posted
Sometime back, I had opened a topic on the issue of whether or not the Meroitic script had been deciphered, but not on whether Meroitic is Nilo-Saharan or considered some other language group. I have decided to start up this topic, because the one started by Yonis, picks up from a rather unspecific and broad premises, of Nubia (as with an earlier discussion on the subject), which as we all know, is a broad geographical region, and not a nation or an ethnic group of antiquity. Here, I intend to be more specific in the mission to come closer to the truth; thus, I’ll pinpoint the discussion to the “Kushites” whose culture proceeded into the Meroitic cultural complex. Hopefully, a multidisciplinary approach here, will assist in conclusions that lean more towards one direction over another.
From online encyclopedic source, courtesy of Wikipedia, we have:
It is not very well understood due to the paucity of bilingual texts; the few words whose meanings have been confirmed are inadequate to determine its genetic affiliation, but some linguists have tentatively suggested that it may be Nilo-Saharan, while others see it as a language isolate.
Meanwhile…
Old Nubian is preserved in at least a hundred pages of documents, mostly of a Christian religious nature, written with a uncial variety of the Greek alphabet, extended with three Coptic letters and three unique to Old Nubian, apparently derived from Meroitic. These documents range in date from the 8th to the 15th century A.D.. Old Nubian is currently considered ancestral to modern Nobiin.
I wrote elsewhere: Even if Meroitic as a language is dead, surely the language would have maintained some continuity bit by bit within a new language(s), just as bits of old Egyptian had made their way into the Arabic spoken in contemporary Egypt; thus, not as totally dead, as some would perceive it to be…
Unless, someone can show without a doubt that no descendents of the Kushites remain on the face of the earth, it is safe to conclude that their descendants still live in the region. If not, where would they have gone? However, if the descendants are in the region, various words from old Kushitic languages would have been carried on through the generations, notwithstanding external forces and interruptions brought to bear on the descendant communities. On that note, from Claude Rilly, courtesy of ARKAMANI Sudan Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology; An Arabic/English Review on Archaeological and Anthropological Research in the Sudan:
Meroitic was the language of the successive kingdoms of Kush. It was not written before the last stage of the civilization of Kush, the so-called « Kingdom of Meroe ». However, there is evidence for a much earlier date for the appearance of this language (Rilly, 8th Nilo-Saharan Conference, Hamburg, 2001), although it was not yet written with a script of its own. A list of Proto-Meroitic names of persons, obviously important figures of the first Kushite state, the Kingdom of Kerma, appears in an Egyptian papyrus from the sixteenth century BC.[I assume the one provided below]
According to the most recent archaeological work carried out by the University of Geneva, Kerma was founded around 2400 years BC and did not undergo any dramatic ethnic or cultural changes until its final stage. So the origin of Meroitic can now be placed very probably around this date or even a little earlier. [dates provided are of course, quite debatable, and not up to date]
MEROITIC : CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE Meroitic is yet for the greatest part untranslatable. Of course, the words can be read since the script was deciphered in 1911 by the British egyptologist F. Ll. Griffith. But the very meaning of these words was nearly unknown. Apart from some names of places, kings and gods, and a few Egyptian loanwords, no more than three dozens of indigenous words could be translated with certainty.
The main problem with unknown ancient languages is to find related languages, ancient or modern, which are known. If an unknown language cannot be linked with any known language, and if there are no extensive bilingual texts, translation is probably impossible. A sad example is Etruscan, which still resists translation in spite of three centuries of hard work with various methods.
It is impossible to prove a genetic relation between given languages if only a few basic words are available, as was the case until recently.
Moreover, in the list of the allegedly translated Meroitic words, some were actually wrong. In 1964, Bruce Trigger tried to prove that Meroitic was a Nilo-Saharan - and more specifically an Eastern Sudanic - language. He used a list of Meroitic words compared with Nubian and Nara, a language from Eritrea. But the list was still very scanty, and half the words he used, taken from Zyhlarz's articles, were erroneously translated - or simply did not exist at all. Although he was right in his conclusion, he was wrong in the way he reached them. So the question of the linguistic position of Meroitic remained open after his paper.
The only basic Meroitic words for which a solid translation had been given by Griffith and his successors are the following : man / woman / meat / bread / water / give / big / abundant / good / sister / brother / wife / mother / child / begotten / born / feet.
The methods to increase the number of translated words cannot be fully explained in details here. To make a long story short, I would say that it is a « multicontextual approach ». The archaeological and the iconographical context can be very helpful, since very often, the short texts are the description with words of a painted or engraved image.
Graffito from Musawwarat (REM 1165) Wle qo phn 3 tlt Netror-se-l-o « this dog was bought (???) three talents, it is Netarura's ».
Typological similarity between Egyptian texts and their Meroitic counterparts can also be useful. Of course, the elements of the texts that are known, for example names of persons and gods, can help towards clarifying the grammatical nature and the semantic field of the unknown words. Most of the time, all these elements are insufficient. But in a few cases, a meaning can be suggested for new words and be confirmed in various inscriptions. Although very slow, this approach recently provided new translations. A set of thirtynine purely Meroitic basic words was finally produced, not including of course too specific words such as « prince » or « great priest », which are useless for comparative purpose.
SOME RECENTLY TRANSLATED MEROITIC WORDS arohe- «protect» hr- «eat», pwrite «life», yer «milk» ar «boy», are- or dm- «take, receive», dime «cow», hlbi «bull», ns(e) «sacrifice>>, sdk «journey», tke- «love, revere», We «dog»
The second stage of the work was to reconsider the relation of Meroitic with NiloSaharan and possibly to spot inside this phylum a specific family where Meroitic could belong. Previous works, including mine, had shown that a link with other phylums like Niger-Congo or Afro-Asiatic was unlikely. For this purpose, lexicostatistical methods were used (see below). The most convincing similarities are with Eastern Sudanic, and more specifically with the northern branch including Nubian, Nara, Taman and Nyima. The best result is obtained with Midob (a member of the Nubian group), thanks to Roland Werner's excellent description of this language. The scores of Taman, Nara and Nyima could be higher if there were extensive lexical data available, but unfortunately, only short wordlists have so far been published.
But at this stage of the work, two main obstacles were encountered. First, the distinction between the Northern and the Southern branches of Eastern Sudanic had to be firmly established. Obviously, the scores of some Southern languages like Surmic or Nilotic in the lexicostatistical comparison with Meroitic are high. This distinction between both branches was first suggested by Bender in 1991, but on morphological, not lexical, bases. This obstacle is rather easy to overcome: a series of basic words such as « drink », « mouth », « burn », « tooth », « hand », « louse » etc., shows close connections inside the northern branch, but nothing else than scattered similarities with the Southern one. One can even wonder if it would not be relevant to consider North Eastern Sudanic as a single family within Eastern Sudanic, at the same level as Surmic, Nilotic, Daju or Temein.
The second problem was more difficult to solve. Lexicostatistics are a good method to identify a linguistic family for a language whose genetic nature is unknown. But this approach does not provide definite evidence. The one and only way to get it for sure is the classical comparative method as illustrated by Meillet for the Indo-European family, by Guthrie for Proto-Bantu, etc. So it was necessary, first to find regular phonetic correspondences between North Eastern Sudanic languages, second to reconstruct the original phonology of Proto-North Eastern Sudanic, third to reconstruct, as much as possible, some Proto-North Eastern Sudanic words, and finally to compare these proto-forms with Meroitic words. The task is not easy because extensive data are missing for a majority of the dialects and even for some languages like Afitti or Tama.
Finally, close connections were found between some Meroitic words and their ProtoNorth Eastern Sudanic counterparts (see table). Some regular phonetic correspondences are obvious. For instance, where Proto-North Eastern Sudanic had /g/ in initial position, it became in Meroitic the velar fricative /h/ or /h/: the example displayed in the table below is « meal » or « food », but there are other instances. Most of the time, the correspondences are simple : initial /k/ in Proto-North Eastern Sudanic is preserved everywhere except in Nyima, where it often turns into dental /t /. There are sometimes very impressive sets like the words for « take, receive », « woman », « slaughter » and particularly the name of the supreme god (Meroitic Apede-mk : « the God Apede »), [ba detail which indicates that the speakers of Proto-North Eastern Sudanic formed not only a linguistic, but also a cultural community…
Other correspondences are less obvious. For example, original /g/ in internal position, if in contact with a labiovelar vowel [o] or [u], becomes /b/ in Meroitic. This phenomenon is known in other linguistic families, for instance Celtic among the Indo-European phylum (cf. Greek gune « woman )) vs Gaulish bena). Moreover, initial dental consonant /d/ becomes often the liquid /V in Meroitic. This change is also common in other languages, opposing for example the English word tongue (where /t / < /d n and its Latin counterpart lingua. According to both these phonetic rules, the Meroitic article -l pronounced /la/, plural -leb, pronounced /laba/, and Nara demonstrative te, plural tegu, are related, both issuing from Proto-North Eastern Sudanic *de, plural *degu. So the correspondences between Meroitic and living North Eastern Sudanic languages can be found not only in lexical items, but also in morphological elements.
In spite of the scanty available data, the result is obvious : Meroitic is more than probably a member of the North Eastern Sudanic family.
Moreover, the map of these languages [see above] shows an interesting feature. Nowadays, these languages are scattered from Chad to Eritrea, but in the past, there was a link between their present situations : the Wadi Howar, an ancient river, now dried up, once an important tributary of the Nile. In the fourth millenary BC, all the region around this river was still a green country convenient for cattle-breeding. But around this time, this part of the Sahara became arid. Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory.
The Taman group went East, towards the springs of the river, to the place where they still live today. Another refugee group, the ancestors of Nubian and Nyima speakers, went South to Kordofan, where they still live today. Later on, in the first centuries AD, Nubian groups invaded the dying Kingdom of Meroe and founded their own kingdoms along the Nile. As for Nara people, I think they first went to the Nile, like the future Meroites, and later went up the Nile and the Atbara toward Eritrea, where they live nowadays.
Now that we’ve seen one viewpoint, what about the arguments for the “language isolate”, or perhaps that which is supposedly not related to those spoken in the region?
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hi Literacy in the Napatan and Meroitic Civilizations
Ancient Kush extended across a large part of the Sudan. In this vast region encompassing the Napatan and Meroitic civilizations there were many different nationalities, that spoke a myriad of languages.
Due to the ethnic diversity of the Napatans, it is clear that at least from the Napatan period of Kush the rulers of the empire had decided that no single language spoken in the empire would be used to record political, administrative and religious information. To maintain an equilibrium within and among the Napatan nationalities Egyptian was used as the lingua franca of the empire. The leaders of the Napatan empire probably used Egyptian because it was an international language, and few Kushites were of Egyptian ethnic origin.
Egyptian remained the lingua franca for the Kushites during the Napatan and early Meroitic periods in Kushite history. After the Assyrians defeated the Egyptians the ethnic composition of the Kushite empire began to change. As a result, many Egyptians began to migrate into Kushite, to avoid non-Egyptian rule.
Beginning with the Assyrian defeat of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty large number of nomadic people from the Middle East began to migrate into Egypt. These people began to take over many Egyptian settlements, while other Egyptians fled to Nubia and Kush to avoid non-Egyptian rule.
Other political and military conflicts after the Assyrians led many Egyptians to migrate out of Egypt into Nubia and Kush. Herodotus’ mentions the mutiny of Psamtik I’s frontier garrison at Elephantine—these deserters moved into Kush. Moreover, the archaizing trend in Kush among the post Twenty-Fifth Dynasty Kings testify to a possible large migration of Egyptians into Kush.
In 343 BC Nectanebos II, fled to Upper Egypt. Later according to the Natasen period stela we evidence of other Egyptians migrating into Kush from Egypt (Torok, 1997, p.391).
Between the 260’s-270’s BC Upper Egyptian Nationalists were fighting the Ptolemy (Greek) rulers of Egypt. The rebellion was put down by Ptolemy II. This military action led to Egyptians migrating out of Egypt into Kush (Torok, pp.395-396). These rebellions continued in Egypt into the 2nd Century BC (Torok, p.426).
Between Ptolomy II and Ptolemy V, the Greeks began to settle Egypt. This was especially true in the 150’sBC and led to many Egyptians migrating back into Egypt.
By the time the Romans entered Egypt, many Egyptians had already left Egypt and settled. Roman politics also forced many Egyptians to migrate into Kush. This was compounded by the introduction of the Pax Agusta policy of the Romans which sought the establishment of Roman hegemony within territories under Roman rule (Torok, 454-456). This led to the emigration of many Romans into Egypt.
The Kush was a multi-ethnic society. It included speakers of many languages within the empire. During most of Kushite history the elites used Egyptian for record keeping since it was recognized as a neutral language.
As more and more Egyptians, led by Egyptian nationalists, fled to Kush as it became under foreign domination the Egyptians formed a large minority in the Empire. Because of Egyptian migrations to Kush, by the rule of the Meroitic Queen Shanakdakheto, we find the Egyptian language abandoned as a medium of exchange in official records, and the Meroitic script takes its place.
By the rise of Greeks in Egypt, the cultural ideology , like the people were changing. This is supported by the transition from Demotic writing (7th 5th Centuries BC) to Coptic (4th BC-AD 1400). The Coptic people are the best evidence for the change in the Egyptian population.
After the Egyptians became a sizable minority in Kush, the Kushites abandoned Egyptian as a lingua franca. Egyptian was replaced by the Meroitic writing.
Due to the fact that Meroite leaders were trying maintain unity within the Meroitic Confederacy/Empire they did not record any ethnic lexical items in the Meroitic inscriptions , that I have read so far, except ethnonyms and toponyms.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
Recently Claude Rilly is being given credit for presenting a method to decipher Meroitic, I already deciphered Meroitic years ago. Rilly believes that he can decipher the Meroitic language language using the Proto-NorthEastern Sudanic, which he has reconstructed.
According to Rilly, since the people presently living in the Sudan today speak languages associated with the Nilo Saharan Superfamily of languages, the Meroites probably spoke a language associated with this family. This was a radical decision, because research has shown that none of the attested Meroitic terms accepted by mainstream scholars are related to any living language in the Sudan (there are some Meroitic terms borrowed from Egyptian).
Because there are no cognate Meroitic terms and lexical items in the Eastern Sudanic Languages, Rilly has begun to reconstruct Proto-Eastern Sudanic, and attempt to read Meroitic text using his Proto-Eastern Sudanic vocabulary. Even if I hadn’t deciphered the Meroitic writing this method would never lead to the decipherment of this or any other language.
First, it must be stated that no “dead “ language has been deciphered using a proto-language. These languages were deciphered using living languages, Coptic in the case of Egyptian, Oromo and (Ethiopian) Semitic was used to decipher the Mesopotamian Cuneiform scripts.
The basic problem with using a proto-language to read a dead language results from the fact that the proto-language has been reconstructed by linguist who have no knowledge or textual evidence of the alleged proto-language. Secondly, there are subgroups in any family of languages. This means that you must first establish the intermediate proto-language (IPL) of the subgroup languages in the target language family. Once the IPLs have been reconstructed, you can then reconstruct the superordinate proto-language (SPL). You can only reconstruct the SPL on the basis of attested languages. In addition, before you can reconstruct the IPLs and SPL a genetic relationship must be established for the languages within the Superfamily of languages, e.g., Nilo Saharan.
The problem with Rilly’s method, is there is no way he can really establish the IPLs in Eastern Sudanic because we have not textual evidence or lexical items spoken by people who lived in the Sudan in Meroitic times. As a result, the languages spoken by people in this area today may not reflect the linguistic geography of the Sudan in the Meroitic period. This is most evident when we look at modern Egypt. Today the dominant language is Arabic, and yet Arabic has no relationship to Egyptian. If we accept Rilly’s method for deciphering Egyptian we would assume that once me reconstructed proto-Semitic , we could read Egyptian—but as you know Egyptian is not a Semitic language.
Secondly, researchers have compared the “attested Meroitic” terms to all the Nilo-Saharan languages. The results were negative, they do not relate to any Eastern Sudanic language. If the lexical items attested in Meroitic are not cognate to Eastern Sudanic terms, there is no way to establish a genetic relationship between these languages. Absence of a genetic relationship means that we can not reconstruct the imagined IPLs of Meroitic sister languages, since these researchers failed to find a connection between Meroitic and the Eastern Sudanic. As a result, Rilly’s reconstructions of Nilo-Saharan can offer no insight into the language spoken by the Meroites.
My decipherment of Meroitic is based on the Kushana theory. The Kushana theory is that a group of “East Indian” scholars introduced the Meroitic writing system to the Meroites.
The Kushana hypothesis was based on the following evidence, 1) no African language has been found to be a cognate language of Meroitic 2) the Classical literature says that the Kushites lived in Asia and Africa; 3) the Gymnosophists, or "naked sages" of Meroe came from India.
Before I began work on Meroitic, other researchers had already falsified the African theory for Meroitic's cognate language. The fact that not even Nubian, a language spoken by a people who lived in the Meroitic empire, failed to be the cognate language of Meroitic made it clear that we must look elsewhere for the cognate language spoken by the Meroites. It also makes it impossible for us to accept Rilly’s contention that he can read Meroitic using Proto-Eastern Sudanic.
Flavius Philostratus, the writer of the Vita Apollonii, Vol. 1,cliamed that the Gymnosophists of Meroe originally came from India (see F.C. Conybeare, Philostratus:The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (p.45),1950). Given the fact that the Kushana had formerly ruled India around the time that the Meroitic writing was introduced to the Kushite civilization, led to the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Gymnosophist may have been Kushana philosophers.
The historical evidence of the Kushana having ruled India made the Classical references to Indians in Meroe, an important source for the construction of alternative theories about the possible location of the cognate language of Meroitic.
There is external evidence, which supports my theory. A theory explains observed phenomena and has predictive power. I have theorized that due to the claims of the Classical writers that some of the Meroites came from India (F.C Conybeare (Trans.), Philostratus: The life of Apollonius of Tyana Vol.2, (1950) pg.271). According to the Life of Apollonius, the Indian Meroites were formerly led by a King Ganges, who had "repulsed the Scythians who invaded this land [India from] across the Caucasus" (Conybeare, Vol.1, Pg.273). Pilostratus also made it clear that the Indians of Meroe came to this country after their king was killed.
The presence of this tradition of an Indian King of the Indian-Meroites conquering the Scythians predicts that the Indian literature should record this historical episode. This prediction is supported by a Jaina text called the Kalakeharya-Kathanaka, which reports that when the Scythians invaded Malwa, the King of Malwa, called Vikramaditya defeated the Scythians (H. Kulke & D. Rothermund, History of India (London, Routledge: 1990, pg.73). This king Vikramaditya may be the Ganges mentioned in the Life of Apollonius.Confirmation of the Ganges story, supports the Classical literary evidence that their were Indianized-Meroites that could have introduced the Tokharian trade language to the Meroites.
Moreover, there were other Indians in North Africa in addition to Kush/Meroe. For example, at Quseir al-Qadim there was a large Indian speaking community (see: R. Salomon, "Epigraphic remains of Indian traders in Egypt", Journal of the American oriental Society, (1991) pp.731-736; and R. Salomon, Addenda, Journal of the American Oriental Society, (1993) pg.593). These Indians were in Egypt writing messages in their own language, around the time we see a switch from Egyptian hieroglyphics to the Meroitic writing system.
The evidence that the Classical references to an Indian-Meroite King who conquered the Scythians is supported by the Indian literature, provides external corroboration of the tradition that some of the Meroites were of Indian origin. The presence of Indian traders and settlers in Meroe (and Egypt), makes it almost impossible to deny the possibility that Indians, familiar with the Tokharian trade language did not introduce this writing to the Meroites who needed a neutral language to unify the diverse ethnic groups who made up the Meroite state. In relation to the history of linguistic change and bilingualism, it is a mistake to believe that linguistic transfer had to take place for the Meroites to have used Tokharian, when it did not take place when they wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
In summary the classical literature makes it clear that there was a connection between the Gymnosophists (of Meroe) and the Indians. The fact that historical events mentioned in the classical sources are found in the Indian literature confirm the view that there were Indian-Meroites who could have introduced the Tokharian trade language to the Meroites.
The fact that the Nubians who were part of the "Meroitic state", used hieroglyphics and Coptic to write their language without abandoning their native language support the view that they could have also used Tokharian to write Meroitic. And that eventhough they wrote Meroitic inscriptions in Tokharian, they would not have had to abandon Nubian.
The evidence presented above provides internal and external validity for my theory based upon the sources I have cited previously. The sources I have used are impartial, to disconfirm my hypothesis someone needs to show that my propositions are not fully informed [i.e., there were no Indians North Africa and Kush when the Classical writers maintained they were] and present rival explanations based on the evidence. The fact that the claims made by the Classical writers is supported by the Indians themselves if further strong confirmation of the Kushana hypothesis.
The hypothesis based on the classical literature, was enough to support the original Kushana Hypothesis. The predicting power of the original theory, matches the observed natural phenomena which was confirmed elsewhere by cognate place names, ethononyms, lexical items and grammatical features, indicate that my theory has not be falsified.
The ability to reliably predict a linguistic relationship between Kushana and Meroitic, was further confirmation of the Kushana Hypothesis, because the linguistic connections were deducible from prediction.
I controlled the Kushana Hypothesis by comparing the statements of the classical writers, with historical, linguistic anthropological and toponymic evidence found not only in Africa, but also India and Central Asia [where the people also used Tokharian as a trade language to unify the various people in Central Asia]. I constructed five testable hypotheses in support of the Kushana theory, and it seems only fair that these five variables must be disconfirmed, to falsify the Kushana Hypothesis. Failure to disconfirm this theorem, implies validity of my prediction.
My confirmation of the above five variables: the presence of Kushites in Africa and Asia; the presence of Kushana sages in India who may have migrated to Meroe; cognate lexical items; cognate verbs and cognate grammatical features indicates systematic controlled, critical and empirical investigation of the question of Kushana representing the Meroitic cognate language.
You can read more about my decipherment of Meroitic in the following articles:
Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (Juin 1984b). "A Note on Tokharian and Meroitic", Meroitic Newsletter\Bulletin d"Information Meroitiques , No.23 , pages 18-21.
Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1989b). "Cheikh Anta Diop et le dechiffrement de l'ecriture meroitique",Cabet: Revue Martinique de Sciences Humaines et de Litterature 8, pp. 149-152.
Winters, Clyde Ahmad.(1998). Meroitic funerary Text. Part1, Inscription Journal of Ancient Egypt 1,(1), pp. 29-34.
Winters, Clyde Ahmad.(1998). Meroitic funerary Text. Part1, Inscription Journal of Ancient Egypt 1,(2), pp. 41-55.
Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1999). The inscriptions of Tanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V., pp.355-388.
My most recent article discussing Meroitic history and deciphering Meroitic documents titled the Meroitic Evidence for a Blemmy Empire in the Dodekaschoinos can be found at the following site: http://arkamani.org/meroitic_studies/Kalabsha.htm
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Linguistic Support of Extra-Nubian Origin of Meroitic
There are many mysteries concerning the Meroites of the Meroitic civilization of Nubia and the Sudan. This ancient civilization lasted for hundreds of years and has left us many wonderful monuments.
In addition to many grand monuments the Meroites left us a written language. Although scholars have been able to read the letters of this ancient Kushite writing for many years up to now the full meaning of the Meroitic texts had alluded us.
Today we can read the Meroitic text in their entirety using the cognate language for Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984,1989, 1996a, 1996b,1996c). Although linguist call this language Tokharian in Central Asia (Winters 1988b, 1991, 1996b).
The people of Meroe, the Kushites had their own alphabet of 23 signs. This was a wonderful improvement over hieroglyphic writing which was made up of numerous ideographic and phonetic signs. Prior to the introduction of Meroitic, the Meroites used Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Francis Llewellyn Griffith, an Egyptologist was able to decipher the Meroitic script over 60 years ago. Although Griffith deciphered Meroitic, we were unable to read this writing because we did not know the cognate language.
Using the comparative method I was able to discover that Tokharian is cognate to Meroitic. This led to the full decipherment of the Meroitic script. We can now read Meroitic using Tokharian ( Krause,1952 ; Windekens 1941, 1979).
Maurice Pope in THE STORY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL DECIPHERMENT , has made it clear that before an unknown language can be deciphered you must have the right theoretical structure to base your inquiry upon (p.191). Pope found that in the historical decipherments of ancient languages three preliminary conditions must be met:
1) confidence that a script can be deciphered;
2) location of proper names must be determined;
3) the grammatical rules of the target language/ script must be found (pp.186-187).
We were able to read Meroitic because these preliminary conditions were met, and we were able to develop new hypothesis based on historical evidence to determine the cognate language of Meroitic. Conditions number one and two were met by Griffith when he deciphered the Meroitic script in 1910, and his discovery of the proper names of the Meroitic gods and individuals in Meroitic text. Griffith also discovered the direction the Meroitic writing was written.
This recognition by Griffith of the solubility of the Meroitic text was reinforced in 1978, with publication of UNESCO's The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Decipherment of the Meroitic Script. This was an important publication because it provided researchers with up-to-date information on the status of Meroitic.
Condition number three for the decipherment of Meroitic was met in 1979 when Fritz Hintze published his Beitrage zur meroitischen Grammatik . The research of F. Hintze (1979) and I. Hoffmann (1981) have made it possible for us to find the cognate language of Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984 ,1989). The work of Griffith and Hintze fulfilled all the requirements for the decipherment of the Meroitic writing.
The classical literature supported the view that we might be able to find the Meroitic cognate language through a comparison of the Meroitic terms and Kushan lexical items. To test the Kushana hypothesis we had to then:
1) find agreement between Kushana and Meroitic terms;
2) compare Central Asian and Egypto-Sudanese toponomies;
3) compare Kushana and Meroitic grammatical forms.
In recent years researchers were able to develop a grammar of Meroitic, without being able to read Meroitic. The research of Hintze (1979) and Hoffman (1981) made it possible for us to find the cognate language of Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984 ,1989).
Hintze (1979) grammar of Meroitic provided the necessary material to compare Meroitic with other languages to find its cognate language. Hintze (1979) recognized three approaches to the study of Meroitic: 1) philological, 2) comparative, and 3) structural (i.e., the morphological-syntactical). The philolo-gical methods of Hintze (1979) was informed guesses based upon context.
In the comparative method the structures of two or more languages are compared to determine the relationship between languages. Hintze's (1979) discussion of the Meroitic affixes provided us with the linguistic material to compare Meroitic successfully with Tocharian. The comparative method is used by linguist to determine the relatedness of languages, and to reconstruct earlier language states.
The comparative linguist looks for patterns of correspondence, i.e., the isolation of words with common or similar meanings that have systematic consonantal agreement with little regard for location and/or type of vowel. Consonantal agreement is the regular appearance of consonants at certain locations in words having analogous meanings.
Using the comparative methods proposed by Hintze we have found that the Meroitic inscriptions are written in Tocharian, a language used as a lingua franca in Central Asia by the Kushana or Kush people. The Kushana people ruled Central Asia and India. Linguist prefer to call the Kushana language Tocharian, after the Sanskrit term for Kushana: Tu-kara.(Winters 1984, 1989, 1996a, 1996b).
There is structural, morphological and toponymic evidence which support the view that Tokharian is cognate to Meroitic (Winters 1984,1989). There are many Central Asian place names that agree with toponomies in Nubia/ Sudan. Below we list a few of these common toponomies: Central Asia……………….Sudan Pap………………………………………….Pap Karnak…………………………………Karnak Kukushka…………………………..Kurush Shaur ……………………………………Sarur Kandi………………………………………….Kandi Urban……………………………………….Borgan Khara ……………………………………….Kara- Kupuri………………………………………….Gabur, Capur
These placenames can be compared with the maps of Central Asia and the Sudan supplied published by Dr. Vamos-Toth Bator in his Tamana studies .
My decipherment of Meroitic indicates that many terms alleged to be Meroitic by Griffith and others must be discarded. I am forced to ignore the proposed meaning for some proposed Meroitic lexical items because they do not agree with my research into Meroitic. But I accept some of the alleged Meroitic terms as being verified by my decipherment both due to their Egyptian origin, or affinity to Tokharian terms.
It must be remembered that most of the alleged Meroitic lexical items were simply guesses by the researchers. These terms become valid only when they can be read in all the Meroitic text and have consistent meaning. I found that some of these terms are homonyms, while other terms "discovered " by Griffith and others were good guesses that do not prove valid given our discovery of the cognate language of Meroitic.
There are several recognized Meroitic words (Hintze 1979). The following words correspond to Tokharian words: Meroitic Tokharian
Ø kadke / ktke # queen……………… Ø katak # master of the house Ø ato # water ……………………………………… Ø ap # Ø s # 'race'……………………………………………………… Ø sah # 'man' Ø wide # youth ……………………………………………… Ø wir # Ø qor # monarch ……………………………………………. Ø oroce # 'the grand king' Ø parite # agent……………………………………………… Ø parwe # 'first' Ø apote # 'envoy'………………………………………………..Ø ap # 'father'
It is obvious that apote and parite do not relate to Tokharian because these are Egyptian loan words adopted by the Meroites. But around 57% of these terms show agreement. This made it highly probable that Meroitic and Tokharian were cognate languages.
The grammar of Meroitic determined by Hintze (1979) allowed us to also make comparisons with Tocharian to test the Kushana hypothesis for reading Meroitic. This comparison of grammatical structures showed cognition between this language and Meroitic. Hintze was sure that there were a number of Meroitic affixes including:
p
ye
-te
-to
-o
B.G. Trigger in his "Commentary" (Hintze 1979) mentioned several other possible Meroitic affixes including:
-n
-te
-b
In addition , A. M. Abdalla in his "Commentary" (Hintze 1979) mentioned three possible verbal suffixes , including:
-ñ
-t
-y
These alleged Meroitic grammatical elements encouraged me to seek out a language that contained these typological features as the possible cognate language for Meroitic. The Kushana language includes all of these affixes.
Researchers working on Meroitic determined several possible prefixes: p, p-s and y. In Tokharian we find these prefixes: p(ä), the imperfect prefix and imperative, y- the Tokharian element joined to demonstratives, and yopsa ‘in between’.
There are other affixes that relate to the Meroitic suffixes including –te, the demonstrative ‘this, etc.’; -o, the suffix used to change nouns into adjectives. For example: aiśamñe ‘knowledge’, asimo ‘knowing; klyomñ ’nobility’, klyomo ‘noble’.
Other Tokharian affixes which agree with Meroitic include –te and -l. The Tokharian locative suffix is –te. The ending particle in Tokharian is –l.
The Meroitic –t, corresponds to the –t ‘you’. In Tokharian the pronouns are placed at the end of words: nas-a-m ‘I am’, träkä-s ‘he says’, träkä-t ‘you say’.The –t element in Tokharian can also be used to represent the third person singular e.g., kälpa-t ‘he found’.
The p-, element used to form the imperative in Tokharian and imperfect . This affix is used in both Tokharian A and B. For example,
Tokh.A klyos "to hear, to listen"
p(a)klyos "You listen"
p(a)klyossu "s/he listens"
Tokh. B klyaus
p(a)klyaus 'you listen"
A. ta, tas, "to lay, to put"
ptas 'you lay'
B. tes, tas 'to put, to lay'
ptes 'you put'
The Tokharian -n-, has many uses in Tokharian. It can be used to form the subjuntive, e.g., yam 'to do', yaman 's/he do(es). It is also used to form the plural se 'son', pl. sewan 'sons; ri 'city', pl. rin 'cities'.
The plural in Tokharian is formed by the –ñ. For example, are ‘plough’, pl. areñ ‘ploughs’ ri ‘city’ , pl. riñ ‘cities.
Recognition of analogous structural elements in relation to Kushana and Meroitic allowed us to divide the Meroitic phonemes into words.
Griffith provided us with evidenec for selected Meroitic nouns. Abdalla (Hintze 1979, 149) was sure that he detected several common verbs in Meroitic including: hr, the, tk, we, pl,
do, mde and yi mde.
Following this lead we searched the Kushan language to determine if it possessed any verbs that might match the proposed hypothetical verbs of Abdalla. A comparison of Kushan and Meroitic proved to be successful. We now know that he was absolutely right about his interpretation of possible Meroitic verbs. Below is the interpretation of these Meroitic verbs:
hr , to have dignity
the , suggested posssible to move
tk , to set in motion, to investigate
w-e , to give escort
pl , to boast, to praise
m-de , measure the offering
y i m-de go make (full) measure of the offering
Recognition of these Meroitic terms as verbs gave us any more confirmation that Kushana was probably the Meroitic cognate language. This discovery of Meroitic verbs and nouns, and cognate toponomies in Central Asia and Upper-Nubia-Sudan proved that Meroitic could be read using Kushana lexical items.
The discovery that Tokharian is cognate to Meroitic has led to the full decipherment of the Meroitic script. We can now translate Meroitic using Tokharian. This allows us to obtain new information about the Meroitic civilization.
My research into Kushana or Tokharian has led me to recognize that this language was probably used as a lingua franca or trade language in Central Asia by the diverse peoples living there in an intense bilingual environment (Winters 1996a, 1996b).
C. A. Winters (1991) has illustrated how the Greek and Slavic terms in Tokharian were loanwords, absorbed by Tokharian after the Greek conquest of Bactria. This borrowing pattern was consistent with the spread of the Greek language into Bactria by a small elite group of warriors. The classical and Egyptian sources make it clear that Upper Nubia and the Sudan was inhabited by numerous tribes. The possible early use of Kushan\Tokharian as a trade language made it an ideal candidate for use by the Meroitic elites who ruled an empire that was made up of many diverse ethnic groups as the language for literate Meroites
REFERENCES Abdalla, A.M. 1994. Personal Descriptions in Meroitic Funerary inscriptions. In Hommages a Jean Leclant, (ed.) by C. Berger, G. Clerc & N. Grimal, (Institute Francais d'Archeologie Orientale: Bibliotheque d' Etudes 106/2) pp.1-15.
Abdalla, A.M. 1978. The Meroitic Civilization:Its Mediterranean Contacts and Africaness. In Afrique Noire et monde mediterranean dans L'Antiquité Colloque de Dakar. (Dakar: Université de Senegal) 89-114.
Adams, W.Y. 1977. Nubia:Corridor to Africa. London: Penguin Ltd.
Adams, W.Y. 1975. "Meroitic North and South". Meroitica 2,Berlin :Akademie-Verlag.
Arkell, A.J. 1961. A History of the Sudan from earliest times to 1821. London: University of London Press.
Bakr, M. 1964. Drei Meroitische opfertafeln aus Qustul, Kush,12 , 293-296.
Bakr, M. 1966. Meroitische inschriften aus der umgebung von Aniba, Kush, 14, 336-346.
Arkell,A.J.1955. Chapman,S. & Dunham,D. 1952. Decorated chapels of the Meroitic pyramids at Meroe and Barkel. Boston: University Museum.
Dafa'alla, S.B. 1993. Art and Industry:The achievement of Meroe. Expedition, 35 (2), 15-27.
Dunham,D. 1963. Royal Cemeteries of Kush. 4 Volumes. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press.
Garstang,J., Sayce, A.H. & Griffith, F. Ll. 1911. Meroe: The City of the Ethiopians. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Griffith, F.Ll. 1909. Meroitic inscriptions. In Areika, (ed) by MacIver, D.R. & Woolley, C.L. Vol.1. Philadelphia.
Griffith, F.L.1911a. Karanog. The Meroitic Inscriptions of Shablul and Karanog. Philadelphia: Eckley B. Coxe Jr Expedition to Nubia. Vol.VI.
Griffith, F. Ll. 1911b. Meroitic Inscriptions: Part I. London: The Offices of the Egypt Exploration Fund.
Griffith, F. Ll. 1912. Meroitic Inscriptions: Part II. London: The Offices of the Egypt Exploration Fund.
Hakem,A.M.A. 1981. The civilization of Napata and Meroe. In General History of Africa, (London: Heinemann) 278-297.
Hakem, A.M.A. 1988. Meroitic Architecture. Khartoum: University of Khartoum.
Haycock, B.G. 1978. "The Problem of the Meroitic Language",Occasional Papers in Linguistics and Language Learning, no.5: 50-81.
Haynes, J.L. 1992. Nubia:Ancient Kingdoms of Africa. Boston:Museum of Fine Arts.
Hinkel, F.W. 1994. Les pyramides de méroé. Les Dossiers D'Archeologie, no. 196, 60-63.
Hintze, F. 1959. Studien zur Meroitischen chronologie und zu den opfertafeln aus den pyramides von Meroe. Berlin: Akadamie-Verlag.
Hintze, F. 1962. Die inschriften,des lowentempel von Mussawwarat es Sufra. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Hintze, F. 1971. Mussawwarat es Sufra. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Hintze, F. (1974). "Some problems of Meroitic philology". In Studies in Ancient Langugaes of the Sudan, (ed.) by A.M. Abdalla, (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press) pp. 73-78.
Hintze,F. 1978. The Meroitic Period. In Africa in Antiquity: The Arts of Ancient Nubia and the Sudan Vol.I. (Brooklyn, N. Y. : Brooklyn Museum) 89-105.
Hintze, F. 1979. "Beltrage zur Meroitishen Grammatik",Meroitica 3, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Hoffmann, I 1991. Steine fur die ewigkeit meroitische opferlafeln und totenstelen. Beitrage zur Sudanforschung Beiheft, 6. Wien: Modling.
Hoffmann, I. 1981. Material fur eine Meroitische Grammatik.Veroffenthchungen der Institute fur Afrikanistik und Agyptologie der Universitat Wien, No. 16. Wien.
Hummel, S. 1992. Die Meroitische Sprache und das protoaltaische Spachsubstrat als Medium zu ihrer Deutung. Febri Verlag.Karanog, Wealthy Capital of a Lower Nubian Province . 1993.Expedition, 35(2), 62-63.
Kendal, T. 1982. Kush:Lost Kingdom of the Nile. Boston,Mass :Brockton Art Museum.
Kormysheva,E. 1990. Egyptian religion in Nubia: Some considerations. Etudes Nubiennes, Vol. II. 187-191.
Leclant,J. 1981. The Empire of Kush: Napata and Meroe. In General History of Africa II, G. Mokhtar (Ed.), (Heinemann:University of California Press) 298-325.
Lepsius, C.R. 1897-1913. Denkmäleraus Aegypten und Aethiopien. Leipzig. 5 Volumes.
Lewczuk, J. 1990. Studies on the decoration of the West walls of the chapels at the pyramids in Meroe and Barkal. In Etudes Nubiennes ,Vol. IV, Ch. Bonnet (ed.). (Conference de Geneve Actes der V111e Congress International. Marquette: J. G. Ceconi) 157-158.
MacAdam,M.F.L. 1949. The Temples of Kawa I. The Inscriptions. London: Oxford University Press.
MacAdam,M.F.L. 1950. Four Meroitic inscriptions, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 36, 42-46.
MacIver, D.R. and Wooley, C.L. 1909. Areika. Philadelphia University Museum. Philadelphia.
Millet, N.B. 1974. Writing and literacy in the ancient Sudan. In Studies in ancient Languages of the Sudan, (ed.) by A. M. Abdalla ,(Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1974) pp.49-57.
O'Connor, D. 1993. Ancient Nubia:Egypt's Rival in Africa. Philadelphia: The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.
Pope, M. 1975. The Story of Archaeological Decipherment, New York Charles Scribner & Sons.
Reisner,A. 1922. Historical Inscriptions from Gebel Barkal, Sudan Notes and Records , 4(2), pp.59-71.
Shinnie, P.L.1967. Meroe:A Civilization of the Sudan. London: Thames & Hudson.
Taylor,J.H. 1991. Egypt and Nubia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Torok, L. 1990. Ambulatory Kingship and settlement history: a study on the contribution of archaeology to Meroitic history. Etudes Nubiennes, Vol.I, 11-126.
Torok, L. 1984. Meroitic Religion: Three Contributions in a Positivistic Manner", Meroitica 7,8, pp.156-182.
Trigger, B.G. 1970. The Meroitic Funerary Inscriptions from Armina West. New Haven, Philadelphia.
UNESCO. 1978. The peopling of ancient Egypt and the Decipherment of Meroitic Script. Paris: Unesco.
Villard, Ugo Monneret de.1960. Incrizioni della Regione di Meroe.Kush, 8, 93-113.
__________________.1959. Testi Meroitica della Nubia Settentrionale, Kush 7, 88-124.
Vychile, W. 1957. Le pays de kousch dans une inscription Ethiopiénne. Annales d'Ethiopie, 2, 177-179.
Williams, B.B. 1987. Meroitic Remains from Qustul cemetery Q Ballana Cemetery B, and A Ballana Settlement. Chicago,Il.:The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Windekens van, A.J. 1941. Lexique etymologique des dialectes. Louvain.
------------------.1979. Le Tokhrien confronte avec les autre Langues Indo-Europeenes. 2 vols. Louvain.
Winters, A.A. 1984. "A note on Tokharian and Meroitic".Meroitic Newsletter, no. 23: 18-21.
____________.1988. "The Dravidian and Manding substratum in Tokharian". Central Asiatic Journal, 32 (1-2): 131-141.
------------.1989. "Chiekh Anta Diop at le Dechiffrement de l'ecriture Meroitique", Revue Martiniguaise de Sciences Humaines et de Litterature, no.8: 149-153.
------------.1990. "The Dravido-Harappan Colonization of Central Asia". Central Asiatic Journal, 34 (1-2):120-144.
-----------.1991. "Linguistic Evidence for Dravidian influence on Trade and Animal Domestication in Central and East Asia", International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 20 (2): 91-102.
____________.1999a. The inscription of Tanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V.
_____________.(nd). The Meroitic Chamber Inscription. Nubica IV und Nubica V.
____________. n.d. Meroitic Inscriptions from Karanog. forth- coming Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities.
Below I will state the Tokharian grammatical features which are analogous to Meroitic grammatical features deduced by Trigger, Abdulla and Hintze. See: Hintze, F. 1979. "Beltrage zur Meroitishen Grammatik",Meroitica 3, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. The Tokharian examples come from: Wolfgang Krause, Westtocharische Grammatik 1, Das Verbun. Heidelberg, 1952; Windekens van, A.J. 1941. Lexique etymologique des dialects( Louvain);Windekens van,A. J.1979. Le Tokhrien confronte avec les autre Langues Indo-Europeenes (2 vols. Louvain).
Hintze (1979) grammar of Meroitic provided the necessary material to compare Meroitic with other languages to find its cognate language. Hintze (1979) recognized three approaches to the study of Meroitic: 1) philological, 2) comparative, and 3) structural (i.e., the morphological-syntactical). The philological methods of Hintze (1979) was informed guesses based upon context.
The grammar of Meroitic determined by Hintze (1979) allowed us to also make comparisons with Tokharian to test the Kushana hypothesis for reading Meroitic. This comparison of grammatical structures showed cognition between this language and Meroitic. Hintze was sure that there were a number of Meroitic affixes including:
P
ye
-te
-to
-o
B.G. Trigger in his "Commentary" (Hintze 1979) mentioned several other possible Meroitic affixes including:
-n
-te
-b
In addition , A. M. Abdalla in his "Commentary" (Hintze 1979) mentioned three possible verbal suffixes , including:
-ñ
-t
-y
These alleged Meroitic grammatical elements encouraged me to seek out a language that contained these typological features as the possible cognate language for Meroitic. The Kushana language includes all of these affixes.
As noted above researchers working on Meroitic determined several possible prefixes: p, p-s and y. In Tokharian we find these prefixes: p(ä), the imperfect prefix and imperative, y- the Tokharian element joined to demonstratives, and yopsa ‘in between’.
There are other affixes that relate to the Meroitic suffixes including –te, the demonstrative ‘this, etc.’; -o, the suffix used to change nouns into adjectives. For example: aiśamñe ‘knowledge’, asim-o ‘knowing; klyomñ ’nobility’, klyom-o ‘noble’.
Other Tokharian affixes which agree with Meroitic, –te and -l. The Tokharian locative suffix is –te. The ending particle in Tokharian is –l.
The Meroitic –t, corresponds to the –t ‘you’. In Tokharian the pronouns are placed at the end of words: nas-a-m ‘I am’, träkä-s ‘he says’, träkä-t ‘you say’.The –t element in Tokharian can also be used to represent the third person singular e.g., kälpa-t ‘he found’.
The p-, element used to form the imperative in Tokharian and imperfect . This affix is used in both Tokharian A and B. For example,
Tokh.A klyos "to hear, to listen"
p(a)klyos "You listen"
p(a)klyossu "s/he listens"
Tokh. B klyaus
p(a)klyaus 'you listen"
A. ta, tas, "to lay, to put"
ptas 'you lay'
B. tes, tas 'to put, to lay'
ptes 'you put'
The Tokharian -n-, has many uses in Tokharian. It can be used to form the subjunctive, e.g., yam 'to do', yaman 's/he do(es).
The discovery that Tokharian is the cognate language of Meroitic allows us to give meaning to the numerous Meroitic words. This makes it possible for us to make detailed translations of the Meroitic funerary text.
We can also illuminate more clearly the syntax of the Meroitic language. The construction of Meroitic sentences is made up of several constituent parts. this has led to Meroitic sentences showing either a subject (S), verb (V) , object (O) pattern, or the SOV sentence pattern.
The immediate constituent parts or pattern of Meroitic sentence vary from one period of the language to the next. In the archaic Meroitic sentences the constituent parts are S---> NP VP Aux NP , as illustrated below by the sentence found on a bronze plaque made in the form of a trussed prisoner from Gebel Barkal, Great Temple of Aman:
No b lo e Neqe
lit."Now captured alone completely at the present time".
"Now (he is captured and completely alone at the present time."
The popular sentence pattern in late Meroitic inscriptions on the otherhand is S---> VP NP or S---> VP NP VP.
The favorite Meroitic sentence pattern in archaic Meroitic is the SVO type. In the SVO sentence the subject proceeds the verb. For example:
Transliteration 1. Tnidmni w-t el h-t e.
2. N e hi.
Translation
1."Tanyidamani , you guide the gift of your almsgiving. Give (alms now!).
2. "Give Good (to) the body".
In archaic Meroitic the addition of the Meroitic pronoun, gives the Meroitic sentence a VSO pattern. For example:
Transliteration
1. tel-n e k-i.
2. aki-n e-a.
3. Leb-ne-a sh d o s ne te.
Translation
1."He sustains completely new vigor". (lit. Supports he completely revitalization".) 2."He is completely learned". (lit. "Learned he completely".) 3. "His restoration of the bequeathal of the spirit body, commences to prop up good--May (it go forth).
The favorite sentence pattern in late Meroitic is VSO. In Meroitic we also find a VSO sentence pattern. For example:
w to si
lit. to guide you satisfaction "You guide (me) to satisfaction".
Terike lo wi-ne s
lit. Fashion dispatch the Awe patron. "Fashion (and) dispatch the Awe of the Patron".
Ar o b e l-ne
lit. Produce commence Ba give life. "Commence to produce the Ba (and) give (it) life".
K b h ine qo l-ne
lit. Give permission Ba Kha the Way renewal living.
"Give permission for the Ba and Kha (to form) the living renewal".
Tm de lo wite me-y
lit. "To bear indeed solitary delight without measure".
In the Meroitic sentence the pronoun is usually suffixed to nouns and verbs. For example -n, -ne 'he, his':
1. tel -n
support he , "he supports".
2. eb- ne
restoration his, "his restoration".
We can also discuss the Meroitic sentence pattern based on its case grammar. The case grammar includes the following categories: Agentive (A; animate objects) ,Instrumental (I, inanimate actor involved in action), Dative (D, animate being influenced by action) , Locative (L, location of action) and Objective (O, items influenced by the action).
The case grammar of Meroitic shows the VALO and AIOD patterns . For example:
VALO Type: Qe-n-n ye-ne
lit. "Make she will the voyage" "She will make the Voyage".
AIOD Type: Paqar l-ne e d lo wi-ne
lit. Crown prince living give bequest lonely object of Respect'.
"The Living Crown Prince gives the bequest of the lonely Object of Respect (i.e., the deceased)".
1.5.We also find the Meroitic second person suffix -te 'you,thou', e.g., ene 'command', ene-te 'thou command'; ene-te od he " command thou the beginning of the he's bequeathal".
1.6.In addition to the use of -n , to denote the third person singular in Meroitic we also have -t 'him, her, he , she' , e.g., li-ne ' to transmit', li-ne-t 'transmit her....'
1.7.The -a suffix is also used to denote the third person singular suffix. For example:
sh 'spirit body'; a sh 'his spirit body'
s-ne 'new vivification'; a s-ne 'his new vivification'
tom 'to bear'; a tom 'he bears
r h i de-b 'indeed go boon (to seek) much almsgiving'
r-a h i de-b 'His boon indeed go(es) (to seek) much almsgiving.'
1.8. Sometimes the pronoun can be used as a prefix. This is especially true of the third person singular suffixes when joined to verbs. For example:
i 'go' t-i 'he go(es)'
be to encounter a-be 'he encounters'
1.9. The pronoun is also suffixed in other African languages. This suffix of the third person singular is usually n-, in other African languages. For example:
Bambara: no p r i 'his house'
Kpelle: nyin 'his tooth'
Akan: ni dan 'his house'
1.10. The a- third person singular affix is also found in other African languages. For example:
Swahili: (1) a-ta kwenda 'he's going to go'
……………………..(2) a-li-kwenda 'he is here'
Manding: (1) ya zo 'he has come'
………………………(2) ya shirya mana 'he prepared (it) for us'.
1.11.The particle -n, has multiple uses in Meroitic. In Meroitic the third person singular suffix -n-, is usually joined to verbs e.g., qo 'to make', qo-n 'she makes'. The n- particle when used as a prefix is used to form the subjunctive mood, it is also joined to nouns e.g, Qo-n n-ye-ne te dh lo wi-ne "She is to make the voyage, here accept the solitary Object of Respect".
1.12. Another common Meroitic feminine suffix -i , and -ine . This -ine , is usually formed by the Meroitic /i/ separator sign ( , which should be read -ne . For example, ene-i o d he 'she commands the beginning of the bequeathal'. The -ine suffix is joined to Meroitic words to indicate feminine in the case of verbs, just like -i, e.g., yerk 'give veneration', yerk-ine 'give her veneration'.
2. Locative
2.1. The locative affix was -t-, and -te. The locative affix can be placed at the beginning or end of a Meroitic phrase. For example:
(1) sb ne 'pile up good'
(2) sb ne-te 'Here pile up Good'
(1) ni 'shinning'
(2) ni-te 'here shinning'
(1) sl-ne mk 'much merit'
(2) sl-ne mk-t 'much merit here'.
3.Prefixes
3.1. Prefixes are rarely used in Meroitic. The most common prefixes include the prefix of reinforcement -p, the intensive prefix -a and the imperfect prefix -b. The p-, can be either the prefix of reinforcement e.g.,
s 'patron', p-s 'the patron' ; or the imperfect prefix e.g.,
sin 'satisfaction',
p-sin "continuous satisfaction'.
The Meroitic p- affix, corresponds to the Egyptian demonstrative pi 'the'. Meroitic adjectives are usually formed by the -o suffix . The -o suffix is used to change a noun into a adjective. For example,
Ø qo # 'to act'…………………qo-o 'acting';
Ø hs # 'know, understand', hs-o 'understanding';
Ø w # 'to guide', w-o 'guiding'
Ø hr # 'dignity' , hr 'reputable'
Ø od # 'admiration' od-o 'admirable'.
6.3. In some African languages we find a similar use of a consonant + u vowel to form adjectives. In Swahili, many adjectives are formed by the k- consonant plus the vowel -u : Ku. For example:
(1) imba 'sing' ; zuri 'fine'
Kuimba kuzuri 'Fine singing'
(2) -bivu 'ripe' Kuiva 'to ripen'
(3) -bovu 'rotten' Kuoza 'to rot'.
7.Suffix of Intensity
7.1. Meroitic's most interesting affix is the -y-. The -y- , is a prefix often joined to the vowels /i/ and /e/. As a suffix it is used to denote intensity e.g.,
Ø m / ma # 'to measure', me-y 'considerable measure'.
8. Preterit
8.1.In Meroitic the preterit is formed by the addition of the particle -a . This particle is suffixed to Meroitic words. For example,
Ø lo # 'to dispatch, to depart', lo-a dispatched'.
Na s do 'In truth the patron go(es) away';
Na s do-a ' In truth the patron (has) gone away'.
9.Plural
9.1. In Meroitic the plural case was made by the suffix -b, or reduplication. Reduplication was also used as a plural effect in Meroitic, e.g.,
d 'donations', d-d 'considerable donations'. Reduplication is also used in other African languages to express the idea of abundance and diversity. For example,
Swahili: Chungu kikavunjika vipande vipnade. "The cooking pot broke into pieces".
9.3.Researchers have long theorized that the Meroitic plural suffix was -b. Our decipherment of Meroitic supports this view for example:
m measure …………………. m-b considerable measure (of)
qo renewal…………………… qo-b considerable renewal
o open(s)……………………o-b opens much
wide delight…………………… wide-b much delight
de donations ………………..de-b abundant donations
9.4. The Meroitic use of the -b suffix to make the plural number, corresponds to the use of the -ba- affix in African languages. In the Bantu languages the plural is formed by the ba- affix. In the Manding group of languages we see use of the -ba suffix. In Manding, the -ba affix is joined to nouns to denote the idea of physical or moral greatness. For example:
(1) na-folo 'good, rich'
na-folo-ba 'great fortune'
(2) so-kalo 'piece'
so-kalo-ba 'considerable quarter of a village'.
This review of the Meroitic grammar make it clear that Meroitic is closely related to the Niger Congo family of languages. This is not too surprising because Homburger found that the mnade group of languages is closely related to Coptic and Welmers made it clear the the Niger Congo languages probably originated in Nubia.
We may conclude that the Meroitic language was used as a lingua franca to unite the Kushites and other nationalities that lived in the Meroitic Empire. Like Egyptian earlier, Meroitic provided the Meroites with a written script that allowed them to communicate effectively in a multi-ethnic society.
.........
Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
Ancient Kush extended across a large part of the Sudan. In this vast region encompassing the Napatan and Meroitic civilizations there were many different nationalities, that spoke a myriad of languages.
Due to the ethnic diversity of the Napatans, it is clear that at least from the Napatan period of Kush the rulers of the empire had decided that no single language spoken in the empire would be used to record political, administrative and religious information. To maintain an equilibrium within and among the Napatan nationalities Egyptian was used as the lingua franca of the empire. The leaders of the Napatan empire probably used Egyptian because it was an international language, and few Kushites were of Egyptian ethnic origin.
Do you think Meroitic/Kushitic as a language, itself had existed much earlier than the Kushitic rule in the 25th Dynasty, and prior to their adoption of Egyptian, so as to communicated with their northerly Nile Valley neighbors? Rilly seems to think so, and provides his indicators for this:
Meroitic was the language of the successive kingdoms of Kush. It was not written before the last stage of the civilization of Kush, the so-called « Kingdom of Meroe ». However, there is evidence for a much earlier date for the appearance of this language (Rilly, 8th Nilo-Saharan Conference, Hamburg, 2001), although it was not yet written with a script of its own. A list of Proto-Meroitic names of persons, obviously important figures of the first Kushite state, the Kingdom of Kerma, appears in an Egyptian papyrus from the sixteenth century BC. [I assume the one provided below]
According to the most recent archaeological work carried out by the University of Geneva, Kerma was founded around 2400 years BC and did not undergo any dramatic ethnic or cultural changes until its final stage. So the origin of Meroitic can now be placed very probably around this date or even a little earlier. [dates provided are of course, quite debatable, and not up to date]
quote:Clyde Winters: The Kush was a multi-ethnic society. It included speakers of many languages within the empire. During most of Kushite history the elites used Egyptian for record keeping since it was recognized as a neutral language.
…naturally for writing, since the Egyptians already had one in place, and had time and again focused their attention towards those southerly regions [designated as Nubia]. Its possible for Kushites to still speak their Meroitic/Kushitic tongue, and write it in Egyptian. Is it not? There seems to be archeological indicators for this, based on stelae inscriptions towards the end of the 25th dynasty, where “abnormal” heretic and what appears to be demotic characters have been observed. Interestingly Meroitic script seems to draw influence from these characters. It is safe to assume that experimentation towards the development of Meroitic script begins during this time.
quote:Clyde Winters: After the Egyptians became a sizable minority in Kush, the Kushites abandoned Egyptian as a lingua franca. Egyptian was replaced by the Meroitic writing.
Why? Why not stick with what is already available, and which, the Egyptian immigrants would have already been familiar with?
quote:Clyde Winters: Due to the fact that Meroite leaders were trying maintain unity within the Meroitic Confederacy/Empire they did not record any ethnic lexical items in the Meroitic inscriptions , that I have read so far, except ethnonyms and toponyms.
From Rilly, it appear that unity is what allowed for development of the a Kushitic cultural complex in the first place, and he presents how this could have happened :
Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory.
quote:Clyde Winters: Recently Claude Rilly is being given credit for presenting a method to decipher Meroitic, I already deciphered Meroitic years ago. Rilly believes that he can decipher the Meroitic language language using the Proto-NorthEastern Sudanic, which he has reconstructed.
Would make sense, since many of the languages now spoken in the region, seem to be related. Again, Rilly tells us how this could have came about:
Nowadays, these languages are scattered from Chad to Eritrea, but in the past, there was a link between their present situations : the Wadi Howar, an ancient river, now dried up, once an important tributary of the Nile.
quote:Clyde Winters: According to Rilly, since the people presently living in the Sudan today speak languages associated with the Nilo Saharan Superfamily of languages, the Meroites probably spoke a language associated with this family. This was a radical decision, because research has shown that none of the attested Meroitic terms accepted by mainstream scholars are related to any living language in the Sudan (there are some Meroitic terms borrowed from Egyptian).
Mr. Rilly’s answer to this was:
Moreover, in the list of the allegedly translated Meroitic words, some were actually wrong. In 1964, Bruce Trigger tried to prove that Meroitic was a Nilo-Saharan - and more specifically an Eastern Sudanic - language. He used a list of Meroitic words compared with Nubian and Nara, a language from Eritrea. But the list was still very scanty, and half the words he used, taken from Zyhlarz's articles, were erroneously translated - or simply did not exist at all. Although he was right in his conclusion, he was wrong in the way he reached them. So the question of the linguistic position of Meroitic remained open after his paper…
The methods to increase the number of translated words…To make a long story short, I would say that it is a « multicontextual approach ». The archaeological and the iconographical context can be very helpful, since very often, the short texts are the description with words of a painted or engraved image.
Typological similarity between Egyptian texts and their Meroitic counterparts can also be useful. Of course, the elements of the texts that are known, for example names of persons and gods, can help towards clarifying the grammatical nature and the semantic field of the unknown words. Most of the time, all these elements are insufficient. But in a few cases, a meaning can be suggested for new words and be confirmed in various inscriptions. Although very slow, this approach recently provided new translations. A set of thirtynine purely Meroitic basic words was finally produced, not including of course too specific words such as « prince » or « great priest », which are useless for comparative purpose.
quote:Clyde Winters: Because there are no cognate Meroitic terms and lexical items in the Eastern Sudanic Languages, Rilly has begun to reconstruct Proto-Eastern Sudanic..
Apparently Rilly disagrees with you on that issue:
So the correspondences between Meroitic and living North Eastern Sudanic languages can be found not only in lexical items, but also in morphological elements.
quote: Clyde Winters: First, it must be stated that no “dead “ language has been deciphered using a proto-language.
…a proto-language which was reconstructed by identifying the bridges between the languages actually now spoken in the region [meaning, living languages]:
first to find regular phonetic correspondences between North Eastern Sudanic languages, second to reconstruct the original phonology of Proto-North Eastern Sudanic, third to reconstruct, as much as possible, some Proto-North Eastern Sudanic words, and finally to compare these proto-forms with Meroitic words.
…after analyzing the variety of languages spoken in the region, and then identifying:
First, the distinction between the Northern and the Southern branches of Eastern Sudanic had to be firmly established. Obviously, the scores of some Southern languages like Surmic or Nilotic in the lexicostatistical comparison with Meroitic are high. This distinction between both branches was first suggested by Bender in 1991, but on morphological, not lexical, bases. This obstacle is rather easy to overcome: a series of basic words such as « drink », « mouth », « burn », « tooth », « hand », « louse » etc., shows close connections inside the northern branch, but nothing else than scattered similarities with the Southern one.
quote:Clyde Winters:
The problem with Rilly’s method, is there is no way he can really establish the IPLs in Eastern Sudanic because we have not textual evidence or lexical items spoken by people who lived in the Sudan in Meroitic times.
What do you think the Meroitic script was all about, to be followed by the likes of Old Nubian?
quote:Clyde Winters: This is most evident when we look at modern Egypt. Today the dominant language is Arabic, and yet Arabic has no relationship to Egyptian.
The Arabic spoken in contemporary Egypt is distinguished from its Gulf counterparts, precisely because some terms of Egyptic or Coptic were infused into the newly arrived language. Yet these words would be translated into Arabic, if the speaker choose to communicate them literally. Besides, these languages spoken in the northeast Sudan, are “native” indigenous languages, they aren’t foreign languages forced upon the natives. So your comparison here, to say the least, is awkward.
quote:Clyde Winters: If we accept Rilly’s method for deciphering Egyptian we would assume that once me reconstructed proto-Semitic , we could read Egyptian—but as you know Egyptian is not a Semitic language.
…you mean proto-Afrasan? How are linguists able to build relationships between members of these groups, without comparing possible genetic link and phonetic similarities within the groups, and also reconstructing possible proto-terms for them in the process? Besides, how are you able to decipher a “dead” language, if its descendants aren’t found in the region, but forcing you to go all the way to compare this “dead” language with another ancient “dead” language elsewhere, far off from where the living descendants of the Kushites live?
Secondly, researchers have compared the “attested Meroitic” terms to all the Nilo-Saharan languages. The results were negative, they do not relate to any Eastern Sudanic language.
I’ve already shown you that, Rilly disagrees with you on this, and why.
quote:Clyde Winters: If the lexical items attested in Meroitic are not cognate to Eastern Sudanic terms, there is no way to establish a genetic relationship between these languages. Absence of a genetic relationship means that we can not reconstruct the imagined IPLs of Meroitic sister languages, since these researchers failed to find a connection between Meroitic and the Eastern Sudanic.
Rilly:
lexicostatistical methods were used…Lexicostatistics are a good method to identify a linguistic family for a language whose genetic nature is unknown.
But this approach does not provide definite evidence. The one and only way to get it for sure is the classical comparative method as illustrated by Meillet for the Indo-European family, by Guthrie for Proto-Bantu, etc.
And again:
So it was necessary, first to find regular phonetic correspondences between North Eastern Sudanic languages, second to reconstruct the original phonology of Proto-North Eastern Sudanic, third to reconstruct, as much as possible, some Proto-North Eastern Sudanic words, and finally to compare these proto-forms with Meroitic words.
Which brings me to the question of, for a language “whose genetic nature is unknown”, how the hell you are able to determine that “genetic nature”, presumably from another ‘dead’ language, which has evaded so many linguist experts?
quote:Clyde Winters: My decipherment of Meroitic is based on the Kushana theory. The Kushana theory is that a group of “East Indian” scholars introduced the Meroitic writing system to the Meroites.
So I take it that “Kushanan” writing is just as deciphered as Meroitic.
quote:Clyde Winters: The Kushana hypothesis was based on the following evidence, 1) no African language has been found to be a cognate language of Meroitic 2) the Classical literature says that the Kushites lived in Asia and Africa; 3) the Gymnosophists, or "naked sages" of Meroe came from India.
What language have you proposed to be cognate to “Meroitic”, which by your definition, is tantamount to an non-African language, meaning that “Meroitic” and its script are foreign to Africa? When did this language arrive the Nile Valley, during pre-dynastic or dynastic times? Did the commoners then abandon their own native languages for this newly arrived language that early in history? Has the “dead” language brough by these foreigners to the Nile Valley been deciphered?
There where kingdoms called Kush in Africa and Asia, but these are two different cultures and people. Kushites did venture into Asia, for trade purposes, and in some cases, military assistance, but I don’t recall coming across any reputable source positing their settlement in those regions. Even if this were the case, how does this suppose that the Kushites living in their native African lands, just decided to abandon their native tongue?
quote:Clyde Winters:
Flavius Philostratus, the writer of the Vita Apollonii, Vol. 1,cliamed that the Gymnosophists of Meroe originally came from India (see F.C. Conybeare, Philostratus:The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (p.45),1950). Given the fact that the Kushana had formerly ruled India around the time that the Meroitic writing was introduced to the Kushite civilization, led to the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Gymnosophist may have been Kushana philosophers.
Where can I get my hands on the source that points out Meroitic script in India, which was then passed onto the Meroites/Kushites, interestingly exhibiting Egyptian hieratic and demotic influence?
quote:Clyde Winters: There is external evidence, which supports my theory. A theory explains observed phenomena and has predictive power. I have theorized that due to the claims of the Classical writers that some of the Meroites came from India (F.C Conybeare (Trans.), Philostratus: The life of Apollonius of Tyana Vol.2, (1950) pg.271). According to the Life of Apollonius, the Indian Meroites were formerly led by a King Ganges, who had "repulsed the Scythians who invaded this land [India from] across the Caucasus" (Conybeare, Vol.1, Pg.273). Pilostratus also made it clear that the Indians of Meroe came to this country after their king was killed.
…and what genetic legacy do you propose that these Indian Meroites had left on the Nile Valley landscape?
quote:Clyde Winters: Confirmation of the Ganges story, supports the Classical literary evidence that their were Indianized-Meroites that could have introduced the Tokharian trade language to the Meroites.
…so I take it that the “dead” Tokharian is also in the same status as the Meroitic script? Who are "all" the folks who used this trade language and script?
quote:Clyde Winters:
makes it almost impossible to deny the possibility that Indians, familiar with the Tokharian trade language did not introduce this writing to the Meroites who needed a neutral language to unify the diverse ethnic groups who made up the Meroite state.
…indeed, a “neutral” language, which seems to have adopted a script sporting certain influences from Egyptian hieroglyphics”, “hieratic” and “demotic” characters.
quote:Clyde Winters:
In relation to the history of linguistic change and bilingualism, it is a mistake to believe that linguistic transfer had to take place for the Meroites to have used Tokharian, when it did not take place when they wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Do you see genetic relationship between Meroitic language and Egyptian, and hence, do you see genetic relationship between the so-called Tokharian and Meroitic? Again, Tokharian decipherment must have escaped other linguists, and it too, must exhibit features that are reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic characters, right?
quote:Clyde Winters: The fact that the Nubians who were part of the "Meroitic state", used hieroglyphics and Coptic to write their language without abandoning their native language support the view that they could have also used Tokharian to write Meroitic. And that eventhough they wrote Meroitic inscriptions in Tokharian, they would not have had to abandon Nubian.
…the Nubian which is absolutely dead now, and hence, was apparently abandoned at some point, if your claims are anything to go by, and therefore impossible for the likes of Rilly to examine the bridges between the languages and the contemporary ones, which seem to be related.
quote: Clyde Winters; My confirmation of the above five variables: the presence of Kushites in Africa and Asia; the presence of Kushana sages in India who may have migrated to Meroe;
Meroe in Asia, or in Africa. Lol. If these Indian Kushana’s did indeed come to the Nile Valley, which in itself is possible, then they would not have left much genetic imprint in the region. If you feel this is otherwise, presentation of the corresponding genetic evidence, wouldn’t be a bad idea.
quote:Clyde Winters: cognate lexical items; cognate verbs and cognate grammatical features indicates systematic controlled, critical and empirical investigation of the question of Kushana representing the Meroitic cognate language.
For a ‘dead’ language, whose genetic nature is unknown, you know the genetic nature of another “dead” language, which is supposedly related the former, i.e., Meroitic? So you claim that the Kushites didn’t abandon their native language itself, but then, there is no language alive that can be determined to be cognative with Meroitic language, if not the script…not even in the region, where the Kushite descendants continue to live?
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
supercar quote: ____________________________________________________________ …indeed, a “neutral” language, that seems to have adopted a script sporting certain influences from Egyptian hieroglyphics”, “hieratic” and “demotic” characters.
This is not unknown in history. Using the alphabet, and the introduction of few additional signs we can write any known language. Moreover, Semitic, Sumerian and Elamite, to name a few languages was written in cuneiform.
The use of cuneiform to write these languages was different from the use of Egyptians by the Napatans and Meroites. The Kushites did not write their own language in Egyptian characters, they wrote all of their correspondence in Egyptian and later Meroitic without leaving evidence of their own language in the inscriptions.
Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a [b]common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory. ______________________________________________________________
This is pure conjecture and can not be supported by the linguistic evidence. It can not be supported by the linguistic evidence because we have no collections of Kerman, Napatan or Meroitic lexical items.
Granted we do have Kerman, Napatan and Meroitic toponyms (place names) and names in Egyptian text but this data can not be correlated with contemporary languages because most, if not all of these personal names do not exist among contemporary groups.
____________________________________________________________ supercar: For a ‘dead’ language, whose genetic nature is unknown, you know the genetic nature of another “dead” language? Yet the Kushites didn’t abandon their native language itself, but then, there is no language alive that can be determined to be cognative with Meroitic language, if not the script…not even in the region, where the Kushite descendants continue to live? ___________________________________________________________
I have never argued that the Kushites abandoned their native language. I have argued, and supported with evidence the fact that the Kushites. never wrote their inscriptions in a Kushite language. They used lingua francas to unite the diverse speakers in the Napatan and Meroitic civilizations first Egyptian and later Meroitic.
As I pointed out in may original post the Napatans and Meroites wrote their inscriptions in Egyptian. They had a tradition of using a non-Kushite language to record their administrative and political religious activities. Since they were written in Egyptian there is no lexical evidence of of the languages spoken by the Kushites and other groups in the inscriptions left by these people.
As I pointed out earlier without lexical data from the period any attempts to read Meroitic using a proto-language will result in failure. It will result in failure because you can not compare your results with known lexical items.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote: supercar quote: …indeed, a “neutral” language, that seems to have adopted a script sporting certain influences from Egyptian hieroglyphics”, “hieratic” and “demotic” characters.
This is not unknown in history. Using the alphabet, and the introduction of few additional signs we can write any known language. Moreover, Semitic, Sumerian and Elamite, to name a few languages was written in cuneiform.
So are you suggesting that this foreign script, that happens to now be Meroitic (according to you, that is), was also influenced by Egyptian characters, from hieroglyphics, hieratic to demotic?
quote:Clyde Winters: The use of cuneiform to write these languages was different from the use of Egyptians by the Napatans and Meroites. The Kushites did not write their own language in Egyptian characters, they wrote all of their correspondence in Egyptian and later Meroitic without leaving evidence of their own language in the inscriptions.
Meroitic shows influences from the aforementioned Egyptian characters. You must be the only one, who seems to not be aware of this yet.
quote:Clyde Winters:
quote: Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a [b]common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory.
This is pure conjecture and can not be supported by the linguistic evidence. It can not be supported by the linguistic evidence because we have no collections of Kerman, Napatan or Meroitic lexical items.
How is this pure conjecture? Do you have material to the contrary, with regards to migratory routes mentioned, the climatic history, and the general history that Rilly was referring to?
quote:Clyde Winters:
Granted we do have Kerman, Napatan and Meroitic toponyms (place names) and names in Egyptian text but this data can not be correlated with contemporary languages because most, if not all of these personal names do not exist among contemporary groups.
...and yet you make claims that the Kushites didn't abandon their language? Which is it: they abandoned it, in favor of a totally foreign language, and hence Kushitic is supposedly completely dead, or it has been carried on through the ages, having been fused with the various related languages now spoken in the region?
quote:Clyde Winters:
I have never argued that the Kushites abandoned their native language. I have argued, and supported with evidence the fact that the Kushites. never wrote their inscriptions in a Kushite language. They used lingua francas to unite the diverse speakers in the Napatan and Meroitic civilizations first Egyptian and later Meroitic.
Well, if the language hasn't been abandoned, then the correlations Rilly mentioned, should be possible after careful and painstaking analysis of the various related languages now spoken in the region.
quote:Clyde Winters:
As I pointed out in may original post the Napatans and Meroites wrote their inscriptions in Egyptian. They had a tradition of using a non-Kushite language to record their administrative and political religious activities. Since they were written in Egyptian there is no lexical evidence of of the languages spoken by the Kushites and other groups in the inscriptions left by these people.
This is where, names come into play, as Rilly pointed out.[see the notes above, to see how]
quote:Clyde Winters: As I pointed out earlier without lexical data from the period any attempts to read Meroitic using a proto-language will result in failure. It will result in failure because you can not compare your results with known lexical items.
I'm still waiting for the presentation of the specifics of Meroitic script from Asia, and how it is anymore genetically "known" than the Meroitic script itself.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a [b]common language : Proto-North East3ern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is pure conjecture and can not be supported by the linguistic evidence. It can not be supported by the linguistic evidence because we have no collections of Kerman, Napatan or Meroitic lexical items. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How is this pure conjecture? Do you have material to the contrary, with regards to migratory routes mentioned, the climatic history, and the general history that Rilly was referring to?
Its pure conjecture because he has no linguistic data from the period in question to support his conclusion. Without the linguistic evidence he is speculating about Sudanic population movements. We don't even know if Sudanic was spoken in the area or not.
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clyde Winters: The use of cuneiform to write these languages was different from the use of Egyptians by the Napatans and Meroites. The Kushites did not write their own language in Egyptian characters, they wrote all of their correspondence in Egyptian and later Meroitic without leaving evidence of their own language in the inscriptions. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meroitic shows influences from the aforementioned Egyptian characters. You must be the only one, who seems to not be aware of this yet. __________________________________________________________
I have read the literature. I invite you to present on this list/forum the Napatan and Kushite/Nubian/Sudanic etc words that are found in the textual evidence from Napata and Meroe.
As I pointed out in may original post the Napatans and Meroites wrote their inscriptions in Egyptian. They had a tradition of using a non-Kushite language to record their administrative and political religious activities. Since they were written in Egyptian there is no lexical evidence of of the languages spoken by the Kushites and other groups in the inscriptions left by these people. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
supercar : This is where, names come into play, as Rilly pointed out.[see the notes above, to see how] _________________________________________________
Please list the Meroitic names that continue to be used by Cushitic, Sudanic etc., that date back to Meroitic/Napatan times.
I have never argued that the Kushites abandoned their native language. I have argued, and supported with evidence the fact that the Kushites. never wrote their inscriptions in a Kushite language. They used lingua francas to unite the diverse speakers in the Napatan and Meroitic civilizations first Egyptian and later Meroitic. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
supercar:
Well, if the language hasn't been abandoned, then the correlations Rilly mentioned, should be possible after careful and painstaking analysis of the various related languages now spoken in the region. _________________________________________________________
Careful and painstaking analysis of contemporary languages spoken in Nubia today tells us nothing about the past. They only reflect contemporary sociolinguistic phenomena in Nubia.
Moreover, if you lack any lexical items from the past to compare the contemporary cultural terms with, you can never prove that this or that lexical item existed 2000 -1500 years ago.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
From Rilly, it appear that unity is what allowed for development of the a Kushitic cultural complex in the first place, and he presents how this could have happened :
Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory.
------------------------------------------------- OF COURSE we now know that pre-kerma was form much early in 5000 b.c. and these were the same folks that formed the new city of kerma in 2400 b.c.
I READ somewhere and heard the the nubian script from medieval times is coming back,or is here already.
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
Secondly, researchers have compared the “attested Meroitic” terms to all the Nilo-Saharan languages. The results were negative, they do not relate to any Eastern Sudanic language.
I’ve already shown you that, Rilly disagrees with you on this, and why.
quote:Clyde Winters: If the lexical items attested in Meroitic are not cognate to Eastern Sudanic terms, there is no way to establish a genetic relationship between these languages. Absence of a genetic relationship means that we can not reconstruct the imagined IPLs of Meroitic sister languages, since these researchers failed to find a connection between Meroitic and the Eastern Sudanic.
Rilly:
lexicostatistical methods were used…Lexicostatistics are a good method to identify a linguistic family for a language whose genetic nature is unknown.
But this approach does not provide definite evidence. The one and only way to get it for sure is the classical comparative method as illustrated by Meillet for the Indo-European family, by Guthrie for Proto-Bantu, etc.
And again:
So it was necessary, first to find regular phonetic correspondences between North Eastern Sudanic languages, second to reconstruct the original phonology of Proto-North Eastern Sudanic, third to reconstruct, as much as possible, some Proto-North Eastern Sudanic words, and finally to compare these proto-forms with Meroitic words.
Which brings me to the question of, for a language “whose genetic nature is unknown”, how the hell you are able to determine that “genetic nature”, presumably from another ‘dead’ language, which has evaded so many linguist experts?
quote:Clyde Winters: My decipherment of Meroitic is based on the Kushana theory. The Kushana theory is that a group of “East Indian” scholars introduced the Meroitic writing system to the Meroites.
So I take it that “Kushanan” writing is just as deciphered as Meroitic.
quote:Clyde Winters: The Kushana hypothesis was based on the following evidence, 1) no African language has been found to be a cognate language of Meroitic 2) the Classical literature says that the Kushites lived in Asia and Africa; 3) the Gymnosophists, or "naked sages" of Meroe came from India.
What language have you proposed to be cognate to “Meroitic”, which by your definition, is tantamount to an non-African language, meaning that “Meroitic” and its script are foreign to Africa? When did this language arrive the Nile Valley, during pre-dynastic or dynastic times? Did the commoners then abandon their own native languages for this newly arrived language that early in history? Has the “dead” language brough by these foreigners to the Nile Valley been deciphered?
There where kingdoms called Kush in Africa and Asia, but these are two different cultures and people. Kushites did venture into Asia, for trade purposes, and in some cases, military assistance, but I don’t recall coming across any reputable source positing their settlement in those regions. Even if this were the case, how does this suppose that the Kushites living in their native African lands, just decided to abandon their native tongue?
quote:Clyde Winters:
Flavius Philostratus, the writer of the Vita Apollonii, Vol. 1,cliamed that the Gymnosophists of Meroe originally came from India (see F.C. Conybeare, Philostratus:The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (p.45),1950). Given the fact that the Kushana had formerly ruled India around the time that the Meroitic writing was introduced to the Kushite civilization, led to the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Gymnosophist may have been Kushana philosophers.
Where can I get my hands on the source that points out Meroitic script in India, which was then passed onto the Meroites/Kushites, interestingly exhibiting Egyptian hieratic and demotic influence?
quote:Clyde Winters: There is external evidence, which supports my theory. A theory explains observed phenomena and has predictive power. I have theorized that due to the claims of the Classical writers that some of the Meroites came from India (F.C Conybeare (Trans.), Philostratus: The life of Apollonius of Tyana Vol.2, (1950) pg.271). According to the Life of Apollonius, the Indian Meroites were formerly led by a King Ganges, who had "repulsed the Scythians who invaded this land [India from] across the Caucasus" (Conybeare, Vol.1, Pg.273). Pilostratus also made it clear that the Indians of Meroe came to this country after their king was killed.
…and what genetic legacy do you propose that these Indian Meroites had left on the Nile Valley landscape?
quote:Clyde Winters: Confirmation of the Ganges story, supports the Classical literary evidence that their were Indianized-Meroites that could have introduced the Tokharian trade language to the Meroites.
…so I take it that the “dead” Tokharian is also in the same status as the Meroitic script? Who are "all" the folks who used this trade language and script?
quote:Clyde Winters:
makes it almost impossible to deny the possibility that Indians, familiar with the Tokharian trade language did not introduce this writing to the Meroites who needed a neutral language to unify the diverse ethnic groups who made up the Meroite state.
…indeed, a “neutral” language, which seems to have adopted a script sporting certain influences from Egyptian hieroglyphics”, “hieratic” and “demotic” characters.
quote:Clyde Winters:
In relation to the history of linguistic change and bilingualism, it is a mistake to believe that linguistic transfer had to take place for the Meroites to have used Tokharian, when it did not take place when they wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Do you see genetic relationship between Meroitic language and Egyptian, and hence, do you see genetic relationship between the so-called Tokharian and Meroitic? Again, Tokharian decipherment must have escaped other linguists, and it too, must exhibit features that are reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic characters, right?
quote:Clyde Winters: The fact that the Nubians who were part of the "Meroitic state", used hieroglyphics and Coptic to write their language without abandoning their native language support the view that they could have also used Tokharian to write Meroitic. And that eventhough they wrote Meroitic inscriptions in Tokharian, they would not have had to abandon Nubian.
…the Nubian which is absolutely dead now, and hence, was apparently abandoned at some point, if your claims are anything to go by, and therefore impossible for the likes of Rilly to examine the bridges between the languages and the contemporary ones, which seem to be related.
quote: Clyde Winters; My confirmation of the above five variables: the presence of Kushites in Africa and Asia; the presence of Kushana sages in India who may have migrated to Meroe;
Meroe in Asia, or in Africa. Lol. If these Indian Kushana’s did indeed come to the Nile Valley, which in itself is possible, then they would not have left much genetic imprint in the region. If you feel this is otherwise, presentation of the corresponding genetic evidence, wouldn’t be a bad idea.
quote:Clyde Winters: cognate lexical items; cognate verbs and cognate grammatical features indicates systematic controlled, critical and empirical investigation of the question of Kushana representing the Meroitic cognate language.
For a ‘dead’ language, whose genetic nature is unknown, you know the genetic nature of another “dead” language, which is supposedly related the former, i.e., Meroitic? So you claim that the Kushites didn’t abandon their native language itself, but then, there is no language alive that can be determined to be cognative with Meroitic language, if not the script…not even in the region, where the Kushite descendants continue to live?
I AGREE with your points supercar. The meriotic script was nilo-saharan and was invented by the meriotes.
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
Secondly, researchers have compared the “attested Meroitic” terms to all the Nilo-Saharan languages. The results were negative, they do not relate to any Eastern Sudanic language.
I’ve already shown you that, Rilly disagrees with you on this, and why.
quote:Clyde Winters: If the lexical items attested in Meroitic are not cognate to Eastern Sudanic terms, there is no way to establish a genetic relationship between these languages. Absence of a genetic relationship means that we can not reconstruct the imagined IPLs of Meroitic sister languages, since these researchers failed to find a connection between Meroitic and the Eastern Sudanic.
Rilly:
lexicostatistical methods were used…Lexicostatistics are a good method to identify a linguistic family for a language whose genetic nature is unknown.
But this approach does not provide definite evidence. The one and only way to get it for sure is the classical comparative method as illustrated by Meillet for the Indo-European family, by Guthrie for Proto-Bantu, etc.
And again:
So it was necessary, first to find regular phonetic correspondences between North Eastern Sudanic languages, second to reconstruct the original phonology of Proto-North Eastern Sudanic, third to reconstruct, as much as possible, some Proto-North Eastern Sudanic words, and finally to compare these proto-forms with Meroitic words.
Which brings me to the question of, for a language “whose genetic nature is unknown”, how the hell you are able to determine that “genetic nature”, presumably from another ‘dead’ language, which has evaded so many linguist experts?
quote:Clyde Winters: My decipherment of Meroitic is based on the Kushana theory. The Kushana theory is that a group of “East Indian” scholars introduced the Meroitic writing system to the Meroites.
So I take it that “Kushanan” writing is just as deciphered as Meroitic.
quote:Clyde Winters: The Kushana hypothesis was based on the following evidence, 1) no African language has been found to be a cognate language of Meroitic 2) the Classical literature says that the Kushites lived in Asia and Africa; 3) the Gymnosophists, or "naked sages" of Meroe came from India.
What language have you proposed to be cognate to “Meroitic”, which by your definition, is tantamount to an non-African language, meaning that “Meroitic” and its script are foreign to Africa? When did this language arrive the Nile Valley, during pre-dynastic or dynastic times? Did the commoners then abandon their own native languages for this newly arrived language that early in history? Has the “dead” language brough by these foreigners to the Nile Valley been deciphered?
There where kingdoms called Kush in Africa and Asia, but these are two different cultures and people. Kushites did venture into Asia, for trade purposes, and in some cases, military assistance, but I don’t recall coming across any reputable source positing their settlement in those regions. Even if this were the case, how does this suppose that the Kushites living in their native African lands, just decided to abandon their native tongue?
quote:Clyde Winters:
Flavius Philostratus, the writer of the Vita Apollonii, Vol. 1,cliamed that the Gymnosophists of Meroe originally came from India (see F.C. Conybeare, Philostratus:The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (p.45),1950). Given the fact that the Kushana had formerly ruled India around the time that the Meroitic writing was introduced to the Kushite civilization, led to the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Gymnosophist may have been Kushana philosophers.
Where can I get my hands on the source that points out Meroitic script in India, which was then passed onto the Meroites/Kushites, interestingly exhibiting Egyptian hieratic and demotic influence?
quote:Clyde Winters: There is external evidence, which supports my theory. A theory explains observed phenomena and has predictive power. I have theorized that due to the claims of the Classical writers that some of the Meroites came from India (F.C Conybeare (Trans.), Philostratus: The life of Apollonius of Tyana Vol.2, (1950) pg.271). According to the Life of Apollonius, the Indian Meroites were formerly led by a King Ganges, who had "repulsed the Scythians who invaded this land [India from] across the Caucasus" (Conybeare, Vol.1, Pg.273). Pilostratus also made it clear that the Indians of Meroe came to this country after their king was killed.
…and what genetic legacy do you propose that these Indian Meroites had left on the Nile Valley landscape?
quote:Clyde Winters: Confirmation of the Ganges story, supports the Classical literary evidence that their were Indianized-Meroites that could have introduced the Tokharian trade language to the Meroites.
…so I take it that the “dead” Tokharian is also in the same status as the Meroitic script? Who are "all" the folks who used this trade language and script?
quote:Clyde Winters:
makes it almost impossible to deny the possibility that Indians, familiar with the Tokharian trade language did not introduce this writing to the Meroites who needed a neutral language to unify the diverse ethnic groups who made up the Meroite state.
…indeed, a “neutral” language, which seems to have adopted a script sporting certain influences from Egyptian hieroglyphics”, “hieratic” and “demotic” characters.
quote:Clyde Winters:
In relation to the history of linguistic change and bilingualism, it is a mistake to believe that linguistic transfer had to take place for the Meroites to have used Tokharian, when it did not take place when they wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Do you see genetic relationship between Meroitic language and Egyptian, and hence, do you see genetic relationship between the so-called Tokharian and Meroitic? Again, Tokharian decipherment must have escaped other linguists, and it too, must exhibit features that are reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic characters, right?
quote:Clyde Winters: The fact that the Nubians who were part of the "Meroitic state", used hieroglyphics and Coptic to write their language without abandoning their native language support the view that they could have also used Tokharian to write Meroitic. And that eventhough they wrote Meroitic inscriptions in Tokharian, they would not have had to abandon Nubian.
…the Nubian which is absolutely dead now, and hence, was apparently abandoned at some point, if your claims are anything to go by, and therefore impossible for the likes of Rilly to examine the bridges between the languages and the contemporary ones, which seem to be related.
quote: Clyde Winters; My confirmation of the above five variables: the presence of Kushites in Africa and Asia; the presence of Kushana sages in India who may have migrated to Meroe;
Meroe in Asia, or in Africa. Lol. If these Indian Kushana’s did indeed come to the Nile Valley, which in itself is possible, then they would not have left much genetic imprint in the region. If you feel this is otherwise, presentation of the corresponding genetic evidence, wouldn’t be a bad idea.
quote:Clyde Winters: cognate lexical items; cognate verbs and cognate grammatical features indicates systematic controlled, critical and empirical investigation of the question of Kushana representing the Meroitic cognate language.
For a ‘dead’ language, whose genetic nature is unknown, you know the genetic nature of another “dead” language, which is supposedly related the former, i.e., Meroitic? So you claim that the Kushites didn’t abandon their native language itself, but then, there is no language alive that can be determined to be cognative with Meroitic language, if not the script…not even in the region, where the Kushite descendants continue to live?
quote:Its pure conjecture because he has no linguistic data from the period in question to support his conclusion. Without the linguistic evidence he is speculating about Sudanic population movements. We don't even know if Sudanic was spoken in the area or not.
Do you or do you not agree about the climatic and historic implications Rilly mentioned. If not, why?
quote: I have read the literature. I invite you to present on this list/forum the Napatan and Kushite/Nubian/Sudanic etc words that are found in the textual evidence from Napata and Meroe.
Non-sequitur, since reference was made about “proto”- North east Sudanic/Nilo-Saharan language groups. Are you on the one hand, suggesting that Kushitic language was written in Egypt and later some other foreign language, prior to available indicators of when they adopted writing, but that on the other, it didn’t exist, since there is no textual evidence to show that the language itself existed prior to the adoption of writing?
quote: Please list the Meroitic names that continue to be used by Cushitic, Sudanic etc., that date back to Meroitic/Napatan times.
Please list the Meroitic names that continue to be used in any living population outside of the Nile Valley?
In the meantime, from Rilly:
for example names of persons and gods, can help towards clarifying the grammatical nature and the semantic field of the unknown words. Most of the time, all these elements are insufficient. But in a few cases, a meaning can be suggested for new words and be confirmed in various inscriptions. Although very slow, this approach recently provided new translations. A set of thirtynine purely Meroitic basic words was finally produced, not including of course too specific words such as « prince » or « great priest », which are useless for comparative purpose.
quote: Careful and painstaking analysis of contemporary languages spoken in Nubia today tells us nothing about the past. They only reflect contemporary sociolinguistic phenomena in Nubia.
…in which case, contradictory to your claim that Kushites didn’t abandon their native language, but rather simply wrote them in foreign texts, that is just as dead and mysterious.
quote: Moreover, if you lack any lexical items from the past to compare the contemporary cultural terms with, you can never prove that this or that lexical item existed 2000 -1500 years ago.
You keep repeating this, notwithstanding what was posted earlier:
The most convincing similarities are with Eastern Sudanic, and more specifically with the northern branch including Nubian, Nara, Taman and Nyima. The best result is obtained with Midob (a member of the Nubian group), thanks to Roland Werner's excellent description of this language. The scores of Taman, Nara and Nyima could be higher if there were extensive lexical data available, but unfortunately, only short wordlists have so far been published.
But at this stage of the work, two main obstacles were encountered. First, the distinction between the Northern and the Southern branches of Eastern Sudanic had to be firmly established. Obviously, the scores of some Southern languages like Surmic or Nilotic in the lexicostatistical comparison with Meroitic are high.
…yet you provided no material, on how Meroitic is a duplicate of the said foreign language, much less, provide lexical terms for that foreign language to compare with any known contemporary language.
-------------------- Truth - a liar penetrating device! Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
lexicostatistical methods were used…Lexicostatistics are a good method to identify a linguistic family for a language whose genetic nature is unknown.
But this approach does not provide definite evidence. The one and only way to get it for sure is the classical comparative method as illustrated by Meillet for the Indo-European family, by Guthrie for Proto-Bantu, etc.
And again:
So it was necessary, first to find regular phonetic correspondences between North Eastern Sudanic languages, second to reconstruct the original phonology of Proto-North Eastern Sudanic, third to reconstruct, as much as possible, some Proto-North Eastern Sudanic words, and finally to compare these proto-forms with Meroitic words. ___________________________________________________________
First of all, lexicostatistics do not show a genetic relationship. Lexicostatistics or glottochronology, according to Theodora Bynon, Historical Linguistics, "The process used to calculate the point in time at which two related or supposedly related languages separated" (pp.267-268).
Use of a proto-language to read Meroitic is pure conjecture and absent of any reality, because these terms are all made up.
In the graffito from Musawwarat Rilly correctly deciphers the inscription as follows: W l e qo ph n y qo-t tl Netror s(e)l-o . He translates this inscription as follows : “This dog was bought (???) three talents, it is Netarura’s” In this translation he claims that wl means ‘dog’ and I guess qo, means ‘this’.
Although this is his interpretation of the inscription he is wrong and failed to decipher the signs properly. For example, he interprets the three lines: ||| as the numeral three, this was wrong in Meroitic ||| is the ‘y’. In addition after correctly deciphering the Meroitic w and l signs, he failed to record the ‘e’, that follows the wl. Thus this should have read w-l-e, not wl. See the Meroitic Signs below
If Rilly can be this careless in his interpretation of the Meroitic signs says much about his method of decipherment. Now when we use my decipherment to read the text and the accompanying drawing we have the following : [Dog] exist indeed to grant a noble boon [of rabbits with] the intention to bring elevation to you, meritorious Netror”. The vocabulary items are as follows:
W, to be, exist, to drive, to conduct
L, indeed, or termination element
E, grant a boon, vouchsafe, favor
Qo, to live, to renew, to restore; noble, royal, honorable; to make , to form
posted
supercar: _____________________________________________________________ Non-sequitur, since reference was made about “proto”- North east Sudanic/Nilo-Saharan language groups. Are you on the one hand, suggesting that Kushitic language was written in Egypt and later some other foreign language, prior to available indicators of when they adopted writing, but that on the other, it didn’t exist, since there is no textual evidence to show that the language itself existed prior to the adoption of writing? ________________________________________________________
I am say that the Napatans and Meroites wrote in Egyptian--not their own language.
for example names of persons and gods, can help towards clarifying the grammatical nature and the semantic field of the unknown words. Most of the time, all these elements are insufficient. But in a few cases, a meaning can be suggested for new words and be confirmed in various inscriptions. Although very slow, this approach recently provided new translations. A set of thirtynine purely Meroitic basic words was finally produced, not including of course too specific words such as « prince » or « great priest », which are useless for comparative purpose. _____________________________________________________________________
This is pure fantansy. If people were unable to find cognate Sudanic/Nubia etc., terms and agreed upon Meroitic terms, how can Rilly invent 39 new terms?
......
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
First of all, lexicostatistics do not show a genetic relationship.
Mr. Winters, you act like you don't know why Mr. Rilly used this route, even though, he explicitly lays them down, and I've reiterated portions of them time and again: The 'genetic' nature of the language via text is uncertain.
quote:Clyde Winters:
This is pure fantansy. If people were unable to find cognate Sudanic/Nubia etc., terms and agreed upon Meroitic terms, how can Rilly invent 39 new terms?
...in which case, his fantasy is just as good as yours, if not less so, in that, you haven't been able to deliver the long requested material illustrating that the "foreign text/language" is Meroitic text, and that the cognate terms of this 'foreign' language survive in any living group, outside the Nile Valley, presumably even in its "foreign" place of origin. Above all, you claim that Kushites didn't abandon their language, just wrote the language in foreign texts, while insisting that its impossible to find cognates in the living descendants of Kushites. Your position is quite interesting, I must say.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
supercar quote: _________________________________________________________________ quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
First of all, lexicostatistics do not show a genetic relationship. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Winters, you act like you don't know why Mr. Rilly used this route, even though, he explicitly lays them down, and I've reiterated portions of them time and again: The 'genetic' nature of the language via text is uncertain. ______________________________________________________________
Comparative linguistic research is based on lexical items. If you don't have text which contain lexical items from an earlier period there is no way you can compare the language spoken today to a language spoken hundreds of years ago. The only way you will have this language data is recording of the ancient language in a text. The absence of text with evidence of the languages denies one the ability to do comparative research.
______________________________________________________________ in which case, his fantasy is just as good as yours, if not less so, in that, you haven't been able to deliver the long requested material illustrating that the "foreign text/language" is Meroitic text, and that the cognate terms of this 'foreign' language survive in any living group, outside the Nile Valley, presumably even in its "foreign" place of origin. ____________________________________________________________ This shows you have not read my post. First, of all there must be Kushana text or how would I have lexical items to read the Meroitic writing.
Secondly, I illustrated above that the Meroitic language is related to the Manding, Akan and Swahili languages. There are also an Egyptian influence evident in Meroitic
The long association of Egypt and Nubia suggest that the Egyptians may have influenced more than the culture of the Kushites. In this paper we will review the affinities between the Egyptian and Meroitic languages.
Ll. Griffith during his decipherment of Meroitic (M.) found many Egyptian (E.) terms . These terms were especially used in the political culture area e.g., E. p-sy-n-nsw 'son of king' > M. pesto 'king's foothold/foundation of light' .
Now that we have more evidence about the Meroitic language we can now compare Egyptian and Meroitic to determine if there are any other similarities between these languages. Below are some Meroitic terms that illustrate the influence of Egyptian on Meroitic. Egyptian ................. Meroitic m 'do not' ................. ma not, no
nd 'homage'...................... net 'bow in reverence'
r 'to, into' ......................r id.
se 'son' ........................ s id.
s y 'satisfaction'.............se-ne 'to be satisfied'
ss 'writing, scribe'..........sor 'scribe'
s w 'to protect'.............. s 'to protect'
di 'give' .....................d id.
t ' thou' .................... t id.
t 'earth'....................te 'land' k i 'high'....................kha 'great'
Several aspects of Demotic grammar agree with Meroitic structure. This is especially true in relation to the formation of the adjective case and the use of pronouns.
supercar: ___________________________________________________________ Above all, you claim that Kushites didn't abandon their language, just wrote the language in foreign texts, while insisting that its impossible to find cognates in the living descendants of Kushites. Your position is quite interesting, I must say. _________________________________________________________ I have found that Meroitic shares many features with the Niger Cong group. I have studied these languages for many years so I am quite familiar with the family. I am unfamiliar with Beja, but now that I have deciphered Meroitic when I have the time I will try to compare many of the terms to Sudanic and Cushitic languages and determine if their is a relationship.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
Was the result of the paper where you deciphered the meroetic language accepted by the elite in the field?
Posts: 1420 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yonis quote: _____________________________________________________________ Was the result of the paper where you deciphered the meroetic language accepted by the elite in the field? _____________________________________________________________
They have made no comments on the decipherment. Here are some of my publications on Meroitic:
Winters, A.A. 1984. "A note on Tokharian and Meroitic".Meroitic Newsletter, no. 23: 18-21.
____________.1988. "The Dravidian and Manding substratum in Tokharian". Central Asiatic Journal, 32 (1-2): 131-141.
------------.1989. "Chiekh Anta Diop at le Dechiffrement de l'ecriture Meroitique", Revue Martiniguaise de Sciences Humaines et de Litterature, no.8: 149-153.
____________.1999a. The inscription of Tanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V.
_____________.(nd). The Meroitic Chamber Inscription. Nubica IV und Nubica V.
...
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote: Seele speculated that the tombs might be royal, evidence of a long- lost dynasty of Nubian kings. Unfortunately, this theory flew in the face of conventional opinion.Seele's theory was subjected to the worst fate known to academia - the silent treatment.
Following his discovery, several major scholarly works were published on Nubia's A-Group culture. But none made even passing reference to the mysterious Cemetery L. For more than ten years, Cemetery L was ignored as completely as if its treasures lay, still unexcavated, at the bottom of Lake Nasser.
Seele died of cancer without ever seeing his theory vindicated.
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
quote:Originally posted by Yonis:
Was the result of the paper where you deciphered the meroetic language accepted by the elite in the field?
They have made no comments on the decipherment. Here are some of my publications on Meroitic:
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
On Tokharian. Is that not the dead language once spoken in western China? Apparently it was an IE language, and archeologists have dug up Tokharian settlements and graveyards. Are you claiming that Meroitic was an IE language?
Do you have a Phd in linguistics? If so, from where?
Posts: 57 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
basicbows quote: ________________________________________________________________ On Tokharian. Is that not the dead language once spoken in western China? Apparently it was an IE language, and archeologists have dug up Tokharian settlements and graveyards. Are you claiming that Meroitic was an IE language?
Do you have a Phd in linguistics? If so, from where? ________________________________________________________
Tokharian was spoken in Central Asia, not China. It is claimed to be an IE language, but the evidence indicates that it was a lingua franca used to provide the diverse linguistic communities a means for communication.
I have a Masters Degree in Social Science with a major in Anthropology, and a minor in linguistics from the University of Illinois-Urbana. I have numerous publications in cultural anthropology and linguistics. In addition, I taught linguistics at Saint Xavier University in Chicago for a number of years.
Do you have a PhD in linguistics? What are your credentials? Have you ever taught linguistics? Have you ever published an article in linguistics?
You don't need any credentials to participate in this forum because I am learning new knowledge everyday. But inquiring minds would like to know about yours, since you wanted to know mine.
........
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
No, I have no expertise in linguistics; but then, unlike you, I never claimed any. That's beside the point. A "layman" can challenge any "expert" if the so-called expert violates rules of logic, coherence, and truth-telling. I'm not accusing you of these(to be honest, I haven't read your posts that carefully), but the salient fact about your arguments is how "wild" they are i e you dispute the notion that Tocharian is IE, and that's just one drop in the bucket. I know that an "argument from authority" is typically weak, but, given my ignorance of linguistics, I must ask: Why have you published so little in linguistic journals, and why are there no reviews of your work? Could it be that you're not taken seriously? I do know enough about all this to state that your views are highly eccentric, to say the least. Yeah, I know, Galileo was considered eccentric, too, but in 99 out a hundred instances the eccentric is wrong and the mainstream right. It's the rare case of the eccentric being right that catches our attention, and we tend to forget the other 99.
Posts: 57 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
basicbows: ______________________________________________________________ Why have you published so little in linguistic journals, and why are there no reviews of your work? Could it be that you're not taken seriously? ________________________________________________________________
You are correct you have a right to challenge anyone. This challenge should be based on evidence--not opinion.Because if you don't know what you are talking about you just look extremely dumb.
I am not a psychic, so I can not read minds so I can't tell you what people think about my work. But I am proud of every article I ever had published.
You don't have any articles published, so how can you decide how many articles is enough? Are you jealous that an Afrocentric scholar has published many articles, and presented numerous papers at National and International Conferences, while you come on to talk forums to criticize the work of other people when you, yourself have contributed little if anything to spreading knowledge.
Moreover, I know some linguist who spend most of their time teaching and haven't published one article. At least they are spending their time cultivating the minds of learners, while you only criticize something you admit you know nothing about.
Since you know so much about me answer these questions. How many Universities have I taught at? Where did I earn my Ph.D? How many articles have I had published in linguistic and anthropological journals? How many books have I published and on what topics?
Other question you can answer are the following: When will you be brave enough to write something worthwhile? Why do you make negative comments about someone you know nothing about? How many papers have you presented at conferences? Why are you so jealous? Do you hate Afrocentric scholars because we have the nerve to challenge the status quo--mainstream scholarship-- to spread TRUTH? Is a person eccentric because s/he admits that African people played a tremendous role in ancient history?
..........
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
My knowledge or ignorance of linguistics is beside the point. I'm not making any claims, whatsoever: I'm not here to pontificate when I have no opinion on an issue, or when I don't know enough to make an intelligent judgment. You're the one making the assertions, and you appear to be annoyed because I have the gall to question them. And what has this to do with Afrocentrism, Eurocentrism et al? I was asking you questions about your assertions re the relationships between various languages. You appear to be making the claim that Meroitic is related to Tocharian. The mainstream view is that Tocharian is an IE language, and that Meroitic is probably Nilo-Saharan. You've come to different conclusions. Why are you right and "they" wrong? You also claim to have deciphered Meroitic and the language of the Harrappans? Am I correct? Has anyone written in support of these claims? I mean, one can assert anything. Ok, I assert that Kerma was built by little green mice who lived in little cheese castles on the dark side of the moon, invented interstellar travel and created all earthly civilizations? I'll cite my own work as evidence. Can you prove me wrong? Let's use some common sense here.
Posts: 57 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
basicbows quote: ______________________________________________________________ You also claim to have deciphered Meroitic and the language of the Harrappans? Am I correct? Has anyone written in support of these claims? I mean, one can assert anything. Ok, I assert that Kerma was built by little green mice who lived in little cheese castles on the dark side of the moon, invented interstellar travel and created all earthly civilizations? I'll cite my own work as evidence. Can you prove me wrong? Let's use some common sense here. __________________________________________________________
The fact that editors published my articles indicates that they support my claims or they wouldn't publish them.
You are right, you could claim Kerma was built by green mice who lived in little chesse castles. We could read the piece and then determine its credibility based on your evidence supporting your proposition. If you built up a body of research in the area you are writing on, there is no reason why you could not cite the research in your study--you know this is normal practice for researchers.
I can prove you're wrong if the evidence does not support your claim. Hypoteses should be rejected solely on the basis of the evidence presented in support of the hypothesis. You sould not just dismiss the claim solely because you did not believe it to be true, confirmation or disconfirmation of a theory depends on the amount of research used in defense of your theory.
You say "Let's use common sense here", common sense or intuition is not science. Science is hypothesis testing. The sun rose in the east this morning and set in the west today. I could claim that this has always been the case,based on what happened today, but research shows that the pattern was different at different times in history.
Fred N. Kerlinger, Foundations of Behavior Research, commenting on your major method of research--common sense--wrote: "It rests its case for superiority on the assumption that the propositions accepted by the 'priorist' are self-evident. Note that priori propositions "agree with reason" and not necessarily with experience. The idea seems to be that people, through free communication and intercourse, can reach the truth because their natural inclinations tend toward truth. The difficulty with this position lies in the expression "agree with reason". Whose reason? Suppose two honest and well meaning individuals, using rational processes, reach different conclusions, as they often do. Which one is right?"
Because common sense,depends on ones 'personal taste', beliefs, biases, values and attitudes it is not a dependable method of knowing. Science demands hypotheses testing. A hypothesis can be supported in an experiment, but it should always be tested. If the evidence fails to support a hypothesis it is disconfirmed. To test a hypothesis, means you have to provide evidence of an alternative hypothesis, common sense does nothing to falsify a hypothesis.
Rilly's hypothesis that Meroitic can be read by reconstructing the proto-language is a good way to show how the scientific method works.
Rilly claims that Meroitic is Nilo-Saharan. He claims that this is supported by comparing the Proto-Nilo-Saharan to Meroitic, because the people living in Kush today are remnants of the Meroites.
We can disconfirm this theory because it is not supported by the historical and linguistic evidence we have concerning the linguistic and political history of Kush. We must reject Rilly's theory because ,we have no evidence that 1) Proto-Nilo-Saharan, as constructed by Rilly was ever spoken by a living being; 2) we have evidence that the Noba/Nubians entered Nubia long after the Kushites had founded Napatan and Meroitic civilizations, so eventhough they live in Nubia today, they are not representative of Kushite people who they were often in conflict with; 3) Egyptian documents make it clear that the Blymmes also entered the area after the founding of Napatan and Meroitic civilization, so even if some people claim that the Beja=Blymmes this is conjecture. Consequently, even if Beja= Blymmes, they donot represent the Kushite people who founded the Napata and Meroe civilizations, because both the Noba and Blymmes entered Kush after its founding. This makes it clear that although Rilly's evidence looked promising, the data presented in support of the hypothesis fails to support his claim.
You should avoid using common sense to guide your interpretation of what is valid or invalid. This method of knowing depends solely on your own biases and perceptions.
If you feel I have not deciphered Meroitic or Harappan present alternative hypotheses, and evidence that falsifies by claim of decipherment. Using the scientific method , not common sense, must be used to prove me wrong.
.........
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
The burden of proof does not lie with me to disconfirm your hypotheses; the burden is on you to prove them. Your evidence must contain more than just assertions; you have to elaborate on the methodology of your linguistic constructions; and also show how mainstream linguists' methodologies are false. Once again, that takes more than mere assertion. (If I followed your logic, I'd challenge you to "disprove" my theory about "green mice".) Furthermore, you are not trained as a professional linguist(it is, after all,a technical field); your field is Education. Had you actually deciphered the languages you claim to have deciphered, you'd have already won some great distinction, perhaps the Nobel Prize, and your name would be famous. I ask you to cite one professional linguist who addresses your claims. Can you? What about my green mice theory? You can't cite one scientist who has ever disproved my theory.You know why? BTW, I don't want to quibble over the term "common sense", but I think it was Einstein who said that science is common sense carried to a higher level of abstraction. Ok, let's just deal with Tocharian, to keep this argument from ranging too far afield. Explain to me how the people who decided Tocharian was an IE language are wrong,and how your methodology necessarily differs from theirs, and will result in vastly different conclusions. So, Winters, you claim to be the genius. Well, start teaching me!
Posts: 57 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Kenndo: I AGREE with your points supercar. The meriotic script was nilo-saharan and was invented by the meriotes.
Indeed. For a person who calls himself an “Afrocentric truth seeker”, he sure has this great desire to credit actual indigenous African accomplishments to extra-African indigenes, which in this case, happens to be Meroitic script; a product of the creativeness of Meroites/Kushites.
quote:Clyde Winters: This shows you have not read my post. First, of all there must be Kushana text or how would I have lexical items to read the Meroitic writing.
Well, you may have the “Kushana text”, what you don’t have, 30 posts or so, is material showing that Tocharian, or the so-called “Kushana text”, is actually Meroitic text, as adopted by the Kushites.
This following earlier point of mine remains:
...you haven't been able to deliver the long requested material illustrating that the "foreign text/language" is Meroitic text, and that the cognate terms of this 'foreign' language survive in any living group, outside the Nile Valley, presumably even in its "foreign" place of origin.
quote:Clyde Winters:
…There are also an Egyptian influence evident in Meroitic…The long association of Egypt and Nubia suggest that the Egyptians may have influenced more than the culture of the Kushites. In this paper we will review the affinities between the Egyptian and Meroitic languages.
While you were busy positing extra-African origins on Meroitic or Kushitic languages, you’ve been repeatedly reminded of this by myself.
Let me see if I can reconstruct a brief synopsis of Winters' logic:
So I take it that, this “Tocharian” which you claim to actually be “Meroitic”, without material, was developed by these extra-African folks who initially used Egyptic scripts exclusively and regularly throughout its development into the simplified phases, known as hieratic and then demotic, and only then to came up with Tocharian (aka Meroitic according to you), much like the Kushites, who were in regular contact with the Egyptian state. It had to have been after the development of demotic or contemporaneous to it at some point, so as to reflect demotic influence in Tocharian. With that in mind, not long after Tocharian was developed, the Kushites adopted it. At this point, the Kushites didn’t abandon their native Kushitic or Meroitic tongue, but simply wrote the language in foreign script, somewhat like how Coptic adopted Greek literal characters with some Egyptic ones, only that here, the entire foreign script was adopted for communicating the native Kushitic language. Yet, the elements of native Meroitic tongue which the Kushites continued to use along with foreign script [until the script was phased out], are nowhere to be found even among the descendants of ancient Kushites.
So now, the question that arises is; when were the foreigners who developed Tocharian text introduced to the different phases of Egyptic text, the influence of which is pretty obvious in Meroitic, and now hence, Tocharian?
quote:Clyde Winters:
I have found that Meroitic shares many features with the Niger Cong group. I have studied these languages for many years so I am quite familiar with the family. I am unfamiliar with Beja, but now that I have deciphered Meroitic when I have the time I will try to compare many of the terms to Sudanic and Cushitic languages and determine if their is a relationship.
…something which Rilly has already undertaken, which you ridiculed him for thinking about doing, just because early on, prior to adopting Egyptic scripts, there is no available evidence on Kushitic text…and this, notwithstanding that you claim the Kushites never abandoned their native tongue, but just wrote it in foreign texts. One doesn’t have to be a linguistic genius to see what is wrong with this picture.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
basicbows quote: _______________________________________________________________ The burden of proof does not lie with me to disconfirm your hypotheses; the burden is on you to prove them. Your evidence must contain more than just assertions; you have to elaborate on the methodology of your linguistic constructions; and also show how mainstream linguists' methodologies are false. __________________________________________________________________
If you want to find out my views on the relationship of Tokharian in IE find these articles:
Winters,Clyde Ahmad, "Review of Dr. Asko Parpolas' "The Coming of the Aryans". International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 18, no2 (1989) , pages 98-127.
Winters, Clyde Ahmad, "The Dravido Harappan Colonization of Central Asia", Central Asiatic Journal 34, no1-2 (1990), pages 120-144.
-----------.1991. "Linguistic Evidence for Dravidian influence on Trade and Animal Domestication in Central and East Asia",International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 20 (2): 91-102.
My decipherment of Meroitic is based on the Kushana theory. The Kushana theory is that a group of “East Indian” scholars introduced the Meroitic writing system to the Meroites.
The Kushana hypothesis was based on the following evidence, 1) no African language has been found to be a cognate language of Meroitic 2) the Classical literature says that the Kushites lived in Asia and Africa; 3) the Gymnosophists, or "naked sages" of Meroe came from India.
The evidence presented above provides internal and external validity for my theory based upon the sources I have cited previously. The sources I have used are impartial, to disconfirm my hypothesis someone needs to show that my propositions are not fully informed [i.e., there were no Indians North Africa and Kush when the Classical writers maintained they were] and present rival explanations based on the evidence. The fact that the claims made by the Classical writers is supported by the Indians themselves is further strong confirmation of the Kushana hypothesis.
The hypothesis based on the classical literature, was enough to support the original Kushana Hypothesis. The predicting power of the original theory, matches the observed natural phenomena which was confirmed elsewhere by cognate place names, ethononyms, lexical items and grammatical features, indicate that my theory has not be falsified.
The ability to reliably predict a linguistic relationship between Kushana and Meroitic, was further confirmation of the Kushana Hypothesis, because the linguistic connections were deducible from prediction.
I controlled the Kushana Hypothesis by comparing the statements of the classical writers, with historical, linguistic anthropological and toponymic evidence found not only in Africa, but also India and Central Asia [where the people also used Tokharian as a trade language to unify the various people in Central Asia].
I constructed five testable hypotheses in support of the Kushana theory, and it seems only fair that these five variables must be disconfirmed, to falsify the Kushana Hypothesis. Failure to disconfirm this theorem, implies validity of my prediction.
In addition, I have presented evidence that the Meroitic language is related Egyptian and the Niger Congo family of languages.
My confirmation of the above five variables: the presence of Kushites in Africa and Asia; the presence of Kushana sages in India who may have migrated to Meroe; cognate lexical items; cognate verbs and cognate grammatical features indicates systematic controlled, critical and empirical investigation of the question of Kushana representing the Meroitic cognate language.
This debate with supercar involves claims and counter claims. He presents evidence that should be discussed. Like most of the posters on this forum he builds propositions based on evidence. You prefer 'common sense' and intuition to guide your discourse.
This conversation with you is a waste of my time. I have never said any linguistic methodology was false. I said that Rilly's hypothesis is not confirmed by the evidence.
Since you refuse to set forth any alternative hypotheses to my propositions and your way of knowing is "common sense" I will not respond to any further post from you.
........
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
supercar quote: __________________________________________________________________ …something which Rilly has already undertaken, which you ridiculed him for thinking about doing, just because early on, prior to adopting Egyptic scripts, there is no available evidence on Kushitic text…and this, notwithstanding that you claim the Kushites never abandoned their native tongue, but just wrote it in foreign texts. One doesn’t have to be a linguistic genius to see what is wrong with this picture. _________________________________________________________
There is nothing wrong with this picture. Rilly's hypothesis that Meroitic can be read by reconstructing the proto-language is not supported by the evidence.
Rilly claims that Meroitic is Nilo-Saharan. He claims that this is supported by comparing the Proto-Nilo-Saharan to Meroitic, because the people living in Kush today are remnants of the Meroites.
This theory is not supported by the historical and linguistic evidence we have concerning the linguistic and political history of Kush. We must reject Rilly's theory because ,we have no evidence that 1) Proto-Nilo-Saharan, as constructed by Rilly was ever spoken by a living being; 2) we have evidence that the Noba/Nubians entered Nubia long after the Kushites had founded Napatan and Meroitic civilizations, so eventhough they live in Nubia today, they are not representative of Kushite people who they were often in conflict with; 3) Egyptian documents make it clear that the Blymmes also entered the area after the founding of Napatan and Meroitic civilization, so even if some people claim that the Beja=Blymmes this is conjecture. Consequently, even if Beja= Blymmes, they donot represent the Kushite people who founded the Napata and Meroe civilizations, because both the Noba and Blymmes entered Kush after its founding. This makes it clear that although Rilly's evidence looked promising, the data presented in support of the hypothesis fails to support his claim.
So now, the question that arises is; when were the foreigners who developed Tocharian text introduced to the different phases of Egyptic text, the influence of which is pretty obvious in Meroitic, and now hence, Tocharian? _____________________________________________________________
They did not have to become familiar with any of the Egyptian forms of writing. The Meroites just adopted the Tokharian language to write their inscriptions. This was not too difficult because many of the Meroitic signs are similar to the Kharosthi signs, the Kushana used to write Tokharian.
quote:Clyde Winters: Rilly claims that Meroitic is Nilo-Saharan.
…the conditions of which he clearly laid down.
quote:Clyde Winters: He claims that this is supported by comparing the Proto-Nilo-Saharan to Meroitic, because the people living in Kush today are remnants of the Meroites.
You know better than to distort Rilly’s claim into that simplistic way of thinking. But let Rilly speak for himself:
A list of Proto-Meroitic names of persons, obviously important figures of the first Kushite state, the Kingdom of Kerma, appears in an Egyptian papyrus from the sixteenth century BC.
[so he has some proto-Meroitic terms for names, at least, in addition to those identified in Egyptic (see below) before the Kushites adopted their own script. What did Rilly say about the advantage and disadvantage of such terms?]
…Of course, the words can be read since the script was deciphered in 1911 by the British egyptologist F. Ll. Griffith. But the very meaning of these words was nearly unknown. Apart from some names of places, kings and gods, and a few Egyptian loanwords, no more than three dozens of indigenous words could be translated with certainty…
« multicontextual approach ». The archaeological and the iconographical context can be very helpful, since very often, the short texts are the description with words of a painted or engraved image.
Typological similarity between Egyptian texts and their Meroitic counterparts can also be useful. Of course, the elements of the texts that are known, for example names of persons and gods, can help towards clarifying the grammatical nature and the semantic field of the unknown words. Most of the time, all these elements are insufficient. But in a few cases, a meaning can be suggested for new words and be confirmed in various inscriptions…
Previous works, including mine, had shown that a link with other phylums like Niger-Congo or Afro-Asiatic was unlikely.For this purpose, lexicostatistical methods were used…
[Rilly mentions specific language groups in the region]
The most convincing similarities are with Eastern Sudanic, and more specifically with the northern branch including Nubian, Nara, Taman and Nyima. The best result is obtained with Midob…The scores of Taman, Nara and Nyima could be higher if there were extensive lexical data available, but unfortunately, only short wordlists have so far been published.
…But at this stage of the work, two main obstacles were encountered. First, the distinction between the Northern and the Southern branches of Eastern Sudanic had to be firmly established. Obviously, the scores of some Southern languages like Surmic or Nilotic in the lexicostatistical comparison with Meroitic are high. This distinction between both branches was first suggested by Bender in 1991, but on morphological, not lexical, bases. This obstacle is rather easy to overcome: a series of basic words such as « drink », « mouth », « burn », « tooth », « hand », « louse » etc., shows close connections inside the northern branch, but nothing else than scattered similarities with the Southern one. …
The second problem was more difficult to solve. Lexicostatistics are a good method to identify a linguistic family for a language whose genetic nature is unknown.…
The one and only way to get it for sure is the classical comparative method as illustrated by Meillet for the Indo-European family, by Guthrie for Proto-Bantu, etc. So it was necessary, first to find regular phonetic correspondences between North Eastern Sudanic languages, second to reconstruct the original phonology of Proto-North Eastern Sudanic, third to reconstruct, as much as possible, some Proto-North Eastern Sudanic words, and finally to compare these proto-forms with Meroitic words. The task is not easy because extensive data are missing for a majority of the dialects and even for some languages like Afitti or Tama.
Finally, close connections were found between some Meroitic words and their ProtoNorth Eastern Sudanic counterparts (see table)…So the correspondences between Meroitic and living North Eastern Sudanic languages can be found not only in lexical items, but also in morphological elements.
In spite of the scanty available data, the result is obvious : Meroitic is more than probably a member of the North Eastern Sudanic family.
[Rilly goes onto go give a brief history of how these folks came together to form cultural communities…]
… in the past, there was a link between their present situations : the Wadi Howar, an ancient river, now dried up, once an important tributary of the Nile. In the fourth millenary BC, all the region around this river was still a green country convenient for cattle-breeding. But around this time, this part of the Sahara became arid. Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory.
The Taman group went East, towards the springs of the river, to the place where they still live today. Another refugee group, the ancestors of Nubian and Nyima speakers, went South to Kordofan, where they still live today.
Later on, in the first centuries AD, Nubian groups invaded the dying Kingdom of Meroe and founded their own kingdoms along the Nile. As for Nara people, I think they first went to the Nile, like the future Meroites, and later went up the Nile and the Atbara toward Eritrea, where they live nowadays.
So, as you can see, Rilly’s explanation isn’t nearly as simple as you made it out to be.
quote:Clyde Winters: This theory is not supported by the historical and linguistic evidence we have concerning the linguistic and political history of Kush.
Again, Rilly: … in the past, there was a link between their present situations : the Wadi Howar, an ancient river, now dried up, once an important tributary of the Nile. In the fourth millenary BC, all the region around this river was still a green country convenient for cattle-breeding. But around this time, this part of the Sahara became arid. Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory.
Do you have geographical, historical and climatic material to the contrary of the explanation given?
quote:Clyde Winters:
We must reject Rilly's theory because ,we have no evidence that 1) Proto-Nilo-Saharan, as constructed by Rilly was ever spoken by a living being;
Why, because the said speakers didn’t have a text, but had a language that was handed down to the Kushites, who never abandoned the language?
quote:Clyde Winters:
2) we have evidence that the Noba/Nubians entered Nubia long after the Kushites had founded Napatan and Meroitic civilizations, so eventhough they live in Nubia today, they are not representative of Kushite people who they were often in conflict with;
…and pretend that Rilly had not acknowledged this:
Later on, in the first centuries AD, Nubian groups invaded the dying Kingdom of Meroe and founded their own kingdoms along the Nile.
quote:Clyde Winters: 3) Egyptian documents make it clear that the Blymmes also entered the area after the founding of Napatan and Meroitic civilization, so even if some people claim that the Beja=Blymmes this is conjecture. Consequently, even if Beja= Blymmes, they donot represent the Kushite people who founded the Napata and Meroe civilizations, because both the Noba and Blymmes entered Kush after its founding.
Wherein the opening post, does Rilly claim relationship between Beja language, or even the Blymmes, with Kushitic language? Matter of fact, since we are familiar with the idea that Beja languages are within the Afrasan group, its worthwhile to note what Rilly had to say about this group:
Previous works, including mine, had shown that a link with other phylums like Niger-Congo or Afro-Asiatic was unlikely.
quote:Clyde Winters:
quote:Supercar:
So now, the question that arises is; when were the foreigners who developed Tocharian text introduced to the different phases of Egyptic text, the influence of which is pretty obvious in Meroitic, and now hence, Tocharian?
They did not have to become familiar with any of the Egyptian forms of writing. The Meroites just adopted the Tokharian language to write their inscriptions. This was not too difficult because many of the Meroitic signs are similar to the Kharosthi signs, the Kushana used to write Tokharian.
Well, Meroitic shows apparent Egyptian hieratic and demotic influences, and so, if Tocharian is actually “Meroitic” as you claim, why would Tocharian not show this as well…or are you suggesting that, for Tocharian as being actually a duplicate of “Meroitic“ script, such obvious influence is merely coincidental?
Btw even based on the diagram you provided, I don’t see much link between the so-called “Kharosthi” and “Meroitic”, as compared with Egyptian [perhaps hieratic ] and demotic.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
Enough with this "common sense" stuff. A distraction from the real point: it's not the "amount" of evidence you proffer that supports an hypothesis; rather it's the probative validity of the evidence. It has nothing to do with my "intuition, but rather the validity of what you claim is evidence. This is where you fall short. You also make some astonishing statements: you say that linguists can't reconstruct Proto Nilo-S. Proto N-S can be reconstructed using living N-S languages, and then the attempt can be made to compare PNS to what we know of Meroitic. Look, I'm not going to read your articles, for several reasons 1)I don't have the time 2) it would take even more time to find the obscure publications you've written in 3) if the quality of your discourse is similar to what I find here, I agree with you it's a waste of time to continue this discussion.
Look at your "evidence" this way, by analogy. Suppose I want to prove that the earth is constantly bombarded by sub-atomic particles generated by the sun. I could amass tons of "evidence" that is irrelevant to my hypothesis. That the sun rises in the east,that it looks yellow, that it resembles a ball of fire,that it makes me warm, that it's a certain distance from the earth, that it has planets in its orbit, etc. All of which has nothing to do with what I'm trying to prove. For example, the name "Kush" appears historically in both Asia and Africa. You assume that this term implies some sort of historical relationship. That idea was debunked long before you even thought of it. As I said at the beginning, whatever your knowledge of linguistics, you're still vulnerable to answer to faults of logic and coherence-- I noticed you won't respond to my simple query in my last post.QED.
Posts: 57 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Rilly's work is based on conjecture or discuss Noba people who did not speak Kushite languages.
Rilly quote: ______________________ … in the past, there was a link between their present situations : the Wadi Howar, an ancient river, now dried up, once an important tributary of the Nile. In the fourth millenary BC, all the region around this river was still a green country convenient for cattle-breeding. But around this time, this part of the Sahara became arid. Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory. _______________________________________________
This is conjecture. It may have happened, but he does not present any archaeological evidence to support this claim.
Rilly ______________________________________________________________ The Taman group went East, towards the springs of the river, to the place where they still live today. Another refugee group, the ancestors of Nubian and Nyima speakers, went South to Kordofan, where they still live today.
Later on, in the first centuries AD, Nubian groups invaded the dying Kingdom of Meroe and founded their own kingdoms along the Nile. As for Nara people, I think they first went to the Nile, like the future Meroites, and later went up the Nile and the Atbara toward Eritrea, where they live nowadays.
So, as you can see, Rilly’s explanation isn’t nearly as simple as you made it out to be. ____________________________________________________________________ As I said earlier the Noba groups did not speak Kushite languages. They entered Nubia after the founding of Napata and Meroe and appear to have never written any inscriptions in the Meroitic script.
2) we have evidence that the Noba/Nubians entered Nubia long after the Kushites had founded Napatan and Meroitic civilizations, so eventhough they live in Nubia today, they are not representative of Kushite people who they were often in conflict with; --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
supercar quote:
…and pretend that Rilly had not acknowledged this:
Later on, in the first centuries AD, Nubian groups invaded the dying Kingdom of Meroe and founded their own kingdoms along the Nile. _____________________________________________________________ Since he acknolwdeged this reality why is he using proto-Nubian terms to read Meroitic, when the Meroites did not speak this language?
Well, Meroitic shows apparent Egyptian hieratic and demotic influences, and so, if Tocharian is actually “Meroitic” as you claim, why would Tocharian not show this as well…or are you suggesting that, for Tocharian as being actually a duplicate of “Meroitic“ script, such obvious influence is merely coincidental?
Btw even based on the diagram you provided, I don’t see much link between the so-called “Kharosthi” and “Meroitic”, as compared with Egyptian [perhaps hieratic ] and demotic. ____________________________________________________________ The diagram shows similarity between Kharosthi and Meroitic.
Why do you act as if hieratic and demotic are the same writing systems? Any student of Egyptian writing knows that whereas hieratic is based on Egyptian hieroglyphics, demotic has no relationship to Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Let's look at what Antonio Loprieno, says about demotic in his book Ancient Egyptian: A linguistic introduction:
"Demotic (seventh century BCE, to fifth century CE), the language of administration and literature during the Late Period. While grammatically closely akin to Late Egyptian, it differs from it radically in its graphic system" (p.7).
"Hieratic (2600BEC to third century CE) represents a direct cursive rendering....Demotic (seventh century BCE to fifth century CE) modifies radically the writing conventions by introducing a shorthand-like simplification of Hieratic signs....It should be noted that the concersion from Demotic into hieroglyphs is a purely artificial exercise of modern scholars and was never practiced in antiquity" (p.18).
"Unlike Hieratic, whose sign groups mirror the shape of the original hieroglyphs rather closely, Demotic signs break away from this tradition and adopt a relatively small set and stylied, conventional forms, in which the connection to the hierglyphic counterpart is hardly perceivable and which therefore more likely to be used in purely phonetic function....While the demotic system was neither syllabic nor alphabetical, and precisely because the limited number of shapes it used to represent the language required a high degree of professional training on the part of the Late Period scribes...." (pp.22-23). These quotes make it clear that if the Meroites could learn to write demotic which was different from hiractic and hieroglyphics, it would not have been hard for them to learn to use Kharosthi to write Kushana/Tokharian. Let's not forget that Welsby in The Kingdom of Kush, notes that "only four of the letters resemble the equivalent Egyptian demotic signs" (p.193) But as you can see from the above there are more than four demotic signs that match Meroitic, and even more of these signs match Kharosthi.
Enough with this "common sense" stuff. A distraction from the real point: it's not the "amount" of evidence you proffer that supports an hypothesis; rather it's the probative validity of the evidence. It has nothing to do with my "intuition, but rather the validity of what you claim is evidence. This is where you fall short. You also make some astonishing statements: you say that linguists can't reconstruct Proto Nilo-S. Proto N-S can be reconstructed using living N-S languages, and then the attempt can be made to compare PNS to what we know of Meroitic. Look, I'm not going to read your articles, for several reasons 1)I don't have the time 2) it would take even more time to find the obscure publications you've written in 3) if the quality of your discourse is similar to what I find here, I agree with you it's a waste of time to continue this discussion.
Look at your "evidence" this way, by analogy. Suppose I want to prove that the earth is constantly bombarded by sub-atomic particles generated by the sun. I could amass tons of "evidence" that is irrelevant to my hypothesis. That the sun rises in the east,that it looks yellow, that it resembles a ball of fire,that it makes me warm, that it's a certain distance from the earth, that it has planets in its orbit, etc. All of which has nothing to do with what I'm trying to prove. For example, the name "Kush" appears historically in both Asia and Africa. You assume that this term implies some sort of historical relationship. That idea was debunked long before you even thought of it. As I said at the beginning, whatever your knowledge of linguistics, you're still vulnerable to answer to faults of logic and coherence-- I noticed you won't respond to my simple query in my last post.QED.
LOL You are wasting your time, basic. Professor Winters finds linguistic affiliations with the West African language of Mande in everything from Pelasgian of Asia Minor to Dravidian of India, to even Japanese!! LMAOPosts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
But getting back to the topic, I find the issue of the Meroitic language to be strikingly similar to those of a few languages in the Sahel of Western Africa.
Take the Zarma language of the Songhai people, for example. Even though the language is also classified as part of the Nilo-Saharan phylum by the Greenberg system, it's exact place in that language family is still disputed and there are certain features that are considered peculiar to it. As shown by Wikipedia:
Before Greenberg, Songhay's affiliation was unclear. Westermann hesitated between assigning it to Gur or considering it an isolate, and Delafosse grouped it with Mande. At present, Songhay is normally considered to be Nilo-Saharan, following Joseph Greenberg's 1963 reclassification of African languages; Greenberg's argument is based on about 70 claimed cognates, including pronouns. This point has been developed further by, in particular, Lionel Bender and Christopher Ehret; Bender sees it as an independent subfamily of Nilo-Saharan, while Ehret (based on 565 claimed cognates) regards it as a member of the Western Sahelian branch, together with the Maban languages of western Sudan and eastern Chad.
However, this point is not uncontroversial. Greenberg's argument was subjected to serious criticism by Lacroix (1969, pp. 91-92), who claimed to have found only about 30 of Greenberg's claimed cognates to be acceptable, and argued that these were mainly between Zarma and the neighboring Saharan languages, thus leading one to suspect them of being loanwords. Certain Songhay-Mande similarities have long been observed (at least since Westermann), and Mukarovsky (1966), Creissels (1981), and Nicolaï (1977, 1984) investigated the possibility of a Mande relationship; Creissels found some 50 comparisons, including many body parts and morphological suffixes (such as the causative in -endi), while Nicolai found some 450 similar words as well as some conspicuous typological traits. However, Nicolaï eventually concluded that this approach was not adequate, and in 1990 proposed a distinctly novel hypothesis: that Songhay is a Berber-based creole language, restructured under Mande influence. In support of this he proposed 412 possible similarities, ranging all the way from basic vocabulary (tasa "liver") to obvious borrowings (anzad "violin", alkaadi "qadi".) Others, such as Gerrit Dimmendaal, were not convinced, and Nicolaï (2003) appears to consider the question of Songhay's origins still open, while arguing cogently against Ehret and Bender's proposed etymologies.
Greenberg's claimed morphological similarities with Nilo-Saharan include the pronouns I ai (eg Zaghawa ai), you ni (eg Kanuri nyi), we yer (eg Kanuri -ye), you (pl.) wor (eg Kanuri -wi), relative and adjective formants -ma (eg Kanuri -ma) and -ko (eg Maba -ko), a plural suffix -an (?), a hypothetical plural suffix -r (eg Teso -r) which he takes to appear in the pronouns yer and wor, intransitive/passive -a (eg. Teso -o). Only a small selection of the claimed cognates outside Songhai are given here.
The most striking of the Mande similarities listed by Creissels are the third person pronouns a sg. (pan-Mande a), i pl. (pan-Mande i or e), the demonstratives wo "this" (Manding o, wo) and no "there" (Soninke no, other Mande na), the negative na (found in a couple of Manding dialects) and negative perfect mana (cf. Manding má, máŋ), the subjunctive ma (Manding máa), the copula ti (Bisa ti, Manding de/le), the verbal connective ka (Manding kà), the suffixes -ri (resultative - cf. Mandinka -ri, Bambara -li process nouns), -ncè (ethnonymic, cf. Soninke -nke, Mandinka -nka), -anta (ordinal, cf. Soninke -ndi, Mandinka -njaŋ...), -anta (resultative participle, cf. Soninke -nte), -endi (causative, cf. Soninke, Mandinka -ndi), and the postposition ra "in" (cf. Manding lá, Soso ra...)
And then you have the Bangi-me language spoken in the Dogon region of Mali but is not itself a Dogon language:
One language in the Dogon-speaking area is apparently not Dogon but which is difficult to classify, Ba?gi me (see separate report). This language contains some Niger-Congo roots but is lexically very remote from all other languages in West Africa. It is presumably the last remaining representative of the languages spoken prior to the expansion of the Dogon proper. This is dealt with in a separate piece below...
..The classification of Ba?gi me All the authors that have written about Ba?gi me have noted how different it is from other Dogon varieties. The only published data on this language is the short wordlist of ‘Yeni’ in Bertho (1953:433) which appears to be accurate and the hundred words collected by the Durieux in 1998, cited in Hochstetler et al. (2004). These latter forms incorporate significant elements from the bound morphology and should thus be used with care.
Here is a more detailed analysis and report of the Bangi-me language:
The point is that it is not impossible for Meroitic or any language in Sudan to be a language isolate. Also is the natural and common occurance of language displacement. It is possible that while the Meroitic or Kushite language may have a Nilo-Saharan superstratum, it could also have a substratum that is a language isolate.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Whereas Welsby believes that only four meroitic signs show a demotic influence the Meroitic and Kharosthi scripts share many similar signs as illustrated below.
posted
djehuti quote: ____________________________________________________________ One language in the Dogon-speaking area is apparently not Dogon but which is difficult to classify, Ba?gi me (see separate report). This language contains some Niger-Congo roots but is lexically very remote from all other languages in West Africa. It is presumably the last remaining representative of the languages spoken prior to the expansion of the Dogon proper. This is dealt with in a separate piece below...
..The classification of Ba?gi me All the authors that have written about Ba?gi me have noted how different it is from other Dogon varieties. The only published data on this language is the short wordlist of ‘Yeni’ in Bertho (1953:433) which appears to be accurate and the hundred words collected by the Durieux in 1998, cited in Hochstetler et al. (2004). These latter forms incorporate significant elements from the bound morphology and should thus be used with care. _______________________________________________
Interesting information. I would like to add that the Dogon claim to be Mande, but most linguist do not believe that Dogon is related to the Mande group of languages.
..
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think he only tried to clarify what script you meant by "Egyptian," not declaring hieratic and demotic as synonymous nomenclature.
I'd like to see Meroitic translated and I don't care who does it or by what comparative language, whether African or extra-African, just so long as the grammar and lexicon they prepare produces identical replicable translations by all otherwise unknowledgeable students employing them.
To that end when I examine the below chart of eleven characters I find: * Row 1. i - no Kharosthi entry; all other entries show no significant differences * Row 2. y - no Kharosthi entry; all other entries show no significant differences * Row 3. b - Demotic identical to Meroitic * Row 4. m - Demotic nearly identical to Meroitic; Kharosthi inverted and quarter turned * Row 5. t - both Kharosthi and Egyptian identical (minus the dot) to Meroitic * Row 6. p - Demotic loosely resembles Meroitic; the base is extended, the tip is minimized * Row 7. e - Demotic identical to Meroitic; Egyptian somewhat similar to Meroitic * Row 8. to- all have dot missing; Demotic otherwise identical, the others are similar * Row 9. ñ - no Kharosthi entry; Demotic identical invert, Egyptian identical * Row10. h - both Demotic and Kharosthi identical to Meroitic * Row11. te- Demotic only varies in missing the base; Kharosthi vaguely similar
Of these 11 examples, when compared to Meroitic I find: * Demotic has 5 identical, 1 identical invert, and 1 nearly identical characters * Kharosthi has 2 identical, 1 1/4turn invert, 1 similar, and 1 vague characters * Egyptian has 2 identical, 2 similar, and 1 somewhat similar characters
From the given chart I'm forced to conclude Demotic has a high incident of uniformity with Meroitic not similarly displayed by either Kharasthi or Egyptian both of which do have some concurrence with Meroitic.
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
quote:Originally posted by supercar: Well, Meroitic shows apparent Egyptian hieratic and demotic influences, . . . . ... based on the diagram you provided, I don’t see much link between the so-called “Kharosthi” and “Meroitic”, as compared with Egyptian [perhaps hieratic ] and demotic.
The diagram shows similarity between Kharosthi and Meroitic.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
… in the past, there was a link between their present situations : the Wadi Howar, an ancient river, now dried up, once an important tributary of the Nile. In the fourth millenary BC, all the region around this river was still a green country convenient for cattle-breeding. But around this time, this part of the Sahara became arid. Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory.
This is conjecture. It may have happened, but he does not present any archaeological evidence to support this claim.
And so, I ask again:
Do you have geographical, historical and climatic material to the contrary of the explanation given?
quote:Kenndo: OF COURSE we now know that pre-kerma was form much early in 5000 b.c. and these were the same folks that formed the new city of kerma in 2400 b.c.
I READ somewhere and heard the the nubian script from medieval times is coming back,or is here already.
I gather that there are more recent findings that date the pre-Kerma complex further back into time. Rilly’s claim:
According to the most recent archaeological work carried out by the University of Geneva, Kerma was founded around 2400 years BC and did not undergo any dramatic ethnic or cultural changes until its final stage. So the origin of Meroitic can now be placed very probably around this date or even a little earlier.
Let’s pit this against M. Honegger et al.’s findings [not sure about dating for the following]:
So far, thirty-seven sites predating the Kerma civilisation have been identified. Five of them have been radiocarbon-dated, and their artefacts are currently being studied. Among these sites, three settlements have been excavated more or less extensively. Dated respectively from around 7400 cal. BC (Early Khartoum), 4600 cal. BC (Neolithic) and 3000 cal. BC (pre-Kerma), they have provided crucial data on architecture and spatial organisation…
Pre-Kerma settlement (around 3000 cal. BC) Three Pre-Kerma settlements are known, and one has been extensively excavated over about ten years. It consists of a village, uncovered over an area of about one hectare, that was also located at the site of the eastern necropolis of the Kerma civilisation. Unlike the Neolithic sites, this settlement was not covered by Nile silt. Its floor was, in consequence, eroded over a large portion of the excavated area, and in general only negative structures such as pits and postholes have been preserved. Artefacts were discovered almost exclusively inside the pits. They consisted mainly of potsherds, and a few stone artefacts. Faunal remains were very rare. The pits numbered two hundred and eighty-five, and were concentrated in a specific area. They must have been used to store food, in particular grain, as suggested by other sites in the Nile Valley. The structures outlined by the postholes encircled the pit area. A living area was recognisable by its circular constructions, including huts, which had a diameter of one to seven meters. In some areas the huts were superimposed, indicating that there were several phases of construction. On the edge of this living area, several palisades outlined vast oval structures which must have represented cattle enclosures. These structures also marked the limit of the settlement, forming a kind of protective barrier. Two rectangular buildings, quite different from one another, were identified close to the palisades. They probably fulfilled a specific function, but it is difficult to imagine what this may have been as no artefacts were preserved at surface level. Finally, two graves were uncovered on the outskirts of the settlement.
Other Pre-Kerma or A-Group sites with settlement structures have been discovered between the first and the third cataracts of the Nile valley. Unfortunately, these have yielded precious little information concerning architecture or spatial organisation, though they are often represented by storage pits (Arduan, Sai, Khor Daoud). It would seem that the latter developed during a relatively late phase of Nubian prehistory, as this type of structure is not known at sites predating the second half of the fourth millennium BC. The appearance of these generally numerous and grouped pits could be linked to the rising importance of agriculture in the economy and, in consequence, to increasingly permanent habitation sites. Indeed, the settlement of the Kerma region, with its numerous phases of rebuilding and ample storage areas, seems to point to a permanent occupation lasting over several decades. Compared to the Neolithic, where animal husbandry played a major role, the Pre-Kerma and A-Group periods may have seen a progressive transformation, characterised by the increasing development of agriculture, even though animal husbandry still played an important role. This evolution of the subsistence economy was probably one of the conditions necessary for the emergence of more complex societies, such as the one present at Kerma during the second half of the third millennium BC.
To conclude, several parallels may be drawn between the Pre-Kerma settlement and the ancient city of Kerma, whose earliest structures date from around 2300 to 2200 cal. BC. This town displayed certain architectural traditions which were inherited from the preceding period, such as huts, storage pits and palisades. But this was the full extent of the similarities: the dominant architectural forms at Kerma were built of mud bricks, which were apparently unknown during the Pre-Kerma period. The buildings were generally rectangular and possessed internal subdivisions. This spatial organisation reveals a desire for urbanism, with monumental buildings and a system of hierarchised streets and passages. All these elements were new to Nubian architecture. We are still lacking the intermediate stages, and need to define the importance of influences from the Egyptian civilisation.
Bio-anthropological indicators from two perspectives:
Population continuity vs. discontinuity revisited: dental affinities among late Paleolithic through Christian-era Nubians.
Irish JD.
The present study revisits a subject that has been a source of long-standing bioarchaeological contention, namely, estimation of Nubian population origins and affinities. Using the Arizona State University dental anthropology system, frequencies of 36 crown, root, and intraoral osseous discrete traits in 12 late Pleistocene through early historic Nubian samples were recorded and analyzed. Specifically, intersample phenetic affinities, and an indication of which traits are most important in driving this variation, were determined through the application of correspondence analysis and the mean measure of divergence distance statistic. The results support previous work by the author and others indicating that population discontinuity, in the form of replacement or significant gene flow into an existing gene pool, occurred sometime after the Pleistocene.
This analysis now suggests that the break occurred before the Final Neolithic. Samples from the latter through Christian periods exhibit relative homogeneity, which implies overall post-Pleistocene diachronic and regional population continuity. Yet there are several perceptible trends among these latter samples that: 1) are consistent with documented Nubian population history, 2) enable the testing of several existing peopling hypotheses, and 3) allow the formulation of new hypotheses, including a suggestion of two post-Pleistocene subgroups predicated on an age-based sample dichotomy. Copyright 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc
Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships S.O.Y. Keita History In Africa 20 (1993) 129-54
Recently Irish (Joel D.) and Turner (1990) and Turner and Markowitz (1990) have suggested that the populations of Nubia and Egypt of the agricultural periods were not primarily descendents of the geographical populations of mesolithic/epipaleolithic times. Based on dental morphology, they postulate as almost total replacement of the native /African epipaleolithic and neolithic groups by populations or peoples from further north (Europe or the near east?)
They take issue with the well-known post-pleistocene/hunting dental reduction and simplification hypothesis which postulate in situ microevolution driven by dietary change, with minimal gene flow (admixture).
However, as is well known and accepted, rapid evolution can occur. Also, rapid change in northeast Africa might be specifically anticipated because of the possibilities for punctuated microevolution (secondary to severe micro-selection and drift) in the early Holocene sahara, because of the isolated communities and cyclicial climatic changes there, and their possible subsequent human effects. The earliest southern predynastic culture, Badari, owes key elements to post-dessication Saharan and also perhaps "Nubian" immigration.
Biologically these people were essentially the **same.**
It is also possible that the dental traits could have been introduced from an external source, **and increased** in frequency primarily because of natural selection, either for the trait or for growth pattern requiring less energy.
** There is no evidence for sudden or gradual mass migration of Europeans or Near Easterners into the valley**, as the term 'replacement' would imply. There is limb ratio and craniofacial morphological and metric **continuity** in Upper-Egypt-Nubia in a broad sense from the late paleolithic through dynastic periods, although change occured.
quote:Clyde Winters: Rilly's work is based on conjecture or discuss Noba people who did not speak Kushite languages.
You’ve already been informed of Rilly’s take on the Noba and later groups that arrived. Please take note.
quote:Clyde Winters: Since he acknolwdeged this reality why is he using proto-Nubian terms to read Meroitic, when the Meroites did not speak this language?
…because he is aware that the Kushites/Meroites didn‘t become extinct, and that they have living descendants in the region. “Nubian” groups mentioned weren‘t a homogenous group; you are apparently a victim of the “Nubian” syndrome, while Rilly recognizes that some groups joined the earlier Kushitic groups of the region at later periods.
quote:Clyde Winters: The diagram shows similarity between Kharosthi and Meroitic.
Non-sequitur, with respect to the comment you are replying to.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Clyde Winters: Why do you act as if hieratic and demotic are the same writing systems? Any student of Egyptian writing knows that whereas hieratic is based on Egyptian hieroglyphics, demotic has no relationship to Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Why do you keep “inventing” what people have said? Both hieratic and demotic are apparently “Egyptian“, and related [even your own diagram shows this] ! Egyptian hieroglyphics didn’t just jump from pictographic symbols to demotic, their was development in between, towards first hieratic, and then demotic; thereafter Coptic, a modification with Greek characters and those of demotic. Earlier, I posted:
About the Origins of Early Demotic in Lower Egypt, in: Life in a Multi-Cultural Society, 91-102. (tables, pl.), by Ola El-AGUIZY:
The first group of the Serapeum stelae, which dates back to the XXIInd Dynasty (Sheshonq V), shows that a cursive writing quite similar to abnormal hieratic was also used in Lower Egypt. The author assumes that the evolutions of the hieratic scripts of Upper and of Lower Egypt must have passed through similar phases, the latter leading to a cursive writing similar to abnormal hieratic. The Serapeum stelae are proof of this. The XXVth Dynasty stelae show that the few signs resembling Early Demotic have intermingled with a well-formed hieratic style. Such a style must have co-existed in Lower Egypt with a more cursive one, and might probably be considered as the origin of the Early Demotic script born in this part of the country. The author suggests that Demotic is not derived from a different cursive branch of hieratic used in Lower Egypt, but rather from one of two hieratic styles used in Lower Egypt itself. The first of these styles, being the natural development of late hieratic, had become too cursive to go on being used. The second, closer to the hieratic originals, developed into Early Demotic, by a gradual and normal simplification of well-formed hieratic signs. As for the early XXVIth Dynasty Stela Louvre C 101, bearing hieroglyphic, hieratic and Demotic signs, it must have been copied from a hieroglyphic original by a scribe familiar with Demotic. For the evolution see the comparative palaeographic tables added.
El-AGUIZY, Ola, A Palaeographical Study of Demotic Papyri in the Cairo Museum from the Reign of King Taharqa to the End of the Ptolemaic Period (684-30 B.C.), Le Caire, Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 1998 = MIFAO [Mémoires. Institut français d'archéologie orientale], 113. (27 x 35 cm; XVI, 456 p.).ISBN 2-7247-0227-1; pr. FF 340/ LE 200
This palaeography of pre-Roman Period Demotic starts with a bibliography, general as well as of papyri studied, and a list of the source documents in the Cairo Museum arranged in ten categories. In the introduction the author points out the problem of the development out of hieratic, since there is also a Theban script generally called Abnormal Hieratic. In fact, the first aim of her work is to attempt to determine the origins of Demotic and its relation with the preceding scripts, in order to define whether it was an entirely new script or derived from its predecessors. Next, the study is concerned with the development of Demotic writing since its appearance in the XXVIth Dynasty down to the end of the Ptolemaic Period, whereby it is also determined whether this development was influenced by historical or geographical factors or both. The classification adopted by her for the development of the Demotic writing is as follows: (1) Early Demotic, spanning the XXVIIth to XXXth Dynasties; (2) Ptolemaic Demotic, spanning the entire Ptolemaic Period, but generally subdivided into Early Ptolemaic, covering the years of flowering and ending with the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes, and Late Ptolemaic, contemporary with the decline of the dynasty and distinct from the earlier period by mentioning in dates also the day of the month; (3) Late Demotic of the Roman Period. Phase (3) is not included as documents dating to it are not numerous enough in the Cairo Museum to provide certain information.
The present work is based on the published papyri of the Cairo Museum, starting with the reign of Taharqa and having as the oldest among the texts those written in Abnormal Hieratic. However, owing to the scarcity of documents in Abnormal Hieratic texts from other collections (the Louvre and the British Museum) have been added to permit a more thorough study of this type of script. The work is presented in two parts, the first giving a detailed commentary on individual signs of interest in the study of the origins and development of the Demotic script, including figures illustrating the hieratic forms of the particular sign under study, in order to permit its comparison with the Demotic equivalent and establish the similarities or differences between them. The signs are divided into categories arranged by Gardiner's Sign-List and Möller's hieratic palaeography, but the numbering system is continuous (in Roman numerals), altogether 303 (CCCIII) signs, a number of which have been left undescribed by the author. Users will note that the alphabetic signs are grouped separately in front of the other categories. In this way, Gardiner's and Möller's category "A" is headed here under "B" etc.; further, two categories, i.e. anthropomorphic deities (= Gardiner "C" and Möller "C") and loaves and cakes (= Gardiner "X") are omitted (see the concordance on p. 4). This first part concludes with considerations on some of the papyri studied and on palaeographical matters. The second part consists of the plates corresponding with the author's sign list in Part 1, each plate being arranged in ten sections giving the Demotic sign forms by period and region. The first section concerns Abnormal Hieratic, the following concern the three periods Early Demotic and Early and Late Ptolemaic (Demotic), each geographically subdivided into Lower, Middle and Upper Egypt. The signs are accompanied by source references. The sign numbering is also used in the commentary dealing with some of the signs of particular interest to the study of the development of the Demotic writing. In this commentary, Möller's palaeography is used in the comparison of hieratic and Demotic signs, despite the fact that his work is not always very accurate. Figures of the hieratic sign forms are given in the commentary, to determine the degree of affinity between a Demotic sign and its predecessor(s). It is worth noting that as transliteration system of the Demotic the method of Fr. de Cenival is adopted. Of the two indexes the first presents the sign forms from Early to Late Hieratic (Möller parts I-III) and Abnormal Hieratic, so as to show the process of development from hieratic to Demotic; the second lists the signs discussed in the commentary and given on the plates.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
Here we have a problem where the use of Pre-Kerma is being linked to Kerma which it should not be linked to Kerma. Note that because a settlement is found in the region of Kerma that doesn't mean it is early version of the Kerma Culture, Nubti being the ancestral migratory route which later evolves into Kemet shows this very well.
Afrikan version of Apedemak:
Notice in the left hand top corner of this picture we have some Meroitic inscriptions, could someone translate please?
Indian version of Apedemak:
Two different versions of the same War Deity, showing that at least on group with a foreign influence is in the area.
From the given chart I'm forced to conclude Demotic has a high incident of uniformity with Meroitic not similarly displayed by either Kharasthi or Egyptian both of which do have some concurrence with Meroitic.
The most interesting Meroitic text concerning Apedemak is found on the votive tablet of Tañyidamani which is now found in the Paris Museum. On this votive tablet Tañyidamani is depicted on the obverse side , and the god Apedemak on the reverse side.
On the reverse side of the Tañyidamani votive tablet the god Apedemak is depicted wearing a short apron and hemhem crown. On this votive tablet Apedemak also wears armlets, bracelets, a collar and pectoral. Inside a panel in front of Apedemak we find a cursive Meroitic inscription.
The inscriptions in the panel on the reverse side of the votive tablet of King Tañyidamani make it clear that the king acknowledged the important role the god Apedemak played in his life. These inscriptions can be read either from right to left or top to bottom. Reading from right to left we read:
TRANSLITERATION OF REVERSE SIDE OF VOTIVE TABLET OF KING TAÑYIDAMANI
1. w e to
2. q tel
3. w to si
4.tone m-k
5. d.[l]..r-i
6.te i
TRANSLATION
1. You (it is Apedemak who) gives guidance.
2. Revitalize support (for me King Tañyidamani).
3. You guide (me) to satisfaction.
4. (And ) much reverence (for your patron).
5. Give (it) amicably (to me).
6. May (it go forth).
Reading this same inscription top to bottom we find the following:
TRANSLITERATION OF THE REVERSE SIDE OF THE VOTIVE TABLET OF KING TAÑYIDAMANI
1. w q b-to d-te.
2. e te to m ne l.
3. toe i skr-i.
TRANSLATION
1. (Oh Apedemak) Guide and Make Honor (for your patron).
2. Give here your (full) measure of Good indeed.
3. (It is) thou (Apedemak who) give(s) leave to eminence (for your patron).
......
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
supercar quote: ______________________________________________________________ quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clyde Winters: Rilly's work is based on conjecture or discuss Noba people who did not speak Kushite languages. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You’ve already been informed of Rilly’s take on the Noba and later groups that arrived. Please take note.
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clyde Winters: Since he acknolwdeged this reality why is he using proto-Nubian terms to read Meroitic, when the Meroites did not speak this language? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
…because he is aware that the Kushites/Meroites didn‘t become extinct, and that they have living descendants in the region. “Nubian” groups mentioned weren‘t a homogenous group; you are apparently a victim of the “Nubian” syndrome, while Rilly recognizes that some groups joined the earlier Kushitic groups of the region at later periods. _______________________________________________________________
This is the point I am trying to make. If the Nubians were not Kushites how can Rilly use proto-terms constructed via Nubian languages to read Meroitic, a writing systems the Noba / Nubians never employed to write their literature or history.
..
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Supercar: [QB] [QUOTE]Clyde Winters:
[QUOTE] Rilly quote:
[QUOTE]Kenndo: OF COURSE we now know that pre-kerma was form much early in 5000 b.c. and these were the same folks that formed the new city of kerma in 2400 b.c.
I READ somewhere and heard the the nubian script from medieval times is coming back,or is here already.
I gather that there are more recent findings that date the pre-Kerma complex further back into time. Rilly’s claim:
According to the most recent archaeological work carried out by the University of Geneva, Kerma was founded around 2400 years BC and did not undergo any dramatic ethnic or cultural changes until its final stage. So the origin of Meroitic can now be placed very probably around this date or even a little earlier.
Let’s pit this against M. Honegger et al.’s findings [not sure about dating for the following]:
Pre-Kerma settlement (around 3000 cal. BC)
Other Pre-Kerma or A-Group sites with settlement structures have been discovered between the first and the third cataracts of the Nile valley. Unfortunately, these have yielded precious little information concerning architecture or spatial organisation, though they are often represented by storage pits (Arduan, Sai, Khor Daoud). It would seem that the latter developed during a relatively late phase of Nubian prehistory, as this type of structure is not known at sites predating the second half of the fourth millennium BC. The appearance of these generally numerous and grouped pits could be linked to the rising importance of agriculture in the economy and, in consequence, to increasingly permanent habitation sites. Indeed, the settlement of the Kerma region, with its numerous phases of rebuilding and ample storage areas, seems to point to a permanent occupation lasting over several decades. Compared to the Neolithic, where animal husbandry played a major role, the Pre-Kerma and A-Group periods may have seen a progressive transformation, characterised by the increasing development of agriculture, even though animal husbandry still played an important role. This evolution of the subsistence economy was probably one of the conditions necessary for the emergence of more complex societies, such as the one present at Kerma during the second half of the third millennium BC.
Bio-anthropological indicators from two perspectives:
Population continuity vs. discontinuity revisited: dental affinities among late Paleolithic through Christian-era Nubians.
Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships S.O.Y. Keita History In Africa 20 (1993) 129-54
Recently Irish (Joel D.) and Turner (1990) and Turner and Markowitz (1990) have suggested that the populations of Nubia and Egypt of the agricultural periods were not primarily descendents of the geographical populations of mesolithic/epipaleolithic times. Based on dental morphology, they postulate as almost total replacement of the native /African epipaleolithic and neolithic groups by populations or peoples from further north (Europe or the near east?)
They take issue with the well-known post-pleistocene/hunting dental reduction and simplification hypothesis which postulate in situ microevolution driven by dietary change, with minimal gene flow (admixture).
However, as is well known and accepted, rapid evolution can occur. Also, rapid change in northeast Africa might be specifically anticipated because of the possibilities for punctuated microevolution (secondary to severe micro-selection and drift) in the early Holocene sahara, because of the isolated communities and cyclicial climatic changes there, and their possible subsequent human effects. The earliest southern predynastic culture, Badari, owes key elements to post-dessication Saharan and also perhaps "Nubian" immigration.
Biologically these people were essentially the **same.**
It is also possible that the dental traits could have been introduced from an external source, **and increased** in frequency primarily because of natural selection, either for the trait or for growth pattern requiring less energy.
** There is no evidence for sudden or gradual mass migration of Europeans or Near Easterners into the valley**, as the term 'replacement' would imply. There is limb ratio and craniofacial morphological and metric **continuity** in Upper-Egypt-Nubia in a broad sense from the late paleolithic through dynastic periods, although change occured.
I AGREE,AND WHEN they do those studies it is limited and it depends on what time period and location and who doing it because they do not have all the facts or just plain dead incorrect.
there was alot of admixture in lower nubia in very late ancient and late medieval upper nubia to a great extent so you will find this admixture there if you study this time period.southern nubia had much less admixture in late and modern times.upper and southern nubia in ancient times had no admixture from other (ethnic racial groups)or outside elements.
there was no mass movements of other (ethnic racial )groups from europe or asia in the nile valley in ancient times,but there was movements from the outside(asia and europe) into the nile valley in egypt in greater numbers in late ancient times and medieval times,and in the sudan only in late medieval times in upper nubia and very limited movements in southern nubia in late very late medieval times and little bit more in early modern times but still very limited.
2. Upper Nubia's First Kingdom? The Pre-Kerma Culture
The site of Kerma, about 10 miles (16.5 km) south of the Third Cataract, and about 350 miles (580 km) upstream (south) from Aswan, is known to have been that of the largest city in the Sudan during the period about 2000-1500 BC. Although we do not yet know its ancient name, Kerma was the probable capital of the first Nubian state to call itself Kush, and there is every reason to believe that this phase was the latest of a major town that had already existed here continuously for two or three thousand years. This isolated but highly fertile region of the Nile Valley, between Sai Island and the Fourth Cataract, was uniquely suited for human settlement, independent cultural evolution, and state formation. It was on a wide low-lying plain, which the Nile irrigated with multiple channels, creating many islands. In antiquity greater rainfall stimulated seasonal growth of grasses in the plains and enabled the residents to raise cattle on a grand scale. Whatever king could achieve political power over this district could control all river traffic between Egypt and the lands to the south - traffic from which he could collect tolls, receive gifts, and amass great wealth.
In 1986 the expedition of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, under the direction of Dr. Charles Bonnet, was excavating at the ancient city site of Kerma, which dates to about 2500-1500 BC. Beneath the cemetery of this city, about 1.5 mi (2.7 km) east of the Nile, they found ruins of a second, older town, dating from about 3500-2700 BC. This town is now called the "Pre-Kerma settlement" and its culture the "Pre-Kerma." Mixed with these remains were traces of an even older town, which have yielded carbon dates stretching back to about 4800 BC.
note the city of pre-kerma goes back to really 5000 b.c,some say 4800 b.c. and civilization began in southern nubia called early khartoum and it goes back to around 8000 b.c.
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
…because he is aware that the Kushites/Meroites didn‘t become extinct, and that they have living descendants in the region. “Nubian” groups mentioned weren‘t a homogenous group; you are apparently a victim of the “Nubian” syndrome, while Rilly recognizes that some groups joined the earlier Kushitic groups of the region at later periods.
This is the point I am trying to make. If the Nubians were not Kushites how can Rilly use proto-terms constructed via Nubian languages to read Meroitic, a writing systems the Noba / Nubians never employed to write their literature or history.
Don't attempt to use my claim as though it is supporting your point in any way. Far from it, it is explaining to you, what is lacking in your logic. Rilly has named several "Nubian" groups in his article, and has acknowledged that other groups came in, at the turn of the Kushitic power in the region; do you not still recognize this, even after it has been posted a million times now?
quote:Originally posted by kenndo:
2. Upper Nubia's First Kingdom? The Pre-Kerma Culture
The site of Kerma, about 10 miles (16.5 km) south of the Third Cataract, and about 350 miles (580 km) upstream (south) from Aswan, is known to have been that of the largest city in the Sudan during the period about 2000-1500 BC. Although we do not yet know its ancient name, Kerma was the probable capital of the first Nubian state to call itself Kush, and there is every reason to believe that this phase was the latest of a major town that had already existed here continuously for two or three thousand years. This isolated but highly fertile region of the Nile Valley, between Sai Island and the Fourth Cataract, was uniquely suited for human settlement, independent cultural evolution, and state formation. It was on a wide low-lying plain, which the Nile irrigated with multiple channels, creating many islands. In antiquity greater rainfall stimulated seasonal growth of grasses in the plains and enabled the residents to raise cattle on a grand scale. Whatever king could achieve political power over this district could control all river traffic between Egypt and the lands to the south - traffic from which he could collect tolls, receive gifts, and amass great wealth.
In 1986 the expedition of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, under the direction of Dr. Charles Bonnet, was excavating at the ancient city site of Kerma, which dates to about 2500-1500 BC. Beneath the cemetery of this city, about 1.5 mi (2.7 km) east of the Nile, they found ruins of a second, older town, dating from about 3500-2700 BC. This town is now called the "Pre-Kerma settlement" and its culture the "Pre-Kerma." Mixed with these remains were traces of an even older town, which have yielded carbon dates stretching back to about 4800 BC.
note the city of pre-kerma goes back to really 5000 b.c,some say 4800 b.c.
I believe this was taken from Nubianet.org. Here is the more complete article from M. Honegger; perhaps, it will give you more insight into what is involved here.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
right,i downloaded it about a week ago but i got the above from the link below. a more update site on how far pre-kerma really goes back to,and early khartoum in southern nubia(going back to 8000 b.c.)
Don't attempt to use my claim as though it is supporting your point in any way. Far from it, it is explaining to you, what is lacking in your logic. Rilly has named several "Nubian" groups in his article, and has acknowledged that other groups came in, at the turn of the Kushitic power in the region; do you not still recognize this, even after it has been posted a million times now? _______________________________________________________________
This is the point I am trying to make: the Nubians were not Kushites.If they were not Kushites, how could they have played a role in Meroitic literacy?
I have asked you this question a million times please answer it now :If the Nubians were not Kushites how can Rilly use proto-terms constructed via Nubian languages to read Meroitic, a writing systems the Noba / Nubians never employed to write any of their inscriptions throughout their literate history? ...
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
, which should be read -ne . For example, ene-i o d he 'she commands the beginning of the bequeathal'. The -ine suffix is joined to Meroitic words to indicate feminine in the case of verbs, just like -i, e.g., yerk 'give veneration', yerk-ine 'give her veneration'.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic