On May 21-24, 2007, Udine (Northern Italy) hosted a regular international conference on Afrasian (Semitic - Hamitic) languages*, organized by the local university. This conference is part of the Italian scientific program of conferences on the study of Afrasian languages. The first conference was held in Venice in 1978, and the following conferences were held regularly, every two years, in various university cities in Italy.

The regular meetings of philologists and linguists working in the field of Afrasian macrofamily languages that take place in Italy are based on the solid foundation of the Italian school of Semitology and Arabic studies, which dates back to the XVI-XVII centuries. Reports of Italian colleagues at previous conferences, as well as at the last one, scientific publications and periodicals indicate that recently the Italian school covers not only Semitic, but also other languages of the Afrasian circle.

The work of the conference was based on the principle of a single program: meetings and reports were held sequentially, without parallel sections. About 50 reports and presentations were made. The conference was attended by both well-known and young scientists from various universities in Italy, research centers in Europe, Russia, the Arab East, Africa, Israel, and the United States. Working languages-Italian, English, French.

The program of meetings is based on the language principle: general issues of Afrasian comparative studies, Semitic languages (ancient and new), Ancient Egyptian, Chadian, Cushitic, Berber. The large number of reports and the variety of issues considered do not allow us to cover all the reports and discussions in detail. I will touch only on the main theoretical problems that seem most relevant and interesting for Russian linguistics and Oriental studies, and group them by topic (and not by language).

The problems of comparative historical research and genetic classification of individual language families of the Afrasian branch were considered at general and thematic sessions of the conference.

A. Zaborsky (Krakow) in his report "Prehistory of the Sakho-Afar languages" based on the comparative material of the verbal forms of these languages (belonging to the Kushite family) and the verb system of Semitic languages showed that taking into account regular internal inflections of the prefix conjugation in both language families will allow us to conclude that Semitic and Cushitic languages are more closely related within the Afrasian macrofamilies relative to Berber and other families. In his report "On the application of glottochronology to Berber languages", V. Blazhek (Brno), based on the previous genetic classifications of these languages and taking into account their shortcomings, proposed a new glottochronology of the divergence of the northern Tuareg and southern subgroups of the southern branch of Berber languages on the basis of updated lexical data from the hundred-word list for the most representative languages of these subgroups. Stolbova (Moscow), in her report "On the reconstruction of lateral sibilants in Chadian languages", proposed the reconstruction of the lateral consonant series of the "voiced-deaf-emphatic" proto-Chadian period based on comparative material from the languages of the three branches of the Chadian family and on the use of correspondences from Semitic, South Kush, and Ancient Egyptian languages. The report of P. Marrasini (Florence) "Problems of classification of South Semitic languages" raised the issue of difficulties in classifying languages, some of which are represented only by ancient written monuments, and others by much later non-written and young-written languages.

* XIII Incontro Italiano di Linguistica camito-semitica (afroasiatica) / 13-th Italian Meeting of Afroasiatic Linguistics. Semitic-Hamitic languages - the original name of a large macrofamily of languages, which includes Semitic, Ancient Egyptian and Coptic, Berber, Cushitic and Chadian languages. In Russian linguistics and partly in foreign languages, the more recent and scientifically justified name "Afrasian languages"is used.

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The formation of the Semitic root and its consonant-vocal structure traditionally attract the attention of semitologists and afrasists. The paper by Gregorio Del Olmo Lete (Barcelona) "Vowel opposition in two-consonant Semitic bases" examines the relationship between the syllabic structure of a two-consonant base (one - or two-syllable, taking into account inflection) and the change in the initial vocalism of this root base. At the same time, Semitic languages reveal the phenomenon of lexical opposition of two consonantal root bases, which is based on the difference in the vowels of the base; as well as the opposite phenomenon: the preservation of close values in case of divergence or fluctuation of vocalism in related consonant roots. Zh. Report Lantana (Paris) "On some prepositional formants in the morphogenesis of the Arabic and Semitic root" was devoted to the question of possible allocation of non-root prepositional consonants in three-and four-consonant roots. These consonants are defined as ancient morphological elements, expressive expanders of verbal and nominal bases in the later period of Semitic root formation. This phenomenon is also observed in modern Semitic languages. The study takes into account many hypotheses and developments of Arab, Western and Russian scientists. An interesting and eternal question about phonetic consonances in various languages of the world and about sound distortions when borrowing was touched upon in the report of F. A. Kropotkin. Penachetti (Turin) "About the sound wave". Sound phenomena were traced using examples of well-known toponyms "Urartu/Ararat", proper names "Yahya, Johanna", etc. In a joint report by S. Baldi (Naples) and R. Leger (Frankfurt), a hypothesis of the historical migration process of ancient speakers of the Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan and Afrasian families was presented, in particular, the spread of Prachadic languages in the Lake Chad region in 10-8 thousand years. Taking into account the changes in the natural conditions of these regions of Africa and the development of cultural and economic activities of ancient tribes, the authors suggest the direction of their movement from Central Sudan to the West and settlement in the highlands and river valleys surrounding Lake Chad, with the subsequent division of the Prachadic languages into central, western and eastern branches.

The conference participants were very interested in research on innovations that are observed not only in Semitic languages, but also in a number of other Afrasian languages. As the most noticeable phenomenon in the field of phonetics, there is a tendency to palatalization/affricatization of explosive velars: in modern Arabic dialects, in the Ephiosemitic and New Aramaic languages - in the report of O. Kapelyuk (Jerusalem), as well as in ancient Egyptian - the report of D. Calabro (Chicago). Grammatical innovations include the development of new verb constructions that differentiate the syntactic categories of tense and type. This is done on the basis of verbalization of participles and the emergence of analytical forms in Arabic dialects, modern Hebrew, New Aramaic and modern Ephiosemitic languages (report by O. Kapelyuk). This topic can be attributed to the report of G. Zatzinger (Vienna), who made a phonetic analysis of the ancient Egyptian voiced velar fricative phoneme, which underwent palatalization and affricatization in the ancient Egyptian language of the late period and in the Coptic language.

The conference participants paid much attention to the issues of cultural and historical contacts between the peoples of the East and West, which are reflected in their languages. An important evidence of such processes is the substratum and borrowed vocabulary, terms of material and spiritual culture. The report of G. Cifoletti (Udine) analyzes examples of hebraisms that have penetrated into European languages from the Latin translation of Holy Scripture (Vulgate) in the field of vocabulary and syntactic structures. F. Aspesi (Milan) presented a panorama of mutual influences of ancient Semitic-speaking cultures and cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean on a large linguistic and archaeological material. In particular, this was reflected in the system of terms associated with the concepts of ancient sanctuaries in the Greco-Aegean region and having correspondences in ancient Semitic religious centers and in the religious beliefs of these peoples.

Semitic elements in the onomastics of Aquileia of the Romanesque period (I-IV centuries AD) are considered by Yu. Grassi (Udine) on the materials of epigraphy and inscriptions on mosaic panels discovered during archaeological excavations in the area. The epigraphic data of the early epochs of the functioning of northwestern Semitic languages were interpreted taking into account the archaeological materials of the corresponding periods. Israel (Genoa). The attention of scholars was also drawn to the Aramaic-Hebrew inscriptions of magical content on vessels from the Iraqi museum in Baghdad, cited in the report of Ali Faraj (Milan). S. Destefanis and E. Braida (both from Turin) They devoted their research to some versions of the legend about the Wise Ahikar, a character of Aramaic-Syriac literature.

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F. Thales (Udine), having analyzed the lexical features and syntactic constructions of the Aramaic legal text of the New Assyrian Kingdom period (IX-VII centuries BC), showed numerous parallelisms in the Assyrian and Aramaic languages, such as: terms, special formula constructions and stamps characteristic of Assyrian legal documents, as well as for documents of the same period. a genre written in Aramaic. This may indicate a direct continuity of the administrative and business systems of ancient epochs. M. Franchi (Florence) compared the floristic vocabulary of ancient Egyptian and Semitic languages. Abdirashid Ismail (Djibouti) considered the following issues: the concept of "dialect" as applied to the Somali language; the topic of the report was Sanaa Sadek (USA, Annapolis) - the situation of modern Arab women writers, known for their innovative work, and the reaction of Arab-Muslim society to their works. Linguistics in Tunisia for the period 1985-2005

If the cultural and historical topics of the conference were (quite naturally) related to the range of languages with ancient written monuments, i.e. mainly Semitic and ancient Egyptian, then grammar issues were also considered on the basis of languages of other Afrasian families. Much attention was paid to the syntactic features of ancient and modern languages. The general theoretical question of the unevenness of the structural and typological development of languages in general and Semitic languages in particular was considered in the report of G. Hudson (University of Michigan) "Signs of the active structure of languages according to Klimov and the Efiosemitic languages". The speaker relies on the theory of the Russian linguist G. A. Klimov, who developed a number of features that characterize the languages of the active system. That in the history of typological development of languages usually refers to a more archaic type. Based on the extensive illustrative material of the Ephiosemitic languages, especially Amharic and other modern languages of this group, the author of the report showed the preservation of many morphological and syntactic features in them, which indicate that even in the later period of their development, languages can retain archaic features.

The case system of Berber languages in historical development was analyzed by O. Geisler (Addis Ababa). A controversial issue was raised about the typological characteristics of the ways of grammatical expression of subject-object relations associated with the categories of transitivity/intransitivity of the verb predicate. Objecting to the typological characterization of his predecessors, the speaker gave a number of arguments in favor of reconstructing the proto-Berber system as a system of languages with a marked nominative. The peculiarities of Berber syntax were considered by Catherine Taine-Cheikh (France) on the basis of individual languages. On the basis of comparative Arabic material, she showed that the development of ways of expressing conditional and hypothetical constructions in zenaga and in local Arabic dialects occurred in parallel, but independently, despite the centuries-old coexistence of languages. based on syntactic functions, he determined the meaning and origin of some negative and amplifying constructions and particles in Kabyle (one of the Berber languages).

M. Tosco (Naples) noted a typological feature in the Gavvada language (East Cushitic subgroup of Cushitic languages. - A. B.): parallelism of grammatical categories "plurality-singularity", expressed both by names and verbs. Marie Simeon-Senel (France), in her report "Word order in Dahalik and the evolution of the verb system", presented the results of her research on a poorly studied language in the Dahlak archipelago (Eritrea). The structure of the verb sentence in Dahalik is of a "fluctuating" type: it varies between the word order SOV, which is characteristic of the Ephiosemitic languages Tigre, Tigrinya, and Kushite languages, and the word order VSO/VO, which reflects the structure of the Semitic languages of South Arabia. The analysis of the materials shows the process of evolution of the South Semitic language, which was surrounded by the languages of East Africa, languages of a different system.

A number of reports were devoted to specific issues of syntax and morphology of ancient and modern Semitic languages. Mikko Luukko (Helsinki) considered a number of theoretical and practical issues related to the preparation of a New Assyrian grammar, Gresha Van Bailaere (Udine) - the functions of determinants in Akkadian in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. A. Gianto (Rome) analyzed the ways of expressing modality in verb phrases of Northwestern Semitic languages. I. Zatelli (Florence) I considered a special type of sentence that expresses a completed action in one of the later monuments of the Hebrew language. In the report of A. Mengozzi (Bergamo), based on the material of early Christian New Aramaic texts, it is revealed-

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cases of occurrence of the definite article are excluded. At Young (Maryland) on the comparative material of modern Arabic dialects of the Arabian Peninsula and Cairo considered the theoretical problems of establishing a system of deictic elements by their function - the function of expressing the opposition of near and far directions, as well as by the signs of expressing semantic emphase. I. Guardi (Milan) touched upon the meaning of terms and concepts developed by the national Arabic grammar and emphasized the relevance of the system of these terms and concepts for modern teaching of the Arabic language.

The etymological direction of Afrasistics was presented at the conference with reports on ancient Egyptian, Chadian and Semitic languages. Based on extensive comparative material from the Semitic, Chadian, and Cushitic languages, G. Zatzinger (Vienna) highlighted the history of changes in one of the most mysterious phonemes of the ancient Egyptian language ("round het") and proposed a reconstruction of the periodization of these changes from the earliest period to the Coptic period, taking into account the etymological data of other Afrasian languages. A. Rokkati (Turin) in the aspect of socio-cultural representations of the 2nd millennium BC in Ancient Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean countries analyzed the ancient Egyptian terms associated with the royal title and royal functions. F. Contardi (Rome) made an analysis of the ancient Egyptian lexemes denoting "reading" and the contexts of their use. Boucherie (Paris) She told about the history of the city of Algiers, the history of its ancient names and the etymology of the Arabic name in comparison with the corresponding roots of other Semitic languages.

A. G. Belova (Moscow) presented the first results of an etymological study of the vocabulary of pre-Islamic poetry: along with the general Semitic vocabulary and the root fund, a layer of special archaic vocabulary is distinguished, which has its correspondences in modern non-written languages of South Arabia. R. Contini (Naples) drew the attention of dialectologists to such an important source of data as "Notes of Travelers" in Arabia. In particular, he described an essay by Charles Doughty about his travels in 1888 and 1921 in Northern and Central Arabia, which recorded the local vocabulary. In a joint report by A. Valli (Naples) and R. Leger (Frankfurt), two reconstructions of the lexeme "eye" in Western Chadian languages are presented: one reconstruction goes back to the Afrasian basis, the other is the result of a combination of two lexical components of later intra - Chadian origin.

The conference participants were also informed about prospective research projects in the field of Afrasian linguistics. M. Moriji (Catania) expressed the opinion that the time has come to create a corpus of Arabic pre-Islamic written (epigraphic) monuments. Such a corpus will allow you to recreate a complete picture of the available material and start studying individual issues of the pre-Islamic period of the Arabic language.

In addition, the conference materials provided brief information about the CORPA-FROAS project (Corpus oral en Langues Afroasiatiques: Analyse Prosodique et Morphosyntaxique). The project is supported by the ANR Foundation (Agence Nationale de la Recherche, France, 2007-2010). The goal of the project is to develop a unified system for recording and processing oral field language material that will be available for typological research. The project includes two languages from Berber, three from Chadian, five from Cushitic, one from Omotic, and also from Semitic: spoken Arabic, Maltese, spoken Hebrew, and Dahalik (Eritrea). The project participants are scientists from various research centers in Europe, Africa, Asia and America.

In conclusion, I note that the traditional "preponderance" of semitology in Afrasian subjects was compensated by the formulation and solution of more general theoretical questions in other Afrasian families and individual languages. These included questions about the genetic relations between the Kushite and Semitic languages, the improvement of the glottochronological classification of Berber languages, the reconstruction of the Prachad consonant system, questions about the typological characteristics of the Kushite and Berber languages, and new solutions for reconstructing the phonetic characteristics of some phonemes of the ancient Egyptian language.

The conference was an important step for the further development of Afroasiatic linguistics and the expansion of the range of languages studied, as well as contributed to the deepening of cooperation between scientists from foreign and Russian centers.

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