posted
An obvious answer would be like a modern Egyptian accent, but since modern Egyptians speak Arabic rather than ancient Egyptic, I think it's likely that their accent has an Arabic element lacking in their ancestors' accent.
I like to imagine AEs as sounding like Rafiki from The Lion King (whatever accent he is supposed to have), but I don't know how likely that is.
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I don't know perhaps Wally can tell.. but if you can rent the movie star-gate... not the series I imagine it sounds a lot like that. plus alot of rolling r's...just ma guess but wadda I know?.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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posted
I believe Ausar has stated on numerous occasions that although modern Egyptians speak the Arabic language, the Fellahin especially Sa'idi accent as well as certain vocabulary words are distinct from true Arabic and it is most likely these are survivals of the Egyptian language.
As for your "Rafiki" example, I believe a Swahili or southeastern African accent would be very different from a northeast African one like Egyptian.
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Fellahin means "farmers" it is those who work in the countryside .
Sa'idi means"upper Egyptians"
No doubt that Egyptians today speak Arabic in fact the Egyptian Accent is the closest of All to the Classic Arabic,it is closer to Calassic Arabic than the Saudis' and the Syrians'.
Egypt ,when the Arabs brought it Islam ,had enormous number of citys and villages ,these can not be translated into Arabic,in fact 95% of today citys in Egypt have pharaonic names.
New cities built right now have arabic names.
The confusion arises from certian pronounciation of some words,for example
cairo people call friday "Al-Gom'a" which is a true classic Arabic
people in the countryside and upper Egyptians call it"Al-Gem'a"
the word Mashy is not an Arabic word but it is something like CIA it is an abbreviation for a long Arabic sentense ,same applies for malesh,mafeesh....and perhaps every word ends in -eesh is an abbreviation for a long Arabic sentense.
However,some pharaonic terms still exist in everydy usage of the egyptians such as(I do not remebr right now )but there are some rare pharoanic terms which is not used i everyday life of cairo people,but found in the countryside .
something to be said about the accent issue,is that it is because the Arabs who brought Islam to Egypt were had differnet accents ,what I want to say is the commander of the Islamic army was from Mecca and all his assistants while the soldiers were from Yemen ,those who are from Yemen built the city known today as Giza (it is an arabic word ehich means "to pass the river")which is a true fact since they crossed the river Nile and settled there .
also the soldiers did not like the climate in the delta ,so moist and not like the desert weather they used to ,so they immigrated to the UPPER of Upper egypt like Qena .
btw,rafiki is an Arabic word whih means "my dear friend"
Posts: 2417 | From: Cairo | Registered: Jun 2009
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posted
^ True. Even during Pharaonic days there were regional dialects, and Ausar himself has pointed out many times the example of the 'Tale of Sinhue' where the Lower Egyptian Sinhue barely understood the speech and customs of his Sa'idi (southern) country folk.
quote:Originally posted by ** Ahmad**: An Egyptian must answer this Question.
Fellahin means "farmers" it is those who work in the countryside .
Sa'idi means"upper Egyptians"
No doubt that Egyptians today speak Arabic in fact the Egyptian Accent is the closest of All to the Classic Arabic,it is closer to Calassic Arabic than the Saudis' and the Syrians'.
Egypt ,when the Arabs brought it Islam ,had enormous number of citys and villages ,these can not be translated into Arabic,in fact 95% of today citys in Egypt have pharaonic names.
New cities built right now have arabic names.
The confusion arises from certian pronounciation of some words,for example
cairo people call friday "Al-Gom'a" which is a true classic Arabic
people in the countryside and upper Egyptians call it"Al-Gem'a"
the word Mashy is not an Arabic word but it is something like CIA it is an abbreviation for a long Arabic sentense ,same applies for malesh,mafeesh....and perhaps every word ends in -eesh is an abbreviation for a long Arabic sentense.
However,some pharaonic terms still exist in everydy usage of the egyptians such as(I do not remebr right now )but there are some rare pharoanic terms which is not used i everyday life of cairo people,but found in the countryside .
something to be said about the accent issue,is that it is because the Arabs who brought Islam to Egypt were had differnet accents ,what I want to say is the commander of the Islamic army was from Mecca and all his assistants while the soldiers were from Yemen ,those who are from Yemen built the city known today as Giza (it is an arabic word ehich means "to pass the river")which is a true fact since they crossed the river Nile and settled there .
also the soldiers did not like the climate in the delta ,so moist and not like the desert weather they used to ,so they immigrated to the UPPER of Upper egypt like Qena .
btw,rafiki is an Arabic word whih means "my dear friend"
Correct. Even though Egypt was colonized by Arabs and heavy Arabization took place, it would be impossible to wipe out every vestige of the native language. Not only in many place names, but even in the colloquial Arabic speech of rural Egyptians there survives non-Arabic features including accents.
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
The language(s) spoken in Ancient Kemet and written in Mdu-Ntr were highly tonal (nasal) languages and wouldn't sound anything close to Arabic. They would have sounded like the Bantu languages sound today.
Posts: 213 | From: New York City, USA | Registered: Sep 2007
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posted
^ I'm sure Mdu-Neter would have sounded closest to other Afrasian languages in adjacent areas and not just Arabic. Languages like To-Bedawi of the Beja or the language of the Siwa Berbers. They possess features like gutteral (throat) sounds found in Arabic but are obviously the languages of black African people. I don't know about tonality, but why compare Egyptian to Bantu languages of another phylum?
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Isn't the Coptic language a direct descendant of Ancient Egyptian?
I would imagine that a Copt would have the closest thing to an Ancient Egyptian accent.
Posts: 647 | From: Atlanta | Registered: Jan 2009
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posted
^True, but think about how much the English language has changed from Old English to now. And all the English and Spanish dialects.
So we're not talking about a few hundred years, we're talking thousands of years extinct, not to go against your theory just saying.
Then again i guess to have sustained your tongue thru a time where all your countrymen are abandoning theirs speaks on some level of isolation. Any other tongues A.E.L. may have also resembled, only, that belong to a group that have remained very isolated?
quote:Originally posted by Morpheus: Isn't the Coptic language a direct descendant of Ancient Egyptian?
I would imagine that a Copt would have the closest thing to an Ancient Egyptian accent.
^ True, but unfortunately Coptic is not spoken as frequently or as often as it once was centuries ago and is only used today for liturgic or ritual purposes in the Coptic Church. As such, Coptic is considered an almost extinct language and much of its features have been lost. Some people say Latin is a dead language, but its used and spoken more frequently by Roman Catholic officials or sung in opera songs enough, not to mention its direct living descendant Italian is still alive. We just don't have such luck with Coptic. Even the features of Aramaic and old Hebrew were lost until Jewish scholars began using Arabic to revive such lost features.
That is why the best place to look for features such as accents or phonetics would be rural Egyptian speech especially Upper Egyptians, coupled with studying the Beja language.
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Perhaps a tad bit off topic but can anyone break down the name Tenkamenin..the name come from one of Ghana's Kings,but it just sound so Kemetic.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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posted
^ I hate to agree with the Hammered one, but sounding like its related to language. But considering that Egyptian is an African language. You have better luck with names in other Afrasian languages in East Africa. For example, I know that the word 'nefar' is used in the names of some Ethiopians.
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
"'A-hem'" I did not say the name was related merely posed a question.However we or most of us here speaks an Indo-European language but our name for Ebony came from Kemet and our language maybe peppered with such and not be recognize..as well as some of our personal names like Sarah and so forth, so it did not strain credibility just to ask.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: "'A-hem'" I did not say the name was related merely posed a question.However we or most of us here speaks an Indo-European language but our name for Ebony came from Kemet and our language maybe peppered with such and not be recognize..as well as some of our personal names like Sarah and so forth, so it did not strain credibility just to ask.
You needn't apologize nor be embarrassed by your question; you are closer to the truth than anyone here thus far...
The Kushite name of Tanwetamani or Takahatamani or Tanutamon is simply a continuation of the Mtau Ntr and is a link between it and the Ghanaian title of Tenkamenin - you have access to the dictionary; look up the words Ten.ka.menin/Tenk.amen.in - however it would be fruitless if you don't first know the Ghanaian meaning of the title Tenkamenin, for the words need to have the same or similar meanings...
Here is what you look for in understanding the relationship of these Black African languages: a) first disregard the 'established' classification of African languages such as 'AfroAsian, Niger-Congo, etc.'
b)African languages, especially the Mtau Ntr, are very conservative in that much is kept and little is discarded:
To an Ancient Egyptian, the word for 'name' is 'ran' ; thousands of years later in modern Sahidic Coptic (Classical Mtau Ntr) it is still 'ran', cross the continent to Nigeria and it still is 'ran' in the Yoruba language... Contrast this with the English language where the word for 'name' was at first 'nama' or 'namon'... it has also been demonstrated on this very forum the panoply of words which still exist in various African languages and some of these words have also been preserved in non-African language as well, due to borrowings...
When I asked this Yoruba fella how do you say 'to wipe, erase' in Yoruba he told me it was 'Nuu' with a nasally 'n' - this word, with the same meaning exists in the Mtau Ntr - 'Noo' - look it up...what is missing from the book is the tonality of the word, which for me was revealed by my Yoruba friend...
Take the Mtau Ntr expression 'bu nafret zu m bu bon' which means ' good has become evil' - talk to a Wolof, on the other side of the continent, ask him how do you say 'good has become evil' in Wolof and he'll tell you 'bu rafet mel ni bu bon'...and the tonality will give you a sense of how this expression sounded in the Mtau Ntr...
Mtau Ntr: bu huru - badness, wickedness
Yoruba: bu buru - badness, wickedness -------
Mtau Ntr: en en - not, no!
Coptic: Anon - not, no!
Yoruba - en en - not, no! ---these examples go on for days
Thus, find the sounds/tonality of the Mtau Ntr from: Coptic - Sahidic, Bohairic, Akhmimic
Upper Egyptian dialects, where you can find them available for you to study
Rural Egyptian Arabic - a 'creole' or 'pidgin' dialect
Beja - where you can find it available for you to study
Wolof
Yoruba
Akan ...
Posts: 3344 | From: Berkeley | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Kalenjin..Ancient Egyptian would have sounded like modern kalenjin..both suffixed the 't'.none of the peoples you have mentioned suffixed the 't' like Kalenjin and their ancient Egyptian ancestors.Ancient Egyptian mdu-neter was SOUTH NILOTIC like Kalenjin and datooga. I know most of you here don't like to hear that but it is a fact.
Posts: 306 | From: Kenya | Registered: Dec 2013
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posted
At Lake Malawi, Chichewa word for boat is bwato.
In Malay, buat is make/build/birth/berth.
In English, the end -t seems to make a noun from a verb; from bow to bowed to boat.
- - -
nama/namon (Old English) name ran (Anc Egpt) name ran (Yoruba) name shem (Hebrew) name nama (Malay) name
This is related to totem.blom/symbol/Xyambu/Jambo
Note: 100ka Yoruba split east from Pygmies towards Levant, eg. Ijebu = Jebusites = Egyptian = Djibouti = njyaMbuti ~ wapiti (Shawnee: large deer with white rump)
- - -
"what I want to say is the commander of the Islamic army was from Mecca and all his assistants while the soldiers were from Yemen ,those who are from Yemen built the city known today as Giza (it is an arabic word which means "to pass the river") which is a true fact since they crossed the river Nile and settled there ." Rahala
Interesting, Hebrew is said to mean the same thing, those who crossed the river, Abiru.
Posts: 2021 | From: Miami | Registered: Aug 2014
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: An obvious answer would be like a modern Egyptian accent, but since modern Egyptians speak Arabic rather than ancient Egyptic, I think it's likely that their accent has an Arabic element lacking in their ancestors' accent.
I like to imagine AEs as sounding like Rafiki from The Lion King (whatever accent he is supposed to have), but I don't know how likely that is.
quote:Originally posted by Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor:
quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: An obvious answer would be like a modern Egyptian accent, but since modern Egyptians speak Arabic rather than ancient Egyptic, I think it's likely that their accent has an Arabic element lacking in their ancestors' accent.
I like to imagine AEs as sounding like Rafiki from The Lion King (whatever accent he is supposed to have), but I don't know how likely that is.
Wow...Pretty neat video. Yeah the Ancient Egyptian language and words sound and look African.
Posts: 1891 | From: NY | Registered: Sep 2014
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