ABSTRACT
The question of the genetic classification of the language phyla of the world, from being a marginal study outside mainstream linguistics, has again begun to command considerable attention from both professional linguists and researchers in related disciplines. One consequence has been to reopen many existing questions relating to both the internal classification and the external affiliations of African languages. Older proposals claiming that the major African language phyla are to be united with other, non-African phyla, have again been given prominence. The revival of macrophylum theory has led to some striking claims for the reconstructibility of lexical items of cultural and historical significance in African language phyla. In contrast to the New World and Papua, the composition of the major language phyla of Africa is generally agreed within the scholarly community. Afroasiatic is the African language phylum that has been most commonly proposed as related to other phyla of Eurasia.
