:
This map displays the ethnic groups of Africa as researched by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in 1996. Areas with large populations of two or more major ethnic groups have been represented with one feature being superimposed over the other as represented by the Shared Areas layer.
Please note that the classification presented does not reflect current scholarly consensus.
Data Source: Murdock, G. P. 1959. Africa, Its Peoples and Their Culture History. McGraw Hill.
Usage Notes/Copyright Status: This work is in the public domain in the United States under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.
Date Downloaded: 1996
Map Description:
This map displays the ethnic groups of Africa as researched by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in 1996. Areas with large populations of two or more major ethnic groups have been represented with one feature being superimposed over the other as represented by the Shared Areas layer.
Please note that the classification presented does not reflect current scholarly consensus.
Note: Scanned or downloaded images have been geo-registered for compatibility with our project interface. Slight imperfections are an inevitable result of the registration process. View original image(s) to see the unaltered map(s).
North Africa: Semitic in Northern Africa
Semitic in Northern Africa
Data Source:
Irvine, A. K. and David Appleyard. 2007. "The Middle East and North Africa". In R. E. Asher & Christopher Moseley (eds.). Atlas of the World’s Languages. Oxford: Routledge.
"Afro-Asiatic: Composite 2010". MultiTree: A Digital Library of Language Relationships
Date Digitized: May 2011.
Map Description:
The areas pictured display locations of where Semitic languages are spoken in northern Africa today. According to Irvine and Appleyard (2007), "it is estimated that over 200 million people speak one or another of the many and varied forms of dialect Arabic," which accounts for a large percentage of the featured section of the continent inhabited by Semitic speakers. Because of the immense variation within dialect areas, some sections of this map have been labeled to indicate that there is a group of language variations in a continuum, sharing a particular shaded area (Irvine and Appleyard 2007).
This original map was made by vectorizing data from the MultiTree language database and the Atlas of the World's Languages.
Other resources related to this project:
This folder (Northern African Languages) contains other maps showing linguistic subgroups. The maps may be overlaid on each other for a more complete picture.
"Afro-Asiatic: Composite 2010". MultiTree: A Digital Library of Language Relationships
Date Digitized: May 2011.
Map Description:
The areas pictured display locations of where Semitic languages are spoken in northern Africa today. According to Irvine and Appleyard (2007), "it is estimated that over 200 million people speak one or another of the many and varied forms of dialect Arabic," which accounts for a large percentage of the featured section of the continent inhabited by Semitic speakers. Because of the immense variation within dialect areas, some sections of this map have been labeled to indicate that there is a group of language variations in a continuum, sharing a particular shaded area (Irvine and Appleyard 2007).
This original map was made by vectorizing data from the MultiTree language database and the Atlas of the World's Languages.
Other resources related to this project:
This folder (Northern African Languages) contains other maps showing linguistic subgroups. The maps may be overlaid on each other for a more complete picture.
Note: Scanned or downloaded images have been geo-registered for compatibility with our project interface. Slight imperfections are an inevitable result of the registration process.
The Later Dispersal of Afroasiatic (Blench)
The Later Dispersal of Afroasiatic
Source: Blench, Roger. 2006. Archeology, Language, and the African Past. Lanham: AltaMira Press. 160.
Date Digitized: 2009
Map Description:
This map illustrates the later locations and migrations of several African language groups, including the Semitic, Bantu, Nilotic, Berber, Afroasiatic and Chadic speakers, as discussed by Roger Blench. Combined with his map entitled "The Early Dispersal of Afroasiatic", it presents a model which explains the distribution of Afroasiatic languages prior to the Arabic expansion beginning in the seventh century. Two of the languages indicated, Guanche and Elamitic, are extinct; Blench notes that the arrow marking the latter's progress is very uncertain.
Other LL-MAP resources related to this project:
The Early Dispersal of Afroasiatic (Blench)
The Inter-Saharan Hypothesis (Blench)
Date Digitized: 2009
Map Description:
This map illustrates the later locations and migrations of several African language groups, including the Semitic, Bantu, Nilotic, Berber, Afroasiatic and Chadic speakers, as discussed by Roger Blench. Combined with his map entitled "The Early Dispersal of Afroasiatic", it presents a model which explains the distribution of Afroasiatic languages prior to the Arabic expansion beginning in the seventh century. Two of the languages indicated, Guanche and Elamitic, are extinct; Blench notes that the arrow marking the latter's progress is very uncertain.
Other LL-MAP resources related to this project:
The Early Dispersal of Afroasiatic (Blench)
The Inter-Saharan Hypothesis (Blench)
Note: Scanned or downloaded images have been geo-registered for compatibility with our project interface. Slight imperfections are an inevitable result of the registration process. View original image(s) to see the unaltered map(s).