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Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture
Christopher Ehret Professor of History, African Studies Chair University of California at Los Angeles
Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots.
The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east. They supported themselves by gathering wild grains. The first elements of Egyptian culture were laid down two thousand years later, between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C., when some of these Afrasian communities expanded northward into Egypt, bringing with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They also introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grains as food.
A new religion came with them as well. Its central tenet explains the often localized origins of later Egyptian gods: the earliest Afrasians were, properly speaking, neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. Instead, each local community, comprising a clan or a group of related clans, had its own distinct deity and centered its religious observances on that deity. This belief system persists today among several Afrasian peoples of far southwest Ethiopia. And as Biblical scholars have shown, Yahweh, god of the ancient Hebrews, an Afrasian people of the Semitic group, was originally also such a deity. The connection of many of Egypt's predynastic gods to particular localities is surely a modified version of this early Afrasian belief. Political unification in the late fourth millennium brought the Egyptian deities together in a new polytheistic system. But their local origins remain amply apparent in the records that have come down to us.
During the long era between about 10,000 and 6000 B.C., new kinds of southern influences diffused into Egypt. During these millennia, the Sahara had a wetter climate than it has today, with grassland or steppes in many areas that are now almost absolute desert. New wild animals, most notably the cow, spread widely in the eastern Sahara in this period.
One of the exciting archeological events of the past twenty years was the discovery that the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated these cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. The societies involved in this momentous development included Afrasians and neighboring peoples whose languages belonged to a second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). The earliest domestic cattle came to Egypt apparently from these southern neighbors, probably before 6000 B.C., not, as we used to think, from the Middle East.
One major technological advance, pottery-making, was also initiated as early as 9000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharans and Afrasians who lived to the south of Egypt. Soon thereafter, pots spread to Egyptian sites, almost 2,000 years before the first pottery was made in the Middle East.
Very late in the same span of time, the cultivating of crops began in Egypt. Since most of Egypt belonged then to the Mediterranean climatic zone, many of the new food plants came from areas of similar climate in the Middle East. Two domestic animals of Middle Eastern origin, the sheep and the goat, also entered northeastern Africa from the north during this era.
But several notable early Egyptian crops came from Sudanic agriculture, independently invented between 7500 and 6000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharan peoples (Ehret 1993:104-125). One such cultivated crop was the edible gourd. The botanical evidence is confirmed in this case by linguistics: Egyptian bdt, or "bed of gourds" (Late Egyptian bdt, "gourd; cucumber"), is a borrowing of the Nilo-Saharan word *bud, "edible gourd." Other early Egyptian crops of Sudanic origin included watermelons and castor beans. (To learn more on how historians use linguistic evidence, see note at end of this article.)
Between about 5000 and 3000 B.C. a new era of southern cultural influences took shape. Increasing aridity pushed more of the human population of the eastern Sahara into areas with good access to the waters of the Nile, and along the Nile the bottomlands were for the first time cleared and farmed. The Egyptian stretches of the river came to form the northern edge of a newly emergent Middle Nile Culture Area, which extended far south up the river, well into the middle of modern-day Sudan. Peoples speaking languages of the Eastern Sahelian branch of the Nilo-Saharan family inhabited the heartland of this region.
From the Middle Nile, Egypt gained new items of livelihood between 5000 and 3000 B.C. One of these was a kind of cattle pen: its Egyptian name, s3 (earlier *sr), can be derived from the Eastern Sahelian term *sar. Egyptian pg3, "bowl," (presumably from earlier pgr), a borrowing of Nilo-Saharan *poKur, "wooden bowl or trough," reveals still another adoption in material culture that most probably belongs to this era.
One key feature of classical Egyptian political culture, usually assumed to have begun in Egypt, also shows strong links to the southern influences of this period. We refer here to a particular kind of sacral chiefship that entailed, in its earliest versions, the sending of servants into the afterlife along with the deceased chief. The deep roots and wide occurrence of this custom among peoples who spoke Eastern Sahelian languages strongly imply that sacral chiefship began not as a specifically Egyptian invention, but instead as a widely shared development of the Middle Nile Culture Area.
After about 3500 B.C., however, Egypt would have started to take on a new role vis-a-vis the Middle Nile region, simply because of its greater concentration of population. Growing pressures on land and resources soon enhanced and transformed the political powers of sacral chiefs. Unification followed, and the local deities of predynastic times became gods in a new polytheism, while sacral chiefs gave way to a divine king. At the same time, Egypt passed from the wings to center stage in the unfolding human drama of northeastern Africa.
A Note on the Use of Linguistic Evidence for History
Languages provide a powerful set of tools for probing the cultural history of the peoples who spoke them. Determining the relationships between particular languages, such as the languages of the Afrasian or the Nilo-Saharan family, gives us an outline history of the societies that spoke those languages in the past. And because each word in a language has its own individual history, the vocabulary of every language forms a huge archive of documents. If we can trace a particular word back to the common ancestor language of a language family, then we know that the item of culture connoted by the word was known to the people who spoke the ancestral tongue. If the word underwent a meaning change between then and now, a corresponding change must have taken place in the cultural idea or practice referred to by the word. In contrast, if a word was borrowed from another language, it attests to a thing or development that passed from the one culture to the other. The English borrowing, for example, of castle, duke, parliament, and many other political and legal terms from Old Norman French are evidence of a Norman period of rule in England, a fact confirmed by documents.
References Cited:
Ehret, Christopher, Nilo-Saharans and the Saharo-Sahelian Neolithic. In African Archaeology: Food, Metals and Towns. T. Shaw, P Sinclair, B. Andah, and A. Okpoko, eds. pp. 104-125. London: Routledge. 1993
Ehret, Christopher, Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone Consonants, and Vocabulary. Los Angeles: University of California Press, Berkeley. 1995
Wendorf, F., et al., Saharan Exploitation of Plants 8000 Years B.P. Nature 359:721-724. 1982
Wendorf, F., R. Schild, and A. Close, eds. Cattle-Keepers of the Eastern Sahara. Dallas: Southern Methodist University, Department of Anthropology. 1984
Posts: 8804 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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^^^^ Well Im not taken either way. I respect the idea that the Egyptians could be related to the Bantu people but this is only one set of Mummies. Again the over whelming evidence points the Egyptians being related to Other Nilotic and Afroasiatic speakers. Some of whom might have featues people associate with so called Bantus.
Plus I don't trust DNA tribes. Sorry..
Posts: 8804 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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Nowhere does the results say that the Egyptians overall are related to Bantus than any other Africans. Remember it were 8 STR loci tested for just several royals of one dynasty. The closest affinity actually is the great lakes region with while Yuya has closest affinity to south African Bantus. Nowhere does it say the Egyptians overall are closest related to Bantus.
You guys seem to have the wrong impression of what the data says!
Remember the Arnaiz Villena HLA study on Greeks.
Does that mean Greeks are overall more related to West African Mossi than they are to Albanians? No.
Posts: 26243 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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^^^ This is what Im saying, I nver said that the Egyptians were overall more related to the Bantus, I made this thread because alot of people keep getting confused..for example there is a thread called "Behold Bantu Egypt" and KoKokola keeps talking about Egyptians not looking like "Bantus"
Again Bantu is a language group, one that the Egyptians did not speak, so no matter the results the Egyptians and Egypt are not "Bantu" its Afrisan AKA Afro-asiatic and Nilotic.
Further you have Afro-Asiatic speakers who could pass for so called Bantus..and Bantus who could pass for Afrosans.
I think most people have a problem because they associate Bantu with True Negro, yet Egypts neighbors who spoke Nilo Saharan and Afro-asiatic are some of the Blackest Africans on Earth...
Posts: 8804 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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^^^ Manu what are you talking about Im not arguing for the DNA Tribes results, so what gives. Why does it bother you so much?? Again Bantu is a language group
this is like saying the Spanish are Romancies
Posts: 8804 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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All Bantus share an ancestral Atlantic–Congo component.
There has been admixture with the native populations in the regions they entered (e.g. Pygmies in the Congo, Nilotes and Cushites in Kenya and vicinity, Khoisans in South Africa and vicinity) but usually their ancestral Atlantic–Congo component is the most dominant.
Posts: 424 | Registered: May 2011
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I said in the dreaded Bantu thread that language folks should review Diop's statement that the Kemites made use of Bantu prefixes,and I agree one family in one dynasty does not make all the ancient Kemites Bantu,but if words like hbny kemetian = ebony Nilo Saharan and both Bantus and Nilo Saharan shared the same location on the Great Lakes I don't know why people remains overly skeptical.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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Exactly. The people making objections to a relatedness to Bantu don't study Bantu languages. Diop, Obenga and Bilolo have argued the Egyptian to be a Bantu language where major features became non-operational. I think Dr. Rkhty Amen (Linguist and Egyptologist) argues the same thing.
As Robert Blench states in his paper New Developments in the Classification of Bantu Languages and their Historical Implications, quoting Greenberg (1963:35), “Supposedly transitional languages are really Bantu.” In other words, many languages without the features of Bantu are in fact genetically affiliated with Bantu.”
Blench mentions afterwards that Greenberg’s view remained “exiguous” at the time of publication. However, through a process of reexamination he states that,
quote:Within this perspective, “Bantu” can no longer be defined by topological characteristics – Bantoid languages may or may not share the features of narrow bantu, This is essentially the interpretation of GREENSBERG’s somewhat casual remark about transitional languages.
The proponents against a Mdw Ntr – Bantu affiliation assume that in order for the Egyptian language to relate, it has to possess a developed noun class system. As we all know now, this is not the case. The reason you don't see a full-out noun class system, just traces, is because Egyptian was a lingua franca and by nature lingua francas do not possess full noun and verbal systems as the original languages.
It is high time people reevaluate what they think they know about African languages.
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: I said in the dreaded Bantu thread that language folks should review Diop's statement that the Kemites made use of Bantu prefixes,and I agree one family in one dynasty does not make all the ancient Kemites Bantu,but if words like hbny kemetian = ebony Nilo Saharan and both Bantus and Nilo Saharan shared the same location on the Great Lakes I don't know why people remains overly skeptical.
quote:Originally posted by -Just Call Me Jari-: ^^^ This is what Im saying, I nver said that the Egyptians were overall more related to the Bantus, I made this thread because alot of people keep getting confused..for example there is a thread called "Behold Bantu Egypt" and KoKokola keeps talking about Egyptians not looking like "Bantus"
Again Bantu is a language group, one that the Egyptians did not speak, so no matter the results the Egyptians and Egypt are not "Bantu" its Afrisan AKA Afro-asiatic and Nilotic.
^Not everyone sees Bantu as a language group or just a language group. I met a Sudanese guy who told me he is Anuak or something like that, and I asked him about it being Bantu since he was clarifying his tribe from the Dinka tribe (I can't tell the difference) and he said NO, Bantus are lightskin Some people see Bantu as ethnicity. Somalis view Bantu the same way (ethnicity/tribe/clan).
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Some people see Bantu as ethnicity. Somalis view Bantu the same way (ethnicity/tribe/clan).
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