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How would you consider the great African migrations that populated West and South Africa with its current indigenous and their relation to the Ancient Kemetic/Cushtic empires.
Historians seem to have resorted to all lengths to disconnect the great migrations from East Africa in preference for the invention that peoples such as the Bantu just 'appeared miraculously'.
Dr Diop, in his book 'Precolonial Black Africa' of showing the migrational patterns of Africans from the Centre and East of Africa to the West and later the South of Africa. He supported his assertions with brilliant cultural and lingustic analysis.
In his book, Exiled Egyptians, Gaddallah (sp.) went one step further citing significant religious, cultural and linguistic similarities between nearly ALL of the great migrations and the ancient East African Empires. (Bare in mind he also pedals the outdated 'Hamite' theory, but this is the only branch of his argument based purely on hypothesis and lack evidence, so it can be easily ignored). The remaining evidence linking West/South Africa, the Great Migrations and Ancient East Africa are very strong to say the least.
What are thoughts regarding the great African Migrations and their link to the people's of Ethiopia/Egypt in antiquity?
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Historians seem to have resorted to all lengths to disconnect the great migrations from East Africa in preference for the invention that peoples such as the Bantu just 'appeared miraculously'.
Don't know who those historians are, but in current "Western" scholarship, there is a general consensus that Bantu groups emerged in West Africa, somewhere in the area straddling southern Nigeria and the western part of Cameroon.
quote: In his book, Exiled Egyptians, Gaddallah (sp.) went one step further citing significant religious, cultural and linguistic similarities between nearly ALL of the great migrations and the ancient East African Empires. (Bare in mind he also pedals the outdated 'Hamite' theory, but this is the only branch of his argument based purely on hypothesis and lack evidence, so it can be easily ignored). The remaining evidence linking West/South Africa, the Great Migrations and Ancient East Africa are very strong to say the least.
I take issue with Gadalla's implication that notable west African accomplishments and ideas were the outgrowths of demic diffusion from the Nile Valley.
quote: What are thoughts regarding the great African Migrations and their link to the people's of Ethiopia/Egypt in antiquity?
In their study of DNA samplings in west Africa, Rosa et al. suggested that the Djola's oral tradition of having originated in the Sudanese region sometime between the 15th and 16th centuries may well be supported by the prospect of this group showing the least frequency of E1b-M2 chromosomes as a fraction of the sample size of this group in their dataset. If so, these would indicate small scale migration from east to west in the historic period of the Holocene.
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Regarding genetics, Africa's diversity (regarding tribal diffusions) is massive. Africa's diversity (especially on the western coast) is so great that accurate sampling would be an almost impossible task. I would find it hard to trust a genetic study unless there was convincing evidence of rigourous exploration and representation of ALL west African societies. Not an easy task. Irrespective of your opinion about Gaddalah (I certainly have my own), it is hard to ignore the cultural, linguistic and religious consistency of Kemet and Kush with several West African peoples.
Several clan names in Western Africa have their origins in Kemet/Kush. Diop uncovered the unaltered Sudanese totemic names being used in Senegalese clans 'Kan, Wan, Ci, Lith, Kao etc...'
Egyptian ontological notions and definitives such as 'Ba' 'Ka' 'Re/rah' 'Ga' are used extensively in several West African clan names and tribes. AE names such as 'Menukare' and 'Khufu' would not be out of place in Yoruba/Ghanaan societies. Further to this, he drew very clear links between Loabe', Tukulor, Yoruba, Peul, Agni, Serer, and other peoples.
Several tribes in West African oral traditions speak of a migration from the East prior to their settling in the West, and also supports a relatively recent peopling of Western Africa.
I think Diop proved beyond doubt that the Wolof-AE lingustic relation is probably closer than that of AE-Coptic. This kind of widespread linguistic drift, to me, is indicative of a migration, as opposed to a cultural borrowing or 'influence'.
Diop argues: 'In West Africa, one can be certain only that Neolithic remains are attributable to tall Blacks. The Paleolithic are, generally speaking, of uncerain age: some are found at Pita, in Upper Guinea. The testimony of Herodotus about the expedition of the Nasamonians, who left the Cyrenaica, and of Hanno and Satapses converges to prove that in the fifteenth century BC, on the whole, tall Blacks had not yet peopled West Africa, despite the more or less enigmatic mention mae by Hanno of "lixist interpreters." The whole continent at that time was partially peopled by Pygmies, with the exception of a few places such as the Nile basin; that is why archeologists generally consider Pygmies responsible for all Paleolithic traces found in West Africa, especially since they are usually just on the suface. Consequently, it is important to stress the fact that West African archaeoloy is rather special; one would be hard put to find in it any stratification of civilisations at a given spot, since most of the peoples migrated at recent dates. It is therfore understandable that one should be able to hear in this region legends according to which the Blacks came from the East, from over near the "Great Water" without the latter being identfiable as the Indian Ocean. Two reasons, indeed, contradict that: when South African populations are questioned, they say they came from the North; those of the Gulf of Benin say they came from the Northeast. In antiquity, the Ethiopians called themselves autochtons, those who had sprung from the ground. Egyptians considered themseleves to have come from the South, from Nubia... Even if mankind did not originate in Africa, even if the tall Blacks came from elsewhere, say, from the Indian Ocean as in the Lemuric thesis, it could only have been hundreds of thousands of years before. But we have just seen that in the fifth century BC a very recent date, tall blacks had not yet expanded toward the West, while we know for certain that they existed on the continent. The idea of a center of dispersal located approximately in the Nile Valley is worth consideration.'
Further to this, Laird Scranton's series on the Dogon sciences have given the clearest evidence yet that the Egyptian mystery system and sciences continued to be distributed verbally, even after Egypt's occupation(for want of a better term). He , similarly to Budge, gives credence to the West African populations as being the key to unlocking Egyptian mysteries.
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With all of the information now available about African people, the word "Bantu", or "true negro" still survives.
Especially saddening is that Somalis seem to take joy in using this word for their darker, less Arab/European looking brethren.
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Regarding genetics, Africa's diversity (regarding tribal diffusions) is massive. Africa's diversity (especially on the western coast) is so great that accurate sampling would be an almost impossible task. I would find it hard to trust a genetic study unless there was convincing evidence of rigourous exploration and representation of ALL west African societies. Not an easy task.
Well, genetics, as any other human statistical study of populations, works on the rationale of the most likely probability, based on *repeat* studies.
quote: Irrespective of your opinion about Gaddalah (I certainly have my own), it is hard to ignore the cultural, linguistic and religious consistency of Kemet and Kush with several West African peoples.
Your perspective of Gaddalah's hyper demic-diffusionist theories about origins of West African cultural complexes may be a matter of opinion, but mine isn't. My perspective is based on seeing convincing evidence for his claims. If you have tangible evidence about much of west African culture coming from the Nile Valley, I'd be glad to examine it.
quote: Several clan names in Western Africa have their origins in Kemet/Kush. Diop uncovered the unaltered Sudanese totemic names being used in Senegalese clans 'Kan, Wan, Ci, Lith, Kao etc...'
Well, if these people are really from the Nile Valley or have Nile Valley origins, you should be able to produce a DNA evidence for it, shouldn't you? If so, what is it?
quote: Egyptian ontological notions and definitives such as 'Ba' 'Ka' 'Re/rah' 'Ga' are used extensively in several West African clan names and tribes. AE names such as 'Menukare' and 'Khufu' would not be out of place in Yoruba/Ghanaan societies. Further to this, he drew very clear links between Loabe', Tukulor, Yoruba, Peul, Agni, Serer, and other peoples.
Like what links?
quote: Several tribes in West African oral traditions speak of a migration from the East prior to their settling in the West, and also supports a relatively recent peopling of Western Africa.
I've proposed here before based on evidence available to me, about the likely *ultimate* origins of populations that make up much of west Africa's populations today in or near East Africa. This says nothing of west Africans arriving from Dynastic Nile Valley complexes.
quote: I think Diop proved beyond doubt that the Wolof-AE lingustic relation is probably closer than that of AE-Coptic.
How so? Wolof is part of the Atlantic branch of Niger-Congo; it isn't considered to be part of the Afrisan super phylum. There may well be relationships between African super-language phylums, but not enough between them to make them into one language super-phylum.
quote: This kind of widespread linguistic drift, to me, is indicative of a migration, as opposed to a cultural borrowing or 'influence'.
It is certainly possible that certain words shared between different language super-phylums are relics of a distinct common origin.
quote: Diop argues: 'In West Africa, one can be certain only that Neolithic remains are attributable to tall Blacks.
Of course, there were pre-historic migrations from east Africa to west Africa; that is how west Africa was peopled. This is the consensus in molecular genetics today.
quote: The Paleolithic are, generally speaking, of uncerain age: some are found at Pita, in Upper Guinea. The testimony of Herodotus about the expedition of the Nasamonians, who left the Cyrenaica, and of Hanno and Satapses converges to prove that in the fifteenth century BC, on the whole, tall Blacks had not yet peopled West Africa, despite the more or less enigmatic mention mae by Hanno of "lixist interpreters."
West Africa was peopled before the emergence of Dynastic Egypt, and even the proto-dynastic Holocene complexes.
quote: The whole continent at that time was partially peopled by Pygmies, with the exception of a few places such as the Nile basin; that is why archeologists generally consider Pygmies responsible for all Paleolithic traces found in West Africa, especially since they are usually just on the suface.
Like what Paleolithic traces, strongly associated with Pygmies?
As an example, if ancestors of contemporary E3a-bearing west African populations were not already in West Africa, how come evidence suggests that proto-Bantu migration emerged in eastern-vestiges of west Africa, in tandem with the spread iron-technology and agriculture ca. 5000 years ago?
quote: Consequently, it is important to stress the fact that West African archaeoloy is rather special; one would be hard put to find in it any stratification of civilisations at a given spot, since most of the peoples migrated at recent dates.
So, the signs of complex culture at Tichitt-Walata dating back to ca. 4000 BC must be the work of pygmies in west Africa?
quote: But we have just seen that in the fifth century BC a very recent date, tall blacks had not yet expanded toward the West, while we know for certain that they existed on the continent.
You may have seen it, but we have yet to see it here. Material posted on this site throughout the years suggests differently from your hypothesis.
quote: The idea of a center of dispersal located approximately in the Nile Valley is worth consideration.'
Well, it is certainly possible that some migrations occurred from the Nile Valley to west Africa; I've even mentioned one example of this above. They just were not great enough to be the source of contemporary West African population as a whole, nor the source of complex culture in West Africa.
quote: Further to this, Laird Scranton's series on the Dogon sciences have given the clearest evidence yet that the Egyptian mystery system and sciences continued to be distributed verbally, even after Egypt's occupation(for want of a better term). He , similarly to Budge, gives credence to the West African populations as being the key to unlocking Egyptian mysteries.
How did the Dogon supposedly attain their mystery system from the ancient Egyptians; did they originate from the Nile Valley, or did they simply borrow the concept from Egyptians?
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There is controversy surrounding the homeland of Niger-Congo.But most linguist place the homeland for this linguistic group in the Nile Valley. An origin of the Niger-Congo people in the Nile Valley would explain the close relationship between the Mande, Wolof and Egyptian languages.
For example, Jaja, J. M. 2008 “Interdisciplinary Methods for the Writing of “African History: A Reappraisal,” European Journal of Social Sciences 5(4): 55-65
quote:
(2) Niger – Kordofanian homeland The West African region is largely made up of the Niger-Kordofanian language family. The block of course excludes the 100 or 50 languages classified as Afro-Asiatic and the Songhai and Kanuri languages which belong to the Nile -–Saharan group. The Niger – Kordofanian family is composed of three large blocks called the Mande, Niger – Congo and Kordofanian. Niger – Congo occupies the eastern section of West Africa, Mande the Western section and Kordofanian the area to the south west of Sudan. The present geographical location of these three language blocks forms a fanlike structure, which suggests that their homeland is at the south-western Sahara where the boundaries of each group converge. The Mande group does not have the same degree of internal diversity as the Niger – Congo and Kordofanian. But Niger-Congo and Kordofanian have the same degree of diversity. (Dalby 1965). A combination of this fact and the fan-shaped arrangement of the three language blocks suggests that they belong to the same main language family. Besides, the unfavourable ecological situation north of the homeland, and the possibility of only moving southwards explains the fan-shaped nature of the dispersal to the area of southwestern Sahara.
Jaja discusses the present location of the speakers of these languages, but like Welmers he situates there homeland in the Sahara near Nubia.
McIntosh, R. J. 1998 The Peoples of the Middle Niger: the Island of Gold Oxford: Blackwell Publishers
quote:
Thus, we have a curious—and complex—pattern of prehistoric occupation in the Méma. There are a few sites demonstrably earlier than c. 4500-4000 BP [3.3-2.5 KBC]. There is a flourit of stone-using communities around 3500-3300 BP [1.9-1.6KBC] (with population injections from the Hodh and the Azawad). Then the region suffers an apparent sharp fall-off of population at c. 800-500 BC (despite a final infusion of Tichitt folk at mid-millennium)..
Does not contradict Welmer’s, all it says is that people from Dar Tichitt entered the area around 800-500 BC, this was hundreds of years after the Mande had established settlement in the Dar Tichitt region.
Roger Blench, Is Niger-Congo simply a branch of Nilo-Saharan, Nilo-Saharan ,(1995) 10:83-128, like Welmer’s noted that :
"Previous writers, noting the concentration of families in West Africa, have tended to assume a location somewhere near the headwaters of the Niger and explained Kordofanian by the migration of a single group. If the present classification is accepted, it becomes far more likely that the homeland was in in the centre of present-daySudan and the Kordofanian represents the Niger-Congo speakers who stayed at home (p.98)."
Roger Blench. 2006. Archaeology, Language, and the African Past New York: Altamira Press
quote:
pp. 132-133. With some misgivings, Table 3.4 puts forward dates and possible motives for expansion for the families of Niger-Congo. The dates are arranged in order of antiquity, not in the hypothetical order suggested by the genetic tree, and, in many cases the two are strongly at variance. There is no necessary correlation between the age of a family estimated from its apparent internal diversity and the date at which it appears to split from the Niger-Congo tree.. . . . .
MANDE 6000 BP Mande languages have spread from north to south with scattered outliers in Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire. Mande shares the common Niger-Congo roots for cow and goat, and perhaps the Proto-Mande were an isolated livestock-keeping population at the edge of the desert, which expanded southward as habitat change created potential space for livestock keeping. Reconstructions implying cropping are not present in the protolanguage.
Christopher Ehret. 2000 “Language and History,” in B. Heine and D. Nurse, eds. African Languages.An Introduction pp. 274-297 Canbridge: Cambridge University Press
quote:
p. 294 A second, but still early and important stage in Niger-Congo history was the proto-Mande-Congo era. At this period, or so it appears from the evidence of word histories, the cultivation of the guinea yam and possibly other crops, such as the oil palm, began among at least the peoples of the Atlantic and Ijo-Congo branches of the family (Williamson 1993 proposes the early words for these crops; Greenberg 1964 identifies an Atlantic and Ijo-Congo verb for cultivation, •-lim-). Between possibly about 8000 and 6000 BC, these people spread across the woodland savannahs of West Africa, the natural environment of the Guinea yams. At that time, woodland savannah environments extended several hundred kilometers farther north into the Sudan belt than they do today.
The Blench hypothesis of the Mande living in the Sahara and moving southward does not conflict with my theory of a Saharan origin for the Mande speakers.
The term lim, is not the Mande term to cultivate.
In al-Imfeld, Decolonizing: African Agricultural History (2007) , claims that in relation to African agriculture the cultivation of yam began 10,000 years ago and rice cultivation in Africa by 6000 BC.
The major cultivated crop of the Mande speakers was millet not the yam. The term for cultivation among the Mande was not lim is Proto-Paleo-Afro-Dravidian *be . Millet was probably cultivated over 5000 years ago.
The earliest sites for the cultivation of millet lie in the Sahara . Here the earliest archaeological evidence has been found for African millets.
The major grain exploited by Saharan populations was rice ,the yam and pennisetum. McIntosh and McIntosh (1988) has shown that the principal domesticate in the southern Sahara was bulrush millet (pennisetum). Millet impressions have been found on Mande ceramics from both Karkarchinkat in the Tilemsi Valley of Mali, and Dar Tichitt in Mauritania between 4000 and 3000 BP. (McIntosh & McIntosh 1983a,1988; Winters 1986b; Andah 1981)
The linguistic evidence indicates that the Mande and Dravidian speakers formerly lived in intimate contact , in the Sahara. The speakers of these languages share many terms for agriculture.
Given the archaeological evidence for millets in the Sahara, leads to the corollary theory that if the Dravidians originated in Africa, they would share analogous terms for millet with African groups that formerly lived in the Sahara.
One of the principal groups to use millet in Africa are the Northern Mande speaking people . The Mande speaking people belong to the Niger-Congo group. Most linguist agree that the Mande speakers were the first Niger-Congo group to leave the original Nile Valley and Saharan highland primary homeands of the Niger-Congo speakers.
The Northern Mande speakers are divided into the Soninke and Malinke-Bambara groups. Holl (1985,1989) believes that the founders of the Dhar Tichitt site where millet was cultivated in the 2nd millenium B.C., were northern Mande speakers. To test this theory we will compare Dravidian and Black African agricultural terms, especially Northern Mande. The linguistic evidence suggest that the Proto-Dravidians belonged to an ancient sedentary culture which existed in Saharan Africa. We will call the ancestor of this group Paleo-Dravido-Africans.
The Dravidian terms for millet are listed in the Dravidian Etymological Dictionary at 2359, 4300 and 2671. A cursory review of the linguistic examples provided below from the Dravidian (Kol, Tamil ,Kannanda, & Malayalam ) , Mande and Wolof languages show a close relationship between these language. These terms are outlined below:
code:
Kol sonna --- --- ---- Wolof (AF.) suna --- ---- --- Mande (AF) suna bara, baga de-n, doro koro Tamil connal varaga tinai kural Malayalam colam varaku tina --- Kannanda --- baraga, baragu tene korale,korle *sona *baraga *tenä *kora
Below we will compare other Dravidian and African agricultural terms. These terms come from the Mande languages (Malinke, Kpelle, Bambara, Azer, Soninke), West Atlantic (Wolof, Fulani), Afro-Asiatic (Oromo, Galla), Somali, Nubian and the ancient Egyptian. The Paleo-Dravido-Africans came from a sedentary culture that domesticated cattle and grew numerous crops including wheat and millet. The Egyptian term for cultivation is Ø b j(w) #. Egyptian Ø b j(w) # corresponds to many African terms for cultivation:
code:
Galla baji 'cultivated field' Tulu (Dravidian language) bey, benni Nubian ba, bat 'hoe up ground' Malinke be Somali beer Wolof mbey, ambey, bey Egyptian b j(w) Sumerian buru, bur 'to root up'
These terms for cultivate suggest that the Paleo-African term for cultivate was *be.
The Egyptian term for grain is 0 sa #. This corresponds to many African terms for seed,grain:
code:
Galla senyi Malinke se , si Sumerian se Egyptian sen 'granary' Kannanda cigur
Bozo sii Bambara sii Daba sisin Somali sinni Loma sii Susu sansi Oromo sanyi Dime siimu Egyptian ssr 'corn' id. ssn 'lotus plant' id. sm 'herb, plant' id. isw 'weeds'
The identification of a s>Ø/#_________e pattern for 'seed,grain' in the above languages suggest that these groups were familiar with seeds at the time they separated into distinct Supersets. The fact that Sumerian Ø se # and Egyptian Ø sen #, and Malinke Ø se # are all separated both in time and geographical area highlight the early use of seeds * se , by Paleo-Dravido-Africans.
code:
Rice Soninke dugo Vai ko'o Manding malo Dravidian mala-kurula Mende molo, konu Kpelle moloy Boko mole Bisa muhi Busa mole Sa mela Bambara kini
Yam Bozo ku, kunan Vai jambi Malinke ku Dravidian kui, kuna, ku Bambara ku
It would appear that all the Proto-Dravidians were familiar with the cultivation of rice, yams and millet. This is not surprising because Weber (1998) made it clear that millet cultivation in ancient South Asia was associated with rice cultivation.
The linguistic evidence clearly show similarities in the Afican and Dravidian terms for plant domesticates. This suggest that these groups early adopted agriculture and made animal domestication secondary to the cultivation of millet, rice and yams. The analogy for the Malinke-Bambara and Dravidians terms for rice, millet and yams suggest a very early date for the domestication of these crops.
In summary, population pressure in the Sahara during a period of increasing hyperaridity forced hunter/gather/fisher Proto-Dravidian people to first domesticate animals and then crops. The linguistic evidence discussed above indicate that the Proto-Dravido-African people migrated out of the Nile Valley to West African and Harappan sites with millet, yam and rice already recognized as principal domesticated crop.
This comparison of Mande agricultural terms make it clear, that just like the Egyptian term for dog uher , the speakers of these languages share the terms for cultivate, and seed. It also shows that before the Dravidians separated from the Mande speakers these groups were cultivating also cultivating rice and the yam.
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The Niger-Congo speakers which include the Bantu, Mande and Wolof originated in the Nile Valley—not West Africa. They migrated from East to West. The oral traditions of these people make it clear that when they arrived on the scene pygmy people were already settled in many areas they occupied.
quote: Wm. E. Welmers. 1971 "Niger-Congo, Mande" in T.A. Sebeok, et al. eds. Linguistics in sub-Saharan Africa (Current Trends in Linguistics, 7), pp. 113-140 The Hague: Mouton
P 119-120. By way of conclusion to this general overview of the Mande languages, a a bit of judicious speculation about Mande origins and migrations may not be out of order. It has already been stated that the Mande languages clearly represent the earliest offshoot from the parent Niger-Congo stock—not counting Kordofanian, which Greenberg considers parallel to all of the Niger-Congo, forming a Niger-Kordofanian macrofamily. An original Niger-Congo homeland in the general vicinity of the upper Nile valley is probably as good a hypothesis as any. From such a homeland, a westward Mande migration may have begun well over 5000 years ago. Perhaps the earliest division within this group resulted in the isolation of what is now represented only by Bobo-fing. Somewhat later— perhaps 3500 to 4500 years ago, and possibly from a new homeland around northern Dahomey [now Benin]— the ancestors of the present Northern-western Mande peoples began pushing farther west, ultimately reaching their present homeland in the grasslands and forests of West Africa. This was followed by a gradual spread of the Southern-Eastern division, culminating perhaps 2000 years ago in the separation of its to branches and the ultimate movement of Southern Mande peoples southeast and westward until Mano and Kpelle, long separated, became once more contiguous.
This reconstruction of Mande prehistory receives striking support from a most unexpected source— dogs. Back in the presumed Niger-Congo homeland—the southern Sudan and northern Uganda of modern times— is found the unique barkless, worried-looking, fleet Basenji, who also appears on ancient Egyptian monuments with the typical bee that compensates for his natural silence. Among the Kpelle and Loma people of Liberia, a breed of dogs is found which is so closely identical to the Basenji that it now recognized as the ‘Liberian Basenji’. In all of the Sudan belt of Africa from the Nile Valley to the Liberian forest, the dogs are somewhat similar in appearance, but very obviously mongrelized. It would appear that the Mande peoples originally took their Basenji dogs with them in their westward migration. At that time, the present Sahara desert was capable of sustaining a substantial population, and was presumably the homeland of the Nilo-Saharan peoples. The early Mande moment thus may have been through uninhabited land, and their dogs were spared any cross-breeding. The farthest westward Mande movement—that of the Southwestern group—was virtually complete before contact with dogs of other breeds. With the gradual drying of the Sahara and the southward movement of the Nilo-Saharan peoples, the remaining Mande peoples, as well as later waves of Niger-Congo migration made contact with other people and other dogs. The present canine population of the Liberian forests thus reflects the very early departure of the Mande peoples from their original homeland, and the subsequent early movement of the Southwestern group towards its present location, without contacting substantial number of unrelated people or dogs.
Liberian Basenji
Egyptian Basenji Egyptian Basenji Dog Hieroglyph
. Trade might account for the presence of Basenji dogs in both places. But, from the sense of the article, Welmers claims that speakers of other African languages surrounding the Kpelle have different dogs.
The term for Basenji may be uher. In Egyptian uher also means house, so some people claim the Egyptians placed a dog size after uher to denote the term dog.
Niger-Congo hunters probably early domesticated the dog. Hunters used dogs to catch their prey .
Egyptian Hieroglyph
.
Egyptian term for dog corresponds to many African, and Dravidian terms for dog:
Egptian uher
Azer wulle
Bozo kongoro
Guro bere
Vai wuru, ulu
Bo[Bambara] -ulu
Wassulunka wulu
Konyanka wulu
Malinke wuli, wuru, wulu
Dravidian ori
.
The above data indicates that there is contrast between Paleo-Afican l =/= r. The Egyptian Ø uher # , Azer Ø wulle # and Manding Ø wuru # suggest that the r > l in Paleo-African.
There is also vowel alternation in the terms for dog o =/= u. The predominance of the vowel /u/ in the terms for dog, make it clear that o<u. This evidence suggest that there are two Paleo-African terms for dog: Paleo-African [PA] *uru and *oro.
Futhermore, this comparison of the term for dog within and among Niger-Congo languages and Egyptian supports Welmers view that the dog was domesticated in the Nile Valley before the speakers of these languages separated, and migrated to other parts of Africa.
The key to science, is that control is used to test the cause of a hypothesis, layman rarely use control, they accept a hypothesis gased on belief and biases.
Finally scientists test relationships to determine their validity. Science is concerned only with things that can be tested and observed.
Let's look at Welmers hypothesis. All research begins with a research question.
Research Question: Where did the Niger Congo speakers originate?
Null hypothesis: There is no relationship between the present location of the Niger-Congo speakers and the original homeland of the speakers of these languages.
Result: The Niger Congo speakers probably originated in the Nile Valley because the Kpelle , who speak a Mande language, have the basanji dog, which was the domesticated dog of the Egyptians and other Nile Valley people.
The hypothesis was further supported by a most interesting finding, that was that the basanji dog is not the hunting dog of other ethnic groups inhabiting areas between the Nile Valley and where the Mande speakers live.
Welmers hypothesis was confirmed. To disconfirm this hypothesis you have to present evidence that nullifies the findings of Welmers.
To test Welmers hypothesis, I compared the Egyptian term for dog and the Mande term for dog. The linguistic evidence supports the physical evidence discussed by Welmer. Wm. E. Welmers identified the Niger Congo home land. Welmers in "Niger-Congo Mande", Current trends in Linguistics 7 (1971), pp.113-140,explained that the Niger-Congo homeland was in the vicinity of the upper Nile valley (p.119). He believes that the Westward migration began 5000 years ago.
In support of this theory he discusses the dogs of the Niger-Congo speakers. This is the unique barkless Basenji dogs which live in the Sudan and Uganda today, but were formerly recorded on Egyptian monuments (Wlemers,p.119). According to Welmers the Basanji, is related to the Liberian Basenji breed of the Kpelle and Loma people of Liberia. Welmers believes that the Mande took these dogs with them on their migration westward. The Kpelle and Loma speak Mande languages.
He believes that the region was unoccupied when the Mande migrated westward. In support of this theory Welmers' notes that the Liberian Banji dogs ,show no cross-breeding with dogs kept by other African groups in West Africa, and point to the early introduction of this cannine population after the separation of the Mande from the other Niger-Congo speakers in the original upper Nile homeland for this population. As a result, he claims that the Mande migration occured before these groups entered the region.
Linguistic research make it clear that there is a close relationship between the Niger-Congo Superlanguage family and the Nilo-Saharan languages spoken in the Sudan. Heine and Nurse (Eds.), in African languages: An introduction , Cambridge University Press, 2000, discuss the Nilo-Saharan connection. They note that when Westerman (1911) described African languages he used lexical evidence to include the Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo languages into a Superfamily he called "Sudanic" (p.16). Using Morphological and lexical similarities Gregerson (1972) indicated that these languages belonged to a macrophylum he named " Kongo-Saharan" (p.16). Research by Blench (1995) reached the same conclusion, and he named this Superfamily: "Niger-Saharan".
Genetic evidence supports the upper Nile origin for the Niger-Congo speakers. Rosa et al, in Y-Chromosomal diversity in the population of Guinea-Bissau (2007), noted that while most Mande & Balanta carry the E3a-M2 gene, there are a number of Felupe-Djola, Papel, Fulbe and Mande carry the M3b*-M35 gene the same as many people in the Sudan.
In conclusion, Welmers proposed an upper Nile (Sudan-Uganda) homeland for the Niger-Congo speakers. He claims that they remained intact until 5000 years ago. This view is supported by linguistic and genetics evidence. The linguistic evidence makes it clear that the Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo languages are related. The genetic evidence indicates that Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo speakers carry the M3b*-M35 gene, an indicator for the earlier presence of speakers of this language in an original Nile Valley homeland.
In summary Welmer’s makes two key points: 1) the Mande migration began around 3000BC out of the Nile Valley; and 2)Welmers proposed migration from Benin around 1500BC, 1500 years after the initial migration of the Mande from the Nile Valley.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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The people of Dar Tichitt were Mande speakers. These people came from the Nile Valley to settle the Southern Sahara, West Africa and the Niger Valley.
The major grain exploited by Saharan populations was rice ,the yam and pennisetum. McIntosh and McIntosh (1988) has shown that the principal domesticate in the southern Sahara was bulrush millet (pennisetum). Millet impressions have been found on Mande ceramics from both Karkarchinkat in the Tilemsi Valley of Mali, and Dar Tichitt in Mauritania between 4000 and 3000 BP. (McIntosh & McIntosh 1983a,1988; Winters 1986b; Andah 1981).
The high floods, perennially marshy conditions and active hydrology present in the middle Niger in prior millennia subsided dramatically c. 2000BC. Settlements were established first on higher ground, then lower as flood levels subsided further in the first century AD (McIntosh & McIntosh 1995, pp.61-62). On the Senegal, the river’s discharge also decreased dramatically. Until 2500BP, the down river half of the present-day middle Senegal valley was a vast delta. But c.2000BP, discharge decreased abruptly, to such an extent that salt water flowed over 300 km inland through the Fero Valley (Monteillet, Faure, Pirazzoli & Ravise 1981). It was at this time that the first permenant settlements were established on levees. It was at this time that the first permanent settlements were established on levees. This movement into well-watered valleys of the Senegal and Niger was the final act in an attenuated drama involving southward movement along drainage systems of mixed agriculturalists no longer able to water their cattle or successfully grow crops in the higher latitudes their ancestors inhabited.
S.K. McIntosh makes it clear that these people came from the North, Dar Tichitt in search of grazing areas for their cattle in an area that was unsuitable for habitation 5500-2500BC as alleged by Brooks.
S.K. McIntosh also noted that
quote: The oral traditions of populations living in these two valleys today point to the upland plateaux of present-day Mauretania as their homeland prior to southward migration. If we look at a map, we see that these plateaux, including the well-known Tichitt escarpment, have drainage systems that lead to the great floodplains that are the focus of this chapter (Fig.1). It is likely that, as late stone age mixed agriculturalists on the plateaux encountered increasing difficulty at the end of the second beginning of the first millennium BC, as attested at Tichitt (Munson 1976; Munson 1981), they gradually moved south along these drainage systems. There are for example, unambiguous similarities between the post-400BC Akreijit phase pottery from Dhar Tichitt and the early iron age (Phase 1) pottery from the middle Senegal valley.
This passage is further confirmation of the Dar Tichitt origin of the Mande people who lived in the “Mande homeland”. It also supports the fact that this area was not occupied , for the most part until after 500BC if we look at the archaeological evidence.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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The Nile Valley origin of Niger-Congo is based on the research of Welmers. See:Welmers,Wm.1971. "Niger-Congo Mande". Current Trends in Linguistics , 7:113-140.
Controversy surrounds the classification of the Niger-Congo Superfamily, especially the Mande group. Greenberg (1963) popularized the idea that the Mande subset was a member of the Niger-Congo Superset of Africa languages.
The position of Mande in the Niger-Congo Superset has long been precarious and today it is given a peripheral status to the Niger-Congo Superset (Bennett & Sterk 1977; Dalby 1988). Murkarovsky (1966) believes that the Mande group of languages does not belong in the Niger-Congo Superset, while Welmers (1971) and Bennett and Sterk (1977) has advanced the idea that Mande was the first group to break away from Niger-Congo, because of its loss of the noun class system.
The Mande languages are closely related to Songhay (Blench,1995; Mukarovsky 1976/77; Zima 1989), Nilo-Saharan ( Boyd 1978; Creissels 1981; Bender 1981) and the Chadic group. Zima (1989) compared 25 Songhay and Mandekan terms from the cultural vocabulary to highlight the correspondence between these two language groups.
Zima (1989:110) made it clear that "the lexical affinities between the Songhay and Mande languages are evident".This view was confirmed by Creissels (1981) who has provided many morphological and lexical similarities between Songhay and Mande, which are too numerous to be accounted for by chance.
Blench (1995)and B. Heine and D. Nurse, African Languages: An Introduction (pp.16-17) believes that the Niger-Congo (Mande) is especially closely united with Central Sudani and Kabu within Nilo-Saharan.
Mukarovsky (1987) has presented hundreds of analogous Mande and Cushitic terms. Due to the similarities between the Mande and Cushitic language families Mukarovsky (1987) would place Mande into the Afro-Asiatic Superset of languages.
This view is not surprising since the Mande languages are closely connected to Coptic as well.
This linguistic evidence makes it clear that the Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan and Cushitic speakers originally lived intimate contact. It also confirms the general theory advanced by Obenga and Diop that a Black African family exist, which includes Egyptian and the majority of African languages spoken in Africa today.
I have never claimed that Meroitic was an Indo-Aryan language. The Meroites used Kushana to write their inscriptions. I would classify Meroitic as Niger-Congo language.
The great savant Cheikh Anta Diop (1974,1981) was convinced that many West African groups had formerly lived in the Egypto-Nubian region before they migrated to West Africa(Diop,1974). He supported this hypothesis with a discussion of the cognation between the names for gods in Egypt-Nubia and West Africa (Diop,1974), Egypto-Nubian and West African ethnomyns and toponyms common to both regions (Diop,1981) and West African and Egyptian languages.
Controversy surrounds the classification of the Niger-Congo Superfamily, especially the Mande group. Greenberg (1963) popularized the idea that the Mande subset was a member of the Niger-Congo Superset of Africa languages.
The position of Mande in the Niger-Congo Superset has long been precarious and today it is given a peripheral status to the Niger-Congo Superset (Bennett & Sterk 1977; Dalby 1988). Murkarovsky (1966) believes that the Mande group of languages does not belong in the Niger-Congo Superset, while Welmers (1971) and Bennett and Sterk (1977) has advanced the idea that Mande was the first group to break away from Niger-Congo, because of its loss of the noun class system.
The Mande languages are closely related to Songhay (Blench,1995; Mukarovsky 1976/77; Zima 1989), Nilo-Saharan ( Boyd 1978; Creissels 1981; Bender 1981) and the Chadic group. Zima (1989) compared 25 Songhay and Mandekan terms from the cultural vocabulary to highlight the correspondence between these two language groups.
Zima (1989:110) made it clear that "the lexical affinities between the Songhay and Mande languages are evident".This view was confirmed by Creissels (1981) who has provided many morphological and lexical similarities between Songhay and Mande, which are too numerous to be accounted for by chance.
Blench (1995)and B. Heine and D. Nurse, African Languages: An Introduction (pp.16-17) believes that the Niger-Congo (Mande) is especially closely united with Central Sudani and Kabu within Nilo-Saharan.
Mukarovsky (1987) has presented hundreds of analogous Mande and Cushitic terms. Due to the similarities between the Mande and Cushitic language families Mukarovsky (1987) would place Mande into the Afro-Asiatic Superset of languages.
This view is not surprising since the Mande languages are closely connected to Coptic as well.
This linguistic evidence makes it clear that the Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan and Cushitic speakers originally lived intimate contact. The close relationship between these Superlanguage families makes it clear that Meroitic being classed as a Niger-Congo language would be congruent with the history of this language family.
There are many relationships between Meroitic and other African languages. For example, In Oromo/Galla, the term for queen is 'gifti'; and both 'naaga-ta" in Somali and Wolof 'jigen' mean woman. These terms appear to be related to Kdi > gti/e.
Yet even though we find cognition between some Cushitic and Nubian we can not use these languages to completely decipher Meroitic as proven by many past researchers. The Tocharian language on the otherhand, does allow us to read Meroitic and show its relationship with other African languages.
A comparison of Meroitic to African langauges indicate that Meroitic is closely related to langauges spoken in West Africa. Like Meroitic, the pronoun is often a suffix in other African languages. This suffix of the third person singular is usually n-, in other African languages. For example:
code:
Bambara: no p r i 'his house' Kpelle: nyin 'his tooth' Akan: ni dan 'his house'
The Meroitic a- third person singular affix is also found in other African languages. For example:
code:
 Swahili: (1) a-ta kwenda 'he's going to go' (2) a-li-kwenda 'he is here' Manding: (1) ya zo 'he has come' (2) ya shirya mana 'he prepared (it) for us'.
The use of -i particle to form nouns in Meroitic correspond to the use of the -it and -ayy suffixes to form nouns in Wolof. The Wolof abstract noun formative suffix is -it, -itt, e.g., dog 'to cut', dogit 'sharpness'.
In Wolof abstract nouns are also formed by the addition of the suffix -ayy, and in Dyolo -ay, e.g., baax 'good', baaxaay 'goodness'.
Prefixes are rarely used in Meroitic. The most common prefixes include the prefix of reinforcement -p, the intensive prefix -a and the imperfect prefix -b. The p-, can be either the prefix of reinforcement e.g., ŝ 'patron', p-ŝ 'the patron' ; or the imperfect prefix e.g.,ŝiñ'satisfaction', p-ŝiñ "continuous satisfaction'.
The Meroitic p- affix, means ‘the’. This Meroitic grammatical element corresponds to the Egyptian demonstrative pi 'the'.
In Meroitic, the –o element is used to change a noun into an adjective. The Meroitic –o suffix, agrees with the use affix –u, joined to a vowel, in other African languages to form adjectives. In Swahili, many adjectives are formed by the k- consonant plus the vowel -u : Ku. For example:
In Meroitic the plural case was made by the suffix -b, or reduplication. Reduplication was also used as a plural effect in Meroitic, e.g., d'donations',d-d 'considerable donations'. Reduplication is also used in other African languages to express the idea of abundance and diversity. For example, Swahili: Chungu kikavunjika vipande vipnade ."The cooking pot broke into pieces".
The Meroitic use of the -b suffix to make the plural number, corresponds to the use of the -ba- affix in African languages. In the Bantu languages the plural is formed by the ba- affix. In the Manding group of languages we see use of the -ba suffix. In Manding, the -ba affix is joined to nouns to denote the idea of physical or moral greatness. For example:
code:
 (1) na-folo 'good, rich' na-folo-ba 'great fortune' (2) so-kalo 'piece' so-kalo-ba 'considerable quarter of a village'.
In the Meroitic inscriptions there is constant mention of the khi 'body, spirit', the kha 'the abstract personality', the kho 'a shinning or translucent spirit soul'; and the Ba 'soul'. In many African languages the term Ba, is used to denote the terms 'soul or to be'. For example:
code:
 Egyptian: Ba Mbachi : Ba Coptic : Bai Bambara : Be Fang : Be.
The kha, existed within and without the human body. It would remain with the body until its flesh decayed, then it would either leave the tomb or hunt it. The Meroitic idea of Kha, as a spirit corresponds to Ka, in many African languages. For example:
code:
 Egyptian : Ka Manding : Ka Banda : Ka.
The linguistic evidence makes it clear that some of the Meroites may have spoken languages that belonged to the Niger-Congo-Mande family of languages. This is supported by the linguistic evidence of shared grammatical forms and lexical items between Meroitic and Niger-Congo-Mande discussed above.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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We've gone of this Gadalla's work and this issue many times before. I disagree with the premise that Egyptians migrated to West Africa. There is no proof that this has occured whatsoever. Whatever commonatlities that can be seen between West Africans and East Africans can be found in the prehistoric Sahara.
quote:Originally posted by nomorelies: With all of the information now available about African people, the word "Bantu", or "true negro" still survives.
Especially saddening is that Somalis seem to take joy in using this word for their darker, less Arab/European looking brethren.
I think you mistake the Afrikaaner's racial use of the word 'Bantu' to be an actual racial word when it fact it is a valid word when used in its original linguistic context. 'Bantu' is an actual native word or derived from the native tongues of Bantu speaking peoples and literally means 'many people' and is not racial whatsoever.
Posts: 26253 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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I think it would be interesting to set up an inventory of Inner African people whose genetic studies have suggested a recent East African origin. From what I have read on this forum and on TheNileValley, the concerned groups are mostly from the Senegambian area.
Anyway, here the translation of a "paper" written by West-Indian Biologist Jean-Philippe Gourdine (J-P.Gourdine (2008), Ngok Lituba IV. Les Basaa du Cameroun et l'Afrique de l'Est, perspectives d'étude génétique, Cahiers Caribéens d'Egyptologie, n°11, Martinique, Guadeloupe: Société d'Anthropologie, UNIRAG, pp.125-127.
quote: Oum Ndigi's anthropological and linguistic works showed several similarities between two African cultures: Basaa from Cameroon and Ancient Egypt, although being geographically and temporally far from each other (Ndigi 1993; Ndigi 1995; Ndigi 1996; Ndigi 1997; Ndigi 2000; Ndigi 2001; Ndigi 2004).
Molecular biology can contribute to evaluate these affinities (Gourdine 2006). Genetic markers of mitochondria -exclusively transmitted via mothers- can be used to check the presence of a role played by East-African populations in the ethnogenesis of Basaa people. A study of the patterns of hypervariable segments I & II (HVS I & II) of mitochondrial DNA via an amplification of DNA via polymerase, can allow estimations of the presence of East-African mitochondrial haplotypes. The Haplotype L0a retains attention, since it seems that its antiquity can be traced back to the Paleolithic in East Africa, that is around 33000 years ago (Salas, Richards et al. 2002)- and that its dispersion could thus predate the formation of populations that share it nowadays and tht we are comparing. We are citing here a study by Gonzalez et al., realized on Mauritanian and Malian populations has been identified among the Bambara of Mali, The Hausa as well as the Basaa (Gonzalez, Cabrera et al. 2006).
In the context of the research prospect "Ngok Lituba" (Ndigi 2007), and in collaboration with the Research Project of the "Ankhou" (Anselin, Dokoui-Cabrera, Labridy, Silpa and Gourdine 2007), a more important study, increasing the number of studied people, using other genetic and immunological lmarkers, could lead to go further in the knowledge of the long history of the peopling of the area nowadays peopled by the Basaa, coupled with a program of archeologica excavations (Gouem 2007).
The Explorer:
I haven't read the Kivisild et al. article, but it apparently also refer to L0a. Is that the haplotype that motivated the author to claim an East African origin of the Jola? Does the association also relies on paternal lineages? Do you guys know how frequently is usually found among E1b1b bearers?
Posts: 307 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Please call me MIDOGBE:
The Explorer:
I haven't read the Kivisild et al. article, but it apparently also refer to L0a. Is that the haplotype that motivated the author to claim an East African origin of the Jola? Does the association also relies on paternal lineages? Do you guys know how frequently is usually found among E1b1b bearers?
Well, no; Rosa et al. base their claims about the Djola mainly on paternal markers, please note:
In their study of DNA samplings in west Africa, Rosa et al. suggested that the Djola's oral tradition of having originated in the Sudanese region sometime between the 15th and 16th centuries may well be supported by the prospect of this group showing the least frequency of E1b1a-M2 chromosomes as a fraction of the sample size of this group in their dataset. - The Explorer
They base their observation, again, mostly on the relatively lower fraction of E1b1a (E3a) (58%) chromosomes in their Djola sample compared to the other West African groups in their samples. According to their data, much of the rest of Djola sample is dominated mainly by E1a-M33 chromosomes (34%), with the rest being represented by A-M91, E2-M75, E3*-P2 and E1b1b* (E3b) chromosomes (each 2% respectively). On the mtDNA side, the authors treated L3e2b as a typical marker for the Djola; Rosa et al. claim that they'd found "exact matches" with East and Central African haplotypes, reckoning a connection to those regions. Salas et al. however, see this clade as primarily a West African sub-clade, while implicating a Central African origin for the upstream ancestor of this marker.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Egyptian Basenji Dog Hieroglyph
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