Some authorities hold that Egyptian civilization came from Babylonia, and that the so-called Hamitic languages are older and less specialized members of the Semitic family.
The Somali belong to the Eastern (Ethiopic) Hamitic family of tribes, of which the other chief members are the neighbouring Galla and Afar, the Abyssinian Agau and the Beja tribes between the Nubian Nile and the Red Sea.
Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria about 930, included "Nubi" among the six kinds of writing which he mentions as current among the Hamitic peoples, and "Nubi" also appears among a list of six writings mentioned in an ancient manuscript now in the Berlin Museum.
The inhabitants of the interior may be divided into two classes, those namely of Bantu and those of Hamitic stock.
Unyoro has played rather an important role in the past (unwritten) history of Equatorial Africa as being the region from which the ancient Gala (Hamitic) aristocracy, coming from Nileland, penetrated the forests of Bantu Africa, bringing with them the Neolithic civilization, the use of metals, and the keeping of cattle.