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.)
Well, Kenndo, is there something in Mr. Honegger's finding that you feel needs to be addressed?
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
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? ...
...in which case, I'll just refer you back to the million "simple-to-read" answers that were already provided for your now redundant and repetitive question, as the one above. Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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OH,i was just saying that there were two pre-kerma findings,one that goes back to 3500 b.c. and the oldest the other thar goes back to 4800 to 5000 b.c.,this is recent so the other link would not have the lastest info since these findings happen around the late 1990's and these findings were discuss in the show wonders of the african world on pbs channel 13 in n.y. and the book,of course in the book some other things were incorrect,dates etc, the other -early khartoum/just picking out a older date when it began.it's in that nubianet.org. and some other sites i have seen recently. just wanted to be as updated as possible.i am glad by the way this talk is happening about the meriotic script and the kushite(nubians)because i believe like others,that they created the script,and some letters of that script survived in the old nubian script of medieval times.
too bad i would not be able to read more of this talk tonight or for awhile,i am going to be quite busy for awhile.
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: supercar quote: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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? ...
This is a legitimate question, but it mirrors the question I have about linguistic methodogies in general.
It seems a trivial matter to substantiate a relationship between two languages, given a common origin of all languages.
The difficulty is in objective assessment of '"degree" of relationship.
I am usually non-plussed about lists of similar cognates in two languages because it is impossible to gauge from this how similar/dissimilar dosens of other languages may be - given a different list of terms.
If meroitic script has been deciphered then it should be possible to produce coherent translation of all of the inscriptions.
If such translations have been completed then it should be *impossible* to deny the decipherment.
This issue continues to puzzle me.
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quote: 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?
Nubianism breeds *CONFUSION* you were warned, to lose the Ancient Nubia myth. Remove the LUMPING all groups located in the Southern Nile Valley regions as Nubians and Nile Valley Civilization becomes less confusing. You were challenged before when you made the Natufians were Nubians claim. Natufians were Afrikans proved to be more factual.
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.
Look at the above quote because this is what Nubianism breeds!
Does Kenndo know *exactly* when Kerma was founded? Does Kenndo know what cultral practices deferentiates Kerma from Kemet? Does Kenndo know how and when Kerma evolved those practices that differentiates Kerma from Kemet?
If someone finds ancients remains of people living in California from 5000-8000 years ago does that mean that person discovered a ancient Euro American, Mexican, Chinese, Afrikan culture or a Native American culture?
Archaelogist who ignore *HISTORICAL TEXT* will always confuse their readers, because digging up artifacts and making assumptions based upon the artifacts alone is IGNORANT and illogical, just because the artifacts were found in the Kerma region doesn't make it pre Kerma because Nile Valley Civilizations existed before Kerma culture.
Nile Valley area was a foundation for majority of native Afrikans so numerous historical Civilization will be found along the Nile river, so if we play the lump and dump all groups that show strong native Afrikan affinities into Nubians and those who show elongated features into Egyptians(presumably Caucasoid) game then Confusion will be the order of the day.
Here is a early Map of the Nile Valley area please note that Rameses II temple is located in the area that Nubian myth makers like to call lower Nubia, though Rameses II didn't seem to think that was the appropriate name for his home town in the South. Take note that Rameses II builds the statue in the South to show some Kemetic Southern pride.
quote:Originally posted by kenndo: OH,i was just saying that there were two pre-kerma findings,one that goes back to 3500 b.c. and the oldest the other thar goes back to 4800 to 5000 b.c.,this is recent so the other link would not have the lastest info since these findings happen around the late 1990's and these findings were discuss in the show wonders of the african world on pbs channel 13 in n.y. and the book,of course in the book some other things were incorrect,dates etc, the other -early khartoum/just picking out a older date when it began.it's in that nubianet.org. and some other sites i have seen recently. just wanted to be as updated as possible.i am glad by the way this talk is happening about the meriotic script and the kushite(nubians)because i believe like others,that they created the script,and some letters of that script survived in the old nubian script of medieval times.
too bad i would not be able to read more of this talk tonight or for awhile,i am going to be quite busy for awhile.
I don't see any date for the article itself in the link provided; just the items that were uncovered in the mentioned archeological sites. I was asking you, if there is anything therein [i.e., in the link] you feel that the Mr. Honegger needs to address further. I take it that, there is none yet that you can think of.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by kenndo: OH,i was just saying that there were two pre-kerma findings,one that goes back to 3500 b.c. and the oldest the other thar goes back to 4800 to 5000 b.c.,this is recent so the other link would not have the lastest info since these findings happen around the late 1990's and these findings were discuss in the show wonders of the african world on pbs channel 13 in n.y. and the book,of course in the book some other things were incorrect,dates etc, the other -early khartoum/just picking out a older date when it began.it's in that nubianet.org. and some other sites i have seen recently. just wanted to be as updated as possible.i am glad by the way this talk is happening about the meriotic script and the kushite(nubians)because i believe like others,that they created the script,and some letters of that script survived in the old nubian script of medieval times.
too bad i would not be able to read more of this talk tonight or for awhile,i am going to be quite busy for awhile.
I don't see any date for the article itself in the link provided; just the items that were uncovered in the mentioned archeological sites. I was asking you, if there is anything therein [i.e., in the link] you feel that the Mr. Honegger needs to address further. I take it that, there is none yet that you can think of.
,
edited info below just comparing recent new info on pre-kerma and early khartoum.i have to read the whole thing again because i read parts of it but not the whole thing.i can't go into much detail about the other stuff because i will not be on the computer as much for awhile.i need to download again and save this update info on pre-kerma since we know that the prekerma folks are the same as the kerma folks (pre-kerma meaning not the name of the state but the name of the cities that existed before kerma in upper nubia but there names are unknown,that is why scholars call it pre-kerma ) http://www.nubianet.org/about/about_history3.html
I have to read more of it but so far the only main thing i was looking at was the dates,and comparing it with recent info ,the pre-kerma and early khartoum(civilization that started in southern nubia) was out of date in mr.honegger link when comparing it with the other and the new info i have read in nubianet.org that is is updated.i will read the rest of it later,but i will not be able to respond or reply because i will not be on for awhile.
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by kenndo: OH,i was just saying that there were two pre-kerma findings,one that goes back to 3500 b.c. and the oldest the other thar goes back to 4800 to 5000 b.c.,this is recent so the other link would not have the lastest info since these findings happen around the late 1990's and these findings were discuss in the show wonders of the african world on pbs channel 13 in n.y. and the book,of course in the book some other things were incorrect,dates etc, the other -early khartoum/just picking out a older date when it began.it's in that nubianet.org. and some other sites i have seen recently. just wanted to be as updated as possible.i am glad by the way this talk is happening about the meriotic script and the kushite(nubians)because i believe like others,that they created the script,and some letters of that script survived in the old nubian script of medieval times.
too bad i would not be able to read more of this talk tonight or for awhile,i am going to be quite busy for awhile.
I don't see any date for the article itself in the link provided; just the items that were uncovered in the mentioned archeological sites. I was asking you, if there is anything therein [i.e., in the link] you feel that the Mr. Honegger needs to address further. I take it that, there is none yet that you can think of. [/qb]
,just comparing recent new info on pre-kerma and early khartoum.i have to read the whole thing again because i read parts of it but not the whole thing.i can't go into much detail about the other stuff because i will not be on the computer as much for awhile. i have to read more of it but so far the only main thing i was looking at was the dates,and comparing it with recent info the pre-kerma and early khartoum was out of date.i will read the rest of it later.
Alright then.
Kenndo, in response to your 'edited' comment, the following questions come to the fore:
quote:Kenndo: have to read more of it but so far the only main thing i was looking at was the dates,and comparing it with recent info ,the pre-kerma and early khartoum(civilization that started in southern nubia) was out of date in mr.honegger link when comparing it with the other and the new info i have read in nubianet.org that is is updated.i will read the rest of it later,but i will not be able to respond or reply because i will not be on for awhile.
1) Do you have specific set of materials that renders Matthieu Honegger‘s dates for the Kerma complexes out-of-date? I mean, you aren't still thinking exclusively of that "Nubianet.org" piece, which gives no detailed explanation or descriptions of the said findings, much less when and by whom these studies actually undertaken, aside from that 1986 finding from the University of Geneva.
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. - M. Honegger
2)Please do make sure you READ the entire article before making preconceived conclusions about it, because unless you can point out what Honegger needs to address further, so as to pinpoint how this affects his dating methods for the said cultural complexes, then you really aren't saying much at this point.
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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.
So how probable is it that the Kushite/Meroitic language is either a language isolate or has substratum of one?
Is there any evidence available that supports sucha case?
Posts: 26361 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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djehuti ____________________________________________________________ So how probable is it that the Kushite/Meroitic language is either a language isolate or has substratum of one?
Is there any evidence available that supports sucha case? _____________________________________________________________________
My research indicates that the Meroitic language is a lingua franca. Pei and Gaynor in A Dictionary of Linguisitcs, defines a lingua franca as "any spontaneously originated or artificially formed language or vernacular combining the vocabularies and elements of two or more languages".
I believe that you will find that it agrees with a number of languages. This is due to the fact that some lingua francas include vocabualary items from languages spoken by the people who use it.
Above I have discussed the Meroitic relationship to languages in the Niger Congo group and Egyptian. It probably is related to other Languages, but I have not done research in these languages so I can not speak to this issue. In the future , if and when I find the time I would like to compare it to the Beja group, since this language may be related to the language spoken by the Blymmes who did write inscriptions in the Meroitic script.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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An interesting adding to the discussion, IMO, would be that RILLY, in his 2003 thesis claims to have identified two phonemic systems among the nhhsj names found in the MK execration texts:
-One with a consonant system very similar to Egyptian's found in Auseq, Ubat Sepet & Medjay; -Another one with a system similar to Meroitic & NES languages found among the Kush & Shaât (Saï island) names.
So according to him, the rulers of this political entities would most likely have been respectively "Afrasian"& "Nilo-Saharan" speakers at this time.
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List of Meroitic (only with Meroitic words -"accurately"- translated before RILLY;) words (from "Le méroïtique: données grammaticales, lexicales : position linguistique", by Claude Rilly ; under the direction of Pascal Vernus, pp.158-187)
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