posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
I actually have this book and it is excellent. Here is Mboli's reconstruction and new language models.



It is totally different from what you will read in most linguistic literature. He keeps Obenga's Negro-Egyptian, but Proto-Negro-Egyptian breaks up into two dialects: bere and beer. These are based on how the vowels are treated by each group, as well as the prefixes and suffixes. Excellent work.

He also reaffirms something I've been saying on this very forum for a number of years now, that Coptic is not the last stage of Egyptian. It is a totally different language.

---

Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
@ Dr. Winters, we have to remember that archaeology will never tell you what languages a people spoke unless they actually wrote on the archaeological artifacts. Secondly, the Egyptians, in the Famine Stele, inform us of their ancestry from the beginnings of the Nile. However, this could be only a segment of the population. We know Egyptians came from all routes. However, the people themselves discussed their ancestors along the Nile, not in the West in the Sahara, although climatology and archaeology informs us migrations there.

Thirdly, a lingua franca is not the same as a mixed languaged or Creole, which I think you are hitting at. English or French, for example, are lingua francas of Africa, but they are distinct languages that belong to a people and have an origin: even with the many borrowings. Egyptian is no different.

And again, there are SOME traditions that come from the Sahara and there are others that do not. Again, their orientation and the land of their ancestors was to the South. Some claim ancestors to the West (land of Yam which might be in Sudan; see Robert Buval's _Black Genesis_). It is complex.

I have pretty much everyone's analysis on the origins of these languages and the most convincing is that of the major phylums originating in the East along the Nile. Even you cite Welmer's who even suggested Niger-Congo may have originated along the Nile. It would make sense if it is argued that NC is really a branch of Nilo Saharan, which originates along the Nile.

Much of ancient Egyptian cultural motifs and concepts I can find in central Africa: including the major deities of (e.g., Ra, Amen, Osiris, Isis, etc.). Again, no amount of DNA or archaeological evidence is going to demonstrate what languages people spoke.

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

The Niger-Congo (NC) Superfamily of languages is the largest family of languages spoken in Africa. Researchers have assumed that the NC speakers originated in West Africa in the Inland Niger Delta or East Africa. The research indicates that the NC speakers originated in the Saharan Highlands 12kya and belonged to the Ounanian culture. The NC population cultivated millet from Saharan Africa to South India.

Phylogenetically the NC mtDNA haplogroups include L1,L2,L3, U5, L3(M,N). The y-Chromosome haplotypes associated with the NC population were A,B, E1b1a, E1b1b, E2, E3a and R1. A major finding was that the Atlantic, Mande and Dravidian languages of India, form a new NC Subfamily we can designate Indo-African. See:

https://www.webmedcentral.com/article_view/3149

The Niger-Congo Speakers probably played an important role in the peopling of the Sahara. Drake et al make it clear there was considerable human activity in the Sahara before it became a desert[1]. Drake et al [1] provides evidence that the original settlers of this wet Sahara, who used aquatic tool kits, were Nilo-Saharan (NS) speakers. The authors also recognized another Saharan culture that played a role in the peopling of the desert. This population hunted animals with the bow-and –arrow; they are associated with the Ounanian culture. The Ounanian culture existed 12kya [2].
The Ounanians were members of the Capsian population.There was continuity between the populations in the Maghreb and southern Sahara referred to as Capsians, Iberomaurusians, and Mechtoids [3]. The Niger-Congo speakers are decendants of the Capsian population.
Capsian people did not only live in Afrca, they were also present in South Asia. Using craniometric data researchers have made it clear that the Dravidian speakers of South India and the Indus valley were
primarily related to the ancient Capsian or Mediterranean population [4-9].
Lahovary [7] and Sastri [8] maintains that the Capsian population was unified over an extensive zone from Africa, across Eurasia into South India. Some researchers maintain that the Capsian civilization originated in East Africa [7].

The Ounanian culture is associated with sites in central Egypt, Algeria, Mali, Mauretania and Niger [10]. The Ounanian tradition is probably associated with the Niger-Congo phyla. This would explain the close relationship between the Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages.

The original homeland of the Niger-Congo speakers was probably situated in the Saharan Highlands during the Ounanian period. From here NC populations migrated into the Fezzan, Nile Valley and Sudan as their original homeland became more and more arid.

The Niger-Congo speakers formerly lived in the highland regions of the Fezzan and Hoggar until after 4000 BC. Originally hunter-gatherers the Proto-Niger- Congo people developed an agro-pastoral economy which included the cultivation of millet, and domestication of cattle (and sheep).




.


The anthropological and linguistic data make it clear that East Indian people came to India from Africa during the Neolithic and not the Holocene period.Dravidian languages belong to the Niger-Congo family.

In the sub-continent of India, there were several main groups. The traditional view for the population origins in India suggest that the earliest inhabitants of India were the Negritos, and this was followed by the Proto-Australoid, the Mongoloid and the so-called mediterranean type which represent the ancient Egyptians and Kushites (Clyde A. Winters, "The Proto-Culture of the Dravidians, Manding and Sumerians",Tamil Civilizations 3, no.1(1985), pp.1-9. (http://olmec98.net/Fertile1.pdf ). The the Proto-Dravidians were probably one of the cattle herding groups that made up the C-Group culture of Nubia Kush (K.P. Aravanan, "Physical and Cultural Similarities between Dravidian and African", Journal of Tamil Studies, no.10
(1976, pp.23-27:24. ).

Genetics as noted by Mait Metspalu et al writing in 2004, in “Most extant mtDNA boundaries in South and Southwest Asia were likely shaped during the initial settlement of Eurasia by anatomically modern humans” http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2156/5/26

can not tell which group first entered India. Mait Metspalu wrote
_________________________________________________________________
Language families present today in India, such as Indo-European, Dravidic and Austro-Asiatic, are all much younger than the majority of indigenous mtDNA lineages found among the present day speakers at high frequencies. It would make it highly speculative to infer, from the extant mtDNA pools of their speakers, whether one of the listed above linguistically defined group in India should be considered more “autochthonous” than any other in respect of its presence in the subcontinent (p.9).
________________________________________________________________________


B.B. Lal ("The Only Asian expedition in threatened Nubia:Work by an Indian Mission at Afyeh and Tumas", The Illustrated London Times , 20 April 1963) and Indian Egyptologist has shown conclusively that the Dravidians originated in the Saharan area 5000 years ago. He claims they came from Kush, in the Fertile African Crescent and were related to the C-Group people who founded the Kerma dynasty in the 3rd millennium B.C. (Lal 1963) The Dravidians used a common black-and-red pottery, which spread from Nubia, through modern Ethiopia, Arabia, Iran into India as a result of the Proto-Saharan dispersal.


B.B. Lal (1963) a leading Indian archaeologist in India has observed that the black and red ware (BRW) dating to the Kerma dynasty of Nubia, is related to the Dravidian megalithic pottery. Singh (1982) believes that this pottery radiated from Nubia to India. This pottery along with wavy-line pottery is associated with the Saharo-Sudanese pottery tradition of ancient Africa .


Aravaanan (1980) has written extensively on the African and Dravidian relations. He has illustrated that the Africans and Dravidian share many physical similarities including the dolichocephalic indexes (Aravaanan 1980,pp.62-263; Raceand History.com,2006), platyrrhine nasal index (Aravaanan 1980,pp.25-27), stature (31-32) and blood type (Aravaanan 1980,34-35; RaceandHistory.com,2006). Aravaanan (1980,p.40) also presented much evidence for analogous African and Dravidian cultural features including the chipping of incisor teeth and the use of the lost wax process to make bronze works of arts (Aravaanan 1980,p.41).

There are also similarities between the Dravidian and African religions. For example, both groups held a common interest in the cult of the Serpent and believed in a Supreme God, who lived in a place of peace and tranquility ( Thundy, p.87; J.T. Cornelius,"Are Dravidians Dynastic Egyptians", Trans. of the Archaeological Society of South India 1951-1957, pp.90-117; and U.P. Upadhyaya, "Dravidian and Negro-African", International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 5, no.1
) .

There are also affinities between the names of many gods including Amun/Amma and Murugan . Murugan the Dravidian god of the mountains parallels a common god in East Africa worshipped by 25 ethnic groups called Murungu, the god who resides in the mountains .


There is physical evidence which suggest an African origin for the Dravidians. The Dravidians live in South India. The Dravidian ethnic group includes the Tamil, Kurukh,Malayalam, Kananda (Kanarese), Tulu, Telugu and etc. Some researchers due to the genetic relationship between the Dravidians and Niger-Congo speaking groups they call the Indians the Sudroid (Indo-African) Race (RaceandHistory,2006).

Dravidian languages are predominately spoken in southern India and Sri Lanka. There are around 125 million Dravidian speakers. These languages are genetically related to African languages. The Dravidians are remnants of the ancient Black population who occupied most of ancient Asia and Europe.

Linguistic Evidence

1.1 Many scholars have recognized the linguistic unity of Black African (BA) and Dravidian (Dr.) languages. These affinities are found not only in the modern African languages but also that of ancient Egypt. These scholars have made it clear that lexical, morphological and phonetic unity exist between African languages in West and North Africa as well as the Bantu group.

1.2 K.P. Arvaanan (1976) has noted that there are ten common elements shared by BA languages and the Dr. group. They are (1) simple set of five basic vowels with short-long consonants;(2) vowel harmony; (3) absence of initial clusters of consonants; (4) abundance of geminated consonants; (5) distinction of inclusive and exclusive pronouns in first person plural; (6) absence of degrees of comparison for adjectives and adverbs as distinct morphological categories; (7) consonant alternation on nominal increments noticed by different classes; (8)distinction of completed action among verbal paradigms as against specific tense distinction;(9) two separate sets of paradigms for declarative and negative forms of verbs; and (l0) use of reduplication for emphasis.

1.3 There has been a long development in the recognition of the linguistic unity of African and Dravidian languages. The first scholar to document this fact was the French linguist L. Homburger (1950,1951,1957,1964). Prof. Homburger who is best known for her research into African languages was convinced that the Dravidian languages explained the morphology of the Senegalese group particularly the Serere, Fulani group. She was also convinced that the kinship existed between Kannanda and the Bantu languages, and Telugu and the Mande group. Dr. L. Homburger is credited with the discovery for the first time of phonetic, morphological and lexical parallels between Bantu and Dravidians

1.6 By the 1970's numerous scholars had moved their investigation into links between Dr. and BA languages on into the Senegambia region. Such scholars as Cheikh T. N'Diaye (1972) a Senegalese linguist, and U.P. Upadhyaya (1973) of India , have proved conclusively Dr. Homburger's theory of unity between the Dravidian and the Senegalese languages.

1.7 C.T. N'Diaye, who studied Tamil in India, has identified nearly 500 cognates of Dravidian and the Senegalese languages. Upadhyaya (1973) after field work in Senegal discovered around 509 Dravidian and Senegambian words that show full or slight correspondence.

1.8 As a result of the linguistic evidence the Congolese linguist Th. Obenga suggested that there was an Indo-African group of related languages. To prove this point we will discuss the numerous examples of phonetic, morphological and lexical parallels between the Dravidian group: Tamil (Ta.), Malayalam (Mal.), Kannanda/Kanarese (Ka.), Tulu (Tu.), Kui-Gondi, Telugu (Tel.) and Brahui; and Black African languages: Manding (Man.),Egyptian (E.), and Senegalese (Sn.)
_________________________________________________________________

code:

---

COMMON INDO-AFRICAN TERMS

ENGLISH    DRAVIDIAN      SENEGALESE        MANDING
MOTHER        AMMA          AMA,MEEN          MA
FATHER    APPAN,ABBA       AMPA,BAABA         BA
PREGNANCY   BASARU          BIIR              BARA
SKIN          URI          NGURU,GURI         GURU
BLOOD       NETTARU         DERET             DYERI
KING       MANNAN          MAANSA,OMAAD        MANSA
GRAND      BIIRA           BUUR                BA
SALIVA     TUPPAL          TUUDDE              TU
CULTIVATE  BEY            ,MBEY            BE
BOAT       KULAM           GAAL                KULU
FEATHER    SOOGE           SIIGE               SI, SIGI
MOUNTAIN    KUNRU          TUUD                KURU
ROCK       KALLU           XEER                KULU
STREAM     KOLLI           KAL                 KOLI

---

code:

---

English                Senegalese            Dravidian
body                   W. yaram                 uru
head                   D. fuko,xoox              kukk
hair                   W. kawar                 kavaram 'shoot'
eye                    D. kil                   kan, khan
mouth                  D. butum                 baayi, vaay
lip                    W. tun,F. tondu          tuti
heart                  W. xol,S. xoor           karalu
pup                    W. kuti                  kutti
sheep                  W. xar                   'ram'
cow                    W. nag                   naku
hoe                    W. konki                
bronze                 W. xanjar                xancara
blacksmith             W. kamara               
skin                      dol                   tool
mother                 W. yaay                   aayi
child                  D. kunil                  kunnu, kuuci
ghee                     o-new                   ney

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

• Afrocentric Comparative and Historical Linguistic Methods
  
  In this paper we explore the linguistic methods used by Afrocentric linguists to document the relationship between Black African languages and their sister languages in Africa and Asia.
  
  
  
  By
  
  Clyde A. Winters
  
  
  
  There are two schools of Africalogical research: the African-American school (AAS) of Afrocentric research (Dubois, 1915, 1946) , and the French-speaking African and Afro-Caribbean school (FAACS) of Afrocentricity (Diop, 1974). The AAS was concerned with historical research while the FAACS has made linguistic research their domain of intellectual inquiry. A third school of Afrocentric researchers we will call pluridisciplinarians led by Anselin (1982,1993) and Winters (1985, 1989,1994) combine both historical and linguistic methods to explain the heritage of African people.
  
  An Afrocentric view of African history is written from the perspective of the Africans themselves. This type of writing on African history is centered on the role of Blacks/ Africans in Africa, and the fact that there was, and is a history of Africa.
  
  The central element in all Afrocentric research is the fact that ancient Kemet (or Egypt) was a Black African civilization. As a result of this theoretical base, most of the arguments made by contemporary Afrocentrists including the :
  
  (1) African origin of Egypt (Delany, 1879); and
  
  (2) African origin of civilizations in Europe and
  
  Asia (Johnson, 1971 pp.388-389; Dubois, 1946 p.122)
  
  were first made over a hundred (100) years ago by members of the AAS Afrocentrist group.
  
  Eurocentric School
  
  The major spokesman for the Eurocentric view of African history is Dinesh D'Souza (1995). Mr. D'Souza, a non-historian, linguist, etc., has made his mission in life the destruction of Multiculturalism, and Afrocentricism in particular, additions to the curriculum of American schools. D'Souza (1995 p. 360) believes that "...Afrocentrism fundamentally remains a pedagogy an initiation into a new form of black consciousness and also into manhood". Given this Eurocentric view of Africalogy, D'Souza (1995) sets out to prove that slavery was not racist; that segregation was established by paternal whites to protect the former slaves; and especially that "Egypt was a multiracial society" (p. 367) dominated by white skinned Egyptians, and that the only time that Blacks/Africans ruled Egypt, was during the Nubian dynasty (p. 368).
  
  African-American School
  
  The AFROCENTRIC historical method was developed over a hundred years ago. African-American researchers, including R. B. Lewis, Light and Truth, collected from the Bible and the ancient and modern history, containing the universal history of the Colored and Indian race from creation of the world to the present (Boston 1844); George W. Williams, History of the Negro race in America from 1619 to 1880...and an Historical sketch of Africa (New York 1982) and Rufus L. Perry, The Cushite or descendants of Ham (Springfield, Mass. 1893) used these methods to present a realistic picture of the African past.
  
  As you can see from the above titles most of these early works were based on material found in the Bible. According to the Bible, Blacks are the descendants of Ham who had four sons: Kush, Mizraim (Egypt/Kemet), Phut (Punt) and Canaan. these sons represent founders of the first world civilizations, such as Sumer, Phonecia, Arabia and Hatti. This recognition of the African origin of civilization in Africa and Mesopotamia was soon confirmed by the archaeological discovery of Sumer and Egypt.
  
  The AAS Afrocentrists developed a systematic group of principles for critically examining and presenting the body of source material related to the history of African people. Scholars such as W.E.B. DuBois, J.A. Rogers and Carter G. Woodson honed the AFROCENTRIC historical method to fine a edge. Woodson and DuBois made sure to employ the historical method in their careful research into the African past. And Rogers was a master of many languages which he used to gain insight into the history of African people from the numerous European sources he used to write the multivolume series Sex and Race.
  
  Knowledge about African people, especially the ancient history, has been hard to come by, because much of the "authentic" history of African people has often been published in non-English sources. This has meant that Afrocentric historians recognized the term document to include both written accounts about things said and done in the past, and also archaeological records. This broad interpretation of document has meant that these historians have been concerned with primary documents produced by eyewitnesses (e.g., the classicists of Greece and Rome) and also secondary sources related to archaeological research and the classical literature.
  
  The AAS Afrocentrists have mainly been concerned with the history of African people, in Africa and the world. It was the African American scholars who dominated the field of African historiography from the nineteenth century up into the 1930's (Dubois ,1971 p. 373).
  
  The founders of the Afrocentric schools of research have been careful to use many primary sources. These sources were written by the major classical authors (Johnson 1971) : Homer (DuBois, 1946; Diop 1974), Herodotus (DuBois, 1946 p.121; Diop 1974) and Diodorus Siculus (DuBois 1946, p.122; Diop 1974), and long ago were authenticated and are recognized as credible.
  
  The writings of the classicists have been important in establishing a foundation for the claims of the Afrocentrists because they have temporal proximity to many important events in the history of African people. Moreover, although the documents of the classicists were often biased, they report in clear prose the African role in the rise of civilization and culture in Africa and Asia and give internal credibility to their statements about African people.
  
  The major African American Afrocentrist such as J.A. Rogers, and W.E.B. DuBois have usually been able to read one or more foreign languages. There has been a need for learning a foreign language by members of the AAS because much of the literature dealing with African and Black civilizations has been written in French , Greek and German rather than English. Moreover, familiarity with a foreign language allows the Afrocentrist to check carefully all translations to insure that the documents they use in their research has internal credibility.
  
  Afrocentrists have traditionally been immensely concerned with contemporary archaeological finds related to African people. This emphasis on archaeological research is evident in the work of DuBois (1915,1946), and Woodson (1936,1949).
  
  The major secondary sources used by the early Afrocentrists include the work of Johnston (1910), Frobenius (1913), Boas (1911), Arnold L. von Heeren and Volney. DuBois (1915, p.147)notes that although many of these sources were used "none of these authors write from the point of view of the Negro as a man, or with anything but incidental acknowledgement of the existence or value of history".
  
  The first trained historian-sociologist to examine the African past was Dr. W.E.B. DuBois. In 1915, Dr. DuBois published the little book called The Negro. This book served as inspiration for many later AFROCENTRIC historians. This book, as obvious from the title, was concerned with the African both at home and abroad. The Negro, opened the field of AFROCENTRIC historiography. In this book DuBois collected the most recent materials on African affairs up to 1915, and presented a comprehensive whole, of the different elements of African history.
  
  In 1946, DuBois published The World and Africa. The World and Africa, was an important book in AFROCENTRIC research because in it DuBois outlined a world history on the Black races. In this book DuBois (1946, pp. ix-xi) makes it clear that he admired the work of many of his contemporaries such as J.A. Rogers and Hansberry, authors who had began their quest to discover the African past after reading The Negro.
  
  DuBois (1946) used up-to-date references to prove his thesis that Blacks founded civilization in Kemet (Egypt , pp.98-100), Africa and Arabia (pp.176-194). His discussion of the raise of Kemet and the importance of the Nubians and Thebaid group of upper Kemet in maintaining Egyptian traditions (DuBois 1946, pp. 104-108) is very well written. In addition, many scholars look to Bernal (1987, 1991) as the premier text on the falsification of Black history due to slavery and Eurocentricism, but in The World and Africa, DuBois pointed out clearly the role of European slavery and greed as the main motivating factors for the lack of truth in writing African history (DuBois, 1946 p.80).
  
  As a result of The Negro and The World and Africa, DuBois left a great deal of material that stimulated many Black scholars who read them, to become interested in the history of the African/Black race.
  
  In our opinion an influential pioneer historian and anthropologist researching the African past was Joel A. Rogers. James Spady has observed that Rogers' research encompasses three major areas: (1) the antiquity of Blacks; (2) how, when and why races mix; and (3) inspirational and biographical sources of great Black men and women. Rogers' research has deeply influenced all of my research.
  
  Rogers made it clear that Afrocentrists must (1) visit European museums where many artifacts of Africa which were stolen are now housed; (2) learn to speak and read more than one European language, so ; (3) the scholar should seek primary documents which must be reinterpreted to present the truth to the world. The greatest books written by Rogers include the best selling 100 Amazing Facts about the Negro, which gave the reader over 100 facts about the history of African people; and especially Sex and Race, a three volume series of books which discuss the world history of Blacks from ancient times to our modern age.
  
  Another AAS historian was Drusilla D. Houston of the state of Oklahoma. Houston's major work was the book Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire. In this book she shows that the civilizations of southern Arabia, Greece, India and Persia were founded by Africans from the Nile Valley and beyond. Houston had hoped to write another volume of this book but she died before it was completed.
  
  The fourth most important AAS africalogists after DuBois, Houston and Rogers was Leo Hansberry. Hansberry was born in 1894, and was the first historian to teach African studies at a major University in the world. Dr. Hansberry became interested in African history after reading DuBois'The Negro. this book led Hansberry to decide to learn more about Kush and ancient Ethiopia.
  
  In 1922, Hansberry went to Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he taught courses in African history. He never received proper support from the University, but he did influence many African-American and African scholars who studied under him. Professor Hansberry died in Chicago on November 3, 1965.
  
  Carter G. Woodson (1936,1949) following DuBois (1915) legitimized the writing of African history. In his premier books on Africa, Woodson (1936, 1949) illuminated the civilizations of Africa, and the rich cultural heritage of African people. Woodson is also credited with founding the Journal of Negro History, which published numerous articles on African history.
  
  John J. Jackson, was a self-trained anthropologist. He taught at universities on the eastcoast and in the midwest, including the Northeastern Illinois Center for Inner City Studies in Chicago, now called the Kemetic Institute.
  
  Jackson's most popular book is Introduction to African Civilization. In this book Jackson used old and new sources to discuss the role of Blacks in civilizations around the world. In his book he makes it clear that Africa and her people are the founders of world civilization.
  
  Jackson presents striking evidence that Indo-Europeans have played a major role in the destruction of African centers of civilization. He cites for example, the Romans partial destruction of the library of Alexander, and its later total destruction by fanatical Christians in A.D. 389. Prof. Jackson also discussed the Romans burned down the library of Carthage which contained 50,000 volumes in 146 B.C. And in Spain, Europeans destroyed great libraries of the Moors.
  
  By the 1960's Africalogical historical research, formerly the "preserve" of African Americans (DuBois, 1971 p.373), was beginning to be dominated by Europeans. The only AFROCENTRIC historian to come on the scene during this period was Dr. Joseph Ben-Jochannan.
  
  Ben-Jochannan is an historian and cultural-anthropologist. His major works are Black Man on the Nile, African Origin of the Major Western Religions, and Africa: Mother of western civilization. In these books Ben-Jochannan provides the reader with a wealth of information on the African origin of Egypt, and the African influence on many common civilizing elements found in Western societies today.
  
  French Speaking Afrocentrists
  
  Most of the contemporary dynamic historians and anthropolo-gists writing from the AFROCENTRIC perspective and making important original contributions to Africalogical research in Africa and the Caribbean speak French. These scholars were heavily influenced by the work of Diop.
  
  The FAACS Afrocentrists have their roots in Negritude. Aime Cesaire (1956) originated the term Negritude, which is a cultural expression of "Blackness". In a poem written during World War II, Cesaire coined the phrase "African personality". It is the idea of an original and unique personality peculiar to Africans, that manifest the foundation Afrocentrism in the African diaspora where French is spoken.
  
  Leopold Senghor of Senegal became a major proponent of Negritude. Senghor argued that the African emotional quality to life is different from the materialism of Europeans.
  
  Leopold Senghor not only accepted the idea of an "African Personality", he also helped develop the idea of "Africanity". Africanity is a word which relates to the entire African continent's cultural heritage (Fanon, 1967; Loventhal, 1972).
  
  Negritude has usually been described as "passive" by many social critics (Loventhal, 1972 p.283; Fanon, 1967 p.45). But one of the followers of this movement, Chiekh Anta Diop used the idea of "Africanity" to add a historical research component to negritude, that explained and discussed the African origin of Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilization. Diop (1974, 1981) proved the African origin of Egyptian civilization and made it a major component of negritude.
  
  Diop established an important base of Africalogical research at the University of Senegal. Until Diop died in 1986, he was a major advocate of the continuity of African history from Egypt to the medieval African civilizations. He is one of the founders of the African Historical Science and Philosophy of history first practiced by DuBois and Rogers. Like J.A. Rogers, Diop called for scholars to stop dabbling here and there, and become well trained , pluridisciplinary specialists.
  
  Chiekh Anta Diop has made important contributions to linguistic theory in relation to African historiography. Diop's work illustrates that it is important for scholars to maintain a focus on the historical and linguistic factors which define the "personnalitè culturelle africaine" (Diop 1991, 227).
  
  Language is the sanctum sanctorum of Diop's Afrocentric historical method. The Diopian view of historiography combines the research of linguistics, history and psychology to interpret the cultural unity of African people.
  
  There are three components in the genetic model: 1) common physical type, 2) common cultural patterns and 3) genetically related languages. (Winters 1989a) Diop over the years has brought to bear all three of these components in his illumination of Kemetic civilization (Diop 1974,1977,1978,1991).
  
  Recently, Eurocentric American scholars have alleged to write reviews of Diop's recent book (Diop 1991). Although these reviewers mention the work of Diop in their articles, they never review his work properly, because they lack the ability to understand the many disciplines that Diop has mastered (Lefkowitz 1992; Baines 1991).
  
  In the recovery of information concerning the African past, Diop promotes semantic anthropology, comparative linguistics and the study of Onomastics (Diagne 1981). Onomastics is the science of names (Diagne 1981). Diop has studied legends, placenames and religious cult terms to discover the unity of African civilization. The main thesis of Diop is that typonymy and ethnonymy of Africa point to a common cradle for Paleo-Africans in the Nile Valley (Diop, 1978, 67).
  
  In Precolonial Black Africa, Diop used ethnonyms to chart the migrations of African people in West Africa. And in The African Origin of Civilization, Diop used "analyses acculturaliste" or typological analysis to study the origin and spread of African cultural features from the Nile Valley to West Africa through his examination of toponyms (Diop 1974, 182-183). In the Cultural Unity of Black Africa, Diop discussed the common totems and religious terms many African ethnic groups share (Diop 1978, 124).
  
  This linguistic research has been based on linguistic classification or taxonomy. Linguistic taxonomy is the foundation upon which comparative and historical linguistic methods are based (Ruhlen 1994). Linguistic taxonomy is necessary for the identification of language families. The determination of language families give us the material to reconstruct the proto-language of a people and discover regular sound correspondences( Hock 1988; Crawley 1992; Bynon 1978; Lord 1966; Robins 1974).
  
  Diop is a strong supporter of the comparative linguistic method in the rediscovery of Paleo-African. The reconstruction of Paleo-African involves both reconstruction and recognition of regular sound correspondence. The goal of reconstruction is the discovery of the Proto-language of African people is the recovery of Paleo-African. To reconstruct a Proto-language the linguist must look for patterns of correspondences.
  
  Linguistic resemblances denote a historical relationship. This suggest that resemblances in fundamental vocabulary and culture terms can help one reconstruct the culture of the speakers of genetically related languages.
  
  LINGUISTIC CONSTANCY
  
  The rate at which languages change is variable. It appears that linguistic change is culture specific. Consequently, the social organization and political culture of a particular speech community can influence the speed at which languages change.
  
  Based on the history of language change in Europe most linguists believe that the rate of change for all languages is both rapid and constant (Diagne, 1981,p.238). The idea that all languages change rapidly is not valid for all the World's languages.
  
  African languages change much slower than European languages. (Armstrong, 1962) For example, African vocabulary items collected by Arab explorers over a thousand years ago are analogous to contemporary lexical items (Diagne,1981, p.239). In addition there are striking resemblances between the ancient Egyptian language and Coptic, and Pharonic Egyptian and African languages (Diagne, 1981; Diop, 1977; Obenga, 1988, 1992a, 1992b, 1993,).
  
  The political stability of African political institutions has caused languages to change very slowly in Africa (Winters 1994). Pawley and Ross (1993) argue that a sedentary life style may account for the conservative nature of a language Diop, 1987, 1991; Niane, 1984).
  
  The continuity of many African languages may result from the steady state nature of African political systems, and long standing cultural stability since neolithic times (Diop, 1991 ; Winters 1985; Anselin 1992a, 1992b). This cultural stability has affected the speed at which African languages change.
  
  This leads to the hypothesis that linguistic continuity exist in Africa due to the continuity or stability of African socio-political structures and cultural systems. This relative cultural stability has led African languages to change more slowly then European and Asian languages. Diop (1974) observed that:
  
  First the evolution of languages, instead of moving everywhere at the same rate of speed seems linked to other factors; such as , the stability of social organizations or the opposite, social upheavals. Understandably in relatively stable societies man's language has changed less with the passage of time (pp.153-154).
  
  In Nouvelles recherches sur l'egyptien ancien et les langues Negro-Africaine Modernes, Diop wrote that:
  
  The permanence of these forms not only, constitute today a solid base...upon which...[we are to re-]construct diachronic African [languages], but obliges also a radical revision of these ideas, a priori...on the evolution of these languages in general (p.17).
  
  There is considerable evidence which supports the African continuity concept. Dr. Armstrong (1962) noted the linguistic continuity of African languages when he used Glottochronology to test the rate of change in Yoruba. Comparing modern Yoruba words with a list of identical terms collected 130 years ago by Koelle , Dr. Armstrong found little if any internal or external changes in the terms.
  
  Diop's theory of linguistic constancy recognizes the social role language plays in African language change. Language being a variable phenomena has as much to do with a speaker's society as with the language itself (Labov 1965, 1972). Meillet (1926, p. 17) wrote that:
  
  Since language is a social institution it follows that linguistics is a social science, and the only variable element to which one may appeal in order to account for a linguistic change is social change, of which language variations are but the consequences.
  
  Thus social organization can influence the rate of change within languages.
  
  Diop's major linguistic effort has been the classification of Black African and Egyptian languages . Up until 1977 Diop's major area of interest were morphological and phonological similarities between Egyptian and Black African languages. Diop (1977, 77-84) explains many of his sound laws for the Egyptian-Black African connection. These sound laws have been further elaborated by Anselin (1989, 1992, 1993) and Obenga (1988, 1993b).
  
  Diop has noted that the reconstruction of Paleo-African terms can help us make inferences about an ethnic group's culture going backwards in time to an impenetrable past undocumented by written records. This is semantic anthropology, a linguistic approach which seeks to discover aspects of man's culture from his language. Thusly, linguistic resemblances can help the anthropologists make precise inferences about a linguistic group's cultural elements. In Obenga (1988) the Paleo-African terms for cattle, goat, sheep, rams and the monkey were reconstructed.
  
  Diop has contributed much to the extra-African linguistic relationship. He was a major proponent of the Dravidian-African relationship (Diop 1974, 116), and he illustrated the African substratum in Indo-European languages in relationship to cacuminal sounds and terms for social organiza-tion and culture (1974, 115). Diop (1978, 113) also recognized that in relation to Arabic words, after the suppression of the first consonant, there is often an African root. This is not surprising because Edward Blyden found evidence that the Arabic writing system was created by an African from the modern country we call Egypt.
  
  The major student of Diop is Obenga (1974, 1978,1995). Th. Obenga is a linguist and historian. He has done remarkable work in the reconstruction of Paleo-African and a brilliant study of the philosophical views of the Egyptians.
  
  Formerly the major work of Obenga was L'Afrique dans l'Antiquitie . In this book Th. Obenga discussed the African origin of Egypt and the cultural and linguistic unity of Blacks world wide.
  
  Obenga (1978a, 1978b, 1988) has shown the unity of ancient and modern African languages and the close relationship of ancient Egyptian to his own language Mbochi. And in The Peopling od ancient Egypt and the Decipherment of the Meroitic script, Obenga and Diop give a superb discussion of the reality of an African origin of Egyptian civilization.
  
  Obenga (1978b, 1988) concentrate on two areas of linguistic research. Firstly, he has shown striking affinities between Egyptian and Mbochi. Secondly, Obenga (1988, 1993) has been concerned with the reconstruction of Paleo-African and the shared grammatical features of Egyptian and Black African languages.
  
  In 1993, Obenga published Origine commune de l'Egyptien ancien du copte et des langues Negro Africaines modernes. This book provides a detailed discussion of the historical links between African and Egyptian languages. In Obenga (1993) African languages are divided into three Superfamilies the Black African-Egyptian , the Berber and the Khoisan languages.
  
  Obenga maintains that the Egyptian-Black African family is classified into the following subfamilies: Egyptian, Cushitic, Tchadian, Nilo-Saharan and the Niger-Kordofanian families. Most of these subfamilies of Egyptian-Black African were first grouped by Greenberg (1963).
  
  Obenga (1993) in addition to providing a detailed account of the Egyptian-Black African genetic connections also provides keen insight into the so called Afro-Asiatic family of language.
  
  He proves that the Egyptian language is closer to African languages than the non-African languages grouped in the Afro-Asiatic family of languages. Recently, this theme was also taken up by Tounkara (1989), he explained how Diop's theory of an Egyptian-Black African language connection has more linguistic and historical support than the Afro-Asiatic hypothesis.
  
  Gilbert Ngom (1986) has done a fine examination of the correspondence between the Bantu, Duala and the ancient Egyptian language. Ngom (1986) elaborates on the Black African-Egyptian phonology. He also makes it clear that Egyptian is closer to the Black African languages, than the Berber and Semitic languages in syntax, morphology and phonology (Ngom, 1986 pp.48-52). Anselin (1989, 1993) provide an outstanding discussion of the affinity between the Egyptian and Black African verbal systems.
  
  >>>>>>
  
  The most interesting research inspired by Diop is in the area of semantic anthropology. Using linguistic data Anselin ( 1989, 1992, 1993) and Pfouma (1987) have compared Black African and Egyptian terms to illuminate the common royal heritage and religion shared by Blacks. Winters (1985a, 1985d, 1989, 1991) also used this method to confirm the unity between the African, the Dravidian, the Elamite and the Sumerian languages.
  
  Dr. Diop has called on Africalogical researchers to become pluridisciplinarians. A pluridisciplinary specialist is a person who is qualified to use more than one discipline, for example history, linguistics and etc., when researching aspects of African history and Africalogy in general. Two major Afrocentric pluridisciplinarians are Alain Anselin (1993) and Clyde Ahmad Winters (1989, 1994).
  
  Anselin is an AFROCENTRIC pluridisciplinarian researcher. Anselin is the Director of Studies at the Laboratory of Research the A.M.E.P., at Fort-de-France Martinique. He has written three important AFROCENTRIC works: La Question Peule, Le Mythe d'Europe, and Samba and numerous articles.
  
  In Samba, Alain Anselin illustrates how the corpus of Egyptian hieroglyphics explains not only the Egyptian civilization, but also the entire world of the Paleo-Africans. In this book following Winters (1985, 1991) he makes it clear that Kemetic civilization originated in the Fertile African Crescent (Anselin, 1992 pp.20-22). And that Black African and Kemetic civilization at its origination was unified from its foundations in the Sahara, up to its contemporary manifestations in the language and culture of Black Africans.
  
  In La Question Peule, Anselin again moves back to his theme of unity for Egyptian, West African and Dravidian languages, political traditions and culture. The unity between Dravidian and African cultures was also examined by Th. Obenga (1973), Anta Diop (1974), Cheikh Tidiane N'Diaye and Winters (1980a, 1985c, 1985d, 1986c, 1991a).
  
  Anselin (1982, p.190) provides a detailed discussion of the " Black Ageans". There is also a fine examination of the affinities between the Agean and Dravidian civilizations (Anselin , 1982 pp.135-149).
  
  Another pluridisiciplinarian Afrocentrist is Clyde Ahmad Winters. He is the only African-American attempting to confirm the theories of Diop in relation to the genetic unity of the Egyptian , Black African , Elamite, Sumerian and Dravidian languages. Winters' is mainly concerned with the unity of ancient old and new world Black civilizations (Winters 1985a,1985d, 1989) and decipherment of ancient Black writing systems used by these Africans (Winters 1985b). This led Winters to learn many foreign languages including French, Tamil , Malinke/Bambara, Chinese , Arabic, Otomi and more.
  
  Winters has used Diop's genetic model in his research which combines anthropological , linguistic and historical methods to confirm that the center for the rise of the originators of the Egyptian and Manding civilizations (1977, 1979b, 1986a, 1986f, 1983), the Magyar or Hungarian civilization (1984a, 1986e); the Dravidian civilization (1980a, 1981d, 1985c, 1985d 1986c, 1986d, 1986e, 1988a, 1989b) and the Sumerian and Elamite civilizations was the Fertile African Crescent of the highland regions of Middle/Saharan Africa (1984, 1985a, 1991, 1994). In addition he has explained how Blacks founded civilization in the Americas (Winters 1977a, 1981d, , 1983b, 1986); and East and Southeast Africa (1979, 1979a, 1980b, 1981a, 1981b, 1981c, 1983c, 1983d, 1986c, 1987b).
  
  An important finding of Winters is that the ancestors of the Dravidian and Manding speaking people appear to have left Africa at the same time around 2600 B.C. (Winters 1985c). And that these people founded civilization in Europe , Elam, India and ancient China (1991a).
  
  Winters' (1988, 1989c,1990, 1991a), like Diop before him has also discussed (1) the African substratum in European languages; (2) explained the conflict between African people and Indo-European speaking people ; and (3) the loss of early African settlements in Europe to the contemporary European people due to natural catastrophes and wars after 1000 B.C. This research provides valuable source material for the elaboration of the African influence on European languages and the languages of East and Central Asia (Winters, 1989b, 1990, 1991b).
  
  During the research of Winters' (1985b) it was discovered that the Proto-Saharan people used a common writing system. Winters (1983) found that he could read the ancient inscriptions left by these people in the Sahara dating to 3000 B.C. A comparison of the Manding language and the Elamite, Sumerian and Dravidian languages confirmed there genetic unity.
  
  The evidence of a genetic relationship between the Manding languages, which was used to decipher the earliest Proto-Saharan writings and other languages spoken by the founders of civilization in India and Mesopotamia, led to the assumption that the writing systems used by these ancient founders of civilization could be deciphered. The confirmation of Diop's theory of linguistic constancy made it possible for to confirm this hypothesis and read the common signs used to write the Harappan script ( Winters, 1982b, 1984b, 1984d, 1984e, 1985b, 1987;2013a), the Minoan script (Winters,2013c)and the Olmec script (Winters, 1977a, 1977b, 1979b;2013e).
  
  The most important finding of Winters (1984,2013d) was the cognate language of Meroitic. Using the evidence presented by the Classical sources that the Kushites ruled empires in Africa and Asia, Winters (1984, 1988, 1989) illustrated that the cognate language of Meroitic, was the Tokharian language spoken by the Kushana people of Central Asia (Winters,2013f). Using the Kushana/Tokharian language many Meroitic inscriptions have been deciphered (Winters, 1984,1988, 1989, 1995a, 1995b,2013d, 2013f).
  
  Another important Afrocentrist is Molefi Asante at Temple University. Asante has been active in the field of Afrocentric studies for over twenty years. He is also founder, at Temple , of the major center of academic Afrocentrism outside of the University of Senegal when Diop was living.
  
  In numerous articles and books Asante ( 1988, 1990, 1987) has laid out the foundations of Africalogical research . Much of Asante's theoretical foundations of Afrocentrism is found in his book Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge. In this book Asante gives keen insight into the role of Egypt in the creation of an Africalogical humanities. He also shatters many of the long held myths perpetuated by Europeans that Africans failed to invent writing, and strong highly organized nation-states and empires.
  
  But he does not stop here in making a case for Africalogical research. He also explains and discusses European attitudes toward race and ethnicity in the United States.
  
  In addition to arguing persuasively for the establishment of Afrocentrism "as a legitimate response to the human condition" (Asante, 1990, p.5), Asante has written a fine introductory text on Egypt and other ancient African nations that can be used in Upper grades and High School. This text is called Classical Africa. In this timely book Asante explains the rise and fall of many African civilizations from ancient Egypt to the Western Sudani kingdom of Songhay.
  
  In conclusion, africalogical research, is not new, it has been conducted by Afro-Americans for over 150 years. African-American Afrocentrists dominated the field of African-American and African history from the 1870's up to the 1930's(DuBois 1971).
  
  Beginning in the 1940's "established" Euro-American writers became interested in African-American history; and in the 1960's as many African nations became independent other European scholars began to dominate the interpretation and writing of African history. These scholars began to decide on the criterions that make the "proper" research of ancient African history.
  
  By the 1970"s many Afrocentrists in French speaking Africa began to assert themselves, and write highly readable and intelligent prose on the African origin of Egypt and the genetic unity of the Black African and Egyptian languages. This group of researchers were complemented by scholars like Ben Jochannon and C.A. Winters. Today the research efforts of both the FAACS and AAS afrocentrists continue to confirm the great history of African people from a falsificationist perspective.
  
  
  
  REFERENCES
  
  Anselin, A. (1981). Le Question Peule. Paris: Editions Karthala.
  
  Anselin, A. (1982). Le Mythe D' Europe. Paris: Editions
  
  Anthropos.
  
  Anselin, A. (1989). pour une morpologie elementaire du Negro-Africain, Carbet, no.6, pp.98-105.
  
  Anselin, A. (1992a). L'ibis du savoir-l'ecriture et le mythe en ancienne Egypte, ANKH, no.1, pp.79-88.
  
  Anselin, A. (1992b). Samba. Guadeloupe: Editions de L'Unite de Recherche-Action Guadeloupe.
  
  Anselin, A.(1993). Anamneses. Guadeloupe: Editions de l'UNIRAG.
  
  Armstrong,R.G. (1962). Glottochronology and African linguistics. Journal of African History,3(2), 283-290.
  
  Asante, Molefi Kete.(1987). The Afrocentricity Idea. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  
  Asante, Molefi Kete. (1988). Afrocentricity. Trenton: Africa World Press.
  
  Asante, Molefi Kete. (1990). Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge. Trenton: Africa World Press.
  
  Asante, Molefi Kete. (1994). Classical Africa. Maywood, N.J.: The Peoples Publishing Group, Inc.
  
  Baines, J. (1991, August 11). Was civilization made in Africa? The New York Times Review of Books, 12-13.
  
  Boas, F. (1911). The mind of primitive man. New York.
  
  Bynon,T. (1978). Historical linguistics. London: Cambridge University Press.
  
  Cèsaire, A. (1956). Cahier d'un retour au pays Natal.
  
  Paris: Presence Africaine.
  
  Crawley,T. 1992. An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  
  Delafosse,M. (1901). La Langue Mandigue. Paris.
  
  Delany, M.R. (1879). Principia of Ethnology: Origins of Races and Color. Philadelphia, Penn.
  
  Diagne,P. (1981). In J. Ki-Zerbo (Ed.), General history of Africa I: Methodology and African prehistory (233-260). London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd.
  
  Diop, C.A. (1974). The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. Westport, Conn.:Lawrence Hill and Company.
  
  Diop,C.A. (1977). Parentè gènètique de l'Egyptien Pharaonique et des languues Negro-Africaines. Dakar: Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire.
  
  Diop, C.A. (1978). Precolonial Black Africa. Wesport, Conn. :Lawrence Hill and Company.
  
  Diop, C.A. 1981. A methodology for the study of migrations. In African Ethnonyms and Toponyms, by UNESCO. (Unesco: Paris) 86--110.
  
  Diop, C.A. (1991). Civilization or Barbarism. Brooklyn,N.Y.:
  
  Lawrence Hill Books.
  
  DuBois, W.E.B. (1915). The Negro. New York.
  
  DuBois, W.E.B. (1946). The World and Africa. New York.
  
  DuBois, W.E.B. (1971). The American Negro Intelligentsia. In Apropos of Africa, (Ed.) by Adelaide Hill and Martin Kilson, (362-374) New York: Anchor Books.
  
  Ehret,C. (1988). Language change and the material correlates of language and ethnic shift. Antiquity, 62, 564-574.
  
  Ehret,C. & Posnansky (Eds.). (1982). The Archaeological and linguistic reconstruction of African history. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  
  Fanon, F. (1967). Black Skin, white Masks. New York: Grove Press.
  
  Frobenius, L. (1913). The voice of Africa. 2 vols. New York.
  
  Hock,H.H. (1988). Principles of historical linguistics. Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter.
  
  Johnston,H.H. (1910). The Negro in the New World. New York.
  
  Johnston, J.W. (1971). Africa at the peace table and the descendants of Africans in American democracy. In Apropos of Africa, (Ed.) by Adelaide Hill and Martin Kilson, (pp.384-392)
  
  New York: Anchor Books.
  
  Labov,W.(1965). The social motivation of a sound change. Word, 19, 273-309.
  
  Labov.,W. (1972). The internal evolution of linguistic rules. In Stokwell,R.P. and Macaulay, R.K.S. (Eds.) Linguistic change and generative theory (101-171). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
  
  Lefkowitz, M. (1992, February 10). Not out of Africa. The New Republic, 29-36.
  
  Lord,R. (1966). Comparative Linguistics. London: St. Paul's House.
  
  Lowenthal, D. (1972). West Indian Societies. New York: Oxford University.
  
  Mbiti, J. S. 1970. African religions and Philosophy. Garden City: Anchor Press.
  
  Meillet, A. 1926. Introduction à l'etude comparatif des languages Indo-Europeennes. Paris.
  
  Moitt,B. (1989) CHIEKH Anta Diop and the African diaspora: Historical continuity and socio-cultural symbolism. Presence Africaine, 149/150, 347-360.
  
  McIntosh, S. K. & McIntosh, R. (1983). Forgotten Tells of Mali. Expedition, 35-47.
  
  Ngom,G. (1986). Rapports egypte-Afrique noire: aspects linguistiques, Presence Africaine, no.137/138, pp.25-57.
  
  Niane,D.T.(Ed.). (1984). Introduction. General History of Africa IV (1-14). London: Heinemann Educational Books.
  
  Obenga, T. (1973). L'Afrique dans l'antiquite-Egypte pharaonique-Afrique noire. Paris: Presence Africaine.
  
  Obenga, T. (1978a). Africa in antiquity, Africa Quarterly, 18, no.1, pp.1-15.
  
  Obenga,T. (1978b). The genetic relationship between Egyptian (ancient Egyptian and Coptic) and modern African languages. In
  
  UNESCO (Ed.), The peopling of ancient Egypt and the deciphering of the Meroitic script (65-72). Paris: UNESCO.
  
  Obenga, T. (1988). Esquisses d'une histoire culturelle de l'Afrique par la lexicologie, Presence Africaine, no.140, pp.1-25.
  
  Obenga, T. (1992). Le chamito-semitique n'existe pas, ANKH , no.1, pp.51-58.
  
  Obenga, T. (1993a). Origine commune de l'Egyptien Ancien du Copte et des langues Negro-Africaines Modernes. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan.
  
  Obenga, T. Origine Commune de l"Egyptien ancien du coptes et des langues negro-africaines modernes. Paris: Editions l'Harmattan.
  
  Olderogge, L. (1981). Migrations and ethnic and linguistic differentiations. In J. Ki-Zerbo (Ed.),General History of Africa I: Methodology and African History (271-278). Paris: UNESCO.
  
  Pawley,A. & Ross,M. (1993). Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history. Annual Review of Anthropology, 22, 425-459.
  
  Pfouma, O. L'abeille royale, Carbet, no.6, pp.98-105.
  
  Robins, R.H. (1974). General Linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana State University Press.
  
  Ruhlen, M. 1994. The origin of language. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  
  Senghor, L.S. (1961). Negritude and African socialism, African Affairs, pp.20-25.
  
  Toukara, B. (1989). Problematique du comparatisme , egyptien ancien/langues africaines (wolof), Presence Africain, no.149/150,
  
  pp.313-320.
  
  Welmers, W. (1968). Niger Congo-Mande. In T.A. Sebeok (Ed.), Current Trends in Linguistics, 7,113-140.
  
  Williams, B. (1987). The A-Group Royal Cemetery at Qustul:Cemetery L. Chicago: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago Press.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad (1977). "The influence of the Mande scripts on ancient American Writing systems", Bulletin l'de IFAN, T39, serie b, no2, (1977), pages 941-967.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1977a) "Islam in Early North and South America", Al-Ittihad) .
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (January 1979b). "Trade between East Africa and China", Afrikan Mwalimu, pp. 25-31.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1979c). "Manding Scripts in the New World", Journal of African Civilization 1, no1 , pp. 61-97.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1980a). "The genetic unity of Dravidian and African languages and culture",Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Asian Studies (PIISAS) 1979, Hong Kong:Asian Research Service.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad.(1980b) "A Note on the Unity of Black Civilizations in Africa, IndoChina, and China",PISAS 1979, Hong Kong: Asian Research Service.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1981a) "The Unity of African and Indian Agriculture", Journal of African Civilization 3, no1,pp. 103-110.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1981b). "Are Dravidians of African Origin", P.Second ISAS,1980,( Hong Kong:Asian Research Service) pp.789- 807.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad (1981c). "Further Thoughts on Japanese Dravidian Connection",Dravidian Language Association News 5, no9, pp. 1-4.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (December, 1981/ January 1982a) "Mexico's Black Heritage", The Black Collegian,pp. 76-84.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad, (1982b) "The Harappan script Deciphered :Proto-Dravidian Writing of the Indus Valley", P Third ISAS,1981,(Hong Kong:Asian Research Service) pp.925-936.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1982c). Lectures in Africana: Kushite Diaspora, Chicago: Uthman dan Fodio Institute.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad (1983a).The Ancient Manding Script",In Blacks in Science:Ancient and Modern, (ed) by Ivan van Sertima, (New Brunswick:Transaction Books ) pages 208-214.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1983b) "Les fondateurs de la Grece venaient d'Afrique en passant par la Crete", Afrique Histoire, no8,pp. 13-18.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1983c). "Blacks in Ancient China,Part 1:The Founders of Xia and Shang", Journal of Black Studies 1,no2. Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1983d). "Possible Relationship between the Manding and Japanese", Papers in Japanese Linguistics 9, pp. 151-158.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad Winters. (January 1984). "Magyar and Proto-Saharan Relationship",Fighter (Hungarian language Newspaper) Cleveland,Ohio , p.2.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad(1984a). The Indus Valley Writing is Proto-Dravidian",Journal of Tamil Studies , no 25 , pp.50-64.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (Juin 1984b). "A Note on Tokharian and Meroitic", Meroitic Newsletter\Bulletin d"Information Meroitiques , No.23 , pages 18-21.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad(June 1984c) "Further Notes on Japanese and Tamil ,International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 13, no2, pp. 347-353.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1984d). "The Inspiration of the Harappan Talismanic Seals", Tamil Civilization 2, no1 , pp. 1-8.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1984e). "The Harappan Writing of the Copper Tablets", Journal of Indian History LXll, nos.1-3, pp. 1-5.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1985a). "The Proto-Culture of the Dravidians, Manding and Sumerians", Tamil Civilization 3, no.1 , pp. 1-9.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1985b). "The Indus Valley Writing and related Scripts of the 3rd Millennium BC", India Past and Present 2, no.1 ( 1985b), pages 13-19.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1985c). "The Far Eastern Origin of the Tamils", Journal of Tamil Studies , no27 , pp. 65-92.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1985d). "The genetic Unity between the Dravidian, Elamite, Manding and Sumerian Languages", Sixth ISAS ,1984,(Hong Kong:Asian Research Service) pp. 1413-1425.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1986). The Migration Routes of the Proto-Mande", The Mankind Quarterly 27, no1 , pp. 77-96.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1986b). "Blacks in Ancient America", Colorlines 3, no.2 , pp. 26-27.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1986c). "Dravidian Settlements in ancient Polynesia", India Past and Present 3, no2,pp. 225-241.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad Winters. (1986d). The Dravidian Origin of the Mountain and Water Toponyms in central Asia", Journal of Central Asia 9, no.2 , pages 144-148.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1986e). "Dravidian and Magyar /Hungarian", International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 15, no.2.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1986f). "The Rise of Islam in the Western Sahara",Topaz 2, no.1 , pp. 5-15.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1987). The Harappan Script. Journal of Tamil Studies, no. 30, pp.89-111.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1988). "The Dravidian and Manding Substratum in Tokharian",Central Asiatic Journal 32, nos. 1-2, pp. 131-141.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1986b). Common African and Dravidian
  
  place name elements, South Asian Anthropologist, 9, no.1 pp.33-36.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1989)"Tamil,Sumerian and Manding and the Genetic Model",International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics ,18, no.l.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1989b). "Cheikh Anta Diop et le dechiffrement de l'ecriture meroitique",Cabet: Revue Martinique de Sciences Humaines et de Litterature 8, pp. 149-152.
  
  Winters,Clyde Ahmad. (1989c). "Review of Dr. Asko Parpolas' "The Coming of the Aryans". International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 18, no2 , pp. 98-127.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad.(1990). "The Dravido Harappan Colonization of Central Asia", Central Asiatic Journal 34, no1-2, pp. 120-144.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1991). The Proto-Sahara. The Dravidian Encyclopaedia. (Trivandrum: International School of Dravidian Linguistics) pp.553-556. Volume 1.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1991b). Linguistic evidence for Dravidian influence on trade and animal domestication in Central and East Asia, International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 20, no.2, pp.91-102.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1994). Afrocentrism: A valid Frame of References. Journal of Black Studies 25, no.2 , pp.170-190.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1995a). The inscriptions of Tanyidamani. forthcoming Nubica IV und Nubica V. http://www.scribd.com/doc/91808168/The-Inscriptions-of-Tanyidamani
  
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1995b). The meroitic chamber inscription. forthcoming Nubica IV und Nibica V.
  
  Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (n.d.). Meroitic inscriptions from Karanog. forthcoming Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities.
  
  Winters, Clyde ,(2013a). THE decipherment of Indus Valley Writing. http://www.scribd.com/doc/4820718/The-Decipherment-of-the-Indus-Valley-Writing
  
  Winters, Clyde.(2013b). Unofficial history of Tamil. http://www.scribd.com/doc/2565099/Unofficial-History-of-Tamil-Writing
  
  Winters,Clyde. (2013c). Ancient African Writing Systems in Middle Africa. http://www.scribd.com/doc/2565099/Unofficial-History-of-Tamil-Writing
  
  Winters,Clyde. (2013d). Meroitic Language. http://www.scribd.com/doc/112999049/Meroitic-Language
  
  Winters,Clyde. (2013e). Olmec Writing and Language. http://www.scribd.com/doc/92620602/Olmec-Writing-and-Language
  
  Winters,Clyde. (2013f). Tocharian the Cognate language of Meroitic. http://www.scribd.com/doc/91594296/Tocharian-the-Cognate-Language-of-Meroitic
  
  
  Yurco, F. (1989). "Were the ancient Egyptians Black?", Biblical Archaeological Review 15, no5 , pages 24-29,58.

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
@ Dr. Winters, we have to remember that archaeology will never tell you what languages a people spoke unless they actually wrote on the archaeological artifacts. Secondly, the Egyptians, in the Famine Stele, inform us of their ancestry from the beginnings of the Nile. However, this could be only a segment of the population. We know Egyptians came from all routes. However, the people themselves discussed their ancestors along the Nile, not in the West in the Sahara, although climatology and archaeology informs us migrations there.

Thirdly, a lingua franca is not the same as a mixed languaged or Creole, which I think you are hitting at. English or French, for example, are lingua francas of Africa, but they are distinct languages that belong to a people and have an origin: even with the many borrowings. Egyptian is no different.

And again, there are SOME traditions that come from the Sahara and there are others that do not. Again, their orientation and the land of their ancestors was to the South. Some claim ancestors to the West (land of Yam which might be in Sudan; see Robert Buval's _Black Genesis_). It is complex.

I have pretty much everyone's analysis on the origins of these languages and the most convincing is that of the major phylums originating in the East along the Nile. Even you cite Welmer's who even suggested Niger-Congo may have originated along the Nile. It would make sense if it is argued that NC is really a branch of Nilo Saharan, which originates along the Nile.

Much of ancient Egyptian cultural motifs and concepts I can find in central Africa: including the major deities of (e.g., Ra, Amen, Osiris, Isis, etc.). Again, no amount of DNA or archaeological evidence is going to demonstrate what languages people spoke.

---

Central Africa is not East Africa. Most researchers are of the opinion that Nilo-Saharan speakers belonged to the African Aqualithic, which was a Saharan and Sahel culture.

Ancient Egyptian was not a pidgin language, it was a Koine .A Koine develops as a result of people speaking a variety of speech who are in contact with each other that are mutually intelligible dialects. Languages that are considered by their speakers to be of equal cultural and political prestige, prefer to use a Koine, so as not to show disrespect to the various speakers of related languages.

A good example of a Koine today is Swahili. Swahili allows diverse Bantu and Arabic speaking populations to converse in a mutually intellible language.

As a result, the people create a Koine to serve as a lingua franca to unite the various people in the state of Egypt. The ethnic variety of the Egyptian people , unified by the Egyptian language is why I call Egypt a pan-African civilization.

This view is supported by the history of Egypt. We know that the Sepats or nomes of Egypt were composed of various ethnic groups.





The linguistic research indicates that the Egyptians spoke a variety of mutually inteligible languages, a view confirmed by the research of Obenga, Diop and others that show that Egyptian is genetically related to various Niger-Congo languages, to name a few. This is why they refer to the Black-African Egyptian Super family, for the speakers of African languages minus the Berbers and Khoisan. Ancient Egyptian was probally a deregionalized language that provide a vehicle for communication for the variuos nationalities making up the Egyptian nation.


.

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clyde Winters:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
@ Dr. Winters, we have to remember that archaeology will never tell you what languages a people spoke unless they actually wrote on the archaeological artifacts. Secondly, the Egyptians, in the Famine Stele, inform us of their ancestry from the beginnings of the Nile. However, this could be only a segment of the population. We know Egyptians came from all routes. However, the people themselves discussed their ancestors along the Nile, not in the West in the Sahara, although climatology and archaeology informs us migrations there.

Thirdly, a lingua franca is not the same as a mixed languaged or Creole, which I think you are hitting at. English or French, for example, are lingua francas of Africa, but they are distinct languages that belong to a people and have an origin: even with the many borrowings. Egyptian is no different.

And again, there are SOME traditions that come from the Sahara and there are others that do not. Again, their orientation and the land of their ancestors was to the South. Some claim ancestors to the West (land of Yam which might be in Sudan; see Robert Buval's _Black Genesis_). It is complex.

I have pretty much everyone's analysis on the origins of these languages and the most convincing is that of the major phylums originating in the East along the Nile. Even you cite Welmer's who even suggested Niger-Congo may have originated along the Nile. It would make sense if it is argued that NC is really a branch of Nilo Saharan, which originates along the Nile.

Much of ancient Egyptian cultural motifs and concepts I can find in central Africa: including the major deities of (e.g., Ra, Amen, Osiris, Isis, etc.). Again, no amount of DNA or archaeological evidence is going to demonstrate what languages people spoke.

---

Central Africa is not East Africa. Most researchers are of the opinion that Nilo-Saharan speakers belonged to the African Aqualithic, which was a Saharan and Sahel culture.

Ancient Egyptian was not a pidgin language, it was a Koine .A Koine develops as a result of people speaking a variety of speech who are in contact with each other that are mutually intelligible dialects. Languages that are considered by their speakers to be of equal cultural and political prestige, prefer to use a Koine, so as not to show disrespect to the various speakers of related languages.

A good example of a Koine today is Swahili. Swahili allows diverse Bantu and Arabic speaking populations to converse in a mutually intellible language.

As a result, the people create a Koine to serve as a lingua franca to unite the various people in the state of Egypt. The ethnic variety of the Egyptian people , unified by the Egyptian language is why I call Egypt a pan-African civilization.

This view is supported by the history of Egypt. We know that the Sepats or nomes of Egypt were composed of various ethnic groups.





The linguistic research indicates that the Egyptians spoke a variety of mutually inteligible languages, a view confirmed by the research of Obenga, Diop and others that show that Egyptian is genetically related to various Niger-Congo languages, to name a few. This is why they refer to the Black-African Egyptian Super family, for the speakers of African languages minus the Berbers and Khoisan. Ancient Egyptian was probally a deregionalized language that provide a vehicle for communication for the variuos nationalities making up the Egyptian nation.


.

---

Posts: 1296 | From: the planet | Registered: May 2011  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by typeZeiss:
when you say deregionalized you mean it was a Pidgin language, correct? I believe that is how Diop characterized it. Especially given it didn't seem to have a huge numbers of words in it, characteristic of other pidgin languages.

---

quote:

---

Unlike creoles and pidgins, koines are considered to be genetically related to the language varieties from which they have evolved. That is, they remain dialects of the primary languages to which they are related grammatically and lexically (in terms of vocabulary). Since no genetically unrelated languages were involved in the contacts that produced them, the structures of koines are not as drastically divergent from those of their ancestor languages as those of creoles and pidgins.
Koines may be written or spoken. Historical examples of koines include Standard Macedonian, the Italian of late 14th-century Naples, and the language of northern China in the 7th–10th centuries. It is assumed that koines also evolved in the earliest British colonies in North America, Australia, and New Zealand in response to the different metropolitan dialects that the colonists brought with them. Analogous varieties must have evolved in colonial Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Dutch settlements, which accounts partly for why the colonial non-creole varieties of the relevant European languages diverged from their metropolitan counterparts. In cases where a koine and a creole have evolved out of the same language (as with early colonial English and Gullah), the koine (rather than its metropolitan ancestor dialects or languages) is assumed to have been the starting point for both. Some argue that the formation of colonial-era koines started in European port cities where speakers of related dialects met before emigrating to the colonies.


http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/321152/koine

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
@ Amun-Ra The Ultimate

You will have to read his chapter VI to get how all of this breaks down. From the Table of Contents:

---

quote:

---

VI.14 Évolution grammaticale du négro-égyptien…………………… 361
VI.14.1 Grammaire du négro-égyptien archaïque ………………….. 362
VI.14.2 Grammaire du négro-égyptien pré-classique………………. 365
VI.14.3 Grammaire du négro-égyptien classique…………………… 367
VI.14.4 Grammaire du négro-égyptien post-classique........................ 370

---

Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

It is argued by Obenga (1992: 54-57) and Bernal (2006: 262-267) that the Greek word sophos, from where we get the word philosophy (lover of wisdom), derives from the ancient Egyptian word sbA “wise, intelligent, judicious, teach, teaching, school, guidance, direction, to tend, and surveying instrument” (Coptic sbō “teaching, education, intelligence”; sabe “wise, intelligent, judicious”; sbui “disciple, apprentice”; seb “intelligent, cunning”; sbo “to learn, teach”). In Bambara we have subaa “initiated teacher and student, one versed in hidden knowledge only known to initiates” ; Bantu ziba, libe, dziba, zhiba, seba, etc., “knowledge, wisdom, diviner, physician, one who knows, is an expert in, teach, have intercourse, converse with the spirits, priest, magus” (see Wanger, 1935: 202-204); Egyptian sAbwt “intelligence, knowledge, cleverness, wisdom, ability.”

---

quote:

---

The s-b form of the word in Niger-Congo is a loan. The word in Egyptian, sbA, consists of two morphemes: the s- causative prefix + the root (b-l). The s- causative is fossilized in this Egyptian term since predynastic times. The root can be seen in PAA *bar "see, know"; Semitic *bVrVy- "see, examine" (Akkadian: barû; Arabic: bry [-i-]; Jibbali: ebrer); Egyptian br "see" (Coptic: *belle 'blind': Bhr belle, Shd bolle); C.Chadic *bur- "think, consider, remember" (Gude: bǝǝrǝ 1, bǝǝrǝ-tǝ 2 [Hs]; Gudu: bùr-ínà 2 [Kr N390]); Saho-Afar: *bar- "learn" (Afar (Danakil): bar); Lower E.Cushitic *bar- "learn" (Somali: baro); Dahalo (Sanye): ḅar- "know." In Cushitic the causative is -is and it is suffixed to the root: Cushitic baris. In ciLuba-Bantu it is –pàdisha “teach, learn, instruct, view, introduce.” The causative in ciLuba is -ish and is suffixed in Bantu. This is a clue that the s-b form is a loan. To “teach” in the African mind is to “cause” (s-, -is, -ish) + “to see, know” (*bVr).

---

Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:

You can detect these things by knowing and demonstrating common sound change motivations, and being able to detect archaic features and sounds. All of this is possible with the comparative method.

---

Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

I've already agreed that some of the Egyptians came from the Sahara. Not all of the Egyptians came from there. Many were indigenous to what became Egypt. You keep forgetting some key factors in Egyptian history.

1) Egypt had indigenous people, living there since the Out of Africa event (as this was one of the routes)

2) Others moved in from the Sahara and from the south

3) Egypt was conquered by a people from the South as attested by Diodorus Siculus in his Histories Book III and by the Narmer Palette.

As a result of being conquered, forcefully, there was no gentle blending of languages. There was a dominant group, who spoke the dominant language. ciKam was that language.

---

Lets discuss these arguments. Argument 1) Egypt had an indigenous people. You mention the fact that there were already people living in Egypt when it was conquered by Narmar. You are correct. These people were the Anu, or pygmy people who today live in the forest of Central Africa/Congo and etc. We do not know what language the Anu spoke, the Egyptian language is associated with the people who conquered Egypt.

Argument 2) Others moved in from the Sahara and from the south. This is correct. But one thing you overlook is that many of the Saharan sites were located south of what was to become Upper Egypt, in the Saharan highland.

This means that the founders Egypt would have been both from the South and the Sahara.



The founders of ancient Egypt were Agro-pastoral people. These people lived in the Green Sahara. I call these people Proto-Saharans. They were the ancestors of the Egyptians, Dravidians, Elamites and Sumerians. In history they were called Kushites. These Proto-Saharans formerly lived in the Maa civilization. The Proto-Saharans were an Agro-pastoral people who raised cattle and cultivated crops.


Domesticated cattle sites

The Fertile African Crescent is the Saharan Highland region which appears Crescent shaped. It was in this area that we find the Ounanian culture which I believe was the place of origin for the Niger-Congo speakers.



The sites in the Fertile African Crescent are south of what was to become ancient Egypt. Naturally they would have entered the Nile Valley from the South as mentioned in Egyptian traditions. This is evident when we look at the location of Nabta Playa on the map.

Nabta Playa

The “Ounanian” of Northern Mali, Southern Algeria, Niger, and central Egypt at ca. 10 ka is partly defined by a distinctive type of arrow point .



The original Niger-Congo speakers probably belonged to the C-Group people. The C-Group people would have lived in many of the nomes of Upper Egypt.


It was in the Fertile African Crescent that the Maa Civilization originated. It was in ancient Maa, that the people later to become the: Egyptians, Mande, Elamites, Sumerians and Dravidians lived.

See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBb-sBoR0ts

Book:



Blog

http://bafsudralam.blogspot.com/2012/06/fertile-african-crescent.html


Argument 3, is that the Narmar Palette indicates that the conquerors came from the South.



On the palette we find four standard bearers who are carrying two falcon standards, a dog, wolf or jackal standard and what has been interpreted as a royal placenta. These standard barers with varying totems, suggest to me that they represented the various ethnic groups which Namar led to conquerer Egypt. This suggest that Narmar when he came into Egypt did not lead a group dominated by one tribe, he led a confederation of tribes. And as we know from later Egyptian history, each Nome, of Egypt often had their own god(s) and Totem, eventhough the high god of the ruling dynasty often was recognized as the leading God of the Egyptians, e.g., Ra or Ammon/Amma.

Wally has noted that

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wally:
[qb]
Note that these Ntr totemic names, when used to designate a group, the name comes to
mean some variation of "people", ie:

Akan (in Akan) = first people

Oromo (in Oromo) = people, resurrected human beings

Tutsi (in Kirundi) = people of wealth, first people
Ethnic names in the Mdu Ntr

• Tutsi
  Tutsi "the assembled gods"; "all of them (gods)"
  
  Akan
  Akan - the name of a god
  Akaniu - a class of gods like Osiris
  
  Fante
  Fante - "he of the nose" - a name of Thoth - one of the 42 judges in the Hall of Osiris ("Shante" in modern Egyptian)
  
  Hausa
  Hosa - a singing god
  
  Yoruba
  Ourbaiu - great of souls, a title of gods or kings
  Ouruba - Great God of soul
  
  The permutations of names of such folks as the Wolof or the Fulani are so many, that it requires the effort of those who speak the language, to properly interpret the names -ie, Djoloff, Oulof, etc. and then look for their meanings in Budge's dictionary...

...

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:

You can detect these things by knowing and demonstrating common sound change motivations, and being able to detect archaic features and sounds. All of this is possible with the comparative method.

---

Yes you can detect archaic features by using comparative linguistic on modern languages or written records of dead languages. Thus, by studying modern language and written records you can generate a proto-language. In this case proto-Negro-Egyptian. But you can't detect grammatical phases within that proto-Negro-Egyptian language!?! (I assume the Archaic, pre-classical, classical and post classical Negro-Egyptians languages are all descendants from one another in that order (and not different branches off a more earlier and global supra phylum).)

---

quote:

---

Scholars group the Egyptian language into six major chronological divisions:[10]

Archaic Egyptian language (before 2600 BC, the language of the Early Dynastic Period)

Old Egyptian language (2686 BC – 2181 BC, the language of the Old Kingdom)

Middle Egyptian language (2055 BC – 1650 BC), characterizing Middle Kingdom (2055 BC – 1650 BC, but enduring through the early 18th Dynasty until the Amarna Period (1353 BC), and continuing on as a literary language into the 4th century AD).

Late Egyptian language (1069 BC – 700 BC, characterizing the Third Intermediate Period (1069 BC – 700 BC), but starting earlier with the Amarna Period (1353 BC)).

Demotic (7th century BC – 5th century AD, Late Period through Roman times)

Coptic (1st century AD – 17th century AD, early Roman times to early modern times)

---

quote:

---

VI.14 Évolution grammaticale du négro-égyptien…………………… 361
VI.14.1 Grammaire du négro-égyptien archaïque ………………….. 362
VI.14.2 Grammaire du négro-égyptien pré-classique………………. 365
VI.14.3 Grammaire du négro-égyptien classique…………………… 367
VI.14.4 Grammaire du négro-égyptien post-classique........................ 370

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
How is that logic so? For example, let's assume the current consensus is correct about Niger-Congo, for instance. Bantu is believed to be a sub-branch of Benu-Congo. Let's go to Heine and Nurse (2000: 31).

We have:

Proto-Benue-Congo

Then . . .

West Benue-Congo < > East Benue-Congo

W.Benue-Congo gives way to Yoruboid, Edoid, Akokoid, Akpes, Ayere-Ahan, Nupoid, Oko, Idomoid.

E.Benue_Congo gives way to Central Nigerian, Ukaan and Bantoid-Cross.

CN gives way to Kainji, N.W. Plateau, Beromic, Central Plateau, S.E. Plateu, Tarok, Jukunoid.

No subbranches of Ukaan.

Bantoid-Cross gives way to Cross River, Bendi, Delta-Cross and Bantoid from which Bantu derives.

Do you see how many layers we have before we get to Bantu? We have four layers above Bantu, that means 4 Proto-Stages before we get to Bantu.

Proto-Benue-Congo itself is a branch of Proto-East-Volta-Congo (Heine & Nurse, 2000: 18). There is a Western branch of that and both are sub-branches of Proto-Volto-Congo, which itself is decendent from Proto-Dogon-Congo; which itself is decendent of Proto-Ijo-Congo, where Ijo branched off into its own family. Proto-Ijo-Congo is descendant of Proto-Mande-Atlantic-Congo, which itself is a descendant of Proto-Niger-Congo. So lets see the order again in descending order:

Proto-Niger-Congo
Proto-Mande-Atlantic-Congo
Proto-Ijo-Congo
Proto-Dogon-Congo
Proto-Volto-Congo
Proto-Benue-Congo
East Benue-Congo
Bantoid-Cross
Bantoid
Bantu

Saying that we can't reconstruct pre-proto-languages is not a linguistic argument. In the case above, for example, Proto-Niger-Congo would be Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-Proto-Bantu. Negro-Egyptian-Archaic is only like 4 layers up. If we can't reconstruct the stages prior to a proto-stage, then there is no point of reconstructions at all as all renderings would be false and of no value. Most languages of Indo-European didn't have written records, yet they were able to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European. The same has been done with Native-American languages with no writing.

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:

Do you see how many layers we have before we get to Bantu? We have four layers above Bantu, that means 4 Proto-Stages before we get to Bantu.

---

quote:

---

So lets see the order again in descending order:

Proto-Niger-Congo
Proto-Mande-Atlantic-Congo
Proto-Ijo-Congo
Proto-Dogon-Congo
Proto-Volto-Congo
Proto-Benue-Congo
East Benue-Congo
Bantoid-Cross
Bantoid
Bantu

Saying that we can't reconstruct pre-proto-languages is not a linguistic argument. In the case above, for example, Proto-Niger-Congo would be Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-Pre-Proto-Bantu. Negro-Egyptian-Archaic is only like 4 layers up.

---

quote:

---

If we can't reconstruct the stages prior to a proto-stage, then there is no point of reconstructions at all as all renderings would be false and of no value. Most languages of Indo-European didn't have written records, yet they were able to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European. The same has been done with Native-American languages with no writing.

---

Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate:
So you need to compare the linguistic/grammatical features of modern Wolof, Yoruba, Shona and Zulu to create a hierarchy of proto-languages. We don't have that luxury with archaic, pre-classical, classical, and post-classical Negro-Egyptian languages as those languages (beside post-classical) didn't leave distinct modern representatives or distinct written records to show differences and similarities between one another. [/b]

EDIT: For the records, I presume there's something I don't understand in the hierarchy of Negro-Egyptian proposed by Mboli (since I don't have the book in my hand). I view them as successive evolution leading to the Post-classical Negro-Egyptian language. I view each phases (beside post-classical) as leaving us no modern descendants or written records. I'm not 100% sure it's what Mboli is telling us here.

---

You do not create a "hierarchy of Proto-languages" in Historical linguistics, you reconstruct the Proto-Language of the Super-Family and the proto-language of the subgroups in the Super family of language.

In Historical linguistics the goals of comparative and internal reconstruction differ. Comparative reconstruction seeks to recover the prehistoric linguistics elements of a language or group of languages and establish a genetic relationship between or among language speakers. Linguistic reconstruction is used to establish specific relationships between and among language speakers.

Internal Reconstruction is used to compare languages with corresponding forms--that must be attested by a review of earlier stages of a language documented in text. Having text of earlier stages of a language for comparative purposes provides credibility to the methods used in internal reconstructions. Thisn is why many of the reconstruction proposed by Saussure of Proto-Indo European were not empirically confirmed until the discovery of Hittite.

To confirm a genetic relationship you must reconstruct the proto-language. A proto-language is a term used to refer to the earliest form of a language established by means of the comparative method of reconstruction.





Reconstruction of the proto-language allows us to discover the superordinate proto-language (SPL) which represents the 'mother language'of a Super Family of languages. It can also lead to the establishment of reconstructed descendant languages closely related to one-another that form a subgroup in the Super Family of languages like Proto-Indo-European, which would represent a intermediate proto-language (IPL).




As a result, we can reconstruct the Proto-language of the Super Family: Negro/Black African-Egyptian (BAE) the SPL, while reconstructing the proto-language of the the languages in each subgroup, e.g., Mande, which includes a variety of dialects and represent the IPLs. But neither Proto-Bantu or Proto-Mande forms any sort of hierarchy for BAE, the Mande and Bantu language families are simply sub-groups in the much larger BAE Super Family of African languages.

.

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

VI.14 Évolution grammaticale du négro-égyptien…………………… 361
VI.14.1 Grammaire du négro-égyptien archaïque ………………….. 362
VI.14.2 Grammaire du négro-égyptien pré-classique………………. 365
VI.14.3 Grammaire du négro-égyptien classique…………………… 367
VI.14.4 Grammaire du négro-égyptien post-classique........................ 370

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clyde Winters:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate:
So you need to compare the linguistic/grammatical features of modern Wolof, Yoruba, Shona and Zulu to create a hierarchy of proto-languages. We don't have that luxury with archaic, pre-classical, classical, and post-classical Negro-Egyptian languages as those languages (beside post-classical) didn't leave distinct modern representatives or distinct written records to show differences and similarities between one another. [/b]

EDIT: For the records, I presume there's something I don't understand in the hierarchy of Negro-Egyptian proposed by Mboli (since I don't have the book in my hand). I view them as successive evolution leading to the Post-classical Negro-Egyptian language. I view each phases (beside post-classical) as leaving us no modern descendants or written records. I'm not 100% sure it's what Mboli is telling us here.

---

You do not create a "hierarchy of Proto-languages" in Historical linguistics, you reconstruct the Proto-Language of the Super-Family and the proto-language of the subgroups in the Super family of languages.

In Historical linguistics the goals of comparative and internal reconstruction differ. Comparative reconstruction seeks to recover the prehistoric linguistics elements of a language or group of languages and establish a genetic relationship between or among language speakers. Linguistic reconstruction is used to establish specific relationships between and among language speakers.

Internal Reconstruction is used to compare languages with corresponding forms--that must be attested by a review of earlier stages of a language documented in text. Having text of earlier stages of a language for comparative purposes provides credibility to the methods used in internal reconstructions. Thisn is why many of the reconstruction proposed by Saussure of Proto-Indo European were not empirically confirmed until the discovery of Hittite.

To confirm a genetic relationship you must reconstruct the proto-language. A proto-language is a term used to refer to the earliest form of a language established by means of the comparative method of reconstruction.





Reconstruction of the proto-language allows us to discover the superordinate proto-language (SPL) which represents the 'mother language'of a Super Family of languages. It can also lead to the establishment of reconstructed descendant languages closely related to one-another that form a subgroup in the Super Family of languages like Proto-Indo-European, which would represent a intermediate proto-language (IPL).




As a result, we can reconstruct the Proto-language of the Super Family: Negro/Black African-Egyptian (BAE) the SPL, while reconstructing the proto-language of the the languages in each subgroup, e.g., Mande, which includes a variety of dialects and represent the IPLs. But neither Proto-Bantu or Proto-Mande forms any sort of hierarchy for BAE, the Mande and Bantu language families are simply sub-groups in the much larger BAE Super Family of African languages.

.

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
I actually have this book and it is excellent. Here is Mboli's reconstruction and new language models.



It is totally different from what you will read in most linguistic literature. He keeps Obenga's Negro-Egyptian, but Proto-Negro-Egyptian breaks up into two dialects: bere and beer. These are based on how the vowels are treated by each group, as well as the prefixes and suffixes. Excellent work.

He also reaffirms something I've been saying on this very forum for a number of years now, that Coptic is not the last stage of Egyptian. It is a totally different language.

---

What does the expression "post-classical" means? Is there a "classical" or "pre-classical" phase to the Negro-Egyptian language?

---

Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

L'analyse de correspondances morphologiques conduit en effet à déceler différents stades de cette langue préhistorique, stades que nous allons tenter de présenter de façon cohérente dans ce paragraphe, sans toutefois perdre de vue qu'il ne s'agit que d'une interprétation des données reconstruites. Il faut en effet toujours se rappeler que les seules choses qui comptent en linguistique historique, ce sont les séries de correspondances phonétiques et morphologiques. Ce sont elles, et elles seules, qui établissent l'existence du négro-égyptien en tant que famille linguistique génétique.

Comme toutes les langues du monde, le négro-égyptien a évolué au cours du temps depuis cet état archaïque jusqu'à des formes plus complexes, dont chacune des langues historiques a gardé, on l'a vu, des traces plus ou moins nettes. Nous allons maintenant tenter de retracer cette évolution en anticipant quelques fois sur la reconstruction lexicologique. Cette présentation peut paraître hautement hypothétique, elle est néanmoins nécessaire et sera jugée sur son pouvoir explicatif, c'est-à-dire sa capacité à rendre compte de faits non encore rencontrés jusqu'ici.

---

quote:

---

The analyse of the morphological correspondences leads one to identify different stages of this prehistoric language, stages which we will try to present in a coherent way in this section, but keep in mind that this is on an interpretation of the reconstructed data. It must indeed always be remembered that the only things that count in historical linguistics, are the series of morphological and phonetic correspondences. It is they, and they alone, which establishes the existence of Negro-Egyptian as a genetic language family.

Like all of the world's languages, Negro-Egyptian has evolved over the course of time from an archaic state to more complex forms, each of which [the historical languages] has retained, as we have seen, traces more or less distinct. We will now try to trace this evolution in anticipation of a few times on the lexical reconstruction. This presentation may seem highly speculative, it is nevertheless necessary and will be judged on its explanatory power, that is to say its capacity to account for facts not yet encountered so far.

---

Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

The Linguistic Methods of Chiekh Anta Diop

By
Clyde Winters


Chiekh Anta Diop has contributed much to the Afrocentric social sciences. Here we discuss many of Diop's views on using the linguistic sciences to rediscover the ancient history of Blacks.



Chiekh Anta Diop has made important contributions to linguistic theory in relation to African historiography. Diop's work illustrates that it is important for scholars to maintain a focus on the historical and linguistic factors which define the "personnalitè culturelle africaine" (Diop 1991, 227).


Language is the sanctum sanctorum of Diop's Afrocentric historical method. The Diopian view of historiography combines the research of linguistics, history and psychology to interpret the cultural unity of African people.


C. Anta Diop is the founder of modern Afrocentricism . Diop (1974,1991) laid the foundations for the Afrocentric idea in education. He laid these foundations using both the historical and anthropological/linguistic methods of research to explain the role of the Blacks in World History.



There are three components in the genetic model: 1) common Physical type, 2) common cultural patterns and 3) genetically related languages. (Winters 1989a) Diop over the years has brought to bear all three of these components in his illumination of Kemetic civilization. (Diop 1974,1977,1978,1991)


The opposition of many Eurocentric scholars to Afrocentric -ism results from white hostility to Diop's idea of a Black Egypt, and the view that Egyptians spoke an African ,rather than Afro-Asiatic language.

Recently, Eurocentric American scholars have alleged to write reviews of Diop's recent book (Diop 1991). Although these reviewers mention the work of Diop in their articles, they never review his work properly, because they lack the ability to understand the many disciplines that Diop has mastered.(Lefkowitz 1992; Baines 1991)

For example Lefkowitz (1992) in The New Republic, summarizes

Diop (1974) but never presents any evidence to dispute the findings of Diop. The most popular "review" of Diop (1991) was done by Baines (1991) review in the New York Times Book Review. In this "review" Baines (1991) claims that "...the evidence and reasoning used to support the arguments are often unsound".

Instead of addressing the evidence Diop (1991) presents of the African role in the rise of civilization that he alleges is "unsound", he is asking the reader to reject Diop's thesis without refutation of specific evidence presented by Diop of the

African contributions to Science and Philosophy. Baines (l991)

claims that Diop's Civilization or Barbarism, is not a work of originality, he fails to dispute any factual evidence presented by Diop.

Baines (1991) wants the public to accept his general negative comments about Civilization or Barbarism ,based on the fact that he is an Egyptologist. This is not enough, in academia

to refute a thesis one must present counter evidence that proves the falseness of a thesis not unsubstantiated rhetoric. We can not accept the negative views of Baines on faith alone.

In the recovery of information concerning the African past, Diop promotes semantic anthropology, comparative linguistics and the study of Onomastics. The main thesis of Diop is that typonymy and ethnonymy of Africa point to a common cradle for Paleo-Africans in the Nile Valley (Diop 1978, 67).

Onomastics is the science of names. Diop has studied legends, placenames and religious cult terms to discover the unity of African civilization. Diop (1981, 86) observed that:

"An undisputed linguistic relationship between two geographically remote groups of languages can be relevant for the study of migrations. A grammatical (or genetic) relationship if clear enough is never an accident".

As a result, Diop has used toponyms (place-names), anthroponyms (personal names) and ehthnonyms (names of ethnic groups/tribes) to explain the evidence of analogous ethnic (clan) names in West Africa and the Upper Nile (Diop 1991).

In Precolonial Black Africa, Diop used ethnonyms to chart the migrations of African people in West Africa. And in The African Origin of Civilization, Diop used analyses acculturaliste or typological analysis to study the origin and spread of African cultural features from the Nile Valley to West Africa through his examination of toponyms (Diop 1974, 182-183). In the Cultural Unity of Black Africa, Diop discussed the common totems and religious terms many African ethnic groups share (Diop 1978, 124).

LINGUISTIC TAXONOMY

This linguistic research has been based on linguistic classification or taxonomy. Linguistic taxonomy is the foundation upon which comparative and historical linguistic methods are based (Ruhlen 1994). Linguistic taxonomy is necessary for the identification of language families. The determination of language families give us the material to reconstruct the proto-language of a people and discover regular sound correspondences.

There are three major kinds of language classifications: genealogical, typological, and areal. A genealogical classifica-tion groups languages together into language families based on the shared features retained by languages since divergence from the common ancestor or proto-language. An areal classification groups languages into linguistic areas based on shared features acquired by a process of convergence arising from spatial proximity. A typological classification groups languages together into language types by the similarity in the appearance of the structure of languages without consideration of their historical origin and present, or past geographical distribution.

COMPARATIVE METHOD

Diop has used comparative and historical linguistics to illuminate the Unity of African civilization. Diop (1977, xxv) has noted that

"The process for the evolution of African languages is clearly apparent; from a far we (have) the idea that Wolof is descendant by direct filiation to ancient Egyptian, but the Wolof, Egyptian and other African languages (are) derived from a common mother language that one can call Paleo-African, the common mother language that one can call Paleo-African, the common African or the Negro- African of L. Homburger or of Th. Obenga."

The comparative method is used by linguists to determine the relatedness of languages, and to reconstruct earlier language states. The comparative linguist has two major goals (1) trace the history of language families and reconstruct the mother language of each family, and (2) determine the forces which affect language. In general, comparative linguists are interested in determining phonetic laws, analogy/ correspondence and loan words.

Diop is a strong supporter of the comparative method in the rediscovery of Paleo-African. The reconstruction of Paleo-African involves both reconstruction and recognition of regular sound correspondence. The goal of reconstruction is the discovery of the proto-language of African people is the recovery of Paleo-African:

(1) vowels and consonants

(2) specific Paleo-African words

(3) common grammatical elements; and

(4) common syntactic elements.

The comparative method is useful in the reconstruction of Proto-languages or Diop's Paleo-African. To reconstruct a proto-language the linguist must look for patterns of correspondences. Patterns of correspondence is the examination of terms which show uniformity. This uniformity leads to the inference that languages are related since uniformity of terms leads to the inference that languages are related since conformity of terms in two or more languages indicate they came from a common ancestor.

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

A person's language provides us with evidence of the elements of a group's culture. Diop has noted that reconstruction of Paleo-African terms can help us make inferences about a group's culture going backwards in time to an impenetrable past undocumented by written records. This is semantic anthropology, a linguistic approach which seeks to discover aspects of man's culture from his language. Thusly, linguistic resemblances can help the anthropologist make precise inferences about a groups culture elements.

Linguistic resemblances denote a historical relationship. This suggest that resemblances in fundamental vocabulary and culture terms can help one reconstruct the culture of the speakers of genetically related languages.

LINGUISTIC CONSTANCY

The rate at which languages change is variable. It appears that linguistic change is culture specific. Consequently, the social organization and political culture of a particular speech community can influence the speed at which languages change.

Based on the history of language change in Europe most linguists believe that the rate of change for all languages is both rapid and constant.(Diagne, 1981,p.238) The idea that all languages change rapidly is not valid for all the World's languages.

African languages change much slower than European languages. (Armstrong, 1962) For example, African vocabulary items collected by Arab explorers over a thousand years ago are analogous to contemporary lexical items.(Diagne,1981, p.239) In addition there are striking resemblances between the ancient Egyptian language and Coptic, and Pharonic Egyptian and African languages.(Diagne, 1981; Diop, 1977; Obenga, 1993)

The political stability of African political institutions has caused languages to change very slowly in Africa. Pawley and Ross (1993) argue that a sedentary life style may account for the conservative nature of a language.

African oral traditions and the eye witness accounts of travelers to Africa, make it clear that African empires although made up of diverse nationalities illustrated continuity. To accomodate the plural nature of African empires Africans developed a Federal system of government. (Niane , 1984) In fact we can not really describe ancient African state systems as empires, since this implies absolute rule or authority in a single individual. This political state of affairs rarely existed in ancient Africa, because in each African speech community local leadership was elected by the people within the community. (Diop, 1987) For example the Egyptians often appointed administrators over the conquered territories from among the conquered people. (Diop ,1991)

The continuity of many African languages may result from the steady state nature of African political systems, and long standing cultural stability since neolithic times. (Diop, 1991 ; Winters 1985) This cultural stability has affected the speed at which African languages change.

In Africa due to the relative stability of socio-political structures and settled life, there has not been enough pressure exerted on African societies as a whole and African speech communities in particular, to cause radical internal linguistic changes within most African languages. Permanent settlements led to a clearly defined system of inheritance and royal succession. These traits led to stability on both the social and political levels.

This leads to the hypothesis that linguistic continuity exist in Africa due to the stability of African socio-political structures and cultural systems. This relative cultural stability has led African languages to change more slowly then European and

Asian languages. Diop (1974) observed that:

First the evolution of languages, instead of moving everywhere at the same rate of speed seems linked to other factors; such as , the stability of social organizations or the opposite, social upheavals. Understandably in relatively stable societies man's language has changed less with the passage of time.(pp.153-154)

There is considerable evidence which supports the African continuity concept. Dr. Armstrong (1962) noted the linguistic continuity of African languages when he used glottochronology to test the rate of change in Yoruba. Comparing modern Yoruba words with a list of identical terms collected 130 years ago by Koelle , Dr. Armstrong found little if any internal or external changes in the terms. He concluded that:

I would have said that on this evidence African languages are changing with glacial slowness, but it seems to me that in a century a glacier would have changed a lot more than that. Perhaps it would be more in order to say that these languages are changing with geological slowness. (Armstrong, 1962, p.285).

Diop's theory of linguistic constancy recognizes the social role language plays in African language change. Language being a variable phenomena has as much to do with a speaker's society as with the language itself. Thus social organization can influence the rate of change within languages. Meillet (1926, 17) wrote that:

Since language is a social institution it follows that linguistics is a social science, and the only variable element to which one may appeal in order to account for a linguistic change is social change, of which language variations are but the consequences.

THE BLACK AFRICAN ORIGIN OF EGYPT

Diop has contributed much to African linguistics. He was a major proponent of the Dravidian-African relationship (Diop 1974, 116), and the African substratum in Indo-European languages in relationship to cacuminal sounds and terms for social organiza-tion and culture (1974, 115). Diop (1978, 113) also recognized that in relation to Arabic words, after the suppression of the first consonant, there is often an African root.

Diop's major linguistic effort has been the classification of Black African and Egyptian languages . Up until 1977 Diop'smajor area of interest were morphological and phonological similarities between Egyptian and Black African languages. Diop (1977, 77-84) explains many of his sound laws for the Egyptian-Black African connection.

In Parènte Génétique de l'Egyptien pharraonique et des Langues Négro Africaines (PGEPLNA), Diop explains in some detail

his linguistic views in the introduction of this book. In PGEPLNA , Diop demonstrates the genetic relationship between ancient Egyptian and the languages of Black Africa. Diop provides thousands of cognate Wolof and Egyptian terms in support of his Black African-Egyptian linguistic relationship.

PALEO-AFRICAN

African languages are divided into Supersets (i.e., a family of genetically related languages, e.g., Niger-Congo) sets, and subsets. In the sets of African languages there are many parallels between phonological terms, eventhough there may be an arbitrary use of consonants which may have a similar sound. The reason for these changes is that when the speakers of Paleo-African languages separated, the various sets of languages underwent separate developments. As a result a /b/ sound in one language may be /p/ or /f/ in a sister language. For example, in African languages the word for father may be baba , pa or fa, while in the Dravidian languages we have appan to denote father.

Diop has noted that reconstruction of Paleo-African terms can help us make inferences about an ethnic group's culture going backwards in time to an impenetrable past undocumented by written records. This is semantic anthropology, a linguistic approach which seeks to discover aspects of man's culture from his language. Thusly, linguistic resemblances can help the anthropologists make precise inferences about a linguistic group's cultural elements.

BLACKS IN WEST ASIA

In PGEPLNA Diop makes clear his views on the role of African languages in the rise of other languages. Using archaeological evidence Diop makes it clear that the original West Asians: Elamites and Sumerians were of Black origin (1974, 1977, xxix-xxxvii).

Diop (1974, 1991) advocates the unity of Black Africans

and Blacks in West Asia. Winters (1985,1989,1994) has elaborated on the linguistic affinity of African and West Asian languages.

This view is supported by linguistic evidence. For example these languages share demonstrative bases:

Proximate Distant Finite

Dravidian i a u

Manding i a u

Sumerian bi a

Wolof i a u

The speakers of West Asian and Black African languages also share basic culture items:

Chief city,village black,burnt

Dravidian cira, ca uru kam

Elamite Salu

Sumerian Sar ur

Manding Sa furu kami,"charcoal'

Nubia sirgi mar

Egyptian Sr mer kemit

Paleo-African *sar *uru *kam

OBENGA

Obenga (1978) gives a phonetic analysis of Black African and Egyptian. He illustrates the genetic affinity of consonants within the Black African (BA) and Egyptian languages especially the occlusive bilateral sonorous, the occlusive nasal apico-dental /n/ and /m/ , the apico-alveolar /r/ and the radical

proto-form sa: 'man, female, posterity' in Black Africa.

Language

Agaw asau, aso 'masculine

Sidama asu 'man'

Oromo asa id.

Caffino aso id.

Yoruba so 'produce'

Meroitic s' man

Fonge sunu id.

Bini eso 'someone'

Kikongo sa,se,si 'father'

Swahili (m)zee 'old person'

Egyptian sa 'man'

Manding si,se 'descendant,posterity,family'

Azer se 'individual, person'

Obenga (1978) also illustrated the unity between the verbs 'to come, to be, to arrive':

Language

Egyptian ii, ey Samo, Loma dye

Mbosi yaa Bisa gye

Sidama/Omo wa Wolof nyeu

Caffino wa Peul yah, yade

Yoruba wa Fonge wa

Bini ya Mpongwe bya

Manding ya,dya Swahili (Ku)ya

between t =/= d, highlight the alternation patterns of many Paleo-African consonants including b =/= p, l =/= r ,and

g =/= k.

The Egyptian term for grain is 0 sa #. This corresponds to many African terms for seed,grain:

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 Niger-Congo speakers formerly lived in the highland regions of the Fezzan and Hoggar until after 4000 BC. Originally hunter-gatherers the Proto-Niger- Congo people developed an agro-pastoral economy which included the cultivation of millet, and domestication of cattle (and sheep).




.


The anthropological and linguistic data make it clear that East Indian people came to India from Africa during the Neolithic and not the Holocene period.Dravidian languages belong to the Niger-Congo family.

In the sub-continent of India, there were several main groups. The traditional view for the population origins in India suggest that the earliest inhabitants of India were the Negritos, and this was followed by the Proto-Australoid, the Mongoloid and the so-called mediterranean type which represent the ancient Egyptians and Kushites (Clyde A. Winters, "The Proto-Culture of the Dravidians, Manding and Sumerians",Tamil Civilizations 3, no.1(1985), pp.1-9. (http://olmec98.net/Fertile1.pdf ). The the Proto-Dravidians were probably one of the cattle herding groups that made up the C-Group culture of Nubia Kush (K.P. Aravanan, "Physical and Cultural Similarities between Dravidian and African", Journal of Tamil Studies, no.10
(1976, pp.23-27:24. ).

Genetics as noted by Mait Metspalu et al writing in 2004, in “Most extant mtDNA boundaries in South and Southwest Asia were likely shaped during the initial settlement of Eurasia by anatomically modern humans” http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2156/5/26

can not tell which group first entered India. Mait Metspalu wrote
_________________________________________________________________
Language families present today in India, such as Indo-European, Dravidic and Austro-Asiatic, are all much younger than the majority of indigenous mtDNA lineages found among the present day speakers at high frequencies. It would make it highly speculative to infer, from the extant mtDNA pools of their speakers, whether one of the listed above linguistically defined group in India should be considered more “autochthonous” than any other in respect of its presence in the subcontinent (p.9).
________________________________________________________________________


B.B. Lal ("The Only Asian expedition in threatened Nubia:Work by an Indian Mission at Afyeh and Tumas", The Illustrated London Times , 20 April 1963) and Indian Egyptologist has shown conclusively that the Dravidians originated in the Saharan area 5000 years ago. He claims they came from Kush, in the Fertile African Crescent and were related to the C-Group people who founded the Kerma dynasty in the 3rd millennium B.C. (Lal 1963) The Dravidians used a common black-and-red pottery, which spread from Nubia, through modern Ethiopia, Arabia, Iran into India as a result of the Proto-Saharan dispersal.


B.B. Lal (1963) a leading Indian archaeologist in India has observed that the black and red ware (BRW) dating to the Kerma dynasty of Nubia, is related to the Dravidian megalithic pottery. Singh (1982) believes that this pottery radiated from Nubia to India. This pottery along with wavy-line pottery is associated with the Saharo-Sudanese pottery tradition of ancient Africa .


Aravaanan (1980) has written extensively on the African and Dravidian relations. He has illustrated that the Africans and Dravidian share many physical similarities including the dolichocephalic indexes (Aravaanan 1980,pp.62-263; Raceand History.com,2006), platyrrhine nasal index (Aravaanan 1980,pp.25-27), stature (31-32) and blood type (Aravaanan 1980,34-35; RaceandHistory.com,2006). Aravaanan (1980,p.40) also presented much evidence for analogous African and Dravidian cultural features including the chipping of incisor teeth and the use of the lost wax process to make bronze works of arts (Aravaanan 1980,p.41).

There are also similarities between the Dravidian and African religions. For example, both groups held a common interest in the cult of the Serpent and believed in a Supreme God, who lived in a place of peace and tranquility ( Thundy, p.87; J.T. Cornelius,"Are Dravidians Dynastic Egyptians", Trans. of the Archaeological Society of South India 1951-1957, pp.90-117; and U.P. Upadhyaya, "Dravidian and Negro-African", International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 5, no.1
) .

There are also affinities between the names of many gods including Amun/Amma and Murugan . Murugan the Dravidian god of the mountains parallels a common god in East Africa worshipped by 25 ethnic groups called Murungu, the god who resides in the mountains .


There is physical evidence which suggest an African origin for the Dravidians. The Dravidians live in South India. The Dravidian ethnic group includes the Tamil, Kurukh,Malayalam, Kananda (Kanarese), Tulu, Telugu and etc. Some researchers due to the genetic relationship between the Dravidians and Niger-Congo speaking groups they call the Indians the Sudroid (Indo-African) Race (RaceandHistory,2006).

Dravidian languages are predominately spoken in southern India and Sri Lanka. There are around 125 million Dravidian speakers. These languages are genetically related to African languages. The Dravidians are remnants of the ancient Black population who occupied most of ancient Asia and Europe.

Linguistic Evidence

1.1 Many scholars have recognized the linguistic unity of Black African (BA) and Dravidian (Dr.) languages. These affinities are found not only in the modern African languages but also that of ancient Egypt. These scholars have made it clear that lexical, morphological and phonetic unity exist between African languages in West and North Africa as well as the Bantu group.

1.2 K.P. Arvaanan (1976) has noted that there are ten common elements shared by BA languages and the Dr. group. They are (1) simple set of five basic vowels with short-long consonants;(2) vowel harmony; (3) absence of initial clusters of consonants; (4) abundance of geminated consonants; (5) distinction of inclusive and exclusive pronouns in first person plural; (6) absence of degrees of comparison for adjectives and adverbs as distinct morphological categories; (7) consonant alternation on nominal increments noticed by different classes; (8)distinction of completed action among verbal paradigms as against specific tense distinction;(9) two separate sets of paradigms for declarative and negative forms of verbs; and (l0) use of reduplication for emphasis.

1.3 There has been a long development in the recognition of the linguistic unity of African and Dravidian languages. The first scholar to document this fact was the French linguist L. Homburger (1950,1951,1957,1964). Prof. Homburger who is best known for her research into African languages was convinced that the Dravidian languages explained the morphology of the Senegalese group particularly the Serere, Fulani group. She was also convinced that the kinship existed between Kannanda and the Bantu languages, and Telugu and the Mande group. Dr. L. Homburger is credited with the discovery for the first time of phonetic, morphological and lexical parallels between Bantu and Dravidians

1.6 By the 1970's numerous scholars had moved their investigation into links between Dr. and BA languages on into the Senegambia region. Such scholars as Cheikh T. N'Diaye (1972) a Senegalese linguist, and U.P. Upadhyaya (1973) of India , have proved conclusively Dr. Homburger's theory of unity between the Dravidian and the Senegalese languages.

1.7 C.T. N'Diaye, who studied Tamil in India, has identified nearly 500 cognates of Dravidian and the Senegalese languages. Upadhyaya (1973) after field work in Senegal discovered around 509 Dravidian and Senegambian words that show full or slight correspondence.

1.8 As a result of the linguistic evidence the Congolese linguist Th. Obenga suggested that there was an Indo-African group of related languages. To prove this point we will discuss the numerous examples of phonetic, morphological and lexical parallels between the Dravidian group: Tamil (Ta.), Malayalam (Mal.), Kannanda/Kanarese (Ka.), Tulu (Tu.), Kui-Gondi, Telugu (Tel.) and Brahui; and Black African languages: Manding (Man.),Egyptian (E.), and Senegalese (Sn.)
_________________________________________________________________

code:

---

COMMON INDO-AFRICAN TERMS

ENGLISH    DRAVIDIAN      SENEGALESE        MANDING
MOTHER        AMMA          AMA,MEEN          MA
FATHER    APPAN,ABBA       AMPA,BAABA         BA
PREGNANCY   BASARU          BIIR              BARA
SKIN          URI          NGURU,GURI         GURU
BLOOD       NETTARU         DERET             DYERI
KING       MANNAN          MAANSA,OMAAD        MANSA
GRAND      BIIRA           BUUR                BA
SALIVA     TUPPAL          TUUDDE              TU
CULTIVATE  BEY            ,MBEY            BE
BOAT       KULAM           GAAL                KULU
FEATHER    SOOGE           SIIGE               SI, SIGI
MOUNTAIN    KUNRU          TUUD                KURU
ROCK       KALLU           XEER                KULU
STREAM     KOLLI           KAL                 KOLI

---

6.1 Dravidian and Senegalese. Cheikh T. N'Diaye (1972) and U.P. Upadhyaya (1976) have firmly established the linguistic unity of the Dravidian and Senegalese languages. They present grammatical, morphological, phonetic and lexical parallels to prove their point.

6.2 In the Dravidian and Senegalese languages there is a tendency for the appearance of open syllables and the avoidance of non-identical consonant clusters. Accent is usually found on the initial syllable of a word in both these groups. Upadhyaya (1976) has recognized that there are many medial geminated consonants in Dravidian and Senegalese. Due to their preference for open syllables final consonants are rare in these languages.

6.3 There are numerous parallel participle and abstract noun suffixes in Dravidian and Senegalese. For example, the past participle in Fulani (F) -o, and oowo the agent formative, corresponds to Dravidian -a, -aya, e.g., F. windudo 'written', windoowo 'writer'.

6.4 The Wolof (W) -aay and Dyolo ay , abstract noun formative corresponds to Dravidian ay, W. baax 'good', baaxaay
'goodness'; Dr. apala 'friend', bapalay 'friendship'; Dr. hiri
'big', hirime 'greatness', and nal 'good', nanmay 'goodness'.

6.5 There is also analogy in the Wolof abstract noun formative suffix -it, -itt, and Dravidian ita, ta, e.g., W. dog 'to cut', dogit 'sharpness'; Dr. hari 'to cut', hanita 'sharp-ness'.

6.6 The Dravidian and Senegalese languages use reduplication of the bases to emphasize or modify the sense of the word, e.g., D. fan 'more', fanfan 'very much'; Dr. beega 'quick', beega 'very quick'.


6.7 Dravidian and Senegalese cognates.

code:

---

English                Senegalese            Dravidian
body                   W. yaram                 uru
head                   D. fuko,xoox              kukk
hair                   W. kawar                 kavaram 'shoot'
eye                    D. kil                   kan, khan
mouth                  D. butum                 baayi, vaay
lip                    W. tun,F. tondu          tuti
heart                  W. xol,S. xoor           karalu
pup                    W. kuti                  kutti
sheep                  W. xar                   'ram'
cow                    W. nag                   naku
hoe                    W. konki                
bronze                 W. xanjar                xancara
blacksmith             W. kamara               
skin                      dol                   tool
mother                 W. yaay                   aayi
child                  D. kunil                  kunnu, kuuci
ghee                     o-new                   ney

---

Above we provided linguistic examples from many different African Supersets (Families) including the Mande and Niger-Congo groups to prove the analogy between Dravidian and Black African languages. The evidence is clear that the Dravidian and Black African languages should be classed in a family called Indo-African as suggested by Th. Obenga. This data further supports the archaeological evidence accumulated by Dr. B.B Lal (1963) which proved that the Dravidians originated in the Fertile African Crescent.


In conclusion, Diop has done much to encourage the African recovery of their history. His theories on linguistics has inspired many African scholars to explain and elaborate the African role in the history of Africa and the world. This has made his work important to our understanding of the role of Black people in History.

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

C.Ehret: Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary (UC Publications in Linguistics) - 575 pages

C.Ehret: The historical reconstruction of Southern Cushitic phonology and vocabulary (Kolner Beitrage zur Afrikanistik) - 407 pages

C.Ehret: A Historical-Comparative Reconstruction of Nilo-Saharan (SUGIA Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika Supplements vol. 12) - 680 pages

Orel & Stolbova: Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary: Materials for a Reconstruction (Handbook of Oriental Studies/Handbuch Der Orientalistik) - 578 pages [this is not a reconstruction however]

C.Diop: Parenté génétique de l'égyptien pharaonique et des langues négro-africaines: processus de sémitisation - 402 pages

T.Obenga: Origine commune de l'egyptien ancien, du copte et des langues negro-africaines modernes: Introduction a la linguistique historique africaine - 401 pages

J.Mboli: Origine des langues africaines - 631 pages

C.A. Winters: Before Egypt: The Maa Confederation, Africa's First Civilization - 146 pages

C.A. Winters: Egyptian Language: The Mountains of the Moon , Niger-Congo Speakers and the Origin of Egypt - 184 pages

---

Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:


@ Amun-Ra, for a brief introduction on the comparative method and reconstructions, I encourage you to review this pdf: http://people.du.ac.in/~pkdas/hcl/cmd.pdf

Review this also: http://cocosci.berkeley.edu/tom/papers/diachronicNAACL.pdf

---

Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Table des matières
Avant-propos....................................................................................... 13

PREMIÈRE PARTIE : 17
Chapitre premier. Introduction générale ......................................... 19
Chapitre II. Présentation et critique des documents antérieurs .... 25
II.1 La période pré-greenbergienne ...................................................... 19
II.2 Greenberg et la comparaison de masse .......................................... 28
II.2.1 La famille Niger-Kordofan........................................................ 33
II.2.2 La famille afro-asiatique............................................................ 35
II.2.3 La famille khoi-san.................................................................... 37
II.2.4 La famille nilo-saharien............................................................. 39
II.3 Le serpent de mer chamito-sémitique ............................................ 40
II.3.1 De Marcel Cohen à David Cohen ............................................. 41
II.3.3 Les causes historico-linguistiques de l'illusion chamitosémitique……………………………………………………...
65
II.4 La période post-greenbergienne ou l'impasse africaniste............... 68
II.5 L'entrée en scène des Africains……….......................................... 78
Chapitre III. Méthode comparative et langues africaines………... 87
III.1 La méthode comparative et son emploi........................................ 88
III.2 Caractéristiques générales des langues africaines ........................ 92
III.3 Conditions d'application de la méthode comparative en
Afrique..........................................................................................
94
III.3.1 Emploi exclusif des seuls faits réellement attestés................... 95
III.3.2 Exclusion de tout élément dont l'étymologie ne peut être

établie à partir de la langue à laquelle il appartient................. 95
III.3.3 Étude approfondie de toutes les formes d'une racine............... 98

DEUXIÈME PARTIE : 101
Chapitre IV. Les langues de la comparaison.................................... 103
IV.1 Le moyen égyptien........................................................................ 104
IV.2 Le copte......................................................................................... 109
IV.2.1 Le système consonantique........................................................ 111
IV.2.2 Le système vocalique............................................................... 113
IV.2.3 La syllabe et l'accent tonique................................................... 114
IV.3 Le sango........................................................................................ 115
IV.3.1 Le système consonantique........................................................ 116
IV.3.2 Le système vocalique............................................................... 120
IV.3.3 Les
tons........................................................................................................
121
IV.3.4 La syllabe................................................................................. 122
IV.4 Le zandé........................................................................................ 123
IV.4.1 Le système consonantique....................................................... 124
IV.4.2 Le système vocalique............................................................... 125
IV.4.3 Les tons et l'accent................................................................... 126
IV.4.4 La syllabe................................................................................. 126
IV.5 Le hausa........................................................................................ 127
IV.5.1 Le système consonantique....................................................... 128
IV.5.2 Le système vocalique et les tons.............................................. 130
IV.5.3 Les syllabes.............................................................................. 130
IV.6 Le somali....................................................................................... 130
IV.6.1 Le système consonantique....................................................... 132
IV.6.2 Le système vocalique et la syllabe........................................... 134
IV.6.3 Le ton et l'accent...................................................................... 135
IV.7 Comparaison préliminaire des systèmes phonologiques............... 135
IV.7.1 Introduction.............................................................................. 135
IV.7.2 Comparaison des systèmes consonantiques…………………. 136
IV.7.3 Comparaison des systèmes vocaliques..................................... 138

IV.7.4 Comparaison des systèmes tonals............................................ 139
IV.7.5 Comparaison des systèmes d'accent......................................... 140
Chapitre V. Correspondances phonétiques...................................... 141
V.1 Liste des correspondances lexicales............................................... 142
V.2 Lois de correspondances phonétiques et reconstruction
phonologique................................................................................
218
V.2.1 L'occlusive bilabiale sourde labiovélarisée……………........... 219
V.2.2 L'occlusive labiovélaire sourde................................................. 220
V.2.3 L'occlusive vélaire sourde......................................................... 225
V.2.4 La fricative glottale sourde........................................................ 227
V.2.5 La fricative vélaire sourde......................................................... 228
V.2.6 La fricative labiovélaire sourde................................................. 230
V.2.7 L'occlusive alvéolaire sourde.................................................... 232
V.2.8 L'occlusive labioalvéolaire sourde............................................ 233
V.2.9 La fricative alvéolaire sourde.................................................... 235
V.2.10 La fricative labioalvéolaire sourde.......................................... 236
V.2.11 La vibrante uvulaire nasalisée................................................. 238
V.2.12 La vibrante labio-uvulaire nasalisée........................................ 241
V.2.13 La vibrante apico-alvéolaire nasalisée.................................... 242
V.2.14 La nasale apico-alvéolaire....................................................... 245
V.2.15 La nasale labioalvéolaire......................................................... 247
V.2.16 La nasale vélaire...................................................................... 248
V.2.17 La nasale labiovélaire.............................................................. 249
V.2.18 L'occlusive bilabiale sonore.................................................... 251
V.2.19 L'occlusive bilabiale sonore labiovélarisée ………………… 252
V.2.20 L'occlusive vélaire sourde aspirée........................................... 253
V.2.21 L'occlusive labiovélaire sourde aspirée................................... 255
V.2.22 L'occlusive alvéolaire sourde aspirée...................................... 256
V.2.23 L'occlusive labioalvéolaire sourde aspirée………………….. 256
V.2.24 L'occlusive bilabiale sourde aspirée........................................ 257
V.3 Phonologie négro-égyptienne........................................................ 258
V.3.1 Le système consonantique......................................................... 258
V.3.2 Le système vocalique................................................................ 261
V.3.3 Les formes reconstruites de quelques racines négroégyptiennes...............................................................................
262
V.3.4 Le système phonologique du moyen égyptien ….…………… 267
V.3.5 Les tons du sango...................................................................... 272

V.3.6 Classification provisoire des 6 langues..................................... 273
Chapitre VI. Correspondances morphologiques …………………. 277
VI.1 Formation des noms des parties du corps..................................... 277
VI.2 Formation des noms de lieu et d'abstraits………...…………….. 281
VI.2.1 Formation suffixale.................................................................. 281
VI.2.2 Formation préfixale.................................................................. 282
VI.3 Formation des noms de liquides et d'objets nondénombrables...............................................................................
286
VI.4 Formation des noms d'agents........................................................ 287
VI.4.1 Préfixe d'agent.......................................................................... 287
VI.4.2 Suffixe d'agent......................................................................... 291
VI.5 Le genre......................................................................................... 293
VI.5.1 Le féminin................................................................................ 294
VI.5.2 Le masculin.............................................................................. 299
VI.6 Le nombre..................................................................................... 302
VI.6.1 Le pluriel.................................................................................. 302
VI.6.2 Le duel...................................................................................... 309
VI.7 Le système de numération............................................................. 312
VI.7.1 Les nombres cardinaux............................................................ 312
VI.7.2 Les nombres ordinaux.............................................................. 318
VI.8 Les particules de liaison................................................................ 319
VI.8.1 Particule exprimant la notion de « en direction de »................ 319
VI.8.2 Particule exprimant la notion de « sur, au-dessus »................. 320
VI.8.3 Particule exprimant la notion de « autour, proche de, contre » 320
VI.8.4 Particule exprimant la notion de « derrière, après »................. 320
VI.8.5 Particule exprimant la notion de « à l'intérieur de »................ 321
VI.8.6 Particule exprimant la notion de « en compagnie de, avec »... 322
VI.8.7 Morphologie des prépositions en négro-égyptien.................... 322
VI.8.8 Constructions du génitif en négro-égyptien............................. 323
VI.9 Les pronoms démonstratifs........................................................... 326

VI.10 Les particules interrogatives....................................................... 327
VI.11 Les pronoms personnels.............................................................. 328
VI.11.1 Pronoms personnels M-E....................................................... 329
VI.11.2 Pronoms personnels coptes.................................................... 331
VI.11.3 Pronoms personnels sango..................................................... 331
VI.11.4 Pronoms personnels zandé..................................................... 332
VI.11.5 Pronoms personnels hausa..................................................... 334
VI.11.6 Pronoms personnels somali.................................................... 335
VI.11.7 Reconstruction du paradigme des pronoms personnels
négro-égyptiens....................................................................
336
VI.12 Le verbe et la conjugaison........................................................... 342
VI.12.1 Forme supplétive du verbe « donner, prendre »..................... 342
VI.12.2 Formation du causatif............................................................. 344
VI.12.3 Formation de l'infinitif........................................................... 347
VI.12.4 Formation du nom verbal....................................................... 350
VI.12.5 Formation de l'accompli......................................................... 352
VI.12.6 Formation du participe........................................................... 353
VI.12.7 Formation du fréquentatif...................................................... 358
VI.13 Les morphèmes de la négation.................................................... 360
VI.14 Évolution grammaticale du négro-égyptien…………………… 361
VI.14.1 Grammaire du négro-égyptien archaïque ………………….. 362
VI.14.2 Grammaire du négro-égyptien pré-classique………………. 365
VI.14.3 Grammaire du négro-égyptien classique…………………… 367
VI.14.4 Grammaire du négro-égyptien post-classique........................ 370
Chapitre VII. Correspondances lexicologiques…………………… 373
VII.1 Reconstruction du vocabulaire de base du négro-égyptien......... 373
VII.1.1 Parties du corps, liquides et sécrétions corporelles................. 374
VII.1.2 Actions, concepts et objets liés aux parties du corps.............. 375
VII.1.3 Reconstruction interne des racines des noms des parties du
corps......................................................................................
377
VII.1.4 Environnement et éléments physiques, et actions associées... 383
VII.1.5 Faune....................................................................................... 388
VII.1.6 Famille et société.................................................................... 394
VII.1.7 Économie................................................................................ 399
VII.1.8 Temps..................................................................................... 400
10
VII.1.9 Morale et spiritualité............................................................... 402
VII.2 Reconstruction de la culture négro-égyptienne archaïque........... 407
VII.2.1 Première phase........................................................................ 408
VII.2.2 Deuxième phase...................................................................... 409
VII.2.3 Troisième phase...................................................................... 412
VII.3 Variétés linguistiques négro-égyptiennes.................................... 417
VII.3.1 Phonologie de la phase II........................................................ 419
VII.3.2 Langues kweke et langues kekwe........................................... 423
VII.3.3 Langues cwike et langues cikwe............................................. 428
VII.3.4 Classification finale du négro-égyptien.................................. 439
VII.4 Conclusion................................................................................... 445

TROISIÈME PARTIE : 449
Chapitre VIII. Nouvelles langues négro-égyptiennes....................... 451
VIII.1 Correspondances phonétiques.................................................... 453
VIII.1.1 Les données de la comparaison……………………………. 453
VIII.1.2 Analyse et reconstruction...................................................... 459
VIII.1.3 Reconstruction lexicologique des éléments de la liste.......... 461
VIII.2 Correspondances morphologiques.............................................. 463
VIII.2.1 Affixe des noms des parties du corps……………………… 463
VIII.2.2 Affixe d'agent (animé)........................................................... 464
VIII.2.3 Suffixe du féminin................................................................. 466
VIII.2.4 Suffixe du masculin............................................................... 466
VIII.2.5 Suffixe du pluriel................................................................... 467
VIII.2.6 Préfixe d'abstraits.................................................................. 474
VIII.2.7 Morphèmes de l'infinitif........................................................ 474
VIII.2.8 Suffixe de l'accompli............................................................. 475
VIII.2.9 Suffixe du causatif................................................................. 475
VIII.3 Classification généalogique des 13 langues comparées............. 476
VIII.4 Détermination du foyer d'origine du négro-égyptien postclassique....................................................................................
480
VIII.5 Conséquences linguistiques et historique……………………... 481
VIII.5.1 Ce que dit la linguistique sur l'origine ethnique des
Égyptiens anciens.................................................................
481
VIII.5.2 Phonologie et grammaire du proto-bantu………………..… 482
VIII.6 Conclusion.................................................................................. 497
Chapitre IX. Problèmes de contacts.................................................. 517
IX.1 Le sémitique.................................................................................. 518
IX.1.1 Méthodologie........................................................................... 518
IX.1.2 Phonétique
comparée...............................................................................................
519
IX.1.3 Grammaire comparée............................................................... 523
IX.1.4 Vocabulaire comparé............................................................... 530
IX.2 L'indo-européen............................................................................ 540
IX.2.1 Méthodologie........................................................................... 540
IX.2.2 Phonétique comparée............................................................... 540
IX.2.3 Grammaire comparée............................................................... 569
IX.2.4 Lexique PIE d'origine négro-égyptienne…………………….. 588
IX.2.5 Foyer d'origine du PIE............................................................. 598
Chapitre X. Conclusion générale....................................................... 607
X.1 Non-arbitrarité du signe linguistique.............................................. 609
X.2 Sémantaxe, preuve ultime de parenté génétique............................ 611
X.3 Lien entre langue et pensée............................................................ 613
X.4 Possibilité de déchiffrement du méroïtique.................................... 614
Bibliographie........................................................................................ 623

---

quote:

---

Proto-Niger-Congo
Proto-Mande-Atlantic-Congo
Proto-Ijo-Congo
Proto-Dogon-Congo
Proto-Volto-Congo
Proto-Benue-Congo
East Benue-Congo
Bantoid-Cross
Bantoid
Bantu

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:


@ Amun-Ra, for a brief introduction on the comparative method and reconstructions, I encourage you to review this pdf: http://people.du.ac.in/~pkdas/hcl/cmd.pdf

Review this also: http://cocosci.berkeley.edu/tom/papers/diachronicNAACL.pdf

---

I don't want to know about basic comparative methodology. We all agree (beside winters maybe) that with modern representative/descendants of a proto language, or written sources of ancient languages, it's possible to generate a proto form. For example, while difficult (because languages changes a lot with time), it's technically easy to generate proto-Niger-Kordofanian. You just need to compare modern Niger-Kordofanian languages with one another. What did Mboli used as comparison to generate each proto phases of Negro-Egyptian? From reading that text above it seems each phases left traces in modern descendant languages of Negro-Egyptian, but I'm not sure. But then it would mean not all African languages are descendant from post-classical Negro-Egyptian. Anyway, I don't have the book, just trying to understand the fundamental aspect. If I don't his conclusions are no use to me, because I don't even know what he means (does he means (almost) all African languages are descendant of post-classical or that all African languages are descendant of the different phases of Negro-Egyptians?)

---

Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
All African languages did not originate in East Africa. These quotes do not support the view they originated in East Africa. The Sudan and Egypt are usually considered part of north Africa--not East Africa.

Also I do not accept the view that there was a Pre-Proto language. Yes, we can reconstruct a proto-language but there is no way to confirm that a proto-language was ever spoken by any population.

.

.

---

Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
With all due respect Dr. Winters, I've read a very good amount of your material. I am not one of those people on this forum to make critiques about something I have not read. And frankly, it is not on the same level and quality as these works under discussion. This is not to take away from your works, but they are not as comprehensive and have explanatory value as these works. And no, having 600 or pages doesn't mean the work is quality. However, when we look at many of the works that have dealt with Proto-Reconstructions of language phylums, we see that there is a great amount of work put into them and there is an average page count that exceeds much of what you have published. For example:

quote:

---

C.Ehret: Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary (UC Publications in Linguistics) - 575 pages

C.Ehret: The historical reconstruction of Southern Cushitic phonology and vocabulary (Kolner Beitrage zur Afrikanistik) - 407 pages

C.Ehret: A Historical-Comparative Reconstruction of Nilo-Saharan (SUGIA Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika Supplements vol. 12) - 680 pages

Orel & Stolbova: Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary: Materials for a Reconstruction (Handbook of Oriental Studies/Handbuch Der Orientalistik) - 578 pages [this is not a reconstruction however]

C.Diop: Parenté génétique de l'égyptien pharaonique et des langues négro-africaines: processus de sémitisation - 402 pages

T.Obenga: Origine commune de l'egyptien ancien, du copte et des langues negro-africaines modernes: Introduction a la linguistique historique africaine - 401 pages

J.Mboli: Origine des langues africaines - 631 pages

C.A. Winters: Before Egypt: The Maa Confederation, Africa's First Civilization - 146 pages

C.A. Winters: Egyptian Language: The Mountains of the Moon , Niger-Congo Speakers and the Origin of Egypt - 184 pages

---

The works cited, save your works, are very comprehensive works. These works are no less than 400 pages of material and analysis. You keep cutting and pasting articles, but these articles are not books employing a rigorous method to reconstruct the languages. You give me articles and those articles end up being summaries and not serious comparative works. I have read these texts cited above and there is a stark distinction between these texts, whatever their strengths and weaknesses, as compared to yours. I know I don't have as much experience in this as of you (in part due to age), but I can recognize a scientific work when I see it and I am very familiar with comparative linguistics and reconstructions.

NO ONE has reconstructed Niger-Congo and if you have, why isn't anyone, including African scholars, citing your reconstructions? What languages did you use to reconstruct Niger-Congo? What is the title of your book where you reconstructed Niger-Congo? I know quality work when I see it. Mboli, Diop and Obenga's works are quality, which is even why White scholars cite and engage their works. There is nothing in the above repasted article that demonstrates that you figured out the sound laws in order to distinguish loans into the area. There is no phonological reconstructions for all the proto-languages involved in this massive "reconstruction" that you claim you did. I can cite work after work of proto-reconstructions of languages, in stages, that do not have writing. I gave you one above and you have not refuted their findings: just cut and pasted old articles and a photoshop redesign of a language chart. Point blank, you haven't read the book so you can't have an opinion on something you have not read. Again, the book is over 600 pages and I don't have time to summarize each and every detail. Read the work. You can't praise Diop and Obenga's works and vilify Mboli, when Mboli is building on and advancing their works. This would be known if one actually read the text.

---

LOL you’re funny. They don’t cite my work the same reason they don’t cite the work of Diop and Obenga. That reason being they don’t want too.

I have read just about every book published on historical and comparative linguistics by Campbell, Bynon, and Hock, to name a few; and Obenga and Diop’s work is never cited. They are not cited in Heine and Nurse, African Languages: An Introduction or Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction. Diop and Obenga are only cited by Afrocentric linguist they taught or who are from the French speaking world. I am the only Afro-American linguist working on Black-African/Negro-Egyptian.


There is little difference between my work and Mboli’s.The major difference is that mine is more representative of the variety of languages spoken in Africa.

Mboli discussed several languages in his study: they were: M-E, Coptic, Sango, Somali, Hausa, and Zande. In my study above, I looked at Oromo,Sumerian, Manding (Malinke-Bambara), Nubian, Wolof, Yoruba ,Agaw, Swahili and Azer. Whereas I provide a representative sample of African languages),from the the three major Negro-Egyptian subgroup Mboli only looked at four so-called Afro-asiatic languages (Coptic,Middle Egyptian, Hausa)and one Niger-Congo language (Zande). The African languages in my study are more representative of Negro-Egyptian than the languages sampled by Mboli.

As I said before just because a work is less than 400-600 pages does not make it a reliable book on historical linguistics. You mention Ehret’s book on Afro-Asiatic as a book you believe is exempliary on historical linguistic. This is untrue. Proto-Afrasian or Proto-Afro-Asiatic is a joke.In many books on Afrasian languages, the proto-terms for this language are primarially semitocentric.

Both Ehret(1995) and Orel/Stolbova have reconstructed Proto-Afrsian. A comparison of the 217 linguistic sets used to demonstrate Proto-Afrasian lexica only 59 agree. Of Ehret's 1011 entries 619 are incompatible with Orel/Stolbova, while only 175 are complimentary. n

Less than 6% of the cognate sets of Ehret were proposed by Orel/Stolbova and only 17% are complimentary. This illustrates the imaginary relationship that exist between the so-called Afrasian languages.






Ehret (1995) and Orel/Stolbova (1995) were attempts at comparing Proto-AfroAsiatic. The most interesting fact about these works is that they produced different results. If AfroAsiatic existed they should have arrived at similar results. The major failur of these works is that there is too much synononymy. For example, the Proto-AfroAsiatic synonym for bird has 52 synonyms this is far too many for a single term and illustrates how the researchers just correlated a number of languages to produce a proto-form.

Radcliffe commenting on these text observed:

quote:

---

Both sources reconstruct lexical relationships in the attested languages as going
back to derivational relationships in the proto-language. (In at least one case OS also
reconstruct a derivational relationship-- an Arabic singular-plural pair qarya(tun), qura(n)--as going back to lexical ones in Proto-Afroasiatic, reconstructions 1568, 1589.) E does this in a thorough-going way and the result is proto-language in which the basic vocabulary consists of a set of polysemous verbal roots with abstract and general meanings, while verbs with more specific meanings, and almost all nouns are derived by suffixation. Further all consonants in this language can serve as suffixes. I would argue that both points are violations of the uniformitarian principle. In general the underived, basic vocabulary of a language and specific and concrete, while abstract words are formed by derivation. Further it is rare for the full consonant inventory of a language to be used in its productive derivational morphology. Finally, given the well-known homorganic cooccurence restrictions on Afroasiatic roots (Greenberg 1950, Bender 1974), each suffix would have to have at least one allomorph at a different point of articulation and a hideously complex system of dissimilation rules would be needed to account for their distribution. E’s justification for this is revealing “With respect to triconsonantal roots in Semitic, a[n] ... explanation of the third consonant as lexicalized pre-proto-Semitic suffixal morphemes has now been put forward (Ehret 1989).... It has been applied here without apology because, quite simply it works.” This is the worst possible argument in favor of the hypothesis. As the above calculations have shown, such a procedure should indeed work quite well as a way of generating random noise.

http://www.tufs.ac.jp/ts/personal/ratcliffe/comp%20&%20method-Ratcliffe.pdf




Reference:

Ehret,C. 1995. Reconstructing Proto-Afro-Asiatic.


Orel, Vladimir and Olga V. Stolbova. 1995. Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary: Materials for a reconstruction. E.J. Brill. Leiden.
.

---

quote:

---

VI.14 Évolution grammaticale du négro-égyptien…………………… 361
VI.14.1 Grammaire du négro-égyptien archaïque ………………….. 362
VI.14.2 Grammaire du négro-égyptien pré-classique………………. 365
VI.14.3 Grammaire du négro-égyptien classique…………………… 367
VI.14.4 Grammaire du négro-égyptien post-classique........................ 370

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
As we can see here, this is not a half-hazard work that was just thrown together. You can follow his method. But it will be meaningless unless you understand what is going on, thus why I gave you the link. Of course we compare modern languages. But if you don't understand that some modern languages hold on to archaic features which are reconstructable to different stages of the proto-language (phylum), and that sub-groups can innovate features, then nothing I will say to you will make sense. For example, as discussed by Mboli, Bantu is the latest stage of Negro-Egyptian in terms of innovations. Obviously Proto-Bantu is a different stage of its development. Egyptian and pre-proto-bantu are one stage. This is also the argument, independent of Mboli, by Dr. Mubabinge Bilolo (linguist, egyptologist, philosopher, bantuologist).

---

quote:

---

Proto-Benue-Congo is a PRE-PROTO-BANTU. It is a stage RIGHT BEFORE PROTO-BANTU. Any person arguing otherwise is not serious. These proposed reconstructions were not developed because we had written texts to confirm them. If texts were the criteria, there would be no such thing as historical comparative linguistics outside of Indo-European.

---

Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
I can cite work after work of proto-reconstructions of languages, in stages, that do not have writing.

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clyde Winters:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
I can cite work after work of proto-reconstructions of languages, in stages, that do not have writing.

---

Please cite the works where proto-languages are explained without verification using a documented writtent language. In the case of I-E , they usually use Hittite to support theories relating to ancient I-E, phonology and morphology, because Hittite is the oldest attested I-E language.

.

---

Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clyde Winters:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
I can cite work after work of proto-reconstructions of languages, in stages, that do not have writing.

---

Please cite the works where proto-languages are explained without verification using a documented writtent language. In the case of I-E , they usually use Hittite to support theories relating to ancient I-E, phonology and morphology, because Hittite is the oldest attested I-E language.

.

---

By written languages you mean both modern descendant languages (like Zulu, Shona, Yoruba, Wolof) and dead languages like Ancient Egyptians?

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clyde Winters:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
Please cite the works where proto-languages are explained without verification using a documented writtent language. In the case of I-E , they usually use Hittite to support theories relating to ancient I-E, phonology and morphology, because Hittite is the oldest attested I-E language.

.

---

By written languages you mean both modern descendant languages (like Zulu, Shona, Yoruba, Wolof) and dead languages like Ancient Egyptians?

---

No. Please provide the textual evidence--documents written in Wolof and etc., that date back to Middle Egyptian or even Coptic times that can support a claim of Classic and etc., Negro-egyptian grammar.You need textual material to support theorized ancient grammatical forms. This is why many of the reconstruction proposed by Saussure of Proto-Indo European were not empirically confirmed until the discovery of Hittite.

.

---

Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

What Mboli does is equivalent to say there's many phases within proto-Niger-Congo or proto-indo-european even if all modern representatives are descendant from the latest phase.

---

Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
There is a difference between "seeming highly speculative" and being highly speculative.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:

quote:

---

What Mboli does is equivalent to say there's many phases within proto-Niger-Congo or proto-indo-european even if all modern representatives are descendant from the latest phase.

---

What descendants of the "last phase" are you talking about?

---

Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
.

Again, here is your test, and only address this issue here, from Heine & Nurse (2000: 18), the following phases of Niger-Congo are given:

Proto-Niger-Congo
Proto-Mande-Atlantic-Congo
Proto-Ijo-Congo
Proto-Dogon-Congo
Proto-Volto-Congo
Proto-Benue-Congo
East Benue-Congo
Bantoid-Cross
Bantoid
Bantu

Using your logic, tell us why Mboli cannot have 4 phases of Negro-Egyptian, but these authors can have at least 10 phases of Niger-Congo leading up to the Bantu languages? What is the difference between Negro-Egyptian-Post-Classic, and Proto-Ijo-Congo, for example? Don't let labels fool you. If you knew historical linguistics, you would not get fooled by labels. What is the difference. And for the record, again, Negro-Egyptian-Post-Classic is a reconstructed stage, just like Proto-Dogon-Congo, for example. I await.

---

Asar you don’t understand basic linguistic concepts. It is obvious you don’t understand what equals a language family and a language family tree in relation to linguistic. A language family is a group of languages derived from the same parent language. A family tree, or pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. Thusly, Negro-Egyptian would be the parent language; and Niger-Congo is just one of the language families that form a branch on the Negro-Egyptian family tree. Mboli, is not talking about branches on a family tree. He is talking about stages or phases he claims exist in Negro-Egyptian.


Asar now I understand why you believe there are stages in Niger-Congo. You have mixed up the branches associated with the Niger-Congo family tree of languages, with the idea that they represent stages or phases in Niger-Congo, instead of just branches assocated with a language family tree.

These Proto-Languages are not stages in Niger-Congo, they are just Proto-languages belonging to the language-branches that make up the Niger-Congo family tree.The figure on page 18 is the language family tree model for Niger-Congo.

It is clear you don't understand the idea of language family within a family tree, and why we reconstruct proto-languages relating to the language families in the Niger-Congo family tree. As a result I will repeat the following.

You do not create a "hierarchy of Proto-languages" in Historical linguistics, you reconstruct the Proto-Language of the the Super-Language Family and the proto-language of the subgroups or branches in the family tree.

In Historical linguistics the goals of comparative and internal reconstruction differ. Comparative reconstruction seeks to recover the prehistoric linguistics elements of a language or group of languages and establish a genetic relationship between or among language speakers. Linguistic reconstruction is used to establish specific relationships between and among language speakers.

Internal Reconstruction is used to compare languages with corresponding forms--that must be attested by a review of earlier stages of a language documented in text. Having text of earlier stages of a language for comparative purposes provides credibility to the methods used in internal reconstructions. Thisn is why many of the reconstruction proposed by Saussure of Proto-Indo European were not empirically confirmed until the discovery of Hittite.

To confirm a genetic relationship you must reconstruct the proto-language. A proto-language is a term used to refer to the earliest form of a language established by means of the comparative method of reconstruction.





Reconstruction of the proto-language allows us to discover the superordinate proto-language (SPL) which represents the 'mother language'of a Super Family of languages. It can also lead to the establishment of reconstructed descendant languages closely related to one-another that form a subgroup in the Super Family of languages like Proto-Indo-European, which would represent a intermediate proto-language (IPL).




As a result, we can reconstruct the Proto-language of the Super Family: Negro/Black African-Egyptian (BAE) the SPL, while reconstructing the proto-language of the the languages in each subgroup, e.g., Mande, which includes a variety of dialects and represent the IPLs. But neither Proto-Bantu or Proto-Mande forms any sort of hierarchy for BAE, the Mande and Bantu language families are simply sub-groups in the much larger BAE Super Family of African languages.

.

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:


The reason I talked about the African school and the citations is because they are on your side. Yet, neither Obenga, Lam, Anselin, Ndigi, Ndiaye, Bilolo, Oduyoye, Ngom, and others are not citing and defending your work on your reconstructions and decipherment. Surely, these from the African school, who certainly cite each other as well as other Black historians, would not have a bias against your work. You can't say that the White man has them confused. Again, I mean no disrespect, but when I see a these works by these men, I see great works that are rigorous. Not only that, White historians and linguists, who are not a part of the African school, are citing these historians (e.g., GJK Campbell-Dunn, Martin Bernal, Josep Cervelló Autuori, etc.). I'm sorry, but your critiques are invalid without a review of the literature and even then, your prior works wouldn't compare to his primarily because you try to argue from phylums and trees that don't exist and which you cannot establish via the comparative method.

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
I never said one couldn't establish trees using the comparative method. I said YOU haven't established trees using the comparative method. I have repeated again and again the issue and you are consciously trying to ignore it. What Mboli, I and others are saying is that Khoisan, Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Afro-Asiatic are NOT genetic phylums based on the comparative method. If so, please provide me with one such study that did the painstaking work of reconstructing the proto-language of any of these groups? You already don't believe AA is not a phylum, thus not proved. This based on the work of Obenga who argues that AA has not been constructed (at least in the years 92/93 when he published his work). By that logic, neither has NC and since NC has not been reconstructed, you can't argue it exists. You can't have it both ways. Not all African languages outside of Berber and Khoisan belong to Negro-Egyptian. You don't assume, you prove it and you show the characteristics for what makes Negro-Egyptian a phylum, then you examine the living languages to see if they meet that criteria. This you have not done and let's not pretend you have.

Again, linguists such as Diop, Bilolo and Oduyoye have dismantled a NC language family by showing the correspondences, morphologically, lexically and grammatically, with Egyptian and Semitic (in the case of Oduyoye). Which means, these languages belong to one phylum. Thus, your NC is out of the window. Yet you stick "Niger-Congo" in Negro-Egyptian and NC does not exist, which shows you have not done the work. I won't debate you on this issue. Do the work comparable to Obenga and Mboli, and then we can compare your method as compared to theirs, which will be judged by the quality of your results and its explanatory power for future studies. Until then, you don't have an opinion on a work you did not examine. Point blank. That's not scientific and we strive to be scientific in our work and with our critiques. Science is about examination and you have not examined this work, which is clear.

---

Niger-Congo languages do exist. Diop and Obenga have never abandoned the idea that Niger-Congo languages Existed. For example Obenga places this group of languages on his family tree for Negro-Egyptian.





Moreover, I have reconstructed the Mande languages which belong to the Niger Congo group and I didn't have to write 300 pages.













As I said before the Niger-Congo group does exist, and we have reconstructed Proto-Languages in the group.

.

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Page 40:
The way the display in Table 4 is to be interpreted, as represented in
Figure 3, is to see each member as representing a branching off from the parent
stock (“Proto-Niger-Congo”).What we see, then, is that “Fula” (Fulfulde) is the
first language to branch off, followed by Diola (“Dyola”) and so on. Note how
the first three branches are all separate Atlantic languages. All three belong to a
proposed single group (Atlantic). It would be expected, then, that the three
would branch off together. They do not because of the cognacy cut-off point of
18%. According to this criterion, no languages can be grouped together that
share less than 18% of their common vocabulary, a disabling blow to the
purported unity of Atlantic (see Section 2.5.2). It is not just within Atlantic that
each language constitutes a separate branch in this treatment, but also outside;
the Nigerian language IÀjoÀ also constitutes its own branch. The nodes in language
classification, then, can represent one or many languages (see p.30 for
further examples).

Page 46:
The next section treats the Atlantic family, a set of languages that perhaps
should not be grouped together at all (Childs 2001c).

Page 47:
West Atlantic…is a very diverse group, containing at least three major subdivisions.
It is possible that some language groups traditionally assigned to West
Atlantic are in fact coordinate branches of Niger-Congo. There is no apparent
common innovation linking West Atlantic, and evaluation of its status must await
further detailed investigation. At present, all that can be said is that the lexicostatistical
distance between branches of West Atlantic is nearly as great as that between
West Atlantic and the remainder of Niger-Congo. (Bennett & Sterk 1977:248)

---

quote:

---

Bantu:
Definitely not a group. This may seem surprising in the light of the
published claims to the contrary, but the argument from comparative
linguistics which links the highly diverse languages of zone A to a
genuine reconstruction is non-existent. Most claimed proto-Bantu is
either confined to particular subgroups, or is widely attested outside
Bantu proper

---

quote:

---

3.1 The Nilo-Saharan languages: phylum or collection of unrelated languages?

---

quote:

---

Joseph Greenberg named the group and argued it was a genetic family in his 1963 book The Languages of Africa. It contains the languages not included in the Niger–Congo, Afroasiatic, or Khoisan families. It has not been demonstrated that the Nilo-Saharan languages constitute a valid genetic grouping, and linguists have generally seen the phylum as "Greenberg's wastebasket", into which he placed all the otherwise unaffiliated non-click languages of Africa.[1][2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilo-Saharan_languages#cite_note-1

---

quote:

---

"It is obvious that Semitic, Egyptian, and Berber are not genetically linked. The common predialectal ancestor that some want to impose upon these groups of attested languages has never been reconstructed: 'Hamito-Semitic' or 'Afro- Asiatic' is only a fantasy, not a linguistic reconstruction (such as Indo-European or Common Semitic) from evidence of attested languages.

"Hamito-Semitic' or 'Afro-Asiatic' reminds us of another famous scientific swindle, but this time in archeology, the bogus discovery of the alleged remains of prehistoric man, Piltdown Man in 1912."

Obenga, Theophile.
Ancient Egypt and Black Africa. 1992.pg.114

---

Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
SMH, work on Mande is not the reconstruction and setting the criteria for Niger-Congo. As I said, you have not done this work. Neither has Obenga. Obenga is simply using established models, while rejecting Afro-Asiatic. He rejects AA, but ironically keeps Niger-Congo and it has not been established by his own criteria to exist as a phylum. Not even Negro-Egyptian is his. It is Lilius Homburger's classification. Obenga simply groups Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo into one group, but doesn't develop the rules for the inclusion of Negro-Egyptian.

Let's just give a small example of what I mean about the questioning of a few families and phylums.

The following is from C. Tucker Childs _An Introduction to Africa Languages (2003)_

quote:

---

Page 40:
The way the display in Table 4 is to be interpreted, as represented in
Figure 3, is to see each member as representing a branching off from the parent
stock (“Proto-Niger-Congo”).What we see, then, is that “Fula” (Fulfulde) is the
first language to branch off, followed by Diola (“Dyola”) and so on. Note how
the first three branches are all separate Atlantic languages. All three belong to a
proposed single group (Atlantic). It would be expected, then, that the three
would branch off together. They do not because of the cognacy cut-off point of
18%. According to this criterion, no languages can be grouped together that
share less than 18% of their common vocabulary, a disabling blow to the
purported unity of Atlantic (see Section 2.5.2). It is not just within Atlantic that
each language constitutes a separate branch in this treatment, but also outside;
the Nigerian language IÀjoÀ also constitutes its own branch. The nodes in language
classification, then, can represent one or many languages (see p.30 for
further examples).

Page 46:
The next section treats the Atlantic family, a set of languages that perhaps
should not be grouped together at all (Childs 2001c).

Page 47:
West Atlantic…is a very diverse group, containing at least three major subdivisions.
It is possible that some language groups traditionally assigned to West
Atlantic are in fact coordinate branches of Niger-Congo. There is no apparent
common innovation linking West Atlantic, and evaluation of its status must await
further detailed investigation. At present, all that can be said is that the lexicostatistical
distance between branches of West Atlantic is nearly as great as that between
West Atlantic and the remainder of Niger-Congo. (Bennett & Sterk 1977:248)

---

This is just to show, for example, that some groups are grouped together for topological or areal reasons, but are not genetic. The following is from Roger Blench's article "Niger-Congo Classification" concerning Bantu[ http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/Niger-Congo/General/Niger-Congo%20an%20alternative%20view.pdf ]

quote:

---

Bantu:
Definitely not a group. This may seem surprising in the light of the
published claims to the contrary, but the argument from comparative
linguistics which links the highly diverse languages of zone A to a
genuine reconstruction is non-existent. Most claimed proto-Bantu is
either confined to particular subgroups, or is widely attested outside
Bantu proper

---

Let's go back to Heine & Nurse (2000: 43). Why would the author, M. Lionel Bender, start off the article with the subtitle:

quote:

---

3.1 The Nilo-Saharan languages: phylum or collection of unrelated languages?

---

Although Wikipedia is not considered a valid academic source, in this instance it speaks very much to our topic here and is worth examining.

quote:

---

Joseph Greenberg named the group and argued it was a genetic family in his 1963 book The Languages of Africa. It contains the languages not included in the Niger–Congo, Afroasiatic, or Khoisan families. It has not been demonstrated that the Nilo-Saharan languages constitute a valid genetic grouping, and linguists have generally seen the phylum as "Greenberg's wastebasket", into which he placed all the otherwise unaffiliated non-click languages of Africa.[1][2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilo-Saharan_languages#cite_note-1

---

Those two sources cited are:

1) Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco, A Glossary of Historical Linguistics (2007, University of Utah Press)
2) P.H. Matthews, Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics (2007, 2nd edition, Oxford)

It is believed by many in the Linguistic world that Niger-Congo came out of Nilo-Saharan. How could Niger-Congo exist, if Nilo-Saharan doesn't exist and is not a valid classification unto itself? This is what I am addressing, and if I had the time I'd cite more and more issues with these classifications.

Obenga never questioned Niger-Congo or Nilo-Saharan, yet he just blindly dumps these phylums into Negro-Egyptian without first establishing them as valid language phylums. Mboli avoids that mistake by not assuming these phylums actually exist. Those who actually follow the literature on these languages should know this about them.

As noted before, Obenga (1992, 1993) charges Afro-Asiatic as not being valid, in part, because it has not been reconstructed.

quote:

---

"It is obvious that Semitic, Egyptian, and Berber are not genetically linked. The common predialectal ancestor that some want to impose upon these groups of attested languages has never been reconstructed: 'Hamito-Semitic' or 'Afro- Asiatic' is only a fantasy, not a linguistic reconstruction (such as Indo-European or Common Semitic) from evidence of attested languages.

"Hamito-Semitic' or 'Afro-Asiatic' reminds us of another famous scientific swindle, but this time in archeology, the bogus discovery of the alleged remains of prehistoric man, Piltdown Man in 1912."

Obenga, Theophile.
Ancient Egypt and Black Africa. 1992.pg.114

---

If that is the case, Niger-Congo is not valid because it hasn't been reconstructed. And for proof, the people who are working on a reconstruction have a website and have been holding conferences trying to figure how to reconstruct the language:

http://llacan.vjf.cnrs.fr/fichiers/nigercongo/

As of this date, there is NO Proto-Niger-Congo. It is a hypothesis that has not been tested, thus, it is not a valid genetic grouping: it is an idea. You have not reconstructed Niger-Congo and the same criteria that makes Afro-Asiatic invalid, is the same criteria that makes Niger-Congo invalid.

---

Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged |