What if the Afroasiatic World United? Greater Arabia/Israel/Somalia

perhaps one of the most intriguing regions of the world to americans and much of the global population is the middle east and north africa an area that has long been tied with that of europe either in conflict or cooperation and even in the distant past it was recognized that the bulk of groups inhabiting what was referred to as africa near east and middle east had a common linguistic and ethnic origin and was eventually dubbed the afro-asian or afro-asiatic family seeing how it spanned the two continents of africa and asia historically this was divided between two ethnolinguistic divisions those believed to be descended from the biblical figures of ham who were dubbed the haemites and shem who were dubbed the semites although we now know it's a bit more complicated than this so in historical anthropology the ethiopians somalis egyptians and amazigh or berbers were considered to be of the hamidic race a combination of african and caucasian genes while the arabs phoenicians aramians assyrians and of course the israelites or jews were considered to belong to the semitic race the southern branch of caucasian the afro-asiatic homeland is generally thought to be located somewhere around the horn of africa or north africa most likely in modern day ethiopia although some linguists have even proposed a levantine origin and these peoples gradually migrated north splitting west to the magweb or modern morocco algeria and tunisia and east to the levant in arabia even before this spread of the afro-asiatic family some 10 to 20 000 years ago the horn of africa including ethiopia eritrea somalia was already quite genetically distinct from other african populations due to its unique gene pool that is a fusion of african and eurasian dna with the african component being most similar to that in the neighboring nilo saharan populations and the western eurasian component of the ethiosomaly component by some likely arriving in a backwards migration from north africa or the middle east over the thousands of years this has ensured that nearly all ethnic groups in the horn today are a complex hybrid population with a distinct appearance now it may appear that other afro-asiatic groups may have nothing to do with each other from a genetic point of view and there are certainly large differences in genetics culture and physiology among these groups not to mention in the past 2000 years mass migration and assimilation has complicated this considerably but there are certain affinities shared between these groups mostly the presence of haplogroup e3b dominant throughout the horn in north africa and haplogroup j mostly in arabia and 11. but other than this afro-asiatic peoples have very diverse origins that can more or less be divided between six genetic components with the sub-saharan african clusters being east and west african while the western eurasian clusters are european semitic north african and the aforementioned ethio somali component that is unique to the horn we could just divide between african and eurasian dna but by adding this more regionalized criteria we're able to see the true diversity of different ethnic groups with each segment telling a different story for instance it's clear that the horn africans including the habisha kushidik and omotic peoples are a combination of the east african sahelian and western eurasian ethiosomaly component although the habesha have more recent gene flow from semites in the middle east as their ancestors migrated from modern day arabia into ethiopia roughly 3000 years ago noteworthy anomalies include a moderately high european component in lebanese maronites from descendants of frankish crusaders nearly a thousand years ago and more recent southern european merchants a large african component in yemeni arabs from contact with the horn of africa as well as a massive number of east african slaves brought to this region in the past few thousand years although really the chatic people such as the hausa and the maltese really stand out as the most genetically distinct so are the afro-asiatic speaking peoples a distinct ethno-linguistic group not really not in the same way that others are such as the germanic slavic dravidian or turkic peoples and generally an arab and an ethiopian wouldn't identify with each other or have any sort of solidarity merely because of their shared language family and this is due to a variety of factors including differences in culture religion and distance as arabia is nearly 6 000 kilometers away from the other end of the afro-asiatic homeland in morocco or mauritania although i guess if russia can make it work anything's possible really let's focus on some of the individual nationalist or ira dentist movements among afro-asiatic peoples beforehand though with the most famous being pan-arabism i've discussed the arab pan-ethnicity many times in the past and although it is quite confusing as there are vast differences in the culture and genetics of so-called arabs the arabic language is a common factor that binds them together with nearly all groups outside of the arabian peninsula having been arabized many centuries ago this process of arabization began with the spread of islam in the 7th century with the arab muslims quickly conquering the majority of mesopotamia the levant egypt the maghreb and sudan and many new settlers arrived in these territories from the arabian peninsula and quickly became the dominant group intermarrying with the local population and swiftly converting the masses although the bulk of the population was absorbed other africa asiatic groups that did not become completely assimilated included the syrian christians of the near east the maronites of lebanon the cops of egypt and amazigh groups of the maghreb with all these people still having strong ethnic identities independent of the arabs however pan-arabism was still a strong driving force in the politics of these countries in the 20th century and many attempts were made to create a pan-arab state with egypt as a focal leader despite not really considering themselves arab until quite recently arabs and berber groups such as the tuaregs have also attempted secessionist movements in the west african countries of mali and niger such as the short-lived state of azeroth declared in 2012 although the dominant group in niger and northern nigeria the hausa are the chatic branch of the aphrasiotic family as well perhaps the most fervent push for nationalism and irredentism among afro-asiatic peoples would be the somalis who attempted to annex the ethnic somali-inhabited augadin region of ethiopia which they nearly succeeded in before the ussr switched their support to ethiopia and although never officially claimed by the government there are also large numbers of somalis in neighboring northeast kenya leading to many clashes with the local christian bantu population there is a strong and growing nationalist movement in the maghreb countries of morocco algeria and tunisia among berbers and arab citizens alike to reclaim their heritage and distance themselves from the middle east which is important to keep in mind as well therefore it's extremely unrealistic to even consider a united afro-asiatic world considering the animosity between so many of these peoples and differences in culture and religion but in case you haven't noticed these videos are purely thought experiments that give a quick regional snapshot in terms of history demography and geography not to suggest realistic policy positions so an afro-asiatic country would actually be fairly contiguous consisting the bulk of the middle east and north africa and stretching down into west and east africa and including the small island nation of malta in southern europe giving a population of over 600 million people in an area around 15 million square kilometers or 5.9 million square miles about halfway in between canada and russia the gdp would be quite massive as well sitting at 9.6 trillion us dollars about 16 000 per capita which is about dead even with the world average or a country like brazil but keep in mind there would be extreme disparities between regions with the gulf arab countries and israel being incredibly wealthy while yemen sudan and the horn are still lagging behind although growing quickly with modernization essentially the main divisions among the afro-asiatic peoples from a cultural linguistic and religious perspective would be the arabs of the levant iraq and the arabian peninsula who would be the largest afro-asiatic group arab egyptians who are a combination of arab and pre-arab egyptian culture and genetics arab berbers who are much of the same although some individuals identify more strongly with the native amazigh than arabs despite being in arabic-speaking families for generations and lastly for the arabs are afro-arabs descendants of arab conquerors to various parts of africa particularly mauritania sudan chad even as far as nigeria although over many generations of intermixing some self-claimed arabs may have very little ancestry from the arabian peninsula at all other semitic non-arabs include the syriac peoples jews modern south arabians such as the sakotri and the maltese who to quote myself from an earlier video are basically christianized arabized europeans the habesha although technically speaking a semitic language have had a huge amount of intermixing and linguistic exchange with the native cushites and hence cluster as horn africans even if their language is more closely related to arabic the native guanche people of the canary islands in spain were formerly and afro-asiatic speaking people closely related to continental berbers although they were completely assimilated by incoming spanish migrants so nearly all canarians today have some degree of guanche ancestry and by extension millions more in the americas especially the hispanic caribbean nations of cuba puerto rico and the dominican republic the messiah and tutsi of east africa are a combination of nylotic horn african and bantu populations due to migrants moving south after the bantu expansion although the other bantu populations of east africa are relatively unmixed despite their proximity and of course on the swahili coast and the neighboring islands of zanzibar and kimoros there has long been trade and settlement of arabs on the coast quickly blending into the population breaking down by macro group around 57 percent of the afro-asiatic world would be arab or mixed arab berber egyptian or african 21 would belong to horn african groups nine percent chadic west african nine percent belonging to other smaller afrasiatic groups such as berbers jews or assyrians and 4 percent would be non-afro-asiatic mostly south asian migrants in the gulf arab states the largest language spoken would clearly be arabic at over 60 percent of this gargantuan country with the next largest being hausa oromo amharic and somali and keep in mind berber is not actually a single language but a grouping with some being mutually intelligible nearly eighty percent of the afro-asiatic world would practice some form of islam mostly sunni who was 17 practicing christianity making up a majority in the horn with large minorities in egypt 11 the gulf and west africa and the remainder around 5 would practice judaism hinduism other religions or irreligious all this paints a picture of an extremely diverse region that despite having common origins with the original afroacionic tribe and language has now spread out to become some of the most recognizable and distinct groups out there please let me know your thoughts on the afroacionic people and world and what it would look like if this region were to unite or whether the various component groups were to unite such as arabs horn africans or others and for today's poll let me know which aphroaciotic group you'd like to know more about and as always this has been mason thanks for watching everyone i'll see you next time

Channel: Masaman

Views: 145,018

Keywords: masaman, What if the Afroasiatic World United, Greater Somalia, Greater Ethiopia, Greater Israel, Greater Arabia, Arabs, Jews, Afroasiatic Language, Somalis, Somalia, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Arab People, Arab Language, Amazigh, Berbers, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Tunisia, Lebanon, Lebanese People, Arabs Genetics, Ethiopia, Genetics, Horn of Africa, Genetics of Ethiopia, History of Somalia, Habesha People, Eritrea, Iraq, Syrians, Syrian, Assyrians

Id: tBuksPK19RQ

Length: 12min 7sec (727 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 26 2019