quote:"For too long, social and political commentators have talked and written as though Africa lies outside the main stream of world historical development--a separate entity to which the social, economic and political patterns of the world do not apply. " - Kwame Nkrumah - Class Struggle in Africa
These distortions can be seen everywhere, and on every topic, including even this one:
1) the migrations of European tribes, their formations into ethnic groups and nationalities, are presented matter of factly and calmly accepted as such. i.e., http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MA/GERMANS.HTM
2) in discussing African migrations, we suddenly shift to some amazing distortions that simply defy common sense and logic -
-- a) 'Egyptians remained in Egypt'; but of course the Slavs, Goths, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Greeks, did not remain in their homelands...
--b) 'there is no evidence of a mass exodus from Egypt to West Africa'; now we're in the Bible! and what are described in Europe as migrations, in Africa it suddenly has to become an 'exodus' or of Africans 'fleeing' - Africans, perhaps the most mobile of groups on the planet, can only move from a spot in order 'to flee' an oppression, nee exodus...
3) add nauseum
---
Ancient Egypt was a Pan-African state; a collective of African ethnicities who were drawn to this land due to the similar enticements which would lead others to migrate to Rome, to England, and to America...
Ancient Egypt was held together by culture and the unifying lingua franca of the Mdu Ntr...
And like in Ancient Ghana, Songhai...Africans came freely from and left freely to other parts of the Continent; this social pattern exists to this day.
posted
The linguistic connection between Western Africa and ancient Egypt deserves more attention from academia. Upon my own self admittance, most of my understandings is mostly based on second translations done by Egyptologist and linguists. So please donot take my position as definate.
When approaching this particular subject there should be a strong logical basis for such claims. This means employing a combination of the scientific method,logic and common sense. This also means that such claims should be air tight and can stand non-biased criticism. Yes, I realize everbody has bias including myself.
Let's explore some claims made. It was stated that there would be little material evidence of mass migration in times of war and faminine. This might be partially true,but its also relative to what population fled ancient Egypt and the size of this population. This point was glossed over by many of the posters. Its a fact untill the induction of the camel that large amounts of people could not go across the Sahara. Much of the means of transport in ancient Egypt was by donkeys and or boats. Oral legends are good and reliable but can also be tainted by foreign elements. The poster is correct that most Western/Central Africans have oral legends of tracing to regions outside. It should be pointed out that many also have legends coming from Yemen and Arabia also. Some even claimed to be connect to Persian such as the Kisra legends. What are we to make of such claims?
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ausar: The linguistic connection between Western Africa and ancient Egypt deserves more attention from academia. Upon my own self admittance, most of my understandings is mostly based on second translations done by Egyptologist and linguists. So please donot take my position as definate.
When approaching this particular subject there should be a strong logical basis for such claims. This means employing a combination of the scientific method,logic and common sense. This also means that such claims should be air tight and can stand non-biased criticism. Yes, I realize everbody has bias including myself.
Let's explore some claims made. It was stated that there would be little material evidence of mass migration in times of war and faminine. This might be partially true,but its also relative to what population fled ancient Egypt and the size of this population. This point was glossed over by many of the posters. Its a fact untill the induction of the camel that large amounts of people could not go across the Sahara. Much of the means of transport in ancient Egypt was by donkeys and or boats. Oral legends are good and reliable but can also be tainted by foreign elements. The poster is correct that most Western/Central Africans have oral legends of tracing to regions outside. It should be pointed out that many also have legends coming from Yemen and Arabia also. Some even claimed to be connect to Persian such as the Kisra legends. What are we to make of such claims?
You have to refer to the Classsical literature. Therein we find mention of migrations into Asia, where the Kushites established many civilizations. For example the Elamites/Persians made it clear that they came from ancient Kush as noted by the Classical writers. These populations were later forced out of asia by Gutians, Indo-European speakers and etc. It is only natural that these populations would remember their sojorn in Asia. Moreover, most Yemeni haplogroups are of African origin, so these connections can be explained by archaeology, e,g, the Tihama civilization that spread from Nubia into Arabia.
quote:Originally posted by Truthcentric: Even if the Egyptian language is related to various Niger-Congo languages, would that be necessarily be because Niger-Congo-speakers are descended from Egyptians. I'm more inclined to think that maybe Niger-Congo and Afroasiatic may have a common origin...and even then, Nilo-Saharan would be a better candidate for a relative of Afroasiatic than Niger-Congo.
The problem I have with people trying to link Egypt with western and southern Africa is that they're endorsing the myth of a culturally homogeneous Africa. They expect us to believe that Africans, despite being the most genetically heterogeneous people as well as being distributed across the world's second-largest continent, all have one culture. That is not even close to being true.
Tell me, did ancient Greeks have the same culture as Finns? Did Classic Mayans have the same culture as Iroquois? Did Tang Dynasty Chinese have the same culture as headhunting tribes in Borneo? If not, why should ancient Egyptians have had the same culture as Yorubas or Zulus?
That is an incredibly good point
Posts: 163 | From: United States | Registered: Aug 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ausar: The linguistic connection between Western Africa and ancient Egypt deserves more attention from academia. Upon my own self admittance, most of my understandings is mostly based on second translations done by Egyptologist and linguists. So please donot take my position as definate.
When approaching this particular subject there should be a strong logical basis for such claims. This means employing a combination of the scientific method,logic and common sense. This also means that such claims should be air tight and can stand non-biased criticism. Yes, I realize everbody has bias including myself.
Let's explore some claims made. It was stated that there would be little material evidence of mass migration in times of war and faminine. This might be partially true,but its also relative to what population fled ancient Egypt and the size of this population. This point was glossed over by many of the posters. Its a fact untill the induction of the camel that large amounts of people could not go across the Sahara. Much of the means of transport in ancient Egypt was by donkeys and or boats. Oral legends are good and reliable but can also be tainted by foreign elements. The poster is correct that most Western/Central Africans have oral legends of tracing to regions outside. It should be pointed out that many also have legends coming from Yemen and Arabia also. Some even claimed to be connect to Persian such as the Kisra legends. What are we to make of such claims?
I don't know if the following has any relevance but colonial documenters say it wasn't that rare to see Teda/Tibbu (Nilo-Saharan speakers) jogging from different oases crisscrossing hundred miles of the Sahara only to search for some missing camel. I don't think people like the Teda pastoralists who were probably evolved over thousands of years in that area would have found it that difficult to move throughout the Sahara. Its probably the reason why in the Neolithic there was so much relatedness between the varying Saharan oases.
Posts: 4226 | From: New Jersey, USA | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Djehuti did you see from above thread what happens when you let the genie out of the bottle?
Posts: 43114 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic