Common Afrasian (Afro-Asiatic) terms related to the magic, supernatural, spiritual and mythic: Etymologies and reconstructions.

The paper contains 38 reconstructed common Afrasian (Afro-Asiatic) terms related to the magic, supernatural, spiritual and mythic rather conditionally combined into 10 groups (Soul, essence of life; Spirits, gods, ghosts and other supernatural creatures; God, spirit as an ancestor; Wonder, miracle, fortunetelling; Evil magic; Healing magic; Sorcery as knowledge; Spell, omen, magic speech or sign; Offering, sacrifice; Mythical and fantastic animals and their origin). Each Proto-Afrasian term is reconstructed from a set of cognate words with compatible meanings in various branches and groups of the AA superfamily based on established regular consonant correspondences. The PAA language was supposedly spoken by the human community in the Near East at the turn of the Mesolithic and Neolithic--according to my glottochronological calculations, in the last third of the 11 millennium BCE--and their original homeland, according to the author, was the southern Levant. The reconstruction can provide valuable evidence for anthropologists, archaeologists, mythologists, prehistorians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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