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Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture
Christopher Ehret Professor of History, African Studies Chair University of California at Los Angeles
Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots.
The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east. They supported themselves by gathering wild grains. The first elements of Egyptian culture were laid down two thousand years later, between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C., when some of these Afrasian communities expanded northward into Egypt, bringing with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They also introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grains as food.
A new religion came with them as well. Its central tenet explains the often localized origins of later Egyptian gods: the earliest Afrasians were, properly speaking, neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. Instead, each local community, comprising a clan or a group of related clans, had its own distinct deity and centered its religious observances on that deity. This belief system persists today among several Afrasian peoples of far southwest Ethiopia. And as Biblical scholars have shown, Yahweh, god of the ancient Hebrews, an Afrasian people of the Semitic group, was originally also such a deity. The connection of many of Egypt's predynastic gods to particular localities is surely a modified version of this early Afrasian belief. Political unification in the late fourth millennium brought the Egyptian deities together in a new polytheistic system. But their local origins remain amply apparent in the records that have come down to us.
During the long era between about 10,000 and 6000 B.C., new kinds of southern influences diffused into Egypt. During these millennia, the Sahara had a wetter climate than it has today, with grassland or steppes in many areas that are now almost absolute desert. New wild animals, most notably the cow, spread widely in the eastern Sahara in this period.
One of the exciting archeological events of the past twenty years was the discovery that the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated these cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. The societies involved in this momentous development included Afrasians and neighboring peoples whose languages belonged to a second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). The earliest domestic cattle came to Egypt apparently from these southern neighbors, probably before 6000 B.C., not, as we used to think, from the Middle East.
One major technological advance, pottery-making, was also initiated as early as 9000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharans and Afrasians who lived to the south of Egypt. Soon thereafter, pots spread to Egyptian sites, almost 2,000 years before the first pottery was made in the Middle East.
Very late in the same span of time, the cultivating of crops began in Egypt. Since most of Egypt belonged then to the Mediterranean climatic zone, many of the new food plants came from areas of similar climate in the Middle East. Two domestic animals of Middle Eastern origin, the sheep and the goat, also entered northeastern Africa from the north during this era.
But several notable early Egyptian crops came from Sudanic agriculture, independently invented between 7500 and 6000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharan peoples (Ehret 1993:104-125). One such cultivated crop was the edible gourd. The botanical evidence is confirmed in this case by linguistics: Egyptian bdt, or "bed of gourds" (Late Egyptian bdt, "gourd; cucumber"), is a borrowing of the Nilo-Saharan word *bud, "edible gourd." Other early Egyptian crops of Sudanic origin included watermelons and castor beans. (To learn more on how historians use linguistic evidence, see note at end of this article.)
Between about 5000 and 3000 B.C. a new era of southern cultural influences took shape. Increasing aridity pushed more of the human population of the eastern Sahara into areas with good access to the waters of the Nile, and along the Nile the bottomlands were for the first time cleared and farmed. The Egyptian stretches of the river came to form the northern edge of a newly emergent Middle Nile Culture Area, which extended far south up the river, well into the middle of modern-day Sudan. Peoples speaking languages of the Eastern Sahelian branch of the Nilo-Saharan family inhabited the heartland of this region.
From the Middle Nile, Egypt gained new items of livelihood between 5000 and 3000 B.C. One of these was a kind of cattle pen: its Egyptian name, s3 (earlier *sr), can be derived from the Eastern Sahelian term *sar. Egyptian pg3, "bowl," (presumably from earlier pgr), a borrowing of Nilo-Saharan *poKur, "wooden bowl or trough," reveals still another adoption in material culture that most probably belongs to this era.
One key feature of classical Egyptian political culture, usually assumed to have begun in Egypt, also shows strong links to the southern influences of this period. We refer here to a particular kind of sacral chiefship that entailed, in its earliest versions, the sending of servants into the afterlife along with the deceased chief. The deep roots and wide occurrence of this custom among peoples who spoke Eastern Sahelian languages strongly imply that sacral chiefship began not as a specifically Egyptian invention, but instead as a widely shared development of the Middle Nile Culture Area.
After about 3500 B.C., however, Egypt would have started to take on a new role vis-a-vis the Middle Nile region, simply because of its greater concentration of population. Growing pressures on land and resources soon enhanced and transformed the political powers of sacral chiefs. Unification followed, and the local deities of predynastic times became gods in a new polytheism, while sacral chiefs gave way to a divine king. At the same time, Egypt passed from the wings to center stage in the unfolding human drama of northeastern Africa.
A Note on the Use of Linguistic Evidence for History
Languages provide a powerful set of tools for probing the cultural history of the peoples who spoke them. Determining the relationships between particular languages, such as the languages of the Afrasian or the Nilo-Saharan family, gives us an outline history of the societies that spoke those languages in the past. And because each word in a language has its own individual history, the vocabulary of every language forms a huge archive of documents. If we can trace a particular word back to the common ancestor language of a language family, then we know that the item of culture connoted by the word was known to the people who spoke the ancestral tongue. If the word underwent a meaning change between then and now, a corresponding change must have taken place in the cultural idea or practice referred to by the word. In contrast, if a word was borrowed from another language, it attests to a thing or development that passed from the one culture to the other. The English borrowing, for example, of castle, duke, parliament, and many other political and legal terms from Old Norman French are evidence of a Norman period of rule in England, a fact confirmed by documents.
References Cited:
Ehret, Christopher, Nilo-Saharans and the Saharo-Sahelian Neolithic. In African Archaeology: Food, Metals and Towns. T. Shaw, P Sinclair, B. Andah, and A. Okpoko, eds. pp. 104-125. London: Routledge. 1993
Ehret, Christopher, Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone Consonants, and Vocabulary. Los Angeles: University of California Press, Berkeley. 1995
Wendorf, F., et al., Saharan Exploitation of Plants 8000 Years B.P. Nature 359:721-724. 1982
Wendorf, F., R. Schild, and A. Close, eds. Cattle-Keepers of the Eastern Sahara. Dallas: Southern Methodist University, Department of Anthropology. 1984
posted
^ Excellent article! This thread deserves to be made permanent on the top of this board, not only the "race" thread.
As usual Christopher Ehret provides excellent insights and a great demonstration of unbiased and objective scholarship at its best!
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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I have a quick question. It's off topic for this thread, but I don't want to start a separate thread for it. Can anyone explain to me the blonde hair color that some Egyptians in paintings have? Or is it not hair at all? I never found out why. I hope y'all know what I'm talking about. I tried to post a picture, but it didn't work.
Posts: 603 | From: Mobile, Alabama | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Can anyone explain to me the blonde hair color that some Egyptians in paintings have? Or is it not hair at all? I never found out why. I hope y'all know what I'm talking about
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^ And for the record, lets' please not ruin a perfectly good thread.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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I'm not trying to ruin this thread. I'm having a hard time finding pictures, but I've seen them on here, but I don't know which threads. I won't worry about it though. Forget I mentioned it.
Posts: 603 | From: Mobile, Alabama | Registered: Jan 2007
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^ I didn't say you in particular were ruining the thread. I was just stating a warning lest this thread descends into disarray.
By the way, why are you asking such an off-topic question all of a sudden? Why not ask in one of the many art threads?
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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According to this article, there is no evidence to provide a reason for instituting a reference to Asia in the language, quite the contrary. The map accurately, in my opinion, represents the area in which these languages emerged, and which is clearly on the African continent.
AlTakruri once asked a profound question, which was never addressed; why is the Arabian subcontinent considered Asian as well as the Levant? And Europe is nothing but a euphemism for Western Asia...
The term 'Afro-Asiatic' is a misnomer.
Posts: 3344 | From: Berkeley | Registered: Oct 2003
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^ Call it by whatever name you will, the language phylum still exists!
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Wally: According to this article, there is no evidence to provide a reason for instituting a reference to Asia in the language, quite the contrary. The map accurately, in my opinion, represents the area in which these languages emerged, and which is clearly on the African continent.
AlTakruri once asked a profound question, which was never addressed; why is the Arabian subcontinent considered Asian as well as the Levant? And Europe is nothing but a euphemism for Western Asia...
posted
Great post. I remember first reading this after I found my copy of "Egypt in Africa" by Theodore Celenko. I refer to it quite frequently for reference.
Posts: 4021 | From: Bay Area, CA | Registered: Mar 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Wally: According to this article, there is no evidence to provide a reason for instituting a reference to Asia in the language, quite the contrary. The map accurately, in my opinion, represents the area in which these languages emerged, and which is clearly on the African continent.
AlTakruri once asked a profound question, which was never addressed; why is the Arabian subcontinent considered Asian as well as the Levant? And Europe is nothing but a euphemism for Western Asia...
The term 'Afro-Asiatic' is a misnomer.
I also agree, but I have heard that the language in ancient egypt was somhow mixed with asiatic languages due to cultural difusion. Can someone please let me know if this is correct. Posts: 5 | Registered: Oct 2006
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By the way, how is everyone. i haven't been on in a while. high school has been keeping me busy. (I'M NOT TRYING TO GET OFF SUBJECT THOUGH SO YOU MAY JUST WANT TO DISREGARD THIS POST)
Posts: 5 | Registered: Oct 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Ubasti: I also agree, but I have heard that the language in ancient egypt was somhow mixed with asiatic languages due to cultural difusion. Can someone please let me know if this is correct.
No it's not. What source says this? Better yet, what features of the language points to this "asiatic" influence??
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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^This source was a man who calls himself an egyptologist. He told me that ancient egyptians were decendants of indian origin (caucasiods is what he called them). Please don't get me wrong I strictly disagree with him but i just wanted a second "opinion" (more of a fact)on this subject, just to be sure. This man also told me that when these "caucasiods" arrived in africa there languages mixed with those of the indiginous africans.
Posts: 5 | Registered: Oct 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Ubasti: ^This source was a man who calls himself an egyptologist. He told me that ancient egyptians were decendants of indian origin.
I don't credit unnamed sources.
No credible source claims that Egyptians come from India.
Notice Ubasti said the guy calls himself an Egyptologist and then made a claim. Shoot, I can call myself a Romanologist and say Romans came from China, so there. Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ubasti: ^This source was a man who calls himself an egyptologist. He told me that ancient egyptians were decendants of indian origin.
I don't credit unnamed sources.
No credible source claims that Egyptians come from India.
The end.
Sorry I can't remember his name. This guy was a visiter in my 8th grade history class. This was two years ago, the only reason why i remember what he told is becuase I took notes.
Posts: 5 | Registered: Oct 2006
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The article is okay if it was written let us say in 1900 or so and even then....
I am still amazed about the tenacity of this "evolution theory" which makes sense only if you hold as a belief(religious) system that it WAS evolution to begin with..
As far as one can determine the earliest hieroglyphic script so far found was very similar to the hieroglyphs being written on monuments etc in the Greek Period...(Ptolemaic Kings)
I also have yet to see a petroglyph that mutated into an hieroglyph...
No evidence that the petroglyphs being found in Egypt were the frist script- it could very well bene adapted by various nomadic cultures using them as symbols,territory markings,basic infos for fellow travelers,etc...
Now it will be interesting to see what kind of "primitive "script" is uncovered at the Fayyum oasis(dating from 5200BC to around 4500 BC) provided Zawass and co do diligence here...
Note for the die-hard evolutionists here ,go to:
http://www.thedesignoflife.net (book same name as the website) by Prof Williams A. Dembski Ph D in philosophy,maths,etc/Jonathan Wells(Phd in cell and molecular biology,religious studies)
Posts: 305 | Registered: May 2006
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I might add that people ought to check this website as well..
http://www.sofiatopia.org a very good website with good explanations of many ritual objects as well as a description of the ancient egyptian language..,philosophy,etc..
However I do not endorse their taking in regards as to how the Egyptian language evolved..(here too darwinism(?) is permeating their approach)
Posts: 305 | Registered: May 2006
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Sound/Meaning Relationships Between the Bantu and Ancient Egyptian Language
Latest research by linguistics have shown that the root or ancestral language of modern human beings may be more than 10,000 years and possibly nearer 15,000 years old. Merrit Ruhlen has even proposed that a common language once spanned the entire world. He calls this language Proto-Global. Furthermore, mitochondrial DNA evidence carried out by Bryan Sykes has shown that modern human beings originated in Central/Southern Africa and spread across the rest of Africa and along the Arabian peninsula carrying and diffusing language. It was only at a later stage that modern human beings spread north into Egypt and the process of carrying and spreading language was repeated. It is from this body of evidence that such a vast vocabulary of words of common origin between Ancient Egyptian and Proto-Bantu have been compiled. From this, one can make the assumption that Bantu vocabulary spread northwards and not the other way round.
quote:Latest research by linguistics have shown that the root or ancestral language of modern human beings may be more than 10,000 years and possibly nearer 15,000 years old.
Has to be older than this. Unless you think the original populations to settle - Australia - for example some 60 thousand years ago - had no language, or that the modern Native Languages of these peoples are unrelated to the original native langauges which have - in this view - all died out?
quote: Merrit Ruhlen has even proposed that a common language once spanned the entire world.
I don't know what this means. I would agree that language in humans has a common African origin, but I don't know how a single langauge can span the entire world, or when this is supposed to have been the case?
quote: He calls this language Proto-Global. Furthermore, mitochondrial DNA evidence carried out by Bryan Sykes has shown that modern human beings originated in Central/Southern Africa
East Africa actually.
quote: and spread across the rest of Africa and along the Arabian peninsula carrying and diffusing language. It was only at a later stage that modern human beings spread north into Egypt and the process of carrying and spreading language was repeated.
Ok.
quote: It is from this body of evidence that such a vast vocabulary of words of common origin between Ancient Egyptian and Proto-Bantu have been compiled.
Uhm, trying to understand what this thesis is saying: I do agree that Ancient Egyptian language is African, and therefore has a closer relationship to other African languages than Ancient Egyptian does to non African languages - with the possible exception of Asiatic Semitic Hebrew and Arab, which are themselves merely extentions of and African language family.
quote: From this, one can make the assumption that Bantu vocabulary spread northwards and not the other way round.
I completely miss the basis for this conclusion. So someone else will have to explain this to me.
In the absense of explanation - I will conclude that the author is unclear on datation of the Out of Africa Migrations - 50 thousand years ago, vs. Proto Bantu langauge which is perhaps 4 thousand years old.
Therefore you can't conclude that because people spread out of Africa from 'south to north', that the Bantu language also spread in this direction.
To clarify why this is a fallacy - one only has to note that the earliest remains found in Ancient Egypt "Nazlet Khater", are over 30 thousand years old.
This is 26 thousand years prior to proto-bantu.
I do agree however with the general premise that African languages are related - Egyptian, Bantu, Berber, Semitic, et. al, ....how could they not be, geography being what it is?
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by rasol: I do agree however with the general premise that African languages are related - Egyptian, Bantu, Berber, Semitic, et. al, ....how could they not be, geography being what it is?
Thanks for your input. I agree with this sentence.
.
Posts: 1549 | From: California, USA | Registered: Jan 2006
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i have spoken to many educated egyptians and they have all told me that there is a big part of egyptian culture and it is eastern indian...however the more modern egyptian would be offended.
Posts: 460 | From: philly | Registered: Apr 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Pothead_Barbie: i have spoken to many educated egyptians and they have all told me that there is a big part of egyptian culture and it is eastern indian...however the more modern egyptian would be offended.
Well tell your Educated Egyptian friends to get a refund on their Educaion. The Egyptian culture is indiginious to the African Continent and the South of the Nile Valley and East Africa
Posts: 8804 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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^ This is hilarious! First modern (Arabized) Egyptians claim ancient Egyptian culture originated in Western Asia, now they're saying it originated as far away as India?!! So pretty much anywhere but in Africa where Egypt is. LOLPosts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ This is hilarious! First modern (Arabized) Egyptians claim ancient Egyptian culture originated in Western Asia, now they're saying it originated as far away as India?!! So pretty much anywhere but in Africa where Egypt is. LOL
If you think that was nutty, I've seen even crazier. Like, I've found people who think the Zulu are from China and that the name "Micronesia" is proof that Ancient Greeks colonized the Pacific! And then we have people like Marc Washington. Why do people come up with these notions?
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ This is hilarious! First modern (Arabized) Egyptians claim ancient Egyptian culture originated in Western Asia, now they're saying it originated as far away as India?!! So pretty much anywhere but in Africa where Egypt is. LOL
If you think that was nutty, I've seen even crazier. Like, I've found people who think the Zulu are from China and that the name "Micronesia" is proof that Ancient Greeks colonized the Pacific! And then we have people like Marc Washington. Why do people come up with these notions?
ROFL.Zulu from china. This is rich
Posts: 22 | From: yene ketema | Registered: Jul 2007
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There is no such thing as an "Afroasiatic". There is nothing "Asiatic" about Black African languages. Black Africans today and of distant old were not from Asia (this is different from populating outside Africa). In fact, when Ancient Kemet was established Whites, Jews, Arabs and Asians weren't in the picture. All of the tools and know-how required to build and maintain a high-level and sophisticated civilization were already refined and put in place by the Ancient Anu/Oru people (direct Black African ancestors to Ancient Kemetians). This included language(s), writing systems, science, mathematics, architecture, medical systems, art, political structures, spiritual belief systems, you name it, they were all firmly in place already. So it is obvious the term "Asiatic" is false and has nothing to do with Black African languages. As for those who attempt to soften the seriousness of this breach and argue that "Afro-Asian/Afroasiatic" is only a term not necessary associated with Asia, it is assumed that such persons are well aware of the obvious misleading falseness of this label.
On other notes, to properly understand and put into better perspective the spread and genetic relationships of modern day Black African languages to that/those of Ancient Kemet, it is important people realize that the fabricated geographical limits concerning The Bantu Migration is an unproven theory entirely based on the illogical idea that the Sahara desert was an obstacle for Black Africans. In this in the face of direct evidence of Black Africans like Mansa Musa and his caravans continuously crossed the Sahara desert to Mecca and back without issues (a distance further than the length of Mali and Egypt). This kind of conscious ignorance, backwards logic and anti-commonsense isn't good for anyone and is especially not good for Black African peoples. Excellent and comprehensive work is being done to counter and correct this deliberate error and others and in time, The Bantu Migration from Ancient Kemet will be revealed and accepted. The Bantu in Ancient Egypt (http://www.kaa-umati.co.uk/Bantu%20in%20Ancient%20Egypt.htm)
I am well aware at the dismay and effort by certain individual elements to abhor this kind of straight forward thinking and care taken concerning details in Black African histories. I would like to remind them that they are neither Black Africans to care this deeply about Black African issues or they are Black African peoples so deeply conditioned of their minds that only the hope in afterlife can bring them back to their senses. In all and dismissing certain human elements, these basic logical breaches and flaws I pointed out above cannot continue to go unchallenged and ignored and must be corrected.
Posts: 213 | From: New York City, USA | Registered: Sep 2007
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The reason why Egyptians of today see the similarites between Egypt India blah blabh is because Tibet Hinduism and all those Far East ways are nothing but Ancient Kemetic lodges that were all around the world until it got watered down and confused. So all the Ancient places of Worship were nothing but old Kemetic LOdges
Posts: 69 | Registered: Mar 2009
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I stopped reading here: "Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots."
No-one knows what the heck they spoke in Egypt let alone in Africa in 3000-800BC?! Sure some people have made attempts to decipher but we dont know for certain what they spoke, how they spoke it or anything about their language. If your talking about modern Egyptian and implying it has African words in it then that is another issue.
Posts: 104 | Registered: Jan 2007
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The language and culture of ancient Gebts (Gebts is the ancient name of Egypt) was of its founders, ancient Amara and Akele-Gezai merchants from today's regions of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The language of the Amara is Amarigna and that of the Akele-Gezai is Tigrigna, both of which are the dual languages of the hieroglyphs.
These ancient merchants exported food and goods to the region for sale to the people living in the desert hills that border the Nile river, from Aswan to the Delta. When the Amara and Akele-Gezai became embattled over market territories, the region was divided 5100 years ago for them to administer. The Akele-Gezai administered the northern Nile Delta and the Amara the Nile Valley. This is a sign of how important their food they sold was to the region and people who lived there.
Not only are the languages written in hieroglyphs from the Akele-Gezai and Amara founders, but also the food. "Injera", "wat", "tej", and other Ethiopian and Eritrean foods and drinks, still enjoyed today in Eritrea and Ethiopia, are written in hieroglyphs. "Etan" incense, written in hieroglyphs, is still burned in Ethiopian and Eritrean homes. And as is today in Ethiopia and Eritrea, clothing is written as "lebs" in hieroglyphs.
Having been named by its Amara and Akele-Gezai founders, Egypt is still called "Gebts" in both Ethiopia and Eritrea today.
So if you want to experience the food, fashion, language, music, dancing, and other culture of ancient Gebts exported there by its founders and written in hieroglyphs and represented in its art, short of traveling to Eritrea and Ethiopia, the closest place you can experience it is in local Eritrean and Ethiopian restaurants. And although you can purchase Amarigna and Tigrigna language books and CDs online, you can also purchase them at Eritrean and Ethiopian markets.
posted
That's really great post. There are no more words or doubts about this post. Thanks for sharing with us.
Posts: 1 | Registered: Oct 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Ephestion: I stopped reading here: "Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots."
No-one knows what the heck they spoke in Egypt let alone in Africa in 3000-8000BC?! Sure some people have made attempts to decipher but we dont know for certain what they spoke, how they spoke it or anything about their language. If your talking about modern Egyptian and implying it has African words in it then that is another issue.
You make no sense. First of all, we know that the ancient Egyptian language was already established by 3,000 BC since Egypt first became a unified state by 3,100 BC. Second of all, 8,000 BC is the estimated time that the Afrasian or Afroasiatic language phylum was believed to have diverged into the ancestors of the different subfamilies we know today such as Berber, Semitic, Omotic etc. Of course we don't know exactly what the proto-Afrasian language sounded like or how it was spoken. That's not the point! The real point is that the language is AFRICAN and so was ancient Egyptian as it is also in Africa!! You make no sense to say that ancient Egyptian has African words in it as the entire language itself is African!! The ONLY subfamily of Afrasian spoken outside of Africa is Semitic. All other branches are spoken in Africa! Thus Afrasian itself is just as much African as its descendant ancient Egyptian which is also African. So really, if you had to stop reading past that first sentence of Egypt being essentially African, too bad. Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by AncientGebts: The language and culture of ancient Gebts (Gebts is the ancient name of Egypt) was of its founders, ancient Amara and Akele-Gezai merchants from today's regions of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The language of the Amara is Amarigna and that of the Akele-Gezai is Tigrigna, both of which are the dual languages of the hieroglyphs.
These ancient merchants exported food and goods to the region for sale to the people living in the desert hills that border the Nile river, from Aswan to the Delta. When the Amara and Akele-Gezai became embattled over market territories, the region was divided 5100 years ago for them to administer. The Akele-Gezai administered the northern Nile Delta and the Amara the Nile Valley. This is a sign of how important their food they sold was to the region and people who lived there.
Not only are the languages written in hieroglyphs from the Akele-Gezai and Amara founders, but also the food. "Injera", "wat", "tej", and other Ethiopian and Eritrean foods and drinks, still enjoyed today in Eritrea and Ethiopia, are written in hieroglyphs. "Etan" incense, written in hieroglyphs, is still burned in Ethiopian and Eritrean homes. And as is today in Ethiopia and Eritrea, clothing is written as "lebs" in hieroglyphs.
Having been named by its Amara and Akele-Gezai founders, Egypt is still called "Gebts" in both Ethiopia and Eritrea today.
So if you want to experience the food, fashion, language, music, dancing, and other culture of ancient Gebts exported there by its founders and written in hieroglyphs and represented in its art, short of traveling to Eritrea and Ethiopia, the closest place you can experience it is in local Eritrean and Ethiopian restaurants. And although you can purchase Amarigna and Tigrigna language books and CDs online, you can also purchase them at Eritrean and Ethiopian markets.
No offense, but I find this to be nothing more than Habesha propaganda. I realize that Egypt is northeast African and its people, as such they do possess a genetic and even linguistic relation to Abyssinian groups like Tigre, Tigrinya, etc. but such linguistic groups are relatively recent and nowhere as ancient compared to Egyptian.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: No offense, but I find this to be nothing more than Habesha propaganda. I realize that Egypt is northeast African and its people, as such they do possess a genetic and even linguistic relation to Abyssinian groups like Tigre, Tigrinya, etc. but such linguistic groups are relatively recent and nowhere as ancient compared to Egyptian.
When you want to discuss cursing African people (Gen. 9) and Ethiopians in the Bible, Ethiopians are ancient. Your own Egyptologists even write that ancient Egypt was a "colony" of Ethiopia. Even ancient Greek historians credit Ethiopia for Egypt.
But all of a sudden, in 2009, when it's time for the West to accept and give Ethiopians credit for Egyptian culture, the development of writing, and the civilization Ethiopians gave to the world in ancient Egypt (before civilization existed), all of a sudden Ethiopians and their languages are "relatively recent". What rubbish.
Isn't it time to stop being hypocrites...
hyp⋅o⋅crite (–noun) 1. a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs. Synonyms: deceiver, dissembler (from Dictionary.com Unabridged)
I quote the definition of the word hypocrite because you obviously don't know how foolish you look posting such nonsense stating Ethiopians and their languages being "fairly recent".
Ethiopia and Africa for you is a matter convenience -- it's old when you attack it but new when it gave you civilization. And it has value only when you want to rape it. You have no morals you pretend to possess.
Your modern Egyptologists try to prevent it from being Ethiopian/Eritrean today so as to keep the monopoly on the dissemination (i.e., filtering, censuring, blocking, etc.) of it's culture and language. Culture and language of today's regions of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Get over it. If you are not Ethiopian, Eritrean, or African, forget about ancient Egypt. You should really spend more time telling lies about, distorting, and twisting your own people's culture. Not ours.
You may be African, though -- I hate to admit how even Africans can trust historians and scholars of the West to provide us truthful reporting of our ancient culture. But how do we trust people who hate us?
Whoever you are, have a little shame. Please. Stop colonizing and pirating other people's culture.
Legesse Allyn Author, "Amarigna & Tigrigna Qal Hieroglyphs for Beginners" AncientGebts.org http://www.ancientgebts.orgPosts: 751 | From: Los Angeles | Registered: Oct 2009
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Isn't Aithiopia in Graeco-Latin literature and Kush in Hebrew literature really ancient Sudan?
quote:Originally posted by AncientGebts: When you want to discuss cursing African people (Gen. 9) and Ethiopians in the Bible, Ethiopians are ancient. Your own Egyptologists even write that ancient Egypt was a "colony" of Ethiopia. Even ancient Greek historians credit Ethiopia for Egypt.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: Can you cite a few examples from the Greco-Latin and Hebrew literatures that unambiguously refer to places in "Abyssinia?"
My research, effort, and time is devoted to the topic of ancient Amara and Akele-Gezai in, and founding of, ancient Gebts -- not to the misconceptions of foreigners.
Your question is a prime example of how "The History of Africa" becomes degraded to "The History of Westerners in Africa" and I won't have any part of it. In fact, I've already said too much about it.
Posts: 751 | From: Los Angeles | Registered: Oct 2009
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It's important to understand, firstly, that Ethiopia is not an indigenous African term, but rather a Greek term, from the root words 'ethiops', which I'm sure you know what that means. It does not refer exclusively to the nations that are NOW dubbed Ethiopia and Eritrea. In fact, evidence would suggest it was more a descriptor of a peoples, than the accurate demarkation of a bordered territory of the land formerly known as Abyssinia. Dana, in another thread uncovering some interesting research about regions in Cicilia called 'Aithiop' probably due to the peoples that inhabited them. Also, NeferKemet's maps will show you how the names of land masses in the African continent have changed since the 17th Century.... Basically, if Europe turned around and decided that they were going to call another nation, such as 'DRCongo' or Kenya by the name 'EThiopia', that would invalidate half of the argument that you've made...
Ethiopia is an ancient term, but you can't limit and define it by borders introduced by the Berlin conference, its quite clear that it was something much broader from historical texts.... IMO
quote:Originally posted by AncientGebts: When you want to discuss cursing African people (Gen. 9) and Ethiopians in the Bible, Ethiopians are ancient. Your own Egyptologists even write that ancient Egypt was a "colony" of Ethiopia. Even ancient Greek historians credit Ethiopia for Egypt.
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That's correct. Ethiopia is not determine by borders but rather it is a people of Cushitic stock that roamed, lived, and reside throughout East Africa, Northeast Africa, the Middle east and even Asia, primarily India & Iran. Contrary to popular belief, Ethiopia does not include West Africans, central africans, or southern africans. Black people like from those regions like to include themselves in hisotry that claim or states 'Ethiopian' when in reality they have nothing to do with it.
Posts: 2088 | Registered: Feb 2007
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