Part of the problem is that AA is so old. Nostratic itself is 15-18,000 years old, and AA is 13-15,000 years old itself. The numerals are still a mess. They’re probably not even reconstructible. Numerals get replaced more than people think. This silly numerals argument is also used to invalidate Altaic. But in Altaic most of the original numerals were replaced. However, some of the originals held on in lesser semantic roles. So they were still there, just harder to see as the main numeral forms got replaced by innovations.
AA is the most ancient language family that is universally accepted. Some say that Omotic is not proven to be part of it, but those are wild splitters like Lyle Campbell who reflexively object to everything in a reactionary manner. This reaction has absurdly taken over the whole field now. We can’t even agree that Altaic is real. For God’s sake, there’s a 1,300 page etymological dictionary of Altaic out there, and people still insist it’s not real!
It’s not particularly close to IE.
Core Nostratic is Uralic, IE and Altaic.
Altaic (Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic, including Japanese and Korean), Uralic (including Yukaghir), Eskimo-Aleut and Chukchi-Kamchatkan are possibly core Nostratic. Some include Etruscan.
Whether Afroasiatic is core Nostratic is controversial. Aharon Dolgopolosky thought it was. Allan Bomhard followed Dolgopolosky.
Later Nostratic concepts have placed Afroasiatic and Elamite parallel to Nostratic (Sergei Starostin). Others put AA, Kartvelian, Elamo-Dravidian as sub-branches within Nostratic (Bomhard). Starostin’s followers, including his son George, have placed AA back in core Nostratic.
Joseph Greenberg posited a subgroup of Nostratic called Euroasiatic. He did not include Dravidian and AA. Greenberg felt that AA and Dravidian were sisters to Nostratic as a whole. Bomhard put Euroasiatic as a sub-family of Nostratic alongside AA and Dravidian. as two other sub-branches.
But there are definitely parallels with AA and IE all right. That’s clear.
Proto-Nostratic root *γor-:
(vb.) *γor- ‘to leave, to go away, to depart; to separate; to abandon’; (n.) *γor-a ‘leaving, departure; separation; abandonment’ Extended form: (vb.) *γor-V-b- ‘to leave, to go away, to depart; to separate; to abandon’; (n.) *γor-b-a ‘leaving, departure; separation; abandonment’
Afrasian: Proto-Semitic *γar-ab- ‘to leave, to go away, to depart’ > Arabic ġaraba ‘to go away, to depart, to absent (oneself), to withdraw (from), to leave (someone, something); to go to a foreign country; to expel from the homeland, to banish, to exile’, ġarba-t ‘removal, departure’, ġurba-t ‘absence from one’s homeland; separation from one’s native country, banishment, exile; life, or place, away from home’; Mehri əġtərōb ‘to be abroad, away from home’, ġərbēt ‘strange place, unknown place’; Śḥeri/Jibbāli aġtéréb ‘to be abroad, away from home’, ġarbέt ‘strange, unknown place; abroad’. Perhaps also Punic «rbt ‘desolation’ (?) in ḳl «rbt ‘the voice of desolation’ (interpretation highly uncertain) (cf. Hoftijzer-Jongeling 1995:887).
Proto-Indo-European *H₃orbʰ- ‘to be or become separated, abandoned, bereft’, *H₃orbʰ-o-s ‘(n.) orphan, servant; (adj.) bereft, abandoned, deprived (of)’:
Sanskrit árbha-ḥ ‘little, small; child’; Armenian orb ‘orphan’; Greek ὀρφανός ‘orphan, without parents, fatherless; (metaph.) bereft, abandoned’; Latin orbus ‘bereft, deprived by death of a relative or other dear one; bereaved (of); childless; an orphan’; Old Irish orb ‘heir’, orb(b)e, orpe ‘inheritance’; Gothic arbi ‘inheritance,’ arbja ‘heir’ (f. arbjō ‘heiress’); Old Icelandic arfi ‘heir, heiress’, arfr ‘inheritance, patrimony’, erfa ‘to inherit’, erfð ‘inheritance’; Old Swedish arve, arver ‘heir’; Danish arv ‘heir’; Norwegian arv ‘heir’; Old English ierfa, irfa ‘heir’, ierfe ‘inheritance, bequest, property’, erfe, irfe, yrfe ‘inheritance, (inherited) property’, irfan, yrfan ‘to inherit’; Old Frisian erva ‘heir’, erve ‘inheritance, inherited land, landed property’; Old Saxon erƀi ‘inheritance’; Middle Dutch erve ‘heir’; Old High German arbi, erbi ‘inheritance’, arbeo, erbo ‘heir’ (New High German Erbe ‘inheritance; heir’); Old Church Slavic rabъ ‘servant, slave’; Russian rab [раб] ‘slave, serf, bondsman’ (f. rabá [раба] ‘slave, serf, bondmaid’); Hittite (3rd sg. pres. act.) ḫar-ap-zi ‘to separate oneself and(re)associate oneself elsewhere’. Pokorny 1959:781-782 *orbho- ‘weak, abandoned; slave, orphan’; Walde 1927-1932:183-184 *orbho-; Mallory-Adams 1997:411 *h₂/h₃orbhos ‘orphan, heir’; Mann 1984-1987:884 *orbhəkos ‘young, tender; deprived, blind’, 884 *orbhənikos ‘young, minor, underage’, 884-885 *orbhət-, *orbhit- ‘deprived, bereft; deprivation, bereavement’, 885 *orbhi̯os adjectival form of *orbhos, 885 *orbhm̥ mos (*orbhmos) ‘bereft, deprived’, 885—886 *orbhos, -i̯os, -i̯ə ‘deprived, bereft; child, orphan’; Watkins 1985:46 *orbh- ‘to put asunder, to separate’ (suffixed form *orbh-o- ‘bereft of father’) and 2000:60 *orbh- ‘to change allegiance, to pass from one status to another’ (oldest form *ə̯₃erbh-, colored to *ə̯₃orbh-) (suffixed form *orbh-o- ‘bereft of father’ also ‘deprived of free status’); Gamkrelidze-Ivanov 1995I:399, I:651 *orbʰo- ‘deprived of one’s share, deprived of possessions; orphan; servant, slave’, I:781 *orbʰo-; Mayrhofer 1956—1980.I:52 and 1986—2001.I:119—120; Boisacq 1950:719 *orbho-s; Beekes 2010:1113—1114 *h₃orbʰ-o-; Frisk 1970-1973:431 *orbho-s; Chantraine 1968-1980:829 *orbho-; Hofmann 1966:240 *orbhos; Hübschmann 1897:482, no. 335, *orbhos; Matirosyan 2008:535-536 *Horbʰ-o-; Walde-Hofmann 1965-1972:219-220 *orbhos, *orbhi̯o-; Ernout-Meillet 1979:466—467; De Vaan 2008:433 *h₃orbʰ-o-; Derksen 2008:373 *h₃erbʰ-; Kroonen 2013:33 Proto-Germanic *arbja- ‘inheritance’ (<*h₃orbʰ-i̯o-), 33 Proto-Germanic *arbjan – ‘heir’ (< *h₃orbʰ-i̯on-); Orël 2003:22 Proto-Germanic *arƀaz, 22 Proto-Germanic *arƀjaz; Lehmann 1986:41-42 *orbho-; Feist 1939:56 *orbhi̯o-; Falk-Torp 1910-1911.I:34; De Vries 1977:12 and 13; Boutkan-Siebinga 2005:93 *h₃erbʰ-; Walshe 1951:48; Kluge-Mitzka 1967:170 *orbho-; Kluge-Seebold 1989:183-184 *orbhijo-, *orbho-; Kloekhorst 2008b:311-312 *h₃erbʰ-to; Puhvel 1984:176—183.
Proto-Nostratic (n.) *t’orʸ-a ‘tree, the parts of a tree’ (> ‘leaf, branch, bark, etc.’):
Proto-Afrasian *t’[o]r- ‘tree’, preserved in various tree names or names of parts of trees (‘leaves, branches, etc.’): Semitic: Akkadian ṭarpa”u (ṭarpi”u) ‘a variety of tamarisk’; Arabic ṭarfā” ‘tamarisk tree’. Hebrew ṭārāφ [ טָרָף ] ‘leaf’ (a hapax legomenon in the Bible); Aramaic ṭarpā, ṭǝraφ ‘leaf’; Syriac ṭerpā ‘leaf, branch’; Samaritan Aramaic ṭrp ‘leaf, part of a tree, branch’. Klein 1987:252 Egyptian d&b ‘fig tree’ (< *drb); West Chadic: Hausa ɗoorawaa ‘locust-bean tree’; East Chadic: Bidiya tirip ‘a kind of tree’ (assimilation of vowels). Orël—Stolbova 1995:516, no. 2464, *ṭarip- ‘tree’.
Proto-Indo-European *t’er-w/u-/*t’or-w/u-, *t’r-ew-/*t’r-ow-/*t’r-u- ‘tree, wood’: Greek δόρυ ‘tree, beam’, δρῦς ‘oak’; Hittite ta-ru ‘wood’; Albanian dru ‘tree, bark, wood’; Sanskrit dā́ru ‘a piece of wood, wood, timber’, drú-ḥ ‘wood or any wooden implement’; Avestan drvaēna- ‘wooden’, dāuru- ‘wood (en object), log’; Welsh derwen ‘oak’; Gothic triu ‘tree, wood’; Old Icelandic tré ‘tree’, tjara ‘tar’; Old English trēow ‘tree, wood’, tierwe, teoru ‘tar, resin’; Old Frisian trē ‘tree’; Old Saxon triu, treo ‘tree, beam’; New High German Teer ‘tar’; Lithuanian dervà ‘resinous wood’, dãrva ‘tar’; Old Church Slavic drěvo‘tree’; Russian dérevo [дерево] ‘tree, wood’; Serbo-Croatian drȉjevo ‘tree, wood’; Czech dřevo ‘tree, wood’. Pokorny 1959:214—217 *deru-, *dō̆ru-, *dr(e)u-, *dreu̯ǝ-, *drū- ‘tree’; Walde 1927-1932:804-806 *dereu̯(o)-; Mann 1984-1987:142 *deru̯os, -ā, -i̯ǝ (*dreu̯-) ‘tree, wood, timber, pitchpine; pitch, tar, resin; hard, firm, solid, wooden’, 156 *dō̆ru ‘timber, pole, spike, spear’, 157 *doru̯os, -ā, -i̯ǝ ‘wood (timber); resin’, 161 *dru- (radical) ‘timber, wood’, 161 *drūi̯ō (*druu̯ō, *-i̯ō; *drūn-) ‘to harden, to strengthen’, 161 *drukos ‘hard, firm, wooden’, 162 *drus-, *drusos ‘firm, solid’, 162 *druu̯os, -om, -is ‘wooden, hard; wood’, 162 *drū̆tos ‘wooden, of oak, of hardwood; solid, firm, strong’, 165 *dr̥u̯is, -i̯ǝ ‘wood, trees, hardwood’, 165—166 *dr̥u̯os, -om; *drus-, *dru- ‘wood, timber, tree’; Gamkrelidze-Ivanov 1995:192 and 193 *t’er-w-, *t’or-w-, *t’r-eu-, *t’r-u- ‘oak (wood), tree’; Mallory-Adams 1997:598 *dóru ‘wood, tree’; Watkins 1985:12 *deru (also *dreu-) and 2000:16-17 *deru (also *dreu-) ‘to be firm, solid, steadfast’ (suffixed variant form *drew-o-; variant form *drou-; suffixed zero-grade form *dru-mo-; variant form *derw-; suffixed variant form *drū-ro-; lengthened zero-grade form *drū-; o-grade form *doru-; reduplicated form *der- drew-); Mayrhofer 1956-1980.II:36; Chantraine 1968-1980:294 *dor-w-, *dr-ew-; Frisk 1970-1973:411-412; Hofmann 1966:63 *dō̆ru; Beekes 2010.I:349 *doru; Boisacq 1950:197-198 *doru; Orël 1998:76 and 2003:405 Proto-Germanic *terwōn ~ *terwan, 409-410 *trewan; Kroonen 2013:514 Proto-Germanic *terwa/ōn- ‘tar’ and 522-523 Proto-Germanic *trewa- ‘tree’; Lehmann 1986:347-348 *deru-, *drewo-, *dr(e)w-(H-); Feist 1939:480-481 *der-eu̯-o-; De Vries 1977:591 *dreu-; Klein 1971:745 *derew(o)-, *drew(o)- and 779 *derow(o)-, *drew(o)-; Onions 1966:904 and 939 *deru-,*doru-; Kluge-Mitzka 1967:775 *deru-; Kluge-Seebold 1989:725 *deru-; Huld 1984:56 *dru-n-; Fraenkel 1962-1965:90-91; Derksen 2008:99 *deru-o- and 2015:123-124 *deru-o-; Smoczyński 2007:103; Osthoff 1901:98-180; Benveniste 1969:104-111 and 1973:85-91; P. Friedrich 1970:140-149 *dorw- ‘tree’ or ‘oak’.