posted
First of all, kudos on a FANTASTIC egyptological forum. I have been busting my gut to get a back door into this site, as the registration has been blocked for the past few weeks... I sent emails to 'Clyde Winters' and 'Wally' trying to gain access to this site. I have learnt SO much from you guys its amazing. Your knowledge of Ancient Africa is a great resource... I honestly have 30 books on the subject, and realised how little I know upon reading your posts on this site... keep it up! Now for my first dilemma that I hope you can help me on... (you have to be patient with me, a lot of my initial posts are going to be based on East Africa, as I have a LOT of confusion regarding this area of History).... here goes...
I have been trying to understand the origins of Amharic script, and I keep running into contradictions.
Sorry to Wiki you guys but:
//'The Ge'ez language is classified as a South Semitic language. It evolved from an earlier proto-Ethio-Semitic ancestor used to write royal inscriptions of the kingdom of Dʿmt in Epigraphic South Arabian. Ge'ez language is no longer thought, as previously assumed, to be an offshoot of Sabaean or Old South Arabian, and there is linguistic evidence of Semitic languages being spoken in Eritrea and Ethiopia since at least 2000 BC.' //
...erm, if the languages were being spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea, what exactly makes them Semitic languages? To my knowledge there were no Semites in either of these regions in 2000BC??? ...anyway, to continue.
//'However, the Ge'ez alphabet later replaced Epigraphic South Arabian in the Kingdom of Aksum (Epigraphic South Arabian letters were used for a few inscriptions into the 8th century, though not any South Arabian language since Dʿmt). Early inscriptions in Ge'ez and Ge'ez alphabet have been dated to as early as the 5th century BC, and in a sort of proto-Ge'ez written in ESA since the 8th century BC. '//
it goes on...
//'The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad المُسند) branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic dialects of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadrami (Ḥaḍramī), Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez (or proto-Ethiosemitic) in D`mt. The earliest inscriptions in the alphabet date to the 9th century BC in Akkele Guzay, Eritrea and in the 8th century BC, found in Babylonia and in Yemen. '//
But wait, if the earliest inscriptions of the langauge were found in Eritrea, doesn't that suggest that the language itself is an African language?
//'Most modern historians like Stuart Munro-Hay, Rodolfo Fattovich, Ayele Bekerie, Felder, and Isaac consider this civilization to be indigenous, although Sabaean-influenced due to the latter's hegemony of the Red Sea, while others like Michels, de Contenson, Mekouria, and Burstein view Dʿmt as the result of a mixture of "culturally superior" Sabaeans and indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, Ge'ez, the ancient Semitic language spoken in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea in ancient times, is now known to not have derived from Sabaean, and there is evidence of a Semitic speaking presence in Ethiopia and Eritrea at least as early as 2000 BC.'//
Once again, if it is agreed that Ge'ez did not derive from Sabaean (arab-Semite) influence and there is evidence of their indigenous language being spoken as early as 2000BC, and not being spoken anywhere earlier than this, WHY exactly is the term proto-Semitic continually being attached to this language. From my understanding of the continually contradictory information that is available. the language: A) was developed indigenously B) the earliest available scripts are in Africa, not the Arabias C) it appears as though the Semites developed their scripts from this African language, rather than vice versa.
So why is a language that clearly originated in indigenous Africa attributed to the Semitic influence when there is no evidence of this pre-dating the earliest available written texts of the language...
Sounds like more Western spin to me... let me know what you guys think? Am I barking up the wrong tree here??
Posts: 365 | Registered: Dec 2008
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posted
Indeed, the issue of the rationality of sustaining the term "Semitic" in science [linguistics in this case], given its biblical origins, what that implied and its subsequent inspirational impact on the 19th & 20th century Eurocentric racialist dogma, is something that has cropped up before [see provided links]. Certain recent studies have now placed the origins of the so-called Semitic offshoot of Afrasan ('Afro-Asiatic') on mainland Africa itself.
As for the question put forward here, about Ge'ez being considered as "proto-Semitic", Ge'ez itself has been characterized as a now-defunct but well differentiated autochthonous "Semitic" language at the time of its use. This would make Ge'ez's ancestor [not Ge'ez itself] the "proto-Ethio-Semitic" language. Apparently, 'proto-Semitic' is the reconstructed hypothetical common ancestor of all so-called Semitic languages. In short, no -- I don't think by revisiting the "Semitic" terminology question, that you are barking up the wrong tree!
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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