Field

African

Research Interests

African History: Early Africa; Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, Northeastern Africa, Sahara
Historical Linguistic Methods in History
Historical Linguistics: Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Kordofanian, and Khoesan language families

Notes

Kinship Data

Sample Khoisan 100 Word Lists

Sources for the Bantu trees

Selected Publications

BOOKS:

The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800.
University Press of Virginia, 2002.

A Comparative Historical Reconstruction of Proto-Nilo-Saharan.
Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2001.

An African Classical Age: Eastern and Southern Africa
in World History, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 400. Charlottesville: University Press
of Virginia, 1998.

Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels,
Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1995.

(C. Ehret and M. Posnansky, eds.) The Archaeological
and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History. Berkeley, Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1982.

The Historical Reconstruction of Southern Cushitic Phonology
and Vocabulary. Berlin: Reimer, 1980.

Ethiopians and East Africans: The Problem of Contacts.
Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1974.

Southern Nilotic History: Linguistic Approaches to the
Study of the Past. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971.

RESEARCH ARTICLES:

(asterisks identify monographic research articles)

LINGUISTIC METHOD IN HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY

Review article of R. Blench, Archaeology, Language, and
the African Past. Journal of African Archaeology 6, 2 (2008):
259-265.

“Linguistic Testimonies and Migration Histories.” In Jan
Lucas­sen, Leo Lucassen, and Patrick Manning (ed.), Migration in World History.
Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2008.

“Writing African History from Linguistic Evidence.” Chap­ter
3 in John Edward Phil­ips (ed.), Writing African History, pp. 86-111.
Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2005.

“Language Family Expansions: Broadening our Understanding
of Cause from an Afri­can Perspective.” Chapter 14 in P. Bellwood and C. Renfrew
(ed.), Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis,
pp. 163-176. Cambridge: McDonald Insti­tute for Archaeo­logical Research, 2003.

“The Establishment of Iron-Working in Eastern, Central, and
Southern Africa: Lin­guistic Inferences on Technological History,” Sprache
und Geschichte in Afrika 16/17 (2001): 125-175.

“Testing the Expectations of Glottochronology against the
Correlations of Language and Archaeology in Africa.” Chapter 15 in C. Renfrew,
A. McMahon, and L. Trask (ed.), Time Depth in Historical Linguistics,
Vol. 2, pp. 373-399. Cambridge: McDon­ald Institute for Archaeological Research,
2000.

“Language and History.” Chapter 11 in B. Heine and D. Nurse
(ed.), African Lan­guages: An In­troduction, pp. 272-297. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000.

“Language Change and the Material Correlates of Language
and Ethnic Shift,” Antiq­uity 62, no. 236 (1988): 564-574.

(C. Ehret and M. Kinsman) “Shona Dialect Classification and
its Implications for Iron Age History in Southern Africa,” International
Journal of African Historical Studies 14, 3 (1981): 401-443.

“The Demographic Implications of Linguistic Change and Language
Shift.” In C. Fyfe and D. McMaster (ed.), African Historical Demography,
Vol. 2, pp. 153-182. Edin­burgh: Uni­versity of Edinburgh, Centre of African
Studies, 1981.

“Historical Inference from Transformations in Cultural Vocabularies,”
Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 2 (1980): 189-218.

“Linguistic Evidence and its Correlation with Archaeology,”
World Archae­ology 8, 1 (1976): 5-18.

“Language Evidence and Religious History.” In T. O. Ranger
and I. N. Ki­mambo (ed.), The Historical Study of African Religion,
pp. 45-49. London, Berkeley: Heinemann and Univer­sity of California Press,
1972.

“Linguistics as a Tool for Historians,” Hadith 1
(1968): 119-133. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, for Historical Association
of Kenya.

LINGUISTICS, ANTHROPOLOGY, AND GENETICS

“Reconstructing Ancient Kinship in Africa.” In Nicholas J.
Allen, Hilary Callan, Robin Dunbar, and Wendy James (eds.), Early Human
Kinship: From Sex to Social Reproduction, pp. 200-231, 259-269. Oxford:
Blackwell, 2008.

(Elizabeth T. Wood, Daryn A. Stover, C. Ehret, Giovanni Destro-Bisol,
Gabriella Spedini, Howard McLeod, Leslie Louie, Mike Bamshad, Beverley I. Strassmann,
Himla Soodyall, and Michael F. Hammer) “Con­trasting Patterns of Y Chromosome
and mtDNA Varia­tion in Africa: Evidence for Sex-biased Demographic Processes.”
Euro­pean Journal of Human Genetics, April 2005, pp. 1-10.

HISTORY, EAST AFRICA

“The Eastern Kenya Interior, 1500-1800.” In E. S. Atieno
Odhiambo (ed.), African Historians and African Voices, pp. 33-46. Basel:
P. Schlettwein Publishers, 2001.

“The East African Interior.” Chapter 22 in M. Elfasi and
I. Hrbek (ed.), Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century,
pp. 616-642. (Vol. III, General History of Africa). UNESCO, University
of California Press, and Heinemann, 1988.

“Between the Coast and the Great Lakes.” Chapter 19 in D.
T. Niane (ed.), Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries,
pp. 481-497. (Vol. IV, General History of Africa). UNESCO, University
of California Press, and Heinemann, 1984.

(C. Ehret and D. Nurse) “The Taita Cushites,”
Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 3 (1981): 125-168.

(L. J. Wood and C. Ehret) “The Origins and Diffusions of
the Market Institution in East Africa,” Journal of African Studies
5 (1978): 1-17.

“Aspects of Social and Economic Change in Western Kenya,
500-1800.” Chapter 1 in B. A. Ogot (ed.), Kenya Before 1900,
pp. 1-20. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1977.

(E. A. Alpers and C. Ehret) “Eastern Africa.” In Richard
Grey (ed.), Cambridge History of Africa, Vol. 4 (1600-1790),
pp. 469-536. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

“The Nineteenth Century Roots of Economic Imperialism in
Kenya,” Kenya Historical Review 2, 2 (1974): 279-283.

(C. Ehret, T. Coffman, L. Fliegelman, A. Gold, M. Hubbard,
D. Johnson, and D. E. Saxon) “Some Thoughts on the Early History of the Nile-Congo
Watershed,” Ufahamu 5, 2 (1974): 85-112.

“Cushites and the Highland and Plains Nilotes to 1800.” Chapter
8 in B. A. Ogot (ed.), Zamani: A Survey of East African History, new
edition, pp. 150-169. London, Nairobi: Long­mans, 1974 (this is a largely rewritten
version of second item with this title)

“Cushites and the Highland and Plains Nilotes.” Chapter 8
in B.A. Ogot and J. A. Kieran (ed.), Zamani: A Survey of East African History,
pp. 158-176. London, Nai­robi: Longmans and East Afri­can Publishing House,
1968.

HISTORY, NORTHEASTERN AFRICA

“The Eastern Horn of Africa, 1000 BC to 1400 AD: The Historical
Roots.” In A. J. Ahmed (ed.), The Invention of Somalia, pp. 233-262.
Lawrenceville, NJ: The Red Sea Press, 1995.

“Social Transformation in the Early History of the Horn of
Africa: Linguistic Clues to Developments of the Period 500 BC to AD 500.” In
Taddese Bayene (ed.), Proceed­ings of the Eighth International Conference
of Ethiopian Studies, Vol. 1, pp. 639-651. Addis Ababa: Institute of Ethiopian
Studies, 1988.

“Cushitic Prehistory.” In M. L. Bender (ed.), The Non-Semitic
Languages of Ethiopia, pp. 85-96. East Lansing: Michigan State University,
1976.

HISTORY, SAHARA AND SUDAN

“Linguistic Stratigraphies and Holocene History in Northeast­ern
Africa.” In Marek Chlodnicki and Karla Kroeper (ed.), Archaeo­logy of Early
Northeastern Africa, pp. 1019-1055. Posnan: Posnan Archaeological Mu­seum,
2006. (Studies in African Archaeology, Vol. 9.)

“The African Sources of Egyptian Culture and Language.” In
Josep Cervelló (ed.), África Antigua. El Antiguo egipto, una civilizatión
Africana, pp. 121-128. (Actas de la IXme Semana de Estudios Africanos del
Centre D’estudis Africans de Barcelona.) Barcelona: Centre D’estudis Africans
de Barcelona, 2001.

“Sudanic Civilization.” Chapter 7 in Michael
Adas (ed.), Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical
History, pp. 224-274. Philadelphia: Temple Univer­sity Press, for
the Ameri­can Historical Association, 2001.

“Who Were the Rock Artists? Linguistic Evidence for the Holocene
Popula­tion­s of the Sahara.” In Alfred Muzzolini and Jean-Loïc Le Quellec (ed.),
Symposium 13d: Rock Art and the Sahara. In Proceedings of the International
Rock Art and Cognitive Archae­ology Con­gress News95. Turin: Centro Studie
Museo d’Arte Prehistorica, 1999. Printout text, 16 pp. [Proceedings are published
as a CD ROM: files, “ehret.htm”; “ehipa1.jpg”-“ehipa9.jpg”; “ehlist1.jpg”-“ehlist2.jpg”
and ehlist1p.jpg”-“ehlist2.jpg”; “ehret1.jpg”-“ehret5.jpg” and “ehret1p.jpg”-“ehret5p.jpg”)]

“Wer waren die Felsbildkünstler der Sahara?”
Almogaren 30 (1999): 77-94. (Translation into German by Werner
Pichler and Christiane Hintermann of preceding article.)

“Nilo-Saharans and the Saharo-Sudanese Neolithic.” Chapter
6 in T. Shaw, P. Sinclair, B. Andah, and A. Okpoko (ed.), The Archaeology
of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns, pp. 104-125. London: Routledge, 1993.

“Population Movement and Culture Contact in the Southern
Sudan, c. 3000 BC to AD 1000.” In J. Mack and P. Robertshaw (ed.), Culture
History in the Southern Sudan, pp. 19-48. Memoire 8. Nairobi: British Institute
in Eastern Africa, 1983.

HISTORY, SOUTHERN AFRICA

“The Early Livestock Raisers of Southern Africa.” Southern
African Humanities 30 (December 2008): 7-35.

“Transformations in Southern African History: Proposals for
a Sweeping Overview of Change and Development, 6000 BC to the present,” Ufahamu
25, 2 (1997): 54-80.

“The First Spread of Food Production to Southern Africa.”
Chapter 8 in C. Ehret and M. Posnansky (ed.), The Archaeological and Linguistic
Reconstruction of African His­tory, pp. 158-181. Berkeley, Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1982.

(C. Ehret, M. Bink, T. Ginindza, E. Gottschalk, B. Hall,
M. Hlatshwayo, D. Johnson, and R. L. Pouwels) “Outlining Southern African History,
A Reconsideration, A.D. 100-1500,” Ufahamu 3, 2 (1972): pp. 9-27.

HISTORY, CENTRAL AFRICA

“Equatorial and Southern Africa, 4000 BCE-1100 CE.” In William
H. McNeil, Jerry H. Bentley, David Christian, David Levison, J. R. McNeill,
Heidi Roupp, and Judith P. Zinsser (eds.), Berkshire Encyclopedia of World
History, Vol. 2, pp. 664-670. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing
Group, 2005.

HISTORY, AFRICAN AGRICULTURAL

“East African Words and Things: Agricultural Aspects of Economic
Trans­formation in the Nineteenth Century.” In B. A. Ogot (ed.), Kenya
in the Nineteenth Century (Hadith 8), pp. 152-172. Nairobi: Historical
Association of Kenya, 1985.

“Historical/Linguistic Evidence for Early African Food Production.”
Chapter 3 in J. D. Clark and S. Brandt (ed.), From Hunters to Farmers,
pp. 26-35. Berkeley, Los Ange­les: Univer­sity of Cali­fornia Press, 1984.

“Agricultural History in Central and Southern Africa, ca.
1000 BC to AD 500,” Transafrican Journal of History 4, 1/2 (1974):
1-25.

“Sheep and Central Sudanic Peoples in Southern Africa,” Journal
of African History 9 (1968): 213-221.

“Cattle-Keeping and Milking in Eastern and Southern African
History: The Linguistic Evidence,” Journal of African History 8 (1967):
1-17.

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS, GENERAL

“Stratigraphy in African Historical Linguistics.” In Henning
Andersen (ed.), Language Contacts in Prehistory: Studies in Stratigraphy,
pp. 107-114. Amsterdam, Philadel­phia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003.

“Nostratic—or Proto-Human?” Chapter 4 in C. Renfrew and D.
Nettle (ed.), Nostratic: Examin­ing a Linguistic Macrofamily, pp. 93-112.
Cambridge: The McDonald Institute for Archae­ological Research, 1999.

AFROASIATIC HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

“The Primary Branches of Cushitic:
Seriating the Diagnostic Sound Change Rules.” In John Bengtson (ed.),
In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory:
Essays in the Four Fields of Anthropology,
pp. 149-160. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2008.

“The Internal and Comparative Reconstruction of Verb Extensions
in early Chadic and Afroasiatic.” In Z. Frajzyngier and E. Shay (ed.), Interaction
of Morphology and Syntax: Case Studies in Afroasiatic, pp. 41-59. Amsterdam,
Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2008.

“Yaakuan and Eastern Cushitic: A Historical Linguistic Overview.”
In G. Takacs (ed.), Semito-Hamitic Festschrift for A. B. Dolgopolsky and
H. Jungraithmayr, pp. 128-141. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 2008

“Applying the Comparative Method in Afroasiatic (Afrasan,
Afrasisch).” In Rainer Voigt (ed.). „From
Beyond the Mediterranean”: Akten des 7. internationalen Semitohamitistenkongresses
(VII. ISHaK), Berlin 13. bis 15. September 2004, pp. 43-70.
Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2007.

“The Nilo-Saharan Background of Chadic.” Chapter 4 in Paul
Newman and Larry Hyman (ed.), West African Linguistics: Studies in Honor
of Russell G. Schuh, pp. 56-66. Studies in African Linguistics,
Suppl. 11. Columbus: Ohio State University, 2006.

“The Third Consonants in Ancient Egyptian.” In Gabor Takacz
(ed.), Egyp­tian and Semito-Hamitic (Afro-Asiatic) Studies in Memoriam W.
Vycichl, pp. 33-54. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, Vol.
XXXIX. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2003.

“Third Consonants in Chadic Verbal Roots.” In M. Lionel Bender,
Gabor Takacz, and David Appleyard (ed.), Selected Comparative-Historical
Afrasian Lin­guistic Studies: In Memory of Igor Diakonoff, pp. 61-69. LINCOM
Studies in Afro-Asiatic Linguistics 14. München, LINCOM Europa, 2003.

* “Revising the Consonant Inventory of Proto-Eastern
Cushitic,” Studies in African Linguistics 22, 3 (1991): 211-275.

* “The Origins of Third Consonants in Semitic
Roots: An Internal Reconstruc­tion (Applied to Arabic),” Journal of Afroasiatic
Languages 3, 2 (1989): 109-202.

C. Ehret, E. D. Elderkin, and D. Nurse, “Dahalo
Lexis,” Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 18 (1989): 5-49

*
“Proto-Cushitic Reconstruction,” Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 8
(1987): 7-180.

* (C. Ehret and M. N. Ali) “Soomaali Classification.”
In T. Labahn (ed.), Proceedings of the Second International Congress of
Somali Studies (Hamburg, August, 1983), Vol. 1, pp. 201-269. Ham­burg:
Buske Verlag, 1985.

“Omotic and the Subclassification of the Afroasiatic Language
Family.” In R. Hess (ed.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference
on Ethiopian Studies, Session B, pp. 51-62. Chicago: University
of Illinois, 1980.

BANTU AND NIGER-KORDOFANIAN HSTORICAL LINGUISTICS

“Bantu Expansions: Re-envisioning a Central Problem of Early
African His­tory,” and “Christopher Ehret Responds,” International Journal
of African Historical Studies 34, 1 (2001): 5-41 and 82-87. (Pp. 42-81
consist of responses to the article from 14 schol­ars of African history, linguistics,
and archaeology.)

“Is Krongo After All a Niger-Congo Language?” In
R. Vossen, A. Mietzner, and A. Meissner (ed.), “Mehr als nur Worte. . .”:
Afrikanistische Beiträge zum 65. Geburtstag von Franz Rottland, pp. 225-237.
Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2000.

*
“Subclassifying Bantu: The Evidence of Stem Morpheme Innovation.” In
L. Hyman and J.-M. Hombert (ed.), Bantu Historical Linguistics: Theoretical
and Empiri­cal Perspectives. pp. 43-147. Stanford, California: Center for
the Study of Language and Informa­tion, 1999).

“Bantu Origins: Critique and Interpretation,” Transafrican
Journal of History 2, 1 (1972): 1-9.

NILO-SAHARAN HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

“Language Contacts in Nilo-Saharan Prehistory.” In Henning
Andersen (ed.), Lan­guage Contacts in Prehistory: Studies in Stratigraphy,
pp. 135-157. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003.

“Do Krongo and Shabo Belong in Nilo-Saharan?” In R. Nicolai
and F. Rottland (ed.), Fifth Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, Nice 24-29
Août 1992. Actes/Proceed­ings, pp. 169-193. Cologne: Rudiger Köppe Verlag,
1995.

“Subclassification of Nilo-Saharan: A Proposal.” In M. L.
Bender (ed.), Topics in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics, pp. 35-49. Hamburg:
Buske, 1989.

“Nilotic and the Limits of Eastern Sudanic: Classificatory
and Historical Conclusions.” In R. Vossen and M. Bechhaus-Gerst
(ed.), Nilotic Studies, Part 2, pp. 377-421. Ber­lin: Reimer, 1983.

“Revising Proto-Kuliak,” Afrika und Übersee
64 (1981): 81-100.

“The Classification of Kuliak.” In T. Schadeberg and M. L.
Bender (ed.), Nilo-Saha­ran, pp. 269-289. Dordrecht: Foris Publications,
1981.

“The Nilotic Languages.” Chapter 3 in E. Polome and C. P.
Hill (ed.), Language in Tanzania, pp. 68-78. London: International
African Institute, 1980.

KHOESAN HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

“Toward Reconstructing Proto-South Khoisan (PSAK),” Mother
Tongue 8 (2003): 65-81.

“Proposals on Khoisan Reconstruction,” Sprache
und Geschichte in Afrika 7, 2 (1986): 105-130.

SHORT
RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS

“Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African
Culture.” In T. Celenko (ed.), Egypt in Africa, pp. 25-27.
Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art and Indi­ana University Press, 1996.

(C. Ehret, S. O. Y. Keita, and Paul Newman) “The Origins
of Afroasiatic,” Science 306 (3 December 2004): 1680-1681.

ENCYCLOPEDIA EDITORSHIPS

Thomas J. Sienkiwicz (ed.). Editorial Board: Lawrence Allan
Conrad, North America; Geoffrey Conrad, South America; Christopher Ehret, Africa;
David A. Crain, Mesoamerica; Katherine Anne Harper, South and South­east Asia;
Robert D. Haak, Egypt, Meso­potamia, Near East; Chenyang Li, East Asia; Thomas
H. Watkins, Greece, Rome, Europe. Encyclo­pedia of the An­cient World,
3 vols. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2002.

Mark W. Chavalas (ed.). Consulting editors: Mark S. Aldendorfer,
Carole A. Barrett, Jeffrey W. Dippmann, Christopher Ehret, Katherine Anne Harper.
The Ancient World, 2 vols. (Series: Great Events from History.)
Pasadena: Salem Press, 2004.