posted
Please provide us with your complete etymology of the word used in the English language that is written as "Libya."
quote:Originally posted by Mystery Solver: "Libya" is not an English word. It is ultimately a corruption of a word read as "Libou". Matter of fact, this late bastardized version of the latter, was initially applied to the contemporary nation of Libya by not the English, but by the Italians. I wouldn't be surprised if no primary ancient texts ever referred to the term "Libya" or "Libia" - that is to say, in that form.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote: The Wikipedia piece [a source I've notice you have so much enthusiasm for] says that the said people call themselves "Amazighs" and basically rejects the idea that the said peoples aren't related, which is reasonable, but still falls short of giving you legitimacy of rejecting "Berber" as simply a linguistic reference to a group of people, whose so-called relationship actually exists
Linguistic classification called 'Berber' is a ignorant concept because it disguises the fact that some speakers of these language groups are NOT native to Afrika, also some groups have more foreign loanwords within their language dialect versus other groups that speak this language which is classified as 'Berber' so the idea that Libyans=Berbers ignoring the foreign admixture amongst populations that are classified as 'Berbers', this further disguises the truth towards who were considered as Libyans by the historical writers.
Etomology for Barbarian.
quote: 1338, from M.L. barbarinus, from L. barbaria "foreign country," from Gk. barbaros "foreign, strange, ignorant ," from PIE base *barbar- echoic of unintelligible speech of foreigners (cf. Skt. barbara- "stammering," also "non-Aryan"). Barbaric is first recorded 1490, from O.Fr. barbarique, from L. barbaricus "foreign, strange, outlandish." Barbarous is first attested 1526.
Imazaghen is a modern day construct, Ancient Libyans did not call themselves Imazaghen.
Wikipedia
quote: In the 1960s, a group of young Kabyle Berberists created the Académie berbère and put forward a new version of the script, nowadays called "Neo-Tifinagh", it is written left to right, marks vowels and has more letters. The Académie berbère published several texts and magazines in this script, since then it's been popular among the Kabyle movement first
Kabyle did not have the original Tifinagh script, they had to use a script from the Tamasheq speakers. 'Berberism' is a modern day political construct also and should NOT be viewed from a historical perspective because the Ancient Libyans are the same as modern day native Afrikans and not exclusively 'Berbers'. Modern day ethnic groups who are wrongly called Berbers were not the majority population that inhabitted ancient Libya.
Tebu speakers and Tamasheq speakers, show close cultural connections to ancient Libyan groups thought they do NOT speak the same language, this proves the fact that all Libyans did NOT speak the same language, thus Ancient Libyans should NOT be synonomous with 'Berber'
Today's so called 'Berbers' are claiming that Ancient Libyans are synonomous with Berbers which is not true, the historical writers stated that Libyans were synonomous with individuals that were native to the soil meaning modern day indigenous AFRIKANS.
This confusion that surrounds 'Berbers' only increases with the linguistical classification called 'Berber'.
Hotep
Great point. Some ignorant people believe that just because a language is spoken in an area today it has been spoken in that area since ancient times. This is false. Take English for instance.
Today the majority of Americans speak English. The English language was not spoken in the United States until the founding of the Jamestown colony around 400 years ago. Clearly English was not spoken in the U.S., in ancient times, but if we just looked at the dominant language spoken in the region without study of the history we would believe that English was always spoken here.
We know for a fact that the Sea Peoples, Vandals, Greeks, Romans, etc have all invaded North Africa over the past 3000 years. Moreover we know that the Garamante/Garamande (>Mande) people early migrated from Libya to the Niger Delta. And given 1)the diverse populations that lived in the region,2) Germanic (Vandal ???) substratum in the Berber language, 3) and the fact that some Berber claim a Yemeni origin make, it clear that we can not positively claim that the Berbers are native sons of North Africa as pointed out above by Hotep2U.
Please provide us with your complete etymology of the word used in the English language that is written as "Libya."
quote:Originally posted by Mystery Solver: [qb] "Libya" is not an English word. It is ultimately a corruption of a word read as "Libou". Matter of fact, this late bastardized version of the latter, was initially applied to the contemporary nation of Libya by not the English, but by the Italians. I wouldn't be surprised if no primary ancient texts ever referred to the term "Libya" or "Libia" - that is to say, in that form.
It is not an English word, that is the part you seemed to have missed in the above. You are asking me to prove a negative. However...please provide your complete etymology of the word "Libya"/"Libia" that suggests it's of English extraction, rather than adoption of the term given to the modern nation so-called.
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posted
All I'm asking you to do without twisting or fanfare is to
quote:Please provide us with YOUR complete etymology of the word used in the English language that is written as "Libya."
nothing else but that will satisfy my kind request, thank you.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Moreover we know that the Garamante/Garamande (>Mande) people early migrated from Libya to the Niger Delta.
Just to be clear. The Garamante are just a different name for the Mande. When did they migrate to the Niger Delta?
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote: The Wikipedia piece [a source I've notice you have so much enthusiasm for] says that the said people call themselves "Amazighs" and basically rejects the idea that the said peoples aren't related, which is reasonable, but still falls short of giving you legitimacy of rejecting "Berber" as simply a linguistic reference to a group of people, whose so-called relationship actually exists
Linguistic classification called 'Berber' is a ignorant concept because it disguises the fact that some speakers of these language groups are NOT native to Afrika
According to which linguist(s)'s work?
You didn't answer this the 2nd/3rd time around, and so I reiterate:
What bearing does foreign immigration have on the understanding that the language family, denoted as "Berber", exists?
quote:Hotep2u:
, also some groups have more foreign loanwords within their language dialect versus other groups that speak this language which is classified as 'Berber' so the idea that Libyans=Berbers ignoring the foreign admixture amongst populations that are classified as 'Berbers'
Who are "some groups"? It goes back to the question just asked above. Please reference it, and see if you can actually answer it this time around.
quote:Hotep2u:
, this further disguises the truth towards who were considered as Libyans by the historical writers.
quote: 1338, from M.L. barbarinus, from L. barbaria "foreign country," from Gk. barbaros "foreign, strange, ignorant ," from PIE base *barbar- echoic of unintelligible speech of foreigners (cf. Skt. barbara- "stammering," also "non-Aryan"). Barbaric is first recorded 1490, from O.Fr. barbarique, from L. barbaricus "foreign, strange, outlandish." Barbarous is first attested 1526.
Imazaghen is a modern day construct, Ancient Libyans did not call themselves Imazaghen.
Non-sequitur. You were asked to produce the etymology for "Berber" [not "Barbarian"], along with that of "Libyans".
quote:Hotep2u:
Wikipedia
quote: In the 1960s, a group of young Kabyle Berberists created the Académie berbère and put forward a new version of the script, nowadays called "Neo-Tifinagh", it is written left to right, marks vowels and has more letters. The Académie berbère published several texts and magazines in this script, since then it's been popular among the Kabyle movement first
Kabyle did not have the original Tifinagh script, they had to use a script from the Tamasheq speakers.
1)What does "Tamasheq speakers" entail to you, and 2)does it belong to the family so-called "Berber"?
Tifinagh, as you were told but chose to ignore without explanation, is a development of script used in Northwest Africa and the Sahara-Sahel [by "Berber" speaking groups] some time during the Phoenician involvement in the region.
quote:Hotep2u:
'Berberism' is a modern day political construct
If you are referring to the so-called linguistic family, naturally you'd be wrong: that would be a linguistic construct.
quote:Hotep2u:
also and should NOT be viewed from a historical perspective because the Ancient Libyans are the same as modern day native Afrikans and not exclusively 'Berbers'.
Remember the question about etymology of "ancient Libyans" equating to "modern day Africans"; Where is the answer?
...and even if "ancient Libyans" doesn't "exclusively" entail 'Berbers', another non-sequitur, what bearing does that have on the closely related family of languages denoted by "Berber", or that these languages are of African provenance?
quote:Hotep2u:
Modern day ethnic groups who are wrongly called Berbers were not the majority population that inhabitted ancient Libya.
Relevance...to the questions above!
quote:Hotep2u:
Tebu speakers and Tamasheq speakers, show close cultural connections to ancient Libyan groups thought they do NOT speak the same language, this proves the fact that all Libyans did NOT speak the same language, thus Ancient Libyans should NOT be synonomous with 'Berber'
So you say, but what does this have to do with what anyone else sans yourself has thus far said herein?
quote:Hotep2u:
Today's so called 'Berbers' are claiming that Ancient Libyans are synonomous with Berbers which is not true, the historical writers stated that Libyans were synonomous with individuals that were native to the soil meaning modern day indigenous AFRIKANS.
...which is why I've asked you to produce an elaborate etymology on "Libyans" to determine its origin, by whom and exposed to where, but you haven't delivered.
quote:Hotep2u:
This confusion that surrounds 'Berbers' only increases with the linguistical classification called 'Berber'.
Hotep
Fail to see confusion about "Berber" strictly as a reference to a language family spoken by groups who share a common recent 'proto-"Berber"' ancestor, especially since you have provided nothing to suggest why it has to be so!
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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All I'm asking you to do without twisting or fanfare is to
quote:Please provide us with YOUR complete etymology of the word used in the English language that is written as "Libya."
nothing else but that will satisfy my kind request, thank you.
And I am asking you to do without grandstanding or fanfare to first read and understand what was said, to avoid asking immaterial questions. You said "Libya" is English. Prove it.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Great point. Some ignorant people believe that just because a language is spoken in an area today it has been spoken in that area since ancient times. This is false. Take English for instance.
I beg to differ: What is ignorant, is to pre-determine that "Berber" languages haven't been spoken in North Africa since "ancient times" [tossed around without context]. What evidence do you have that ancestors of modern "Berber" speakers weren't in north Africa in the "ancient times"?
quote:Clyde Winters:
We know for a fact that the Sea Peoples, Vandals, Greeks, Romans, etc have all invaded North Africa over the past 3000 years. Moreover we know that the Garamante/Garamande (>Mande) people early migrated from Libya to the Niger Delta. And given 1)the diverse populations that lived in the region,2) Germanic (Vandal ???) substratum in the Berber language, 3) and the fact that some Berber claim a Yemeni origin make, it clear that we can not positively claim that the Berbers are native sons of North Africa as pointed out above by Hotep2U.
1)What is "Germanic" about "Berber" languages?
2)Considering that it certainly isn't linguistic or genetic [the same could be said about "Germanic"], what evidence do you have that suggests "Berbers" come from "Yemen"?
We've been down this road before, and you were discredited then. So I guess, history shall repeat itself.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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These Proto-Saharans came to Mexico in papyrus boats. A stone stela from Izapa, Chiapas in southern Mexico show the boats these Proto-Saharans used to sail to America. The voyagers manning these boats probably sailed down TAFASSASSET, to Lake Chad and thence down the Lower Niger River which emptied into the Atlantic. This provided the Mande a river route from the Sahara to the coast. These rivers, long dried up, once emptied into the Atlantic. Once in the Atlantic Ocean to Mexico and Brazil, by the North Equatorial Current which meets the Canaries Current off the Senegambian coast.
Did the Mande go both places? Did they go at the same time?
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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You didn't answer this the 2nd/3rd time around, and so I reiterate:
What bearing does foreign immigration have on the understanding that the language family, denoted as "Berber", exists?
Etomology of Berber
quote: Berber 1842, from Arabic name for aboriginal people west and south of Egypt; perhaps ult. from Gk. Barbaros "barbarians
Etomology of Barbarians
quote: c.1300, "foreign lands" (especially non-Christian lands," from L. barbarus "barbarous" (see barbarian). Meaning "Saracens living in coastal North Africa" is attested from 1596, via Fr. (O.Fr. Barbarie), from Arabic Barbar, Berber, ancient Arabic name for the inhabitants of N.Africa beyond Egypt. Perhaps a native Arabic word, from barbara "to babble confusedly," which may be ult. from Gk. barbaria (see barbarian). "The actual relations (if any) of the Arabic and Gr[eek] words cannot be settled; but in European langs. barbaria, Barbarie, Barbary, have from the first been treated as identical with L. barbaria, Byzantine Gr[eek] barbaria land of barbarians .
The Etomology is quite clear towards 'Berber', the people who speak this group of languages choose to identify the language group as Tamasheq. Linguist should name the language group based on what the speakers call their own language and not rename it 'Berber'.
You didn't answer this the 2nd/3rd time around, and so I reiterate:
What bearing does foreign immigration have on the understanding that the language family, denoted as "Berber", exists?
Etomology of Berber
quote: Berber 1842, from Arabic name for aboriginal people west and south of Egypt; perhaps ult. from Gk. Barbaros "barbarians
Etomology of Barbarians
quote: c.1300, "foreign lands" (especially non-Christian lands," from L. barbarus "barbarous" (see barbarian). Meaning "Saracens living in coastal North Africa" is attested from 1596, via Fr. (O.Fr. Barbarie), from Arabic Barbar, Berber, ancient Arabic name for the inhabitants of N.Africa beyond Egypt. Perhaps a native Arabic word, from barbara "to babble confusedly," which may be ult. from Gk. barbaria (see barbarian). "The actual relations (if any) of the Arabic and Gr[eek] words cannot be settled; but in European langs. barbaria, Barbarie, Barbary, have from the first been treated as identical with L. barbaria, Byzantine Gr[eek] barbaria land of barbarians .
The Etomology is quite clear towards 'Berber', the people who speak this group of languages choose to identify the language group as Tamasheq. Linguist should name the language group based on what the speakers call their own language and not rename it 'Berber'.
Hotep
Even your source, likely Wikipedia, cannot link "Berber" with Greek "Barbarian", other than assuming so. However, it seems to be onto something when it says that Arabs had made references to northwest Africa in terms of "barbar", specifically as "bilad al barbar", which is indeed attested to even by at least one "Berber" historian, essentially meaning land of the "Berbers". I can see how this terminology diffused into Europe during the Islamic involvement in the region, and from that period onwards adopted by Europeans; I highly doubt the modern European concept of "Berbers" had anything to do with being mindful of ancient Greek reference to certain "foreigners" as "Barbarians". This, I believe, is how the term "Berber" stuck with north African natives of northwest Africa. There are some guesses as to how the Arabs came up with that reference: some like your Wiki presentation, assume that it might have evolved from 'Greek' term 'barbarian', others presume it came from native [Tamazight] North African appellation stemming from supposed oral traditions of 'origin', and then there is another one with places the origin of the term with native Tamazights of north Africa but was somehow later on identified or equated by Greeks [by way of the somewhat similar sounding of the two but distinct terms] with their own term of "Barbarian".
I agree that what the natives identify themselves with should be given primary consideration, particularly if such appellation is consistent among the discrete but related sub-groups, as is the case with Tamazight speakers. However, again, once it is understood that "Berber" is just a European appellation to a language family that actually exists, then such trivial matter isn't given much weight, as the actual substance - which happens to be the language family. The language family from the native African perspective would be Tamazight/Amazighan (Amazigh)...but to say that just because some sections of outsiders call the said speakers "Berbers", that they cease to be legimately native Africans or that their languages cease to be legimately indigenous to Africa, is nonsensical.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I beg to differ: What is ignorant, is to pre-determine that "Berber" languages haven't been spoken in North Africa since "ancient times" [tossed around without context]. What evidence do you have that ancestors of modern "Berber" speakers weren't in north Africa in the "ancient times"?
What evidence do you have that they were?
The Libyco-Berber writing is evidence that the Berbers were not the ancient Libyans. The Libyco-Berber writing is in Mande--not Berber. The other early writing in North Africa was Punic, there are no ancient Berber records.
The Berbers are just trying to claim a history--they had nothing to do with. These people are mainly the descendents of the Vandals and Yemeni people.
These Proto-Saharans came to Mexico in papyrus boats. A stone stela from Izapa, Chiapas in southern Mexico show the boats these Proto-Saharans used to sail to America. The voyagers manning these boats probably sailed down TAFASSASSET, to Lake Chad and thence down the Lower Niger River which emptied into the Atlantic. This provided the Mande a river route from the Sahara to the coast. These rivers, long dried up, once emptied into the Atlantic. Once in the Atlantic Ocean to Mexico and Brazil, by the North Equatorial Current which meets the Canaries Current off the Senegambian coast.
Did the Mande go both places? Did they go at the same time?
In the Sahelian zone there was a short wet phase during the Holocene (c. 7500-4400 BC), which led to the formation of large lakes and marshes in Mauritania, the Niger massifs and Chad. The Inland Niger Delta was unoccupied. In other parts of the Niger area the wet phase existed in the eight/seventh and fourth/third millennia BC (McIntosh & McIntosh 1986:417).
There were few habitable sites in West Africa during the Holocene wet phase. McIntosh and McIntosh (1986) have illustrated that the only human occupation of the Sahara during this period were the Saharan massifs along wadis. By the 8th millennium BC Saharan-Sudanese pottery was used in the Air (Roset 1983). Ceramics of this style have also been found at sites in the Hoggar (McIntosh & McIntosh 1983b:230).
Archaeological research over the past decade in Africa illustrates that until the second millennium BC the Inland Niger Delta was sparsely populated (McIntosh & McIntosh 1981 ,1986). As a result, most of the Mande speakers in West Africa, were living in the Fezzan, Mauretania and Chad. McIntosh and McIntosh believe the area was not settled until around 250 BC. This was 1000 years after the Xi had founded the Olmec civilization.
According to Graves, The Greek Myths v.1 (p.33), the Garamante moved into the Niger Valley after the 2nd Century AD.
References:
McIntosh,S.K. & McIntosh,R.J. 1979. "Initial Perspectives on Pre-
historic subsistence in the Inland Niger Delta (Mali)". World
Archaeology, 2(2):240-45.
______________1981. "West African Prehistory". American Scientist
,69:602-613.
______________. 1983. "Forgotten Tells of Mali". Expedition,38.
_____________.1986. "Archaeological Research and dates from
West Africa". Journal of African History, 27:413-42.
_____________.1988a. "From stone to metal:New Perspectives on the
later Prehistory of West Africa". Journal of World Prehistory, 2(1):89-109.
____________.1988b. "From Sciecles Obscurs to Revolutionary Centuries on the Middle Niger". World Archaeology, 20(1):141-165.
Winters,Clyde Ahmad.1983. "The Ancient Manding Script". In Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern, (ed.) by Ivan van Sertima, (London: Transaction Books) Pp.208-214.
____________.1981a. "Are the Dravidians of African Origin". Proc. of the Second International Symposium on Asian Studies (ISAS),(Hong Kong:Asian Research Service) Vol.3:789-807.
_____________.1981b. "The African influence on Indian Agriculture ". Journal of African Civilization, 3(1):100-111.
____________.1983."Possible Relationship between Manding and Japanese". Papers in Japanese Linguistics, 9:151-158.
____________.1983b. "Further Notes on Japanese and Tamil". International Jour. of Dravidian Linguistics,13(2):347-53.
____________.1985a."The Proto-Culture of the Dravidians,Manding, and Sumerians". Tamil Civilization, 3(1):1-9.
____________.1985b. "The Genetic Unity between the Dravidian,Elamite and Sumerian Languages". PROC. 6th ISAS 1984,vol.5 :1413-1425.
____________.1986."The Migration Routes of the Proto-Mande". The Mankind Quarterly, 27(1):77-96.
quote:Linguistic classification called 'Berber' is a ignorant concept because it disguises the fact that some speakers of these language groups are NOT native to Afrika
^ The above statement makes no sense.
Parodying: Linguistic classification called 'English' is a ignorant concept because it disguises the fact that some speakers of these language groups are not native to Europe.
This is nonsensical because languages are not classified based on the geographic origin of all the people who speak the language.
Hotep - your statement only demonstrates the fallacy of Winters approach, which we pointed out long ago on this forum, but which Winters does not seem to be able to grow beyound.
It is a fallacy of a racial-ideology of history which attempts to make language concord with 'race.'
That all the speakers of language families do not have the same lineage is the *rule*, not the exception.
Here we sit, at our computers communicating in English, though none of us are from Europe - where English originates...yet you can't understand this. Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Supercar: What evidence do you have that ancestors of modern "Berber" speakers weren't in north Africa in the "ancient times"?
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: What evidence do you have that they were?
E-M81 (E3b2; referred to as the "Berber marker," but probably arising first in East Africa [5000kya], which reaches frequencies of up to 80% in North Africa.
It is thought of primarily as a Berber haplogroup, and is most common throughout the Maghreb region of North Africa and is absent in Europe, except for the Iberian peninsula and Sicily.
It is considered to have entered the European continent as a result of Islamic domination over these regions of Southern Europe.
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: [QUOTE]I Archaeological research over the past decade in Africa illustrates that until the second millennium BC the Inland Niger Delta was sparsely populated (McIntosh & McIntosh 1981 ,1986). As a result, most of the Mande speakers in West Africa, were living in the Fezzan, Mauretania and Chad. McIntosh and McIntosh believe the area was not settled until around 250 BC. This was 1000 years after the Xi had founded the Olmec civilization.
According to Graves, The Greek Myths v.1 (p.33), the Garamante moved into the Niger Valley after the 2nd Century AD.
. [/QB]
Thanks.
Then, the Garamantes moved down the Tafassassett to the Atlantic and on to the New World around 1250 B.C. and then later, about 250 B.C. moved to the Inland Niger Delta? Did the other, Mande speakers living in Chad and Mauritania also move to the Niger Delta in the late first Century B.C.?
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Supercar: What evidence do you have that ancestors of modern "Berber" speakers weren't in north Africa in the "ancient times"?
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: What evidence do you have that they were?
E-M81 (E3b2; referred to as the "Berber marker," but probably arising first in East Africa [5000kya], which reaches frequencies of up to 80% in North Africa.
It is thought of primarily as a Berber haplogroup, and is most common throughout the Maghreb region of North Africa and is absent in Europe, except for the Iberian peninsula and Sicily.
It is considered to have entered the European continent as a result of Islamic domination over these regions of Southern Europe.
Genes can not tell us the language a population speaks. We have ancient textual evidence written by the ancient Saharan Africans--it is not in Berber. This proves they were not in the region.
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: [QUOTE]I Archaeological research over the past decade in Africa illustrates that until the second millennium BC the Inland Niger Delta was sparsely populated (McIntosh & McIntosh 1981 ,1986). As a result, most of the Mande speakers in West Africa, were living in the Fezzan, Mauretania and Chad. McIntosh and McIntosh believe the area was not settled until around 250 BC. This was 1000 years after the Xi had founded the Olmec civilization.
According to Graves, The Greek Myths v.1 (p.33), the Garamante moved into the Niger Valley after the 2nd Century AD.
.
Thanks.
Then, the Garamantes moved down the Tafassassett to the Atlantic and on to the New World around 1250 B.C. and then later, about 250 B.C. moved to the Inland Niger Delta? Did the other, Mande speakers living in Chad and Mauritania also move to the Niger Delta in the late first Century B.C.? [/QB]
I have never identified the Olmecs as Garamante. You asked when the Garamante reached the Niger. They did not enter the area until after 250 AD.
The Olmec spoke a language related to Malinke Bambara. This language was probably spoken by other people in the Fezzan.
Most of the Mande speakers in Mauretania around 1200 BC, where probably Soninke speaking Mande people. This view is supported by the fact that it was the Soninke who founded the ancient empire of Ghana/Gana.
From reading the Olmec inscriptions I have not be able to establish the particular clans associated with Olmecs except for the royals and the Craftsman clans that usually served as governors of some Olmec towns. I do know that the Olmec were predominately Malinke-Bambara because they called themselves Xi< Si/Shi which means race, and black in Malinke.
quote:Supercar: What evidence do you have that ancestors of modern "Berber" speakers weren't in north Africa in the "ancient times"?
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: What evidence do you have that they were?
quote:Yes: E-M81 (E3b2; referred to as the "Berber marker," but probably arising first in East Africa [5000kya], which reaches frequencies of up to 80% in North Africa.
It is thought of primarily as a Berber haplogroup, and is most common throughout the Maghreb region of North Africa and is absent in Europe, except for the Iberian peninsula and Sicily.
It is considered to have entered the European continent as a result of Islamic domination over these regions of Southern Europe.
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: I have never identified the Olmecs as Garamante. You asked when the Garamante reached the Niger. They did not enter the area until after 250 AD.
The Olmec spoke a language related to Malinke Bambara. This language was probably spoken by other people in the Fezzan.
Most of the Mande speakers in Mauretania around 1200 BC, where probably Soninke speaking Mande people. This view is supported by the fact that it was the Soninke who founded the ancient empire of Ghana/Gana.
From reading the Olmec inscriptions I have not be able to establish the particular clans associated with Olmecs except for the royals and the Craftsman clans that usually served as governors of some Olmec towns. I do know that the Olmec were predominately Malinke-Bambara because they called themselves Xi< Si/Shi which means race, and black in Malinke.
. [/QB]
I see. The Garamantes were Mande speakers who moved to the Niger Delta in A.D. 250. Malinke-Bambara speakers who lived in the Fezzan were the ones who around 1250 B.C. sailed to the New World. Is this correct?
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: I have never identified the Olmecs as Garamante. You asked when the Garamante reached the Niger. They did not enter the area until after 250 AD.
The Olmec spoke a language related to Malinke Bambara. This language was probably spoken by other people in the Fezzan.
Most of the Mande speakers in Mauretania around 1200 BC, where probably Soninke speaking Mande people. This view is supported by the fact that it was the Soninke who founded the ancient empire of Ghana/Gana.
From reading the Olmec inscriptions I have not be able to establish the particular clans associated with Olmecs except for the royals and the Craftsman clans that usually served as governors of some Olmec towns. I do know that the Olmec were predominately Malinke-Bambara because they called themselves Xi< Si/Shi which means race, and black in Malinke.
.
I see. The Garamantes were Mande speakers who moved to the Niger Delta in A.D. 250. Malinke-Bambara speakers who lived in the Fezzan were the ones who around 1250 B.C. sailed to the New World. Is this correct? [/QB]
quote:Supercar: What evidence do you have that ancestors of modern "Berber" speakers weren't in north Africa in the "ancient times"?
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: What evidence do you have that they were?
quote:Yes: E-M81 (E3b2; referred to as the "Berber marker," but probably arising first in East Africa [5000kya], which reaches frequencies of up to 80% in North Africa.
It is thought of primarily as a Berber haplogroup, and is most common throughout the Maghreb region of North Africa and is absent in Europe, except for the Iberian peninsula and Sicily.
It is considered to have entered the European continent as a result of Islamic domination over these regions of Southern Europe.
quote:Winters: Genes can not tell us the language a population speaks.
Non sequitur. You asked for evidence that ancestors of modern Berber speakers were in Africa - and that is *exactly* what you were provided with.
It is a good thing a topic concerning timeline was opened, with timeline of northwest Africa being the first to be presented; it is unfortunate though, that Clyde hadn't bothered to read it, which would have saved him the trouble of even asking that irrelevant question.
quote:Originally posted by rasol:
quote:Winters: We have ancient textual evidence written by the ancient Saharan Africans--it is not in Berber. This proves they were not in the region.
That is also non sequitur. Writings would be evidence of who *is* in a region, but cannot prove a negative of who is *not* in a region.
For the last time....
What you need by way of writing is original Berber writings from *outside of Africa*. That would affirm your claims.
You don't have any, why?
Because none exists.
Your argument is illogical.
Proto-Tamazight scripture is another thing which wouldn't have evaded Clyde, had he bothered to do even minimal research. What does Clyde understand by the origins of these scripts, if they don't attest back to "ancient times" of north Africa. What about the Phoenician presence in northwest Africa; none of these things occurred? and who were already living there prior to the coming Phoenicians; were these not in the "ancient times"? Knowing Clyde's modus operandi, he may well say that the "Berbers" ancestors were these foreign groups, that is - the Phoenicians et al., while at the same time claiming that they didn't exist in north Africa in the "ancient times", not to mention leaving out the most striking detail about contemporary "Berber"/Tamazight speakers [yes, including those light skin ones], which is their E-M81 signature, that the Phoenicians et al. [meaning extra-African foreigners] wouldn't have carried!
For minimal research, you don't even need to look too much further than the words of the Tamazight speakers themselves, naturally not without interpretation with some hints of potential ethno-biases - which can be filtered out from verifiable information, on Tamazight sites...
Tifinagh sur une une gravure millénaire à Yagwer (Haut Atlas): Tifinagh on an engraving 1st millennium in Yagwer (High Atlas)
“The Tifinagh express berber words . Mr. Henri Lhote, in his book of The Tuareg of Hoggar, speaking about the Ti-finar inscription, says: “the oldest ones comprise of signs which are no longer used and remain incomprehensible to the Tuareg. They begin ordinarily with three or four lined up dots, followed by a circle, which in turn is followed by three parallel hyphens drawn longitudinally:
^They are located in the "Tassili", in Hoggar , Adrar of Iforas.
He goes on further : "inscriptions of the middle era contain initial signs which are a hyphens followed by three dots in triangle:
^And the meaning of which it still understood by the Tuaregs. they mean : "nek" or "wanek" that mean "me".
He adds : the most recent inscriptions are materialized by the beginning:
^The improved version of the following:
^And which has the same significance as the one above it, followed by proper noun :
"tenet" = said, I say and expressing a wish or idea, It seems undoubtedly that the Ti-finagh are means of expression of the berber language and may be amongst the first human signs, expressing man’s idea in writing.
These sign are so elementary and archaic that they can’t emanate from any other form of writing. They are represented with geometric signs :
quote:Supercar: What evidence do you have that ancestors of modern "Berber" speakers weren't in north Africa in the "ancient times"?
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: What evidence do you have that they were?
quote:Yes: E-M81 (E3b2; referred to as the "Berber marker," but probably arising first in East Africa [5000kya], which reaches frequencies of up to 80% in North Africa.
It is thought of primarily as a Berber haplogroup, and is most common throughout the Maghreb region of North Africa and is absent in Europe, except for the Iberian peninsula and Sicily.
It is considered to have entered the European continent as a result of Islamic domination over these regions of Southern Europe.
quote:Winters: Genes can not tell us the language a population speaks.
Non sequitur. You asked for evidence that ancestors of modern Berber speakers were in Africa - and that is *exactly* what you were provided with.
It is a good thing a topic concerning timeline was opened, with timeline of northwest Africa being the first to be presented; it is unfortunate though, that Clyde hadn't bothered to read it, which would have saved him the trouble of even asking that irrelevant question.
quote:Originally posted by rasol:
quote:Winters: We have ancient textual evidence written by the ancient Saharan Africans--it is not in Berber. This proves they were not in the region.
That is also non sequitur. Writings would be evidence of who *is* in a region, but cannot prove a negative of who is *not* in a region.
For the last time....
What you need by way of writing is original Berber writings from *outside of Africa*. That would affirm your claims.
You don't have any, why?
Because none exists.
Your argument is illogical.
Proto-Tamazight scripture is another thing which wouldn't have evaded Clyde, had he bothered to do even minimal research. What does Clyde understand by the origins of these scripts, if they don't attest back to "ancient times" of north Africa. What about the Phoenician presence in northwest Africa; none of these things occurred? and who were already living there prior to the coming Phoenicians; were these not in the "ancient times"? Knowing Clyde's modus operandi, he may well say that the "Berbers" ancestors were these foreign groups, that is - the Phoenicians et al., while at the same time claiming that they didn't exist in north Africa in the "ancient times", not to mention leaving out the most striking detail about contemporary "Berber"/Tamazight speakers [yes, including those light skin ones], which is their E-M81 signature, that the Phoenicians et al. [meaning extra-African foreigners] wouldn't have carried!
For minimal research, you don't even need to look too much further than the words of the Tamazight speakers themselves, naturally not without interpretation with some hints of potential ethno-biases - which can be filtered out from verifiable information, on Tamazight sites...
Tifinagh sur une une gravure millénaire à Yagwer (Haut Atlas): Tifinagh on an engraving 1st millennium in Yagwer (High Atlas)
“The Tifinagh express berber words . Mr. Henri Lhote, in his book of The Tuareg of Hoggar, speaking about the Ti-finar inscription, says: “the oldest ones comprise of signs which are no longer used and remain incomprehensible to the Tuareg. They begin ordinarily with three or four lined up dots, followed by a circle, which in turn is followed by three parallel hyphens drawn longitudinally:
^They are located in the "Tassili", in Hoggar , Adrar of Iforas.
He goes on further : "inscriptions of the middle era contain initial signs which are a hyphens followed by three dots in triangle:
^And the meaning of which it still understood by the Tuaregs. they mean : "nek" or "wanek" that mean "me".
He adds : the most recent inscriptions are materialized by the beginning:
^The improved version of the following:
^And which has the same significance as the one above it, followed by proper noun :
"tenet" = said, I say and expressing a wish or idea, It seems undoubtedly that the Ti-finagh are means of expression of the berber language and may be amongst the first human signs, expressing man’s idea in writing.
These sign are so elementary and archaic that they can’t emanate from any other form of writing. They are represented with geometric signs :
These inscriptions are written in the Mande language. They are not Tifinagh. The script is Libyco-Berber one of the Mande scripts like Vai. Vai Script
This is why Lhote noted:
quote: “The Tifinagh express berber words . Mr. Henri Lhote, in his book of The Tuareg of Hoggar, speaking about the Ti-finar inscription, says: “the oldest ones comprise of signs which are no longer used and remain incomprehensible to the Tuareg.
If they are written in Berber invite you to decipher them.
These inscriptions are written in the Mande language. They are not Tifinagh. The script is Libyco-Berber one of the Mande scripts like Vai. Vai Script
This is why Lhote noted:
quote: “The Tifinagh express berber words . Mr. Henri Lhote, in his book of The Tuareg of Hoggar, speaking about the Ti-finar inscription, says: “the oldest ones comprise of signs which are no longer used and remain incomprehensible to the Tuareg.
If they are written in Berber invite you to decipher them.
Cherry-picking from the citations; that is, ignoring that which you don't like. The same author you are using to your defense, is the one attributing the script to Tuareg - Tamazight/"Berber" speakers. The point of the pictorial demonstration, which apparently evaded you, was to show structural connections between the said scripts, and while the first "word" is not comprehensible to Tamasheqs/Tuaregs, the structure is still consistent with the more recent examples shown. Have you even bothered to look at the Tifinagh script in the comparative table? Of course not.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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These inscriptions are written in the Mande language. They are not Tifinagh. The script is Libyco-Berber one of the Mande scripts like Vai. Vai Script
This is why Lhote noted:
quote: “The Tifinagh express berber words . Mr. Henri Lhote, in his book of The Tuareg of Hoggar, speaking about the Ti-finar inscription, says: “the oldest ones comprise of signs which are no longer used and remain incomprehensible to the Tuareg.
If they are written in Berber invite you to decipher them.
Cherry-picking from the citations; that is, ignoring that which you don't like. The same author you are using to your defense, is the one attributing the script to Tuareg - Tamazight/"Berber" speakers. The point of the pictorial demonstration, which apparently evaded you, was to show structural connections between the said scripts, and while the first "word" is not comprehensible to Tamasheqs/Tuaregs, the structure is still consistent with the more recent examples shown. Have you even bothered to look at the Tifinagh script in the comparative table? Of course not.
The question is not the identity of Tifinagh writing, we know it is a writing used by the Tuareg.
But Lhote makes it clear, like anyone else who has researched the issue, you can't read the ancient inscriptions in the Sahara from the Fezzan to the Niger Delta using Tuareg. This is because there were no Berbers in ancient Africa. The Berbers are descendents of the Vandals and Yemeni people.
Cherry-picking from the citations; that is, ignoring that which you don't like. The same author you are using to your defense, is the one attributing the script to Tuareg - Tamazight/"Berber" speakers. The point of the pictorial demonstration, which apparently evaded you, was to show structural connections between the said scripts, and while the first "word" is not comprehensible to Tamasheqs/Tuaregs, the structure is still consistent with the more recent examples shown. Have you even bothered to look at the Tifinagh script in the comparative table? Of course not.
Of course it will relate to the ancient writing. This is due to the fact that the inventors of the script learned about writing from the Mande people who have numerous writing systems in addition to the Vai script.
.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:The Berbers are descendents of the Vandals and Yemeni people.
Good job leading mystery solver on a wild goose chase while ignoring the only relevant question:
quote:rasol asks: What you need by way of writing is original Berber writings from *outside of Africa*. That would affirm your claims. Where is it? You don't have any, why?
The question is not the identity of Tifinagh writing, we know it is a writing used by the Tuareg.
That is precisely the point of the post; to demonstrate continuity of the script, and to show that the ancestors of "Berbers" were in the region.
In fact, it's said that ancient "Berber" scriptures have been deciphered with the help of bilingual "Numidian" scripture in presumably "Libyan" and "Phoenician", located "notably at Dougga in Tunisia".
Matter of fact, which native Mande speaking person in this day and age, is said to be able to read the sign in question? Where is your evidence of that? Where is your evidence that the said script is even being used in Mande speakers, as seems to be the case with Tifinagh among Tamasheq groups?
quote:Clyde Winters:
But Lhote makes it clear, like anyone else who has researched the issue, you can't read the ancient inscriptions in the Sahara from the Fezzan to the Niger Delta using Tuareg. This is because there were no Berbers in ancient Africa.
You and Lhote are apparently speaking different languages. He uses the script to show evidence that "berbers" were in the region, and you proclaim that he isn't saying that. Who should we believe: you or Lhote?
quote:Clyde Winters:
The Berbers are descendents of the Vandals and Yemeni people.
Goes back to the question I asked you several threads ago; it remains unanswered undoubtedly.
I'll add that...
quote:Originally posted by rasol:
Good job leading mystery solver on a wild goose chase while ignoring the only relevant question:
quote:rasol asks: What you need by way of writing is original Berber writings from *outside of Africa*. That would affirm your claims. Where is it? You don't have any, why?
They don't exist.
...will go unanswered, as other relevant questions have.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: These inscriptions are written in the Mande language. They are not Tifinagh. The script is Libyco-Berber one of the Mande scripts like Vai.
This coming from the same person who sees Mande script in Aegean Linear A script, Hurrian language, Sumerian, Dravidian script, and Olmec. Posts: 26349 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I provided an abbreviated etymology showing the word Libya, in current English usage, derives from an ancient Greek term Libue (supplied earlier by Midogbe and verified by perusing the Liddell & Scott Greek Lexicon) which in turn derives from the ancient Egyptian usage Libu/Rebu.
This is either correct or incorrect. I don't care which of the two above options you subscribe to.
I'm interested in Y O U R etymology of the word Libya and am asking for it the third time. Please provide it if you have one. Thank you.
----------------------------------- truth is prism refracted fact i'm just another point of view -----------------------------------
quote:Originally posted by Mystery Solver:
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri:
All I'm asking you to do without twisting or fanfare is to
quote:Please provide us with YOUR complete etymology of the word used in the English language that is written as "Libya."
nothing else but that will satisfy my kind request, thank you.
And I am asking you to do without grandstanding or fanfare to first read and understand what was said, to avoid asking immaterial questions. You said "Libya" is English. Prove it.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
BTW grandstanding is a logical fallacy or demagogue tactic of appealing to a crowd for verification and is not evident in the question put to you nor in the comment noting your avoidance in answering said question.
Parodying: Linguistic classification called 'English' is a ignorant concept because it disguises the fact that some speakers of these language groups are not native to Europe.
This is nonsensical because languages are not classified based on the geographic origin of all the people who speak the language.
Hotep - your statement only demonstrates the fallacy of Winters approach, which we pointed out long ago on this forum, but which Winters does not seem to be able to grow beyound.
It is a fallacy of a racial-ideology of history which attempts to make language concord with 'race.'
That all the speakers of language families do not have the same lineage is the *rule*, not the exception.
Here we sit, at our computers communicating in English, though none of us are from Europe - where English originates...yet you can't understand this.
The Bantu and Mande classifications are a perfect example of the fact that languages can be classified based on the geoghrapical origins of speakers of the language.
We are NOT discussing the English language so remove the STRAW from the well. We are discussing the ignorant concept called 'berber' and the confusion that it breeds,
rasol wrote:
quote: I agree that it's a challenge to respect the struggle of the Berber for their own identity - mirroring the struggle of other Africans, while at the same time 'putting paid' to Berber ethnic mythologies, which piggy-back onto Eurocentrism.
I suggest to advocates of this brand of Berber-centrism that they consider carefully the faulty nature of their thesis.
* On the one hand they seek the broadest possible definition of Berber, in order to link peoples like the Kabyle to everyone from the Siwa Oasis Libyans called Tehennu, to the Moors.
* On the other hand they seek and ethnically exclusionary definition of Berber, in which the Berber are white, or k-zoid, and in which Black Berber are marginalised or made illigitimate. This is a false dichotomy, and moreover, it's easy to discredit. It is poor strategy and doomed to failure.
Berber is best viewed as and African language group, spoken by ethnically diverse people.
These people and their languages originate in the East African Neolithic, and spread to NorthWest Africa. Many of their most notable traditions such as the Tifinagh Berber script, often written without vowels much like mdw.ntr, are best represented by the Touareg.
This Berber expansion was male biased - no different than many other migrations - including Bantu, and various Semitic [Lemba, Arab, etc..] expansions, only - it was more extreme because it expansed great tracks of sahara dessert.
Because of this the female ancestry of the Berber ranges from predominently East African - in East Africa, to substantially West African in parts of the Western Sahel, to predominently European on the North West African coast.
The Berber physical appearance varies accordingly - and *naturally*. In order for people like the Kabyles to claim and affinity with people like the Tehennu and Touareg, they *must* embrace, and not deny, the multi-ethnic historical reality of Berber speaking peoples .
rasol those are your own words in the bold, Clyde Winters did not invent the LIES being trumpeted by Eurocentrics concerning groups living in North Afrika, Kabyles have fully racialized Berberism. Students of Afrikan history need TRUTH not LIES towards who were the original inhabitants of North Afrika.
Now if you didn't read it the last time then let me repeat this posting.
quote: Excerpt from the book: When We Ruled by Robin Walker
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthropologist have studied skeletons from the Carthaginian cemeteries. Professor Eugene Pittard, then at the University of Geneva, reported that: "Other bones discovered in Punic Carthage, and housed in the Lavigerie Museum, come from personages found in special sarcophagi and probably belonging to the Carthaginian elite. Almost all the skulls are dolichocephalic ." Futhermore, the sarcophagus of the highly venerated Priestess of Tanit , "the most ornate" and "the most artistic yet found," is also housed in the Lavigerie Museum. Pittard says " The woman buried there had Negro features. She belonged to the African race !" Professor Stephane Gsell was the author of the voluminous Histoire Ancienne de l'Afrique du Nord. Also based on anthropological studies conducted on Carthaginian skeletons, he declared that: " The so called Semitic type, characterised by the long, perfectly oval face, the thin aquiline nose and the lengthened cranium, enlarged over the nape of the neck has not [yet] been found in Carthage ".
These findings were quite clear that the original inhabitants of Northern Afrika were Afrikan people, the main population of Carthage were Native Afrikan people.
The confusion that comes from Berberism leads any one to ask questions such as these:
Neith Athena wrote:
quote: Were all the NATIVE North Africans Black Africans in earliest times?
Tyrannosaurus wrote:
quote: Numidians probably had the "coastal North African" appearance. This is intermediate between European (i.e. "Caucasoid") and Saharo-tropical African phenotypes, though both "Caucasoid" and "tropical African" appearances may occur occasionally among them. I don't think they were entirely black.
These are valid questions and assumptions based on the ignorant 'berber' ruse, which does nothing more than hide the fact that Ancient Libyans were equated with idigenous Afrikans and not a Language group. Berber is a ignorant and confusing concept. Tamasheq speakers are not Berbers seeing the fact that they never called themselves 'Berbers'.
rasol can you tell me which group of Tamasheq speakers call themselves berbers?
posted
^ Everything was already answered by Rasol, so what else do you want to know?
Again, you can argue against the usage of the term 'Berber' all you want, it still does not refute the fact that the language group exists nor does it refute the fact that it is closely related to Egyptian and Semitic and all compose an Afrasian (call it what you will) language family.
Language does NOT necessarily reflect geography let alone race. Rasol's point about English is not a strawman because it is a perfect illustration of how people like us (non-whites) can speak a European language even though we are not from Europe let alone England. White Kabyle speak African langauges and live in Africa. No one said that is where they originated, but their language surely originated there. And their langauge is classified as 'Berber' (call it what you will).
Why this is so hard for you absorb into your brain is beyond me.
Posts: 26349 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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I provided an abbreviated etymology showing the word Libya, in current English usage, derives from an ancient Greek term Libue (supplied earlier by Midogbe and verified by perusing the Liddell & Scott Greek Lexicon) which in turn derives from the ancient Egyptian usage Libu/Rebu.
You've shown zip about "Libya" being an English word.
quote:al Takruri:
I'm interested in Y O U R etymology of the word Libya and am asking for it the third time. Please provide it if you have one. Thank you.
Not until I have your etymology of "Libya" as an English word.
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri:
BTW grandstanding is a logical fallacy or demagogue tactic of appealing to a crowd for verification and is not evident in the question put to you nor in the comment noting your avoidance in answering said question.
^This juvenile display has gotten you the attention you wanted. Let's stay on-topic now, shall we.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Moving onto the timeline and signs of domestication in the Saharan expanse, with a recap of this dated/old but perhaps still instructive study [my insertions - bolded dates in brackets]:
Are the early Holocene cattle in the Eastern Sahara domestic or wild?
Fred Wendorf & Romuald Schild (Evolutionary Anthropology 3(4), 1994)
[Note: The references and diagrams are not included. Please consult the original article]
Questions relating to the antiquity of domestic cattle in the Sahara are among the most controversial in North African prehistory. It is generally believed that cattle were first domesticated in southwest Asia, particularly Anatolia, or in southeast Europe, where their remains have been found in several sites dated between 9,000 and 8,000 years ago. The discovery, in several small sites in the Western Desert of Egypt, of large bovid bones identified as domestic cattle and having radiocarbon dates ranging between 9,500 and 8,000 B.P. has raised the possibility that there was a separate, independent center for cattle domestication in northeast Africa. However, it has not been universally accepted that these bones are from cattle or, if so, that the cattle were domestic.
Disputes about the large bovid remains and whether or not they represent domestic cattle do not have to do only with issues of primacy and the multiple independent developments of pastoralism and food production. Of greater importance, perhaps, is the possible role of pastoralism in facilitating human exploitation of harsh, unfavorable environments and the adjustments people made to live in them. Examination of the data may help us understand the processes involved in the development of pastoralist societies.
The evidence from the Eastern Sahara Today the Eastern Sahara is a desert with a rainfall of less than 1 mm per year. It is almost completely devoid of life. Until recently, when paved roads were built and several deep water-wells were dug, the desert was unpopulated except at a few large oases such as Farafra, Dakhla, and Kharga, where artesian water was available.
In the early Holocene, the Eastern Sahara had more rainfall, probably between 100 and 200 mm per year in its Egyptian area The rain probably fell during the summer. This inference is drawn from the fact that the plant remains in the early Holocene archeological sites are the same as those growing today several hundred kilometers to the south, on the northern margin of the Sahel and the adjacent Sahara, which are in a summer rain-fall regime. The quantity of rainfall was sufficient for seasonal pools or playas to form in large depressions. There may also have been permanent water about 250 km farther south at Sehima, and there certainly were permanent lakes near Merga in northern Sudan about 500 km south of the Egyptian border. Nevertheless, the Eastern Sahara was, at best, a marginal and highly unstable environment with frequent droughts and episodes of hyper-aridity.
The Eastern Sahara in Egypt was not an environment that could have supported wild cattle nor one where the earliest domestication of cattle would have been like likely to occur. Cattle need to drink every day or at least every other day and there was no permanent water anywhere in the area.
[ca. 11ky - 12ky BP]
Early Neolithic
Radiocarbon dates indicate that the early Holocene rains began sometime before 10,000 B.P., perhaps as early as 11,000 or 12,000 B.P. However, there is no evidence of human presence before 9,500 B.P. except for a radiocarbon date of around 10,000 years ago from a hearth west of Dakhla. The earliest sites with large bovid remains are imbedded in playa sediments that overlay several meters of still older Holocene playa deposits.
All of these sites contain well-made, bladelet-based lithic assemblages. Straight-backed pointed bladelets, perforators, and large endscrapers made on reused Middle Paleolithic artifacts are the characteristic tools. A few grinding stones and rare sherds of pottery also occur. The pottery is well made; the pieces are decorated over their entire exterior surfaces with deep impressions formed with a comb or wand in what is sometimes referred to as the Early Khartoum style.
[ca. 8,200y - 9,500y BP]
These assemblages have been classified as the El Adam type of the Early Neolithic. Several radiocarbon dates place the complex between 9,500 and 8,900 B.P. There is no evidence that there were wells during this period. It is assumed, then, that these sites represent occupations that took place after the summer rains and before the driest time of the year when surface water was no anger available. Three of these sites, E-77-7, E-79-8, and E-80-4, all having only El Adam archeology and all located between km and 250 km west of Abu Simbel, have yielded, through excavation, more than 20 bones and teeth of large bovids that have been identified as Bos. These occurred along with several hundred bones of gazelle (Gazella dorcas and G. dama) and hare (Lepus capensis); a few bones of jackal (Canis aureus), turtle (Testudo sp.); and birds (Otis tarda and Anas querquedula); the large shell of a bivalve (Aspatharia rubens), probably of Nilotic origin; and various snail shells (Bulinus truncatus and Zoorecus insularis).
After a period of aridity around 8,800 years ago, when the desert may have been abandoned, the area was re-occupied by groups with a lithic tool-kit that emphasized elongated scalene triangles. The grinding stones, scrapers, and rare pieces of pottery that are present characterize the El Ghorab type of Early Neolithic and have been dated between 8,600 and 8,200 B.P. Oval slab-lined houses occur during this phase; all of them located in the lower pans of natural drainage basins. However, there are no known wells, suggesting that the desert still was not occupied during the driest part of the year. Faunal remains are poorly preserved in these sites and indeed, only one bone of a large bovid was recovered from the four sites with fauna in these sites the Dorcas gazelle is the most numerous, followed by hare, together with single bones of wild cat (Felis silvestris), porcupine (Hystrix cristata), desert hedge-hog (Paraechinus aethiopicus) an amphibian, and a bird.
[ca. 7,900y - 8,200k BP]
Another brief period of aridity be-tween 8.200 and 8,100 B.P. coincides with the end of the El Ghorab type of Early Neolithic in the desert. With the return of greater rainfall between 8.100 and 8+000 B.P., a new variety of Early Neolithic, the El Nabta type, appeared in the area. El Nabta sites are often larger than the previous Early Neolithic sites and usually have several large, deep wells, some with adjacent shallow basins that might have been used to water stock. A variety of lithic and bone tools occur in these sites, including stemmed points with pointed and retouched bases, perforators, burins, scrapers. notched pieces, bone points, and scalene triangles measuring about one centimeter. Grinding stones and shreds of pottery are more numerous than in the earlier sites, but still are not abundant. Their deeply impressed designs are similar to those on objects recovered from sites of the El Adam and El Ghorab types of Early Neolithic. Occasional pieces have "dotted wavy line" decoration.
Radiocarbon dates place the El Nabta sites between 8,100 and 7,900 B.P. One of these, E-75-6, is much larger than the others and consists of a series of shallow, oval hut floors arranged in two, possibly three, parallel lines. Beside each house was one or more bell-shaped storage pits; nearby were several deep (2.5 m) and shallow (1.5 m) water-wells. This site, located near the bottom of a large basin, was flooded by the summer rains. The houses were repeatedly used, probably during harvests in fall and winter Several thousand remains of edible plants have been recovered from these house floors. They include seeds, fruits, and tubers representing 44 different kinds of plants, including sorghum and millets. All of the plants are morphologically wild, but chemical analysis by infrared spectroscopy of the lipids in the sorghum indicates that this plant may have been cultivated. Of the four El Nabta sites that have yielded fauna, two contained bones of a large bovid identified as Bos. The faunal samples from the other two sites are very small.
[ca. 7,700y - 6,500y BP]
Middle Neolithic
Another brief period of aridity separated the El Nabta Early Neolithic from the succeeding Middle Neolithic, which is marked by the much greater abundance of pottery. In addition, each piece of pottery is decorated over its entire exterior surface with closely packed comb- or paddle-impressed designs. Some of the pots are large, and analysis of the clays indicates that they were made locally. There were also some changes in lithic tools. More of them were made of local rocks, but there was sufficient continuity in lithic typology to suggest that the preceding Nabta population was also involved.
Radiocarbon dates indicated an age for the Middle Neolithic between 7,700 and 6,500 B.P. The sites from the early part of this period range from one or two house homesteads in some of the smaller playas to multi-house villages in the larger basins. There is also one very large settlement along the beach line of the largest playa in the area, as well as, small camps on the sandsheets and the plateaus beyond the basins. This variation in site size has been interpreted as reflecting a seasonally responsive settlement system in which the population dispersed into small villages in the lower pans of the basins during most of the year, particularly the dry season, then, during the wet season, aggregated into a large community along the edge of the high-water stand of the largest playa.
Various house types are represented in the villages: some are circular and semi-subterranean (30 to 40 cm deep), some slab-lined, and others appear to have had walls of sticks and clay (wattle and daub). All of the sites have large, deep walk-in wells and storage pits. Except for the small camps, most of the sites appear to have been reused many times, with new house floors placed on top of the silt deposited during the preceding flood.
Excavations at five Middle Neolithic sites have yielded more than 50 bones from large bovids. Most of these bones came from the large "aggregation" site (E-75-8) at the margin of the largest playa in the area and from the early Middle Neolithic site E-77-l, dated before 7,000 B.P., which is located on a dune adjacent to another large playa. Each of the other three Middle Neolithic sites yielded only one to three large bovid bones.
Around 7,000 B.P., the remains of small livestock (sheep or goats) appear in several Middle Neolithic sites at Nabta. Because there are no progenitors for sheep or goats in Africa, these caprovines were almost certainly introduced from southwest Asia.
The faunal remains in many of these sites are extensive, including not only the same species recovered from the Early Neolithic sites, but also lizards (Lacertilia sp.) ground squirrel (Euxerus erythropus), field rat (Aricanthis nioloticus), hyena (Hyaena hyaena), and sand fox (Vulpes rueppelii). One bone is from either orstx (Oryx dammah) or addax (Addax nasosulcatus), The most nurmerous remains are those of hare and the Dorcas gazelle. Nevertheless, the paucity of the fauna and the absence, except for cattle and small livestock, of animals that require permanent water suggests a rather poor environment, most likely comparable to the northernmost Sahel today with about 200 mm of rain or less annually.
The Middle Neolithic was brought to an end by another major but brief period of aridity slightly before 6,500 B.P., when the water table fell several meters and the floors of many basins were deflated and reshaped, The area probably was abandoned at this time.
[ca. 6,500y - 5,300y BP]
Late Neolithic
With the increase in rainfall that began around 6,500 years ago. human groups again appeared in the area, but this time with ceramic and lithic traditions that differed from those of the preceding Middle Neolithic. This new complex, identified as Late Neolithic, is distinguished by pottery that is polished and sometimes smudged on the interiors. This pottery resembles that found in the slightly later (about 5,400 or, possibly, 6,300 B.P.) Baderian sites in the Nile Valley of Upper Egypt. [12, 13] It seems likely that an as yet undiscovered early pre-Badarian Neolithic was present in that area and either stimulated or was the source of the Late Neolithic pottery in the Sahara. It is unlikely, however, that this hypothetical early Nilotic Neolithic will date much earlier than 6,500 B.P. There are terminal Paleolithic sites along the Nile that are dated to around 7,000 B.P. and it is highly improbable that two such different life-ways could co-exist exist for long in the closely constrained environment of the Nile Valley.
Late Neolithic sites in the Egyptian Sahara consist mostly of numerous hearths representing many separate episodes of occupation. The hearths are long and oval, dug slightly into the surface of the ground, and filled with charcoal and fire-cracked rocks. No houses are known. Most of the sites are dry-season camps located in the lower parts of basins that were flooded by the seasonal rains. Many of the sites are associated with several large, deep wells. Many of the Late Neolithic tools are made on "side-blow flakes" that have been retouched into denticulates and notched pieces There are also a few bifacial arrowheads, often with tapering stems, or, rarely with concave bases similar to those found in the Fayum Neolithic where they date between 6,400 and 5,7OO years ago. The end of the Late Neolithic in the Eastern Sahara is not well established.The period may have tasted until around 5,300 B.P. when this part of the Sahara was abandoned.
Due to poor preservation faunal remains in Late Neolithic sites are not as abundant as those from the Middle Neolithic. However, the Late and Middle Neolithic samples generally include the same animals suggesting that the environment was also generally similar during these periods. Although large bovids are also present in three Late Nealithic sites, and more frequently than in the faunal assemblages of the preceding period, they still are a minor component of the sample.
The Late Neolithic Nabta is marked by interesting signs of increased social complexity, including several alignments of updght slabs (2 x 3 m) imbedded in, and sometimes almost covered by, the playa sediments. Circles of smaller uptight stabs may calendrical devices. Stone-covered tumuli are also present; two of the smaller ones contain cow burials, one in a prepared and sealed pit. none of the more than 30 large tumuli thus far located, which are by large, roughly shaped blocks of stone, has been excavated.
Even the earliest of these early Holocene Eastern Sahara sites have been attributed to cattle pastoralists. It is presumed that these Early Neolithic groups came into the desert from an as yet unidentified area where wild cattle were present and the initial steps toward their domestication been taken.
This area may have been the Nile Valley between the First and Second Cataracts, where wild cattle were present. Moreover, lithic industries were closely similar to those in the earliest Saharan sites. It has been suggested that cattle may have facilitated human use of the Sahara by providing a mobile, dependable, and renewable source of food in the font of milk and blood. The use of cattle as a renewable resource rather than for meat is seen as a possible explanation for the paucity of cattle remains in most of the Saharan sites. Such use in a desert, where other foods were so limited, may have initiated the modern East African pattern of cattle pastonlism in which cattle are important as a symbol of prestige, are primarily used for milk and blood, and rarely are killed for meat.
It is assumed, because of the apparrent absence of wells at the earliest sites, that the first pastoralists used the desert only after the summer rains, when water was still present in the larger drainage basins. After 8,000 years ago, when large, deep wells were dug, the pastoralists probably resided in the desert year-round.
Linguistic evidence
In addition to the archeological and paleontological evidence, recent linguistic studies indicate the presence of early pastoralists in the Eastern Sahara. Detailed analysis of Nilo-Saharan root words has provided "convincing evidence" that the early cultural history of that language family included a pastoralist and food producing way of life, and that this occurred in what is today the south-western Sahara and Sahel belt.
The Nilo-Saharan family of languages is divided into a complex array of branches and subgroups that reflect an enormous time depth. Just one of the subgroups, Kir is as internally complex as the lndo-European family of languages and is believed to have a comparable age. The Sudanese branch is of special interest here. This is particularly true of the Northern Sudanese subfamily that includes a Saharo-Sahelian subgroup, the early homeland of which is placed in nonh-west Sudan and northeast Chad. Today, the groups that speak Saharo-Sahelian are dispersed from the Niger river eastward to northwestern Ethiopian highlands.
The Proto-Northern Sudanic language contains root words such as "to drive," "cow, "grain,""ear of grain," and "grindstone." Any of these might apply to food production, but another root word meaning "to milk" is cetainly the most convincing evidence of incipient pastoralism.
There are also root words for "temporary shelter" and "to make a pot." In the succeeding Proto-Saharo-Sahelian language, there are root words for "to cultivate", "to prepare field", to "clear" (of weeds), and "cultivated field." this is the first unambiguous linguistic evidence of cultivation. There are also words for "thombush cattle pen," "fence," "yard," "grannary," as well as "to herd" and "cattle." In the following Proto-Sahelian period, there are root words for "goat," "sheep," "ram," and "lamb," indicating the presence of small livestock.
There are root words for "cow," "bull," "ox," and "young cow" or "heifer" and, indeed, a variety of terms relating to cultivation and permanent houses.
On the basis of known historical changes in some of the language, Ehret estimates that the Proto-Northern Sudanic language family, which includes the first root words indicating cattle pastoralism, should be dated about 10,000 years ago. He also estimates that the Proto-Saharan-Sahelian language family, which has words indicating not only more complex cattle pastroalism, but the first indications of cultivation, occurred around 9,000 years ago[/]. He places the Proto-Sahelian language at about 8,500 years ago.
These age estimates are just that, and should not be used to suggest any other chronology. Nevertheless, the sequence of cultural changes is remarkably similar to that in the archeology of the Eastern Sahara and, with some minor adjustments for the beginning of cultivation and for' the inclusion of "sheep" and "goat," reasonably closely to the radiocarbon chronology.
Evidence from other parts of North Africa The antiquity of the known domes-tic cattle elsewhere in North Africa does not offer much encouragement with regard to the presence of early domestic cattle in the Eastern Sahara. Gautier recently summarized the available data, noting that domestic cattle were present in coastal Maurita-nia and Mali around [b]4,200 years ago and at Capeletti in the mountains of northern Algeria about 6,500 years ago. At about that same time, they may have been present in the Coastal Neolithic of the Maghreb. Farther south in the Central Sahara, domestic cattle were present at Meniet and Erg d'Admco, both of which date around 5,400 years ago, and at Adrar Rous, where a complete skeleton of a domestic cow is dated 5,760 +/- 500 years B.P ].
Domestic cattle have been found in western Libya at Ti-n-torha North and Uan Muhuggiag, where the lowest level with domestic cattle and small livestock (sheep and goats) dated at 7,438 t 1,200 B.P. At Uan Muhuggiag, there is also a skull of a domestic cow dated 5,950 +/- 120 years. In northern Chad at Gabrong and in the Serir Tibesti, cattle and small livestock were certainly present by 6,000 B.P. and may have been there as early as 7,500 B.P. We are skeptical, however, about the presence of livestock at Uan Muhuggiag and the Serir Tibesti before 7,OO0 B.P., when small livestock first appear in the Eastern Sahara, if we must assume that these animals reached the central Sahara by way of Egypt and the Nile Valley. This also casts doubt on the 7,500 B.P. dates for cattle in these sites.
The earliest domestic cattle in the lower Nile Valley have been found at Merimda, in levels that have several radiocarbon dates ranging between 6,000 and 5,400 B.P. and in the Fayum Neolithic, which dates from 6,400 to 5, 400 B.P. These sites also have domestic pigs and either sheep or goats. In Upper Egypt, the earliest confirmed domestic cattle are in the Predynastic site of El Khattara, dated at 5,300 B.P. However, domestic cattle were almost certainly present in the earliest Badarian Neolithic, which dates before 5,400 B.P. and possibly were there as early as 6,300 B.P. Farther south, in Sudan near Khartoum, the first do-mestic cattle and small livestock oc-curred together in the Khartoum Neolithic, which began around 6,000 B.P.
It is probably significant that none of the early Holocene faunal assemblages in the Nile Valley from the Fayum south to Khartoum that date between 9,000 and 7,000 B.P contains the remains of cattle that have been identified as domestic It is this absence of any evidence of recognizable incipient cattle domestication in the Nile Valley or elsewhere in North Africa that cautions us to consider carefully the evidence of early domestic cattle in the Eastern Sahara.
Other opinions
Numerous scholars, including Clutton-Brock, Robertshaw, Muzolini, and Smith, have debated about whether the large bovids are cattle or buffalo and stated that if they are cattle, they probably were wild.
It has also been suggested, because the large bovid bones are so rare, that the Bos were possibly intrusive and not associated with the dated occupations where they occurred That argument is not convincing The occupations at many of the sites with large bovids were limited to only one type of Early Neolithic. Moreover, the bovids were recovered from excavations at 15 Neolithic sites dating before 6,500 years ago and, in fact, were found at every site that yielded more than 41 specimens of identifiable faunal remains. Unfortunately, it is not possible to date these large bovid hones directly. Several attempts have been made and each was unsuccessful. Apparently, collagen is not preserved in bones found in hyper-arid environments. It should also be noted that the large bovid hones are not fossilized, and thus are not geological intrusions. Also, there are no large bovids living in the Eastern Sahara today nor have there been for several thousands of years.
It has been suggested that the faunal samples from the archeological sites do not reflect the range of animals that existed in that environment. However, Gautier has identified a long list of animals from these sites and, except for gazelles and hares, none is common. Beyond that, all are small and desert-adjusted. These faunal samples probably reflect the expected range of animals living in the desert at that time.
Smith made the most detailed criticism of Gautier's hypothesis about domestic cattle, basing his objections on two major points. The first is environmental. He noted that Churcher identified wild cattle, African buffalo, hartebeests zebras, and gazelles from an "Early Neolithic" context at Dakhleh Oasis, 300 km north of Bir Kiseiba. If this is a true Early Neolithic faunal assemblage, however, the area would have required a much wetter environment than is indicated by the geological evidence. In fact, this Dakhleh assemblage includes species that require much more moisture than do the species that were in the Nile Valley at this time. This suggests that the environment at Dakhleh was richer and more hospitable than that along the Nile, which is highly unlikely, to say the least. Also, Equus, even in the Late Paleolithic, seems to have been confined to the Red Sea Hills and the east bank of the Nile. [39] The Dakhleh fauna closely resembles that found with lacustrine deposits in the Eastern Sahara and dating to the Last Interglacial, while they are associated with Middle Paleolithic artifacts. It seems likely that this Dakhleh fauna was derived born deposits of the Middle Paleolithic and was somehow mixed with Neolithic artifacts. Churcher (personal communication) accepts this as a possible explanation.
Smith also noted that the Eastern Sahara faunal assemblages do not include the addax, which is still found today in the Central Sahara, or the oryx, giraffe, rhinoceros, or elephant he would expect to see in even the driest environments. There are, of course, two bones of either addax or oryx in the collections. Also, giraffes survived until recently in areas of the Gilf Kebir where there was water. There is, however, no evidence of giraffe on the plains of the Eastern Sahara after the lakes of the Last Interglacial became dry between 70,000 and 65,000 years ago. Occasional elephant teeth and a partial skull have been found in the Neolithic sites, but the elephant skull is more mineralized than are the bones of other fauna recovered from the same site. That skull, as well as the elephant teeth found in other sites, are regarded as Middle Paleolithic or earlier fossils collected by Neolithic people. In our view, the Eastern Sahara was simply too dry for these larger mammals, all of which, except the ele-phant, require nearby water. (The elephant is known to range considerable distances away from water)
Smith's other argument is osteological. He noted that Gautier was very cautious in his identifications, using circumstantial evidence to establish the identity of species. Smith observed that large bovid remains from the Eastern Sahara are within the size range of wild cattle in both Europe and North Africa, but that some are larger than known domestic cattle. He suggested that these large bovids could just as well be African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) or giant buffalo (Pelorovis antiquus). Both possibilities, however, can be rejected on osteometric and morphological grounds. The entire collection was carefully re-examined to resolve this particular question and the initial identification of the hones as those of Bus was confirmed.
It seems possible that we have not been adequately clear in our discussion of the sedimentary and other geological data that support the argument that there was no permanent water in this part of the Sahara. Perhaps, also, our critics' personal experience in the Sahara has been limited to its more tropical and luxurious areas where permanent lakes existed in the Early Holocene. If so, this may have left them with a distorted view of the environment in the Eastern Sahara, where there are numerous deflated basins. In the center of many of these basins are extensive remnants of typical playa clays, which grade to silts and sands toward their margins. Diatomites, freshwater limestones, and other organogenic evidence of permanent water do not occur. There are no aquatic species of invertebrates and none of the fauna except large bovids requires permanent water. It is for these reasons that we reject the hypothesis that cattle were an integral part of the natural, wild fauna of the Eastern Sahara in the early Holocene. In this area under these conditions, cattle had to have been under human control, and thus at least incipiently domestic. The cattle had to have been moved from one grazing area and water hole to another and then, when the drainage basins became dry returned to a place with permanent water.
Wild cattle were numerous in the Nile Valley at this time. It might be hypothesized that after the summer rains the cattle ranged westward on their own to graze and the new grass then returned to the valley before the dry season. Although it is possible that this could have happened at Nabta, which is only 100 km from the Nile, it is extremely unlikely to have occurred at Bir Kiseiba, about 250 km west of the Nile. Also, this hypothesis makes little ecological sense. If large cattle went far out into the desert, why didn't medium-size animals do the same? This is a particularly important question with regard to the hartebeest, which is also common in the Nile Valley and is better adapted to aridity than are cattle.
We have also considered the possibility that the cattle bones are remnants of food brought to the desert from the Nile Valley by groups of hunters. However, this is unlikely, for almost all of the bones recovered are lower limb elements, which have little or no meat and frequently are discarded at killing and butchery sites.
Conclusion
How can we accommodate the conflicting evidence regarding cattle pas-toralists during the early Holocene in the Eastern Sahara? In particular, how can we propose that the first steps to-ward cattle domestication began in the Nile Valley, perhaps during the Late Pleistocene, when there is so little faunal evidence to support that hypothesis? The answer may lie in the identification of the cattle remains found in the Late Paleolithic sites in Sudanese and Egyptian Nubia. It has been suggested that it would be very difficult to separate the bones of the incipiently domestic cattle from those of wild cattle. When the first cattle were discovered in the Eastern Sahara, Gautier rechecked the Bos remains that had been found in all of the Late Paleolithic Nilotic sites. He gave particular attention to those from the Qadan site at Tushka, dated 14, 500 B.P., where cattle skulls were used as head markers for several human burials, and those from the Ark-inian site with a 14C date around 10,500 B.P. The Arkinian site was of special interest because the little lithic assemblage from there closely resembles the assemblages from the earliest El Nabta type Neolithic in the Eastern Sahara. Gautier found that the cattle in both the Qadan and Arkinian sites fell in two size groups one of which he considered to be males, the other females both groups were identified as being wild Bos primigenius.
Recently, however, work in a killing and butchery site near Esna, Egypt, dated 19,100 B.P., yielded the remains of six very large Bos, much larger than any other previously recovered in the Nile Valley. Indeed, these Bos are even larger than those from much older Middle Paleolithic sites. On the basis of this discovery, Gautier has suggested that Bos primigenius bulls in the Nile Valley may well have been much larger than was previously believed, and that the larger Bos from the Qadan and Arkinian sites were female wild Bos. If so, the smaller animals in those assemblages may have been these ones that were in an early stage of domestication. Morphologically, the Eastern Sahara cattle would then be well within the range of these incipiently domestic cattle. The additional work planned at the Esna butchery site may clarify this hypothesis.
By employing the method of "strong inferences," which involves formulating alternative hypotheses, testing them to exclude one or more, arid adopting those that remain, we have concluded that domestic cattle probably were present in the Eastern Sahara as early as 9,000 years ago and, perhaps earlier. At the same time, we recognize that there is no such thing as proof and that science advances only by disproofs. Future evidence may suggest a better hypothesis or indeed, this controversy may be conclusively resolved if DNA testing now under way determines that the Bos remains found in African and Southwest Asian archeological sites belong to the same closely related gene pool or that they represent two populations that have been separated for many thousands of years. Until then, Gautier's hypothesis of domestic cattle in the Eastern Sahara during the Early Holocene remains reasonable, if insecure.
posted
Again, out come Solver's patented technique when backed into a corner, the flailing of ad hominem emotional keywords designed to provoke flaming.
But it's you who are the one displaying juvenile tactics: show me yours and i'll show you mine.
You deconstruct what you fail to understand. Yet, when asked, fail to provide any original input to replace what you think you've torn apart. Quite simply, you cannot show that the word Libya ultimately comes from any other word than Libue which in turn directly comes from Libu/Rebu. We all can see that.
I accept your conceded defeat evidenced by continued harping on inconsequentials rather than focusing on the derivation of the word Libya.
You will never be able to demonstrate any other etymology or derivation of the word Libya other than the historic fact that the AE noted Rebu/Libu living west of the THHNW and that Cyrene colonizing ancient Greeks adapted the AEL word Libu as Libue in their language from whence all Indo-European variants of Libya spring.
And indeed you have been wise not to dispute such facts.
Also, I do believe this thread has strayed far from its purpose and needs to return to the Chronology of ancient Africa, a formidable task but so far presented excellently until taken off track by the Berber/Libyan interlude not dealing in a chronology of said linguistic group/people or the land they came to occupy.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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Again, out come Solver's patented technique when backed into a corner, the flailing of ad hominem emotional keywords designed to provoke flaming
But it's you who are the one displaying juvenile tactics: show me yours and i'll show you mine.
You deconstruct what you fail to understand. Yet, when asked, fail to provide any original input to replace what you think you've torn apart. Quite simply, you cannot show that the word Libya comes from any other word than Libue which in turn comes from Libu/Rebu. We all can see that.
I accept your conceded defeat evidenced by continued harping on inconsequentials to the derivation of the word Libya.
You will never be able to demonstrate any other etymology or derivation of the word Libya other than the historic fact that the AE noted Rebu/Libu living west of the THHNW and that Cyrene colonizing ancient Greeks adapted the AEL word Libu as Libue in their language from whence all Indo-European variants of Libya spring.
And indeed you have been wise not to dispute such facts.
Want to start a topic where we can watch your juvenile showmanship, then open up a topic on it, and can talk about it there. Please stop spamming the ongoing topic with irrelevant blabber.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Somehow the point of the derivation of the word Libya came up. I responded with a concise etymology. It was disputed without any contrary evidence.
Now we just get emotional ranting from the one who disputed but cannot backup his accusation.
So please enter something relevant to the etymology of Libya as requested. After all you were the only one to call its derivation into question. Until you present a scholarly countering I will continue to ask for YOUR full etymology of Libya just as YOU have asked others for the same.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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Matter of fact, which native Mande speaking person in this day and age, is said to be able to read the sign in question? Where is your evidence of that? Where is your evidence that the said script is even being used in Mande speakers, as seems to be the case with Tifinagh among Tamasheq groups?
The Mande speaking people have never stopped writing in their ancient script. It appears that the Mande are keeping alive use of the script in Secret Societies like the Poro Secret Society.
There is considerable evidence that the Vai writing was invented millennia before 1820. This view is supported by the presence of signs analogous to the Vai script being found on rocks from the Fezzan to the Niger Valley and beyond that make up the corpus of the Vai script .
Controversy surrounds the invention of the Vai script. Delafosse claimed that Vai informants told him the writing system was invented in ancient times. S.W. Koelle in Narrative of an expedition into Vy country West Africa and the Discovery of a system of writing,etc.(London,1849) claimed that the writing system was invented by Bukele in 1829 or 1839. David Diringer in The Alphabet (London,1968,pp.130-133) reported that there was a tradition that the writing was invented by a group of eight Vai. Marcel Cohen La grande invention de l'ecriture at son evolution (Paris,1958, p. 21) believed that the Vai writing system was not invented before the 18th century, but more probably at the beginning of the 19thth century.
The story about Bukele's dream is just a cover, used by Bukele to keep members of the Gola Poro society from being angered by Bukele's open teaching of the Vai script .
We know that the symbols associated with the Vai script existed prior to Bukele's alleged invention of the Vai writing because it was known to African slaves in Suriname. In 1936, M.J. Herskovits and his wife on a field trip to Suriname recorded a specimen of writing written by a man while he was possessed by the spirit winti. Mrs. Hau, who examined the specimen wrote that "Most of the component parts of are to be found in the syllabaries of West Africa which we have just discussed" (see: K.Hau, Pre-Islamic writing in West Africa, Bulletin de l'IFAN, t35, ser.B,No.1 (1973)pp.1-45).
The British took over Suriname and ended slavery in 1799. Years before Bukele's alleged invention of the Vai writing. As a result, there is no way a descendant of a Suriname Maroon (runaway slave) could have produced the writing under possession by the spirit winti if the writing was invented by Bukele.
If you read the history of Bukele's alleged invention of the Vai script we discover that although Bukele dreamt of the Vai characters he was able to "reconstruct" the symbols not by deeply meditating on the dream, he: Later Dualu retired from his work as a steward and returned to his hometown in the Vai chiefdom. But he couldn’t forget the idea of having a means of writing. He asked himself, “Why can’t we have something like this for our own Vai people?” One night he had a vision in which he saw a tall white man who said, “Dualu, come. I have a book for you and your Vai people.” The man in the vision then proceeded to show him the shapes of the Vai characters used in the Vai writing system.
When Dualu awoke, he began to write down the characters he’d seen in his vision. Sadly, there were so many he could not remember them all, so he called together his friends and fellow elders and shared with them his vision and the characters he had written down. His fellow Vai elders caught his excitement and over time, they added more characters in place of those Dualu could not remember.
This is the main give-away that the writing existed before Bukele's alleged invention. Firstly, how could "his friends and fellow elders" help him recover the Vai signs, if the signs were not already invented--since these men had not had Bukele's dream.
Secondly, before Bukele popularized the Vai script he sought protection from King Fa Toro of Goturu in Tianimani for his school. The King granted protection to the inventors of the Vai script because "The king declared himself exceedly pleased with their discovery, which as he said would soon raise his people upon a level with the Porors and Mandingoes, who hitherto had been the only book-people" (see: S.W. Koelle, Outline grammar of the Vai language--and an account of the discovery and nature of the Vai mode of syllabic writing, London,1854)
Bukele needed a Kings support for the teaching of anyone the Vai writing because the first schools set up to teach the script at Dshondu and Bandakoro were burned down along with the Vai manuscripts found in the schools after 18 months .
If Bukele had invented the Vai script as he claimed, why did he need protection for his schools? The answer is that he didn't invent the writing he just popularized the script.
The Vai script was taught in the Mande secret societies. This is why eventhough the script is well known, it is cloaked in an aura of secrecy.
This view is supported by the fact that when Thomas Edward Beslow, a Vai prince who attended mission schools in Liberia and the Wesleyan Academy in Massachusetts was initiated into the Poro Society he mentions in his autobiography that many members of the secret society could write in Vai (see: T.E. Beslow, From Darkness of Africa to the light of America).
What do we learn from this report. First, the Vai script was known to Vai elites. Obviously, members of Poro would not like non members of the society to know about this writing. Yet, Bukele was teaching the Vai writing to any one who desired to learn it , so the Vai would be recognized for their literacy just like Europeans. Secondly it was being taught in the Poro society, which King Fa Toro, did not belong too.
Today eventhough the Vai script is well known the writing is semi-secret. As a result. some commentators believe the Vai no longer write in the script. This led Christopher Fyfe in A History of Sierra Leone, to write that: "Though an English trader who spent some time among the Vai in the 1860's found schools where children were still learning it, it was almost forgotten by the early twentieth century, and today is only studied by linguist".
Fyfe was wrong. Gail Stewart, only five years later in Notes on the present-day usage of the Vai script in Liberia (African Language Review 6,(1967)p.71) found that the script was still very popular among many Vai.
David Dalby wrote about a Gola student of William Siegman, who allowed Siegman him to copy the inscription but he would not translate same. This student attributed the writing to the Poro Society, and said he was taught the writing by his grandfather. Dalby wrote: "After the present paper had gone to press, Mr. William Siegman of Indiana University gave me information on a fifteenth West African script, used in Liberia for writing Gola. Mr. Siegman had seen a young Gola student at Cuttingham College (Liberia) writing a letter in this script in 1968, but although the student allowed him to take a copy of the letter he declined to provide Mr. Siegman with a Key"(see:D. Dalby, Further indigenous scripts in West Africa and etc.,ALS,10,pp.180-181).
Dalby viewed the assertion of the student that the writing was used by members of the Poro Society with skepticism. But Dalby should not have been skeptical because Beslow had made the same claim.
In conclusion, Bukele probably did not invent the Vai writing. This is supported by the fact that 1) the symbols associated with the Vai script were well known to members of the Poro Secret Society; 2) descendants of Maroon Blacks in Suriname were familiar with the script; and 3) the Vai writing, for the most part remains in use but it is maintained in a semi-secret fashion and not usually shared with people who are not members or kin of members of a secret society, this is why the Gola student would not translate his letter for Mr.Siegman.
Finally it must be remembered that the symbols engraved on rocks from the Fezzan to the Niger bend and other areas where the Mande live are identical to symbols associated with the Vai script. This shows the continuity of writing among the Mande speaking people over a period of 3000 plus years.
The evidence from Suriname, symbols on the rocks near Mande habitations, and the existence of the symbols relating to the Vai script in other Mande writing systems and their continued use by members of the Vai and members of secret societies support Delafosse's tradition that the Vai writing existed in ancient times.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Mystery Solver: ^This doesn't answer the question you cited. Try again, as per the specifics of the question.
You can't read. My post makes it perfectly clear that members of the Poro Secret Society continue to use Mande writing. The Poro are Mande speakers.
Mystery Solver
quote:
Matter of fact, which native Mande speaking person in this day and age, is said to be able to read the sign in question? Where is your evidence of that? Where is your evidence that the said script is even being used in Mande speakers, as seems to be the case with Tifinagh among Tamasheq groups?
I answered each one of these questions:
1. The people today who are able to read and write these signs are members of the Poro Society.
2. The evidence that Mande used the writing system is cited throughout the above piece. Dalafosse recorded the first tradition that the Vai writing was used in ancient times. Below are the references detailing the former and present use of Vai among the Mande :
S.W. Koelle in Narrative of an expedition into Vy country West Africa and the Discovery of a system of writing,etc.(London,1849)
David Diringer,The Alphabet (London,1968, pp.130-133)
K.Hau, Pre-Islamic writing in West Africa, Bulletin de l'IFAN, t35, ser.B,No.1 (1973)pp.1-45).
S.W. Koelle, Outline grammar of the Vai language--and an account of the discovery and nature of the Vai mode of syllabic writing, London,1854)
T.E. Beslow, From Darkness of Africa to the light of America).
Gail Stewart,Notes on the present-day usage of the Vai script in Liberia (African Language Review 6,(1967)p.71)
D. Dalby, Further indigenous scripts in West Africa and etc.,ALS,10,pp.180-181).
quote:^This doesn't answer the question you cited. Try again, as per the specifics of the question.
You can't read. My post makes it perfectly clear that members of the Poro Secret Society continue to use Mande writing. The Poro are Mande speakers.
Putting aside clowning and being a loud mouth without saying anything, demonstrate how your drawn out rant about Vai answers the 'specifics' of the questions you cited which were, if I need to literally spelt it out for you:
1)Matter of fact, which native Mande speaking person in this day and age, is said to be able to read the sign in question? Where is your evidence of that?
Show me evidence that any Mande speaker has been able to read any of the signs in North Africaassociated with “Berber” groups?
2)Where is your evidence that the said script is even being used in Mande speakers, as seems to be the case with Tifinagh among Tamasheq groups?
Drop the Vai claptrap and answer the questions.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:^This doesn't answer the question you cited. Try again, as per the specifics of the question.
You can't read. My post makes it perfectly clear that members of the Poro Secret Society continue to use Mande writing. The Poro are Mande speakers.
Putting aside clowning and being a loud mouth without saying anything, demonstrate how your drawn out rant about Vai answers the 'specifics' of the questions you cited which were, if I need to literally spelt it out for you:
1)Matter of fact, which native Mande speaking person in this day and age, is said to be able to read the sign in question? Where is your evidence of that?
Show me evidence that any Mande speaker has been able to read any of the signs in North Africaassociated with “Berber” groups?
2)Where is your evidence that the said script is even being used in Mande speakers, as seems to be the case with Tifinagh among Tamasheq groups?
Drop the Vai claptrap and answer the questions.
Vai Script
Here is a letter written in Vai
I answered each one of these questions:
1. The people today who are able to read and write these signs are members of the Poro Society.
It is also taught in some schools.
2. The evidence that Mande used the writing system is cited throughout the above piece. Dalafosse recorded the first tradition that the Vai writing was used in ancient times. Below are the references detailing the former and present use of Vai among the Mande :
S.W. Koelle in Narrative of an expedition into Vy country West Africa and the Discovery of a system of writing,etc.(London,1849)
David Diringer,The Alphabet (London,1968, pp.130-133)
K.Hau, Pre-Islamic writing in West Africa, Bulletin de l'IFAN, t35, ser.B,No.1 (1973)pp.1-45).
S.W. Koelle, Outline grammar of the Vai language--and an account of the discovery and nature of the Vai mode of syllabic writing, London,1854)
T.E. Beslow, From Darkness of Africa to the light of America).
Gail Stewart,Notes on the present-day usage of the Vai script in Liberia (African Language Review 6,(1967)p.71)
D. Dalby, Further indigenous scripts in West Africa and etc.,ALS,10,pp.180-181).
posted
Stop spamming the thread if you aren't going to answer the question as asked, point by point. Consider this the last attempt to give you a chance to deliver. If not, moving on.
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posted
^Don't have to show you jack, when examples of actual scripts in question have already been laid out and described in terms of evolution into contemporary Tamazight scripts. Only you consider these Mande Scripts. Go read Henri Lhote for instance; you might learn a thing or two.
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quote:Originally posted by Mystery Solver: Stop spamming the thread if you aren't going to answer the question as asked, point by point. Consider this the last attempt to give you a chance to deliver. If not, moving on.
You should move on. Above I answered your questions yet you pretend they were not.
You are a sad case indeed. Why is it that you hate to admit when someone proves you wrong?
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
quote:Originally posted by Mystery Solver:
quote:Originally posted by Mystery Solver:
quote:^This doesn't answer the question you cited. Try again, as per the specifics of the question.
You can't read. My post makes it perfectly clear that members of the Poro Secret Society continue to use Mande writing. The Poro are Mande speakers.
Putting aside clowning and being a loud mouth without saying anything, demonstrate how your drawn out rant about Vai answers the 'specifics' of the questions you cited which were, if I need to literally spelt it out for you:
1)Matter of fact, which native Mande speaking person in this day and age, is said to be able to read the sign in question? Where is your evidence of that?
Show me evidence that any Mande speaker has been able to read any of the signs in North Africaassociated with “Berber” groups?
2)Where is your evidence that the said script is even being used in Mande speakers, as seems to be the case with Tifinagh among Tamasheq groups?
Drop the Vai claptrap and answer the questions.
Vai Script
Here is a letter written in Vai
I answered each one of these questions:
1. The people today who are able to read and write these signs are members of the Poro Society.
It is also taught in some schools.
2. The evidence that Mande used the writing system is cited throughout the above piece. Dalafosse recorded the first tradition that the Vai writing was used in ancient times. Below are the references detailing the former and present use of Vai among the Mande :
S.W. Koelle in Narrative of an expedition into Vy country West Africa and the Discovery of a system of writing,etc.(London,1849)
David Diringer,The Alphabet (London,1968, pp.130-133)
K.Hau, Pre-Islamic writing in West Africa, Bulletin de l'IFAN, t35, ser.B,No.1 (1973)pp.1-45).
S.W. Koelle, Outline grammar of the Vai language--and an account of the discovery and nature of the Vai mode of syllabic writing, London,1854)
T.E. Beslow, From Darkness of Africa to the light of America).
Gail Stewart,Notes on the present-day usage of the Vai script in Liberia (African Language Review 6,(1967)p.71)
D. Dalby, Further indigenous scripts in West Africa and etc.,ALS,10,pp.180-181).
You bet. I've moved on, having arrived at the conditions under which I warned earlier that I would do so. The rest of your post is of no significance.
So back on-topic:
Linguistic aspect of the post above, might well be relatively emphasized…
Linguistic evidence
In addition to the archeological and paleontological evidence, recent linguistic studies indicate the presence of early pastoralists in the Eastern Sahara. Detailed analysis of Nilo-Saharan root words has provided "convincing evidence" that the early cultural history of that language family included a pastoralist and food producing way of life, and that this occurred in what is today the south-western Sahara and Sahel belt.
The Nilo-Saharan family of languages is divided into a complex array of branches and subgroups that reflect an enormous time depth. Just one of the subgroups, Kir is as internally complex as the lndo-European family of languages and is believed to have a comparable age. The Sudanese branch is of special interest here. This is particularly true of the Northern Sudanese subfamily that includes a Saharo-Sahelian subgroup, the early homeland of which is placed in northwest Sudan and northeast Chad. Today, the groups that speak Saharo-Sahelian are dispersed from the Niger river eastward to northwestern Ethiopian highlands.
The Proto-Northern Sudanic language contains root words such as "to drive," "cow, "grain,""ear of grain," and "grindstone." Any of these might apply to food production, but another root word meaning "to milk" is cetainly the most convincing evidence of incipient pastoralism.
There are also root words for "temporary shelter" and "to make a pot." In the succeeding Proto-Saharo-Sahelian language, there are root words for "to cultivate", "to prepare field", to "clear" (of weeds), and "cultivated field." this is the first unambiguous linguistic evidence of cultivation. There are also words for "thombush cattle pen," "fence," "yard," "grannary," as well as "to herd" and "cattle." In the following Proto-Sahelian period, there are root words for "goat," "sheep," "ram," and "lamb," indicating the presence of small livestock.
There are root words for "cow," "bull," "ox," and "young cow" or "heifer" and, indeed, a variety of terms relating to cultivation and permanent houses.
On the basis of known historical changes in some of the language, Ehret estimates that the Proto-Northern Sudanic language family, which includes the first root words indicating cattle pastoralism, should be dated about 10,000 years ago. He also estimates that the Proto-Saharan-Sahelian language family, which has words indicating not only more complex cattle pastroalism, but the first indications of cultivation, occurred around 9,000 years ago. He places the Proto-Sahelian language at about 8,500 years ago.
These age estimates are just that, and should not be used to suggest any other chronology. Nevertheless, the sequence of cultural changes is remarkably similar to that in the archeology of the Eastern Sahara and, with some minor adjustments for the beginning of cultivation and for' the inclusion of "sheep" and "goat," reasonably closely to the radiocarbon chronology.
Evidence from other parts of North Africa The antiquity of the known domes-tic cattle elsewhere in North Africa does not offer much encouragement with regard to the presence of early domestic cattle in the Eastern Sahara. Gautier recently summarized the available data, noting that domestic cattle were present in coastal Maurita-nia and Mali around 4,200 years ago and at Capeletti in the mountains of northern Algeria about 6,500 years ago. At about that same time, they may have been present in the Coastal Neolithic of the Maghreb. Farther south in the Central Sahara, domestic cattle were present at Meniet and Erg d'Admco, both of which date around 5,400 years ago, and at Adrar Rous, where a complete skeleton of a domestic cow is dated 5,760 +/- 500 years B.P ].
Domestic cattle have been found in western Libya at Ti-n-torha North and Uan Muhuggiag, where the lowest level with domestic cattle and small livestock (sheep and goats) dated at 7,438 t 1,200 B.P. At Uan Muhuggiag, there is also a skull of a domestic cow dated 5,950 +/- 120 years. In northern Chad at Gabrong and in the Serir Tibesti, cattle and small livestock were certainly present by 6,000 B.P. and may have been there as early as 7,500 B.P. We are skeptical, however, about the presence of livestock at Uan Muhuggiag and the Serir Tibesti before 7,OO0 B.P., when small livestock first appear in the Eastern Sahara, if we must assume that these animals reached the central Sahara by way of Egypt and the Nile Valley. This also casts doubt on the 7,500 B.P. dates for cattle in these sites.
The earliest domestic cattle in the lower Nile Valley have been found at Merimda, in levels that have several radiocarbon dates ranging between 6,000 and 5,400 B.P. and in the Fayum Neolithic, which dates from 6,400 to 5, 400 B.P. These sites also have domestic pigs and either sheep or goats. In Upper Egypt, the earliest confirmed domestic cattle are in the Predynastic site of El Khattara, dated at 5,300 B.P. However, domestic cattle were almost certainly present in the earliest Badarian Neolithic, which dates before 5,400 B.P. and possibly were there as early as 6,300 B.P. Farther south, in Sudan near Khartoum, the first do-mestic cattle and small livestock oc-curred together in the Khartoum Neolithic, which began around 6,000 B.P.
It is probably significant that none of the early Holocene faunal assemblages in the Nile Valley from the Fayum south to Khartoum that date between 9,000 and 7,000 B.P contains the remains of cattle that have been identified as domestic It is this absence of any evidence of recognizable incipient cattle domestication in the Nile Valley or elsewhere in North Africa that cautions us to consider carefully the evidence of early domestic cattle in the Eastern Sahara...
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This coming from the same person who sees Mande script in Aegean Linear A script, Hurrian language, Sumerian, Dravidian script, and Olmec. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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