| Fields
of interest: African History: Early Africa; Southern Africa, Eastern
Africa, Northeastern Africa; Historical
Linguistics.
Education: Ph.D. Northwestern University, 1968
Publications:
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
Southern Nilotic History: Linguistic Approaches to the Study of the
Past. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971.
Ethiopians and East Africans:
The Problem of Contacts. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1974.
The Historical Reconstruction
of Southern Cushitic Phonology and Vocabulary. Berlin: Reimer, 1980.
(C. Ehret and M. Posnansky,
eds.) The Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History.
Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982.
Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic
(Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary. Berkeley,
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995.
An African Classical Age:
Eastern and Southern Africa in World History, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 400.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.
A Comparative Historical
Reconstruction of Proto-Nilo-Saharan. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe
Verlag, 2001.
The Civilizations of Africa:
A History to 1800. University Press of Virginia, 2002.
RESEARCH
ARTICLES
“Cattle-Keeping and Milking in Eastern and Southern African History: The
Linguistic Evidence,” Journal of African History 8 (1967).
“Sheep and Central Sudanic Peoples
in Southern Africa,” Journal of African History 9 (1968).
“Linguistics as a Tool for Historians,”
Hadith 1 (1968).
“Cushites and the Highland and
Plains Nilotes.” In B.A. Ogot and J. A. Kieran (ed.), Zamani: A Survey
of East African History. London, Nairobi: Longmans and East African
Publishing House, 1968.
“Language Evidence and Religious
History.” In T. O. Ranger and I. N. Kimambo (ed.), The Historical Study
of African Religion. London, Berkeley: Heinemann and University of
California Press, 1972.
(with 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 (1972).
“Bantu Origins: Critique and
Interpretation,” Transafrican Journal of History 2 (1972).
“Patterns of Bantu and Central
Sudanic Settlement in Central and Southern Africa,” Transafrican Journal
of History 3 (1973).
“Cushites and the Highland and
Plains Nilotes to 1800.” In B. A. Ogot (ed.), Zamani: A Survey of East
African History, second edition. London, Nairobi: Longmans, 1974 (completely
rewritten version of A.5 above).
“Agricultural History in Central
and Southern Africa, ca. 1000 BC to AD 500,” Transafrican Journal of
History 4 (1974).
(with 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 (1974).
“The Nineteenth Century Roots
of Economic Imperialism in Kenya,” Kenya Historical Review 2 (1974).
(E. A. Alpers and C. Ehret) “Eastern
Africa.” In Richard Grey (ed.), Cambridge History of Africa, Vol.
4 (1600-1790). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
“Linguistic Evidence and its
Correlation with Archaeology,” World Archaeology 8 (1976).
“Cushitic Prehistory.” In M.
L. Bender (ed.), The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. East Lansing:
Michigan State University, 1976.
“Aspects of Social and Economic
Change in Western Kenya, 500-1800.” In B. A. Ogot (ed.), Kenya Before
1900. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1977.
(L. J. Wood and C. Ehret) “The
Origins and Diffusions of the Market Institution in East Africa,” Journal
of African Studies 5 (1978).
“On the Antiquity of Agriculture
in Ethiopia,” Journal of African History 20 (1979).
“Omotic and the Subclassification
of the Afroasiatic Language Family.” In R. Hess (ed.), Proceedings of
the Fifth International Conference on Ethiopian Studies, Part 2. Chicago:
University of Illinois, 1980.
“Historical Inference from Transformations
in Cultural Vocabularies,” Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 2 (1980).
“The Nilotic Languages.” In E.
Polome and C. P. Hill (ed.), Language in Tanzania. London: International
African Institute, 1980.
“The Classification of Kuliak.”
In T. Schadeberg and M. L. Bender (ed.), Nilo-Saharan. Dordrecht:
Foris Publications, 1981.
(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
(1981).
(C. Ehret and D. Nurse) “The
Taita Cushites,” Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 3 (1981).
“The Demographic Implications
of Linguistic Change and Language Shift.” In C. Fyfe and D. McMaster (ed.),
African Historical Demography II. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh,
Centre of African Studies, 1981.
“Revising Proto-Kuliak,” Afrika
und Übersee 64 (1981).
“Linguistic Inferences about
Early Bantu History.” In Ehret and Posnansky (ed.), The Archaeological
and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History.
“The First Spread of Food Production
to Southern Africa.” In Ehret and Posnansky (ed.), The Archaeological
and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History.
“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, Memoir
No. 8, British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1983.
“Nilotic and the Limits of Eastern
Sudanic: Classificatory and Historical Conclusions.” In R. Vossen and M.
Bechhaus-Gerst (ed.), Nilotic Studies, Part 2. Berlin: Reimer,
1983.
“Between the Coast and the Great
Lakes,” Chap. 19 in D. T. Niane (ed.), Africa from the Twelfth to the
Sixteenth Centuries, Vol. 4, General History of Africa. UNESCO,
University of California Press, and Heinemann, 1984.
“Historical/Linguistic Evidence
for Early African Food Production.” In J. D. Clark and S. Brandt (ed.),
From Hunters to Farmers. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1984.
C. Ehret and M. N. Ali, “Soomaali
Classification.” In T. Labahn (ed.), Proceedings of the Second International
Congress of Somali Studies (Hamburg, August, 1983). Ham¬burg: Buske
Verlag, 1985.
“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).
Nairobi: Historical Association of Kenya, 1985.
“Proposals on Khoisan Reconstruction,”
Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 7 (1986).
“Proto-Cushitic Reconstruction,”
Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 8 (1987).
“Language Change and the Material
Correlates of Language and Ethnic Shift,” Antiquity 62 (1988)
“The East African Interior,”
Chapter 22 in M. Elfasi and I. Hrbek (ed.), “Africa from the Seventh to
the Eleventh Century,” Vol. 3, General History of Africa. UNESCO,
University of California Press, and Heinemann, 1988.
“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. Addis
Ababa: Institute of Ethiopian Studies, 1988.
(C. Ehret, E. D. Elderkin, and
D. Nurse) “Dahalo Lexis,” Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 18 (1989).
“The Origins of Third Consonants
in Semitic Roots: An Internal Reconstruction (Applied to Arabic),” Journal
of Afroasiatic Languages 3 (1989).
“Subclassification of Nilo-Saharan:
A Proposal.” In M. L. Bender (ed.), Topics in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics.
Hamburg: Buske, 1990.
“Revising the Consonant Inventory
of Proto-Eastern Cushitic,” Studies in African Linguistics 22 (1991).
“Nilo-Saharans and the Saharo-Sudanese
Neolithic,” in T. Shaw, P. Sinclair, B. Andah, and A. Okpoko (ed.), The
Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns. London: Routledge, 1993.
“The Eastern Horn of Africa,
1000 BC to 1400 AD: The Historical Roots,” in A. J. Ahmed (ed.), The
Invention of Somalia. Lawrenceville, NJ: The Red Sea Press, 1995.
“Do Krongo and Shabo Belong in
Nilo-Saharan?” In R. Nicolai and F. Rottland (ed.), Fifth Nilo-Saharan
Linguistics Colloquium, Nice 24-29 August 1992. Actes/Proceedings.
Cologne: Rudiger Köppe Verlag, 1995.
“The Establishment of Iron-Working
in Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa: Linguistic Inferences on Technological
History,” Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 16/17 (1995/96). [Actual
publication year: 2001.]
“Transformations in Southern
African History: Proposals for a Sweeping Overview of Change and Development,
6000 BC to the present,” Ufahamu 26 (1997).
“Subclassifying Bantu: The Evidence
of Stem Morpheme Innovation.” In L. Hyman and J.-M. Hombert (ed.), Bantu
Historical Linguistics: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives.
Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information,
1999).
“Nostratic—or Proto-Human?” In
C. Renfrew and D. Nettle (ed.), Nostratic: Examining a Linguistic Macrofamily.
Cambridge: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 1999.
“Who Were the Rock Artists? Linguistic
Evidence for the Holocene Populations of the Sahara,” Symposium:
Rock Art and the Sahara, edited by Alfred Muzzolini and Jean-Loic
Le Quellec, in Proceedings of the International Rock Art and Cognitive
Archaeology Congress News95. Turin: Centro Studie Museo d’Arte Prehistorica,
1999. [Published as a CD]
“Language and History.” In B.
Heine and D. Nurse (ed.), African Languages: An Introduction. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000.
“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. Cambridge: McDonald Institute
for Archaeological Research, 2000.
“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. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2000.
“Sudanic Civilization.” In Michael
Adas (ed.), Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical
History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, for the American Historical
Association, 2001.
“The Eastern Kenya Interior,
1500-1800.” In E. S. Atieno Odhiambo (ed.), African Historians and African
Voices. Basel: P. Schlettwein Publishers, 2001.
“The African Sources of Egyptian
Culture and Language.” In Josep Cervelló (ed.), África
Antigua. El Antiguo egipto, una civilizatión africana. (Actas
de la IX2Semana de Estudios Africanos del Centre D’estudis Africans de Barcelona.)
Barcelona, 2001.
“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 consists of responses to the article from 14 scholars
of African history, linguistics, and archaeology).
“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.
“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.
“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.
“Language Family Expansions:
Broadening our Understanding of Cause from an African Perspective.” Chap.
14 in P. Bellwood and C. Renfrew (ed.), Language and Agricultural Dispersals,
pp. 163-176. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research,
2003.
“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.
C.Ehret, “Toward Reconstructing
Proto-South Khoisan (PSAK),” Mother Tongue VIII (2003): 65-81.
C, Ehret, “ 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. 28 pp. (extension and revision of entry 65 above).
(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. 10 pp.
SHORT RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS
“Ancient Egyptian as an African
Language, Egypt as an African Culture.” In T. Celenko (ed.), Egypt in Africa.
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. 2 pp. (3 pp., including response by Peter Bellwood).
Miscellaneous
Co-Editor, History
Compass
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