Cushitic
/kʊˈʃɪtɪk
/adjective
Relating to or denoting a group of East African languages of the Afro-Asiatic family spoken mainly in Ethiopia and Somalia, including Somali and Oromo.The vast majority of the languages spoken in the country can be classified within three families of the Afro-Asiatic super language family: the Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic....
- Arabic is a branch of the Semitic languages, which in turn belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family together with Berber, Ancient Egyptian, Chadic, and Cushitic.
- For several thousand years thereafter, migrations of Nilotic, Cushitic, and Semitic-speaking people entered Eritrea, and were among the first in Africa to grow crops and domesticate livestock.
noun [mass noun]
The Cushitic group of languages.Bilen is part of a larger Cushitic language subfamily called Agau....
- The main indigenous languages are Afar and Issa-Somali, both of which belong to the Cushitic language group.
- These include Khoisan, or ‘click ‘speaking hunter-gatherers, Nilotic-speaking pastoralists (such as the Maasai), Cushitic speakers, and Bantu speakers; the latter predominate in terms of population size.’
Origin
Early 20th century: from Cush + -itic.