posted
For a long time, I had assumed that ancient Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic together constituted one linguistic subgroup within Afrasan/Afroasiatic called something like "Northern Afroasiatic" (or "Boreafroasiatic"), as opposed to southern Afrasan languages like Cushitic, Chadic, and Omotic. However, today I had a guy on Anthrogenica.net propose to me, using linguistic comparisons, that Egyptian may not be that close to Berber and Semitic and instead may be closer to Chadic in terms of relatedness. On the other hand, he thinks Berber and Semitic are most closely related to one another and then to Cushitic.
quote:The closer relationship posited by some linguists between Semitic and Egyptian is mostly an illusion based on (1) the wealth of written sources for both branches of AA to the detriment of those attested late in the written record and (2) the geographic proximity and repeated contact between the two. Some linguists (especially from the Muscovite school) have taken a fact-free approach and have drawn conclusions on simple comparisons between Archaic Egyptian and Proto-Semitic, while both are important they do not warrant the exclusion of Proto-Libyco-Berber, Proto-Cushitic, Proto-Omotic and Proto-Chadic. The problem here of course is that the reconstructions for Proto-Cushitic, Proto-Omotic and Proto-Chadic leave much to be desired.
Nevertheless, even with the imperfect state of research (the reconstruction of PAA very much is a work in progress), there are sufficient grounds to dismiss a closer phylogenetic relationship between Semitic and Egyptian within AA. The most important element in my view is that Cushitic, Semitic and Berber share a set of common innovations in their verbal morphology, something which is extremely unlikely to be due to borrowing (and at the same time extremely likely to indicate common descent). The clearest innovation is the presence of personal verbal prefixes to mark finite verbs, the so-called ˀ-t-y-n "block pattern" which is only found in Cushitic, Semitic and Berber.
...
In comparison, Egyptian verbal morphology generally lacks a prefix conjugation (there are traces of one such system with different endings in the oldest stages of the language), the only parallel with Berber and Semitic is to be found in the stative endings which bear a close resemblance to the suffix conjugation in these languages. There is nothing resembling the "block pattern" in Egyptian.
So this common innovation in the verbal system is one of the major elements which enable us to place Cushitic, Semitic and Berber under a single node of Afroasiatic. Within this node, there is a wide array of verbal and lexical isoglosses between Semitic and Berber which suggests a considerably closer relationship to Berber than Cushitic for Semitic, syntactically as well there are many parallels.
As for Egyptian, it seems to be more closely related to Chadic with which it might well derive from a chain of late AA dialects (again going off verbal morphology).
If he has a point, what implications might this have for the dispersal of the various Afrasan languages across time (assuming their point of origin was somewhere within the general area of North or Northeast Africa)?
posted
By the way, this Anthrogenica poster (Agamemnon) seems to be very much in favor of a native African origin for Afrasan. Here's a map he posted for its hypothesized origins along with those of other major African linguistic phyla: (I think "Middle Nile Traditions" corresponds to ancestral Nilo-Saharan).
posted
On less pleasant news, there are rumors about that Agamemnon is the same person as the Semitic Duwa dude from ForumBiodiversity (or ABF). While the latter has been MIA from ABF for a long time, he did have a history of racist posts and picking fights with perceived "Afrocentric" posters who otherwise wouldn't have disagreed too vehemently with him. If they are one and the same, I feel very stupid for ever giving Agamemnon props on anything.
Looks like we may be dealing with a stopped clock being right twice a day here.
posted
Afro-Asiatic originated in Egypt, not in Sub-Saharan Africa. I don't buy it. At best far North Sudan, definitely not Eritrea.
Posts: 23 | From: Ethiopia | Registered: Jul 2019
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quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep: For a long time, I had assumed that ancient Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic together constituted one linguistic subgroup within Afrasan/Afroasiatic called something like "Northern Afroasiatic" (or "Boreafroasiatic"), as opposed to southern Afrasan languages like Cushitic, Chadic, and Omotic. However, today I had a guy on Anthrogenica.net propose to me, using linguistic comparisons, that Egyptian may not be that close to Berber and Semitic and instead may be closer to Chadic in terms of relatedness. On the other hand, he thinks Berber and Semitic are most closely related to one another and then to Cushitic.
The fact is that languages of any given phylum can be grouped or classed in any number of ways depending on a linguistic feature; however such a grouping is not necessarily indicative of the exact nature of genetic relations and/or descent from the ancestral proto-language.
Your long time assumption on AA language grouping is based on the hypothesis espoused by Carleton T. Hodge who majorly divides AA into a northern or "Boreafroasiatic" division and a southern or "Austroafroasiatic" division. Such divisions were based not solely on the geographic distribution of said language groups but primarily the phonetic features that the language groups of each division share. This is actually no different from the major division of Indo-European into a western or "centum" division and an eastern or "satem" division with "centum" and "satem" being common words for the number 100 in the languages of the respective divisions. But the problem again is that phonetics are just one feature of language with many other features to take into account. So in the case of IE languages while Greek is phonetically centum while Persian is satem grammatically Greek has more in common with Persian than with Latin. The same types of arguments can be made with AA languages.
The makes the situation with AA languages more difficult is that unlike IE where a lot more languages have been historically attested, the same can't be said for AA. Most of the AA languages that have been historically attested are Semitic languages of SW Asia and of course Egyptian in Africa but not much else from antiquity. We still don't even know much about the languages of Nubia other than a few glosses here and there from Egyptian texts. So all of this makes reconstruction more problematic since there could be many AA languages that are now lost.
quote: The closer relationship posited by some linguists between Semitic and Egyptian is mostly an illusion based on (1) the wealth of written sources for both branches of AA to the detriment of those attested late in the written record and (2) the geographic proximity and repeated contact between the two. Some linguists (especially from the Muscovite school) have taken a fact-free approach and have drawn conclusions on simple comparisons between Archaic Egyptian and Proto-Semitic, while both are important they do not warrant the exclusion of Proto-Libyco-Berber, Proto-Cushitic, Proto-Omotic and Proto-Chadic. The problem here of course is that the reconstructions for Proto-Cushitic, Proto-Omotic and Proto-Chadic leave much to be desired.
Nevertheless, even with the imperfect state of research (the reconstruction of PAA very much is a work in progress), there are sufficient grounds to dismiss a closer phylogenetic relationship between Semitic and Egyptian within AA. The most important element in my view is that Cushitic, Semitic and Berber share a set of common innovations in their verbal morphology, something which is extremely unlikely to be due to borrowing (and at the same time extremely likely to indicate common descent). The clearest innovation is the presence of personal verbal prefixes to mark finite verbs, the so-called ˀ-t-y-n "block pattern" which is only found in Cushitic, Semitic and Berber.
...
In comparison, Egyptian verbal morphology generally lacks a prefix conjugation (there are traces of one such system with different endings in the oldest stages of the language), the only parallel with Berber and Semitic is to be found in the stative endings which bear a close resemblance to the suffix conjugation in these languages. There is nothing resembling the "block pattern" in Egyptian.
So this common innovation in the verbal system is one of the major elements which enable us to place Cushitic, Semitic and Berber under a single node of Afroasiatic. Within this node, there is a wide array of verbal and lexical isoglosses between Semitic and Berber which suggests a considerably closer relationship to Berber than Cushitic for Semitic, syntactically as well there are many parallels.
As for Egyptian, it seems to be more closely related to Chadic with which it might well derive from a chain of late AA dialects (again going off verbal morphology).
If he has a point, what implications might this have for the dispersal of the various Afrasan languages across time (assuming their point of origin was somewhere within the general area of North or Northeast Africa)?
He does have a point. In fact what he proposes is the grouping that Igor Diakonoff espouses and for the same grammatical reasons! But again there is no definitive way of knowing which grouping is accurate. By the way you can see all the proposed groupings here.
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep: By the way, this Anthrogenica poster (Agamemnon) seems to be very much in favor of a native African origin for Afrasan. Here's a map he posted for its hypothesized origins along with those of other major African linguistic phyla: (I think "Middle Nile Traditions" corresponds to ancestral Nilo-Saharan).
The map above seems to come from Christopher Ehret's 2002 book The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800
-------------------- Mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan. Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep: By the way, this Anthrogenica poster (Agamemnon) seems to be very much in favor of a native African origin for Afrasan. Here's a map he posted for its hypothesized origins along with those of other major African linguistic phyla: (I think "Middle Nile Traditions" corresponds to ancestral Nilo-Saharan).
That map is bullshit! Niger-Congo speakers did not originate in Western Africa. It's so wicked for Western academia, and "supporters" to keep trying to play this game. If the main Y-Chromosome marker originated in the area of Sudanese Nubia proper then doesn't that logically mean that Northeast Africa is the homeland of Niger-Congo speakers as well? Has it not already been demonstrated that the E-M2 marker make it way down the river Nile with the finding of Ramses III and his son?
Anybody going forward with that bullshit is an agent plain and simple.
Nope. Afroasiatic is as much valid a linguistic phylum as is Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European. It has nothing to do with Hamitic hypothesis since all linguistic evidence points to Africa as the origin.
But I take it you are one of those Bantu-Egyptian guys. Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Nope. Afroasiatic is as much valid a linguistic phylum as is Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European.
People have placed doubt on the legitimacy of Indo-European as well.
"Dr. Clyde Winters explanation for all of the conflicting opinions:
It is almost impossible to determine what language the ancient Europeans spoke. This results from the fact that the so-called Indo- Europeans acquired their culture from African people.
The Indo-European languages are a myth. There probably never was a Proto-Indo European people.
The IE languages are united via the Greek language. Researchers declare there was a Proto-European people because the speakers of these languages share terms. This is a false analogy because the relationship between these languages can be explained by the Greek conquest of many parts of Asia and the Roman Empire.
Due to the elite dominance model, many people conquered by the Greeks adopted Greek because it was a language that allowed the conquered people to advance.
The Romans admired the Greeks and incorporated Greek terms in Latin and transferred these terms to the people they conquered. This is why the various languages in Europe and Asia included in the IE languages share affinities. They share affinities because the conquered peoples adopted Greek culture terms so they could progress in a colonial society.
When the Europeans arrived in Europe Africans were already settled in the land. As a result, the poverty-stricken Europeans adopted African terms to describe the new cultural experiences and items they obtained from African people. This is why we don’t know what language Europeans originally spoke.
Dr. Anna Morpurgo Davies, has made it clear that "less than 40% of the words which have an Indo-European etymology". According to Dr. Davies, 52.2 % of the Greek terms in Chantraine's Dictionnaire Etymologique de la langue Grecque (1968) have an unknown etymology. The mixed nature of the Greek language results from the early settlement of the Aegean by Blacks from Africa. Some of these words are of African origin. Robert K.G. Temple, in The Sirius Mystery, shows that many of the most common words of the Greek vocabulary are of Egyptian origin. Diop (1991) has also discussed the Egyptian origin for many Greek terms. This is why Niger-Congo languages are at the base of IE languages."
quote:It has nothing to do with Hamitic hypothesis since all linguistic evidence points to Africa as the origin.
The Hamitic Hypothesis was less emphasized on the "origin" and more so on the premise that a distinct "dark skinned" race from the "negroid" African is the bringer of civilization into Africa. The Afro-Asiatic family completely denies the connection that indigenous North-Eastern African languages have with Niger-Congo and Nilo Saharan, which has been demonstrated the World over since at least the 1970's. The Niger-Congo connection to ancient Egyptian namely is the elephant in the room;
"Pharaonic Egyptian - Wolof; (Wolof meaning)
Aku - Aku : foreigners (Creole descendants of European traders and African wives)
anu - K.enou : pillar
atef - ate : a crown of Osiris, judge of the soul (to judge)
ba - bei : the ram-god (goat)
ben ben - ben ben : overflow, flood
bon - bon : evil
bu - bu : place
bu bon - bu bon : evil place
bu nafret - bu rafet : good place
da - da : child
Djoob - Djob : a surname
fero - fari : king
itef - itef : father
kau - kaou : elevated, above (heaven)
kem -khem : black (burnt, burnt black)
kemat - kematef : end of a period, completion, limit
khekh - khekh : to fight, to wage war, war
kher - ker : country (house)
lebou - Lebou : those at the stream, Lebou/fishermen Senegal
maat - mat : justice
mer - maar : love (passionate love)
mun - won : buttocks
nag - nag : bull (cattle)
nak - nak : ox, bull (cow)
NDam - NDam : throne
neb - ndab : float
nen - nen : place where nothing is done (nothingness)
nit - nit : citizen
Ntr - Twr : protecting god, totem
nwt - nit : fire of heaven (evening light)
o.k. - wah keh : correct, right
onef - onef : he (past tense)
ones - ones : she (past tense)
The fact that this comparison (shortened at that) even exist completely nullifies the notion of Niger-Congo and "Afro-Asiatic languages being distinct. These list are far and wide among Niger-Congo speakers for the most obvious reason.
quote:But I take it you are one of those Bantu-Egyptian guys. [/QB]
BATU, THE BANTU (General Niger-Congo Speakers)
By Ferg Somo
For the first time ever the set of hieroglyphics above leaves an indelible print which traces back the existence of the Bantu people during ancient times in the Sudan and Kemet. The following variations in pronunciation of the word 'Bantu' give an insight on how the word may have been pronounced in different Bantu languages. The list of the various pronunciations was provided by Israel Ntangazwa. Some of the variations in pronunciation are new to me.
SOME VARIATIONS IN PRONUNCIATION OF THE WORD 'BANTU' THE PEOPLE BANTU, BATU, ATHO, WATU, ATU, ACHO, BOT, BANU, BANHU, ADU
The hieroglyphics shown above spells out the word 'BATU' in keeping with the current original word 'BANTU'. The maps shown below trace the possible migrations of the Bantu people. The origin of the Bantu people is a controversial issue and has been deeply debated.
Below is an account which questions present day ideas about the origins of the Bantu people. In his book on the 'Restatement Of Bantu Origin and Meru History' the Kenyan scholar Alfred M M'Imanyara provides the evidence for a southerly migration from Kemet of the Bantu people.
THE NIGER- CONGO HYPOTHESIS
The Niger-Congo hypothesis developed by Joseph Greenberg on Bantu languages state that the Bantu originated in West Africa, the Cameroon, and migrated across the Congo basin into Southern and East Africa.
Guthrie on the other hand did not commit himself but said that the Bantu dispersal lies within an elliptical area towards the centre, in the woodland region of Katanga.
The Niger-Congo hypothesis needs to be re-examined further as one has to take into account oral traditions from groups of present day Kenyan Bantu elders who recall a southerly migration from Kemet.
The following sources of accounts of migrations of some of the Bantu speakers in Kenya are taken from:
i) Kenya an official handbook
ii) Story of Africa from earliest times, Book one, A.J Willis
iii) Longman GHC, E.S Atieno Odhimbo, John N. B. N. I Were
Almost all the Bantu people living in Kenya speak of a migration from up North. The people of Marachi location are known to have come from Elgon although other clans of the same group came from Kemet. They came in canoes on the River Hapi as far as Juja, Uganda and later moved eastward into lake Victoria. They changed course until Asembo and separated with the Luo who walked along the lake shore but the rest crossed into South Nyanza. They then turned northwards and reached Butere and then moved on to Luanda and to Ekhomo. The Luo people were behind them right from Kemet.
The people of Samia location came from Kemet on foot. The Abakhekhe clan too originated from Kemet on foot. The Abachoni clan originally came from Kemet on foot. The people of Bukusu originally came from Kemet in canoes.
Possible migration routes of Bantu from Central Sudan
The Luhya oral literature of origin, suggest a migration into their present-day locations from the north. Virtually all sub-ethnic groups claim to have migrated first south from Misri, or Kemet. In one of the Luhya dialect the word 'Abaluhya' means 'the people of the North', or 'Northerns'
Other sources report that the following Bantu people, the Luhya, Baganda, Nyarwanda, Rundi of Burindi, Kikuyu, and the Zulu all claim a southerly migration from Kemet. Moreover there are many groups of Bantu speakers from Tanzania, Mozambique, Congo, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, who testify a southerly migration from Kemet. There are even groups of people from West Africa who migrated from Kemet into their present day location.
Apart from the oral traditions provided by Bantu elders, the evidence is also based on linguistic, historical, scientific and cultural studies done by Cheikh Anta Diop.
The following maps are taken from Alfred M M'Imanyara 'The Restatement of Bantu Origin and Meru History' published by Longman Kenya,
According to Alfred M M'Imanyra the following maps show the homeland of the original Bantu people in Kemet. This careful information has been derived from traditional sources provided by Bantu elders in the course of his research. I would like to support Alfred M M'Imanyara's work by sharing with him the important discovery of the of hieroglyphics above which mentions a Sudanic town of unknown situation. Clearly the town would have to be named after the people inhabiting the town, the 'BANTU' or the 'BATU', the people.
Original homeland of the Bantu up to 1500 A.D
Dark shading: Possible ultimate origin of the Bantu
Cross shading: Area of Bantu expansion into Kemet
Bantu Migration Routes from Cush and the Island of Meroe
Migration of the Bantu
There's not really much that you can say to refute this....and I can stand on that!
Admin edit: Language...
[ 11. August 2019, 05:22 AM: Message edited by: Askia_The_Great ]
Posts: 15 | From: The Ville | Registered: Aug 2019
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Nope. Afroasiatic is as much valid a linguistic phylum as is Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European. It has nothing to do with Hamitic hypothesis since all linguistic evidence points to Africa as the origin.
But I take it you are one of those Bantu-Egyptian guys.
Those linguistic revisionists get on my nerves, plain and simple. They seem to think that the only way ancient Egyptians could be African is if you could force them into the "Bantu" mold, as if Bantu-speakers were the ideal representatives of African people and cultures. It's not even like Bantu-speakers and their diverse cultural traditions ever represented the entire area south of the Sahara.
quote:Originally posted by Askia_The_Great: @Tunchie
Language... And first warning. Plus your posts belongs in the Deshret section.
Don't do that! Don't play that game of trying to belittle my argument by saying that a legitimate refutation to white academia is not worthy of serious discussion. You all doing the same thing over on Historum (putting threads in the "speculative history" section/but then again same strategy, same plot, same people) and other bio forums. If you all are going to claim that "Afro-Asiatic" is a real language, but run SILENT when real Afrocentric academics completely nullify all of those implications then makes you all a joke. You all are just as silent as the overt white supremacist over on the bio forums when they can't stand up to this truth (to which they normally resort to overt banning or simply never approving one's post). In fact the entire notion of denying other peoples arguments because certain academics can't do anything with it is a logical fallacy "appeal to authority". Egyptsearch used to not be ran like this. If an Afrocentric post something that you didn't agree with or like then you had to obligation to prove him wrong. There was no automatic assumption of right or wrong based on your alignment with western academia, and that's what you new moderators are trying to do here. You all aren't slick, and we over of ESR and a few other forums are very aware of this deception. I notice who all are posting ALL of the threads in this forum now are non black """allies""" and former anti Afrocentric trolls. That is such a declaration of war. Even Brandon who has suddenly become active is complicit in this anti REAL Afrocentrism (call it the Bantu movement for all I care) cover up on ES.
Everyone knows that this forum is no longer ran nor welcoming to real black people, and true Afrocentrism. Everyone knows that these "black allies" are really apart of an agenda to eliminate real Afrocentrism in favor of some "watered down" white academia approved nonsense. It's like "Afrocentrism" that makes swirling whites feel comfortable with those whom they fetishize.
Posts: 15 | From: The Ville | Registered: Aug 2019
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Nope. Afroasiatic is as much valid a linguistic phylum as is Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European. It has nothing to do with Hamitic hypothesis since all linguistic evidence points to Africa as the origin.
But I take it you are one of those Bantu-Egyptian guys.
Those linguistic revisionists get on my nerves, plain and simple.
Firstly YOU are non black, and you are trying to narrate what real Afrocentrism is supposed to be. YOU do this under guise of an "liberal ally", and in doing so you ONLY VERIFY what Malcolm X said about the extreme danger of white liberals.
Revisionist Western academic sympathizers who deny the racial component of every major argument put out there by Western academia aren't exactly the allies of Afrocentrics either.
quote:They seem to think that the only way ancient Egyptians could be African is if you could force them into the "Bantu" mold,
The fact is again that you all are non black, but trying to make the new Hamitic hypothesis (the East African-Cushitic supremacist) the face of raw "Afrocentrism"/empowerment for Africans and diaspora. You try to do this by making argument completely counter to those who originated modern Afrocentrism (i.e C.A. Diop, Obenga, Chancelor Williams, Ivan Van Sertima, John Henrick Clarke etc etc). You all are in cohoots with the white supremacist to suppress real black African history bought to you RAW from these guys and subsequent researchers today.
quote:as if Bantu-speakers were the ideal representatives of African people and cultures. It's not even like Bantu-speakers and their diverse cultural traditions ever represented the entire area south of the Sahara. [/qb]
So you don't have anything to say about the evidence that proves that Bantu and the so called "Afro-Asiatic" Egyptian language are related, and the subsequent proof that the entire grouping of "Afro-Asiatic" is a complete fallacy. Obenga stated bluntly in the video that I posted that Western/white people (YOU) made this up for IDEOLOGICAL PURPOSES. Meaning that it's complete BS. This same AFRICAN linguist DESTROYED Christopher Ehret's argument for Afro-Asiatic so bad in the 90's that Ehret had to concede that while he was too juvenile (or heavily funded) to recant his Afro-Asiatic nonsense that Obenga had above all proved his own respective "Negro-Egyptian" grouping as valid.
To reiterate in order for you all to promote the Western fantasy lie of Afro-Asiatic as a legitimate grouping you all must ignore every forum of bio-cultural evidence. There's NOTHING to respect in that.
ALSO if you're not illiterate then you can clearly READ the article posted by prominent AFRICAN linguist FERG SOMO, PROVES that the BANTU existed in it's context in ancient Kemet with the HIEROGLYPH THAT ACTUALLY READS THE WORD "BANTU". There is NO QUESTION that Bantu was apart of ancient Northeastern Africa, and specifically ancient Kemet. Therefore stop TRYING TO CREATE DOUBT ON THE TRUTH, as that is "WICKED CONVERSATION". But then again that's you all's (non blacks) MO.
Admin: I'm Black, and it's time for you to go in time-out.
[ 11. August 2019, 02:21 PM: Message edited by: Punos_Rey ]
Posts: 15 | From: The Ville | Registered: Aug 2019
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quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep: Those linguistic revisionists get on my nerves, plain and simple. They seem to think that the only way ancient Egyptians could be African is if you could force them into the "Bantu" mold, as if Bantu-speakers were the ideal representatives of African people and cultures. It's not even like Bantu-speakers and their diverse cultural traditions ever represented the entire area south of the Sahara.
Yeah, they rely on and uphold pseudo-scholars like Clyde Winters not realizing that he and their claims are not taken seriously in academia and not just white academia.
Even Cheik Anta Diop who was a revolutionary scholar of his time and one of the forefathers of Afrocentric scholarship acknowledges that all scientific studies including his own are prone to further revision and improvement over time. Diop was right about some things and wrong on other things. Even scholars today acknowledge that Wolof does show signs of influence with Afrasian languages but this due to common glosses. It takes more than common glosses to show genetic relation. Other features like grammar and syntax have to be shown also.
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tunchie: ...I notice who all are posting ALL of the threads in this forum now are non black """allies""" and former anti Afrocentric trolls. That is such a declaration of war. Even Brandon who has suddenly become active is complicit in this anti REAL Afrocentrism (call it the Bantu movement for all I care) cover up on ES..
See, the problem with Afrocentric scholarship is that it has been corrupted by politics, particularly left-wing political rhetoric. I never bought into the neo-Marxist crap like "ally" which is the new euphemism for 'comrade'. I judge Afrocentric scholarship the same way I judge Eurocentric scholarship or Oriental scholarship or any type of scholarship which should be based on facts and evidence. Unfortunately Afrocentric scholarship has (in some cases but not all) degenerated into the same b.s. as Eurocentic white-nationalism. So NO I never considered myself an "ally" to anyone but the truth. If you are butt hurt by this then too bad.
-------------------- Mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan. Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tunchie: ...I notice who all are posting ALL of the threads in this forum now are non black """allies""" and former anti Afrocentric trolls. That is such a declaration of war. Even Brandon who has suddenly become active is complicit in this anti REAL Afrocentrism (call it the Bantu movement for all I care) cover up on ES..
See, the problem with Afrocentric scholarship is that it has been corrupted by politics, particularly left-wing political rhetoric. I never bought into the neo-Marxist crap like "ally" which is the new euphemism for 'comrade'. I judge Afrocentric scholarship the same way I judge Eurocentric scholarship or Oriental scholarship or any type of scholarship which should be based on facts and evidence. Unfortunately Afrocentric scholarship has (in some cases but not all) degenerated into the same b.s. as Eurocentic white-nationalism. So NO I never considered myself an "ally" to anyone but the truth. If you are butt hurt by this then too bad.
I know you've stated you aren't into politics and without sounding cliche, Everything that is political. There are 7.7 billion people on this plan and there's no way we can realistically think uniquely or independently from others without a positive or negative effect so that means we are taught group behavior with the capacity to function without one. The point of my posts is how your comment is confusing because the point of these "centrism" is to conceptualize a groups way of thinking to shape the world they live in. The "Truthfulness " is immaterial if they are functioning in accordance to The problems they are faced with, an example is Afrocentrism today,how is it benefiting African people now? Or how is the corruption of Afrocentrism actually effecting anybody? Because we know the the destruction wrought by Europeans and their thinking style.
Posts: 1123 | From: New York | Registered: Feb 2016
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quote:Originally posted by Thereal: I know you've stated you aren't into politics and without sounding cliche, Everything that is political. There are 7.7 billion people on this plan and there's no way we can realistically think uniquely or independently from others without a positive or negative effect so that means we are taught group behavior with the capacity to function without one. The point of my posts is how your comment is confusing because the point of these "centrism" is to conceptualize a groups way of thinking to shape the world they live in. The "Truthfulness " is immaterial if they are functioning in accordance to The problems they are faced with, an example is Afrocentrism today,how is it benefiting African people now? Or how is the corruption of Afrocentrism actually effecting anybody? Because we know the the destruction wrought by Europeans and their thinking style.
I admit to not seeing eye-to-eye with DJ on a number of political topics (though I'd rather not get into an argument with him over those, since I still respect him as a scholar or student of anthropology and a human being). However, I believe he's right when he says that many people who declare themselves "Afrocentric" tend to endorse pseudohistorical and pseudoscientific claims to support their biases. Identifying ancient Egyptian as Niger-Congo-related to the exclusion of other Afrasan languages is only one example of that.
Not that Afrocentrics are the only ones vulnerable to this problem. It's a big issue with any form of ethno-nationalism. You have the Koreans claiming ancient Sumerian civilization as their own, the Romanians who believe proto-Indo-European must have originated in their little area of Europe, the Bulgarians who think they founded the Persian Empire...I've even heard that there are Japanese who think that imperial Chinese appropriated almost everything from Japan, when any twit who can read a historical timeline can tell that it was the Japanese who drew many of their cultural trappings from China in the beginning.
I respect that the Afrocentric movement developed as a valuable corrective to racist Eurocentric narratives about ancient Egypt and other African cultures. But so much of this hotep shit is bordering on nationalist pseudohistory of its own.
posted
The issue with making such claim is proving what they say true so I don't take is with what they claim.
Afrocentric" tend to endorse pseudohistorical and pseudoscientific claims to support their biases
What's that suppose to mean? Some people think Egyptian people are white or most of the African looking people living outside Africa are there because of slavery or North Africans is somehow different from Africans living further South,if Afrocentrism or the hotep dude get stop other people from have misconception about Africans than how are those things affecting anybody?
Posts: 1123 | From: New York | Registered: Feb 2016
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posted
^ The reason why I'm not into politics is because I find most people to be politically ignorant not knowing anything about what's going on except what the mainstream media is telling them whether it be CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. They don't understand that politics is a game played by the elites behind the scenes of their media spokesmen. Look at the situation with Trump. He is either some "white nationalist villain" on the left or some Godsend savior on the right when the truth is actually neither.
That said, politics has infected pretty much all the other spheres of society including science though such a phenomenon is nothing new. When it comes to Egypt one does not need to be 'Afrocentric' to realize that it is African both geographically and culturally. The problem comes with the psuedo-scholarship like Egyptian being closely related to Bantu or Bantu being the origin of Sumerian or some ridiculous mess like that makes it harder for Afrocentric scholarship to be taken seriously.
-------------------- Mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan. Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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The problem in your comparison is phenotype and not language group as some of the Egyptian are dose depict stereotypically African looking people,they are probably Nilo-Saharan speakers.
Posts: 1123 | From: New York | Registered: Feb 2016
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ The reason why I'm not into politics is because I find most people to be politically ignorant not knowing anything about what's going on except what the mainstream media is telling them whether it be CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. They don't understand that politics is a game played by the elites behind the scenes of their media spokesmen. Look at the situation with Trump. He is either some "white nationalist villain" on the left or some Godsend savior on the right when the truth is actually neither.
That said, politics has infected pretty much all the other spheres of society including science though such a phenomenon is nothing new. When it comes to Egypt one does not need to be 'Afrocentric' to realize that it is African both geographically and culturally. The problem comes with the psuedo-scholarship like Egyptian being closely related to Bantu or Bantu being the origin of Sumerian or some ridiculous mess like that makes it harder for Afrocentric scholarship to be taken seriously.
posted
Um.... Natufians predated Sumeria by almost the time range Sumeria predates us? Can you elaborate?
Also lets talk about the OP a bit... Particularly about Semetic, Berber and Chadic.
There is something to be said about Chadic being the largest AA language family (in terms of languages spoken), almost as large as all other AA languages combined yet so understudied when it comes to understanding Afroasiatic origins.
There also might be room for discussion when it comes to the origin of Bantu languages, and when and where it originated. There is some serious discussions to be had.
Posts: 1781 | From: New York | Registered: Jul 2016
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quote:Originally posted by Elmaestro: Um.... Natufians predated Sumeria by almost the time range Sumeria predates us? Can you elaborate?
Also lets talk about the OP a bit... Particularly about Semetic, Berber and Chadic.
There is something to be said about Chadic being the largest AA language family (in terms of languages spoken), almost as large as all other AA languages combined yet so understudied when it comes to understanding Afroasiatic origins.
There also might be room for discussion when it comes to the origin of Bantu languages, and when and where it originated. There is some serious discussions to be had.
There is a lot to be discussed because the Greenberg families are incomplete place holders.
This is a long video of Asar Imhotep and Ngozi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUg0w82C11Q where Ngozi hints at a genetic argument in support of the Greenberg families and against the relationship with Bantu and Sumerian. It looks to me like he is ignoring recent studies. If Taforalt is more related to Mende than Afro-Asiatic groups genetics does not support Greenberg. If Chalcolithic Israel, Luxmanda, Egypt, PN Kenya and PN Tanzania are more related to each other than to Igbo, Hausa and Taforalt it breaks the Greenberg model. PN Nilotes are more related to North Africans and OOA groups than certain Bantus groups. The African centered argued the same about genetics. The languages families would need to be larger than Greenbergs.
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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quote:Originally posted by Fourty2Tribes: There is a lot to be discussed because the Greenberg families are incomplete place holders.
This is a long video of Asar Imhotep and Ngozi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUg0w82C11Q where Ngozi hints at a genetic argument in support of the Greenberg families and against the relationship with Bantu and Sumerian. It looks to me like he is ignoring recent studies. If Taforalt is more related to Mende than Afro-Asiatic groups genetics does not support Greenberg. If Chalcolithic Israel, Luxmanda, Egypt, PN Kenya and PN Tanzania are more related to each other than to Igbo, Hausa and Taforalt it breaks the Greenberg model. PN Nilotes are more related to North Africans and OOA groups than certain Bantus groups. The African centered argued the same about genetics. The languages families would need to be larger than Greenbergs.
Alright so lets reassess some framework, so that this conversation doesn't proceed on a fallible foundation.
Let's apply some historical "perspective" to our genetic discoveries and what it means for linguistics. -Oranian industry including people like Taforalt were a thing 18Kya... Afro-Asiatic didn't exist yet. -Taforalt isn't more related to Mende than AfroAsiatic speakers in totality. Taforalt is closest to successive North Africans, then to North East Africans, then post neolithic Near easterners. All three geographical macro-populations are derived mostly of AfroAsiatic speakers. -The pastoral Neolithic populations of the Greatlakes were up to 5 thousand years old. The consensus is that they were southern Cushitic speakers... Afro Asiatic. -I'm not sure what you mean by PN Nilotes, but, it is not confirmed which languages the Pastoral Neolithic populations in the recent paper spoke, but like I said the leading postulation is Afro-Asiatic.
The true issues: -Confirmation bias, using genetics to prove linguistic theory...and vice versa. Genetic evidence to support AfroAsiatic, can be Natufian related admixture, ANA or the hypothetical Basal Eurasian. We know we don't necessarily need Admixture to adopt a language. However all Major AfroAsiatic speakers from Berber to Semitic, to Chadic has or has had some degree of ANA ancestry. Which strengthens the idea of the proposed phylum.
So if you believe that greenberg should go out the window, what'll replace it and do you have enough evidence to support the replacement. And out of all the African phyla I would critique (as existent or not) AfroAsiatic would probably be the last, due to how overstudied it is, especially compared to other African language phylums especially Nilo-Saharan (which was spoken peripherally to Afroasiatic possibly before or around the time the latter expanded).
Posts: 1781 | From: New York | Registered: Jul 2016
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Let's apply some historical "perspective" to our genetic discoveries and what it means for linguistics. -Oranian industry including people like Taforalt were a thing 18Kya... Afro-Asiatic didn't exist yet.
-Taforalt isn't more related to Mende than AfroAsiatic speakers in totality. Taforalt is closest to successive North Africans, then to North East Africans, then post neolithic Near easterners. All three geographical macro-populations are derived mostly of AfroAsiatic speakers.
Did you watch the video? Ngozi struggles with the idea of Niger-Congo being related to Sumerian based on genetics.
Taforalt was 15K. This is close to the estimated age of proto Afro-Asiatic. When did Moroccan Berbers start speaking an Afro-Asiatic language? If Taforalt didn't inherit Afro-Asiatic from the link then they share with Natufians we are running out of time because the language is ubiquitous. It goes back to an old shared ancestry with North Africa out to Natufians. If I'm arguing that genetics supports Greenberg I would like for that ancestry to be what brought Afro-Asiatic to North Africa else it means Berbers language speakers were replaced. Expect to hear the argument that Taf was replaced by Near Easterners.
quote:
-The pastoral Neolithic populations of the Greatlakes were up to 5 thousand years old. The consensus is that they were southern Cushitic speakers... Afro Asiatic.
What is that consensus based on? They were testing regions that are mostly Niger-Congo and Bantu today. After Niger-Congo its Nilo-Saharan. You don't have Afro-Asiatic speakers living there today.
quote: -I'm not sure what you mean by PN Nilotes, but, it is not confirmed which languages the Pastoral Neolithic populations in the recent paper spoke, but like I said the leading postulation is Afro-Asiatic.
The true issues: -Confirmation bias, using genetics to prove linguistic theory...and vice versa. Genetic evidence to support AfroAsiatic, can be Natufian related admixture, ANA or the hypothetical Basal Eurasian. We know we don't necessarily need Admixture to adopt a language. However all Major AfroAsiatic speakers from Berber to Semitic, to Chadic has or has had some degree of ANA ancestry. Which strengthens the idea of the proposed phylum.
People always make genetic arguments to support Greenberg. Sounds like you made one 'all Major AfroAsiatic speakers from Berber to Semitic, to Chadic has or has had some degree of ANA ancestry.'
Who doesn't have ANA ancestry?
Ngozi is holding a genetic argument against Ciluba, Egypt and Sumeria sharing linguistic correspondence. Confirmation bias leads to Afro-Asiatic speakers coming into central Africa only to be replaced by Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo speakers.
quote: So if you believe that greenberg should go out the window, what'll replace it and do you have enough evidence to support the replacement. And out of all the African phyla I would critique (as existent or not) AfroAsiatic would probably be the last, due to how overstudied it is, especially compared to other African language phylums especially Nilo-Saharan (which was spoken peripherally to Afroasiatic possibly before or around the time the latter expanded).
Asar Imhotep said that Nilo-Saharan was a catch all for languages that weren't analyzed and nobody argues with him. That may be why its understudied. Asar also argues that the the entire Greenberg model is flawed. I wanted to test this so I put up money for a debate and the Greenberg supporters never followed through with it.
In the video, Ngozi and Asar were asked if there was a genetic study on Badarians. Asar answered that there wasn't but there was an anthropological study on skulls. He was cut off before he could expand. Ngozi goes on to say that there was such a study. I don't know why but dude just straight up lied. When I tried to host the debate I ran into similar character issues from Greenberg supporters.
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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quote:Originally posted by Fourty2Tribes: Did you watch the video? Ngozi struggles with the idea of Niger-Congo being related to Sumerian based on genetics.
Taforalt was 15K. This is close to the estimated age of proto Afro-Asiatic. When did Moroccan Berbers start speaking an Afro-Asiatic language? If Taforalt didn't inherit Afro-Asiatic from the link then they share with Natufians we are running out of time because the language is ubiquitous. It goes back to an old shared ancestry with North Africa out to Natufians. If I'm arguing that genetics supports Greenberg I would like for that ancestry to be what brought Afro-Asiatic to North Africa else it means Berbers language speakers were replaced. Expect to hear the argument that Taf was replaced by Near Easterners.
What is that consensus based on? They were testing regions that are mostly Niger-Congo and Bantu today. After Niger-Congo its Nilo-Saharan. You don't have Afro-Asiatic speakers living there today. People always make genetic arguments to support Greenberg. Sounds like you made one 'all Major AfroAsiatic speakers from Berber to Semitic, to Chadic has or has had some degree of ANA ancestry.'
Who doesn't have ANA ancestry?
Ngozi is holding a genetic argument against Ciluba, Egypt and Sumeria sharing linguistic correspondence. Confirmation bias leads to Afro-Asiatic speakers coming into central Africa only to be replaced by Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo speakers.
Asar Imhotep said that Nilo-Saharan was a catch all for languages that weren't analyzed and nobody argues with him. That may be why its understudied. Asar also argues that the the entire Greenberg model is flawed. I wanted to test this so I put up money for a debate and the Greenberg supporters never followed through with it.
In the video, Ngozi and Asar were asked if there was a genetic study on Badarians. Asar answered that there wasn't but there was an anthropological study on skulls. He was cut off before he could expand. Ngozi goes on to say that there was such a study. I don't know why but dude just straight up lied. When I tried to host the debate I ran into similar character issues from Greenberg supporters.
- I'm not Ngozi - I'm not an Ironclad supporter of Greenburg. - I'm not even all in on Ehrets AfroAsiatic Stratigraphy.
Now that the strawmen are out the way. -Berber languages might be as young as 3kya. I haven't seen no clear evidence that Oranian industries were that of Proto Afroasiatic/Afroasiatic speakers. It wasn't until the Capsian that those North Africans were suggested to speak Afro-Asiatic, as they were the harbingers of later Berber culture upto 4000 years after. This is why the OP is interesting. It's no secret how much Berber relates to Semitic exclusively... The relationship is ready to be explained.
As far as genetics goes; relating to the previous point. local Taforalt-IAM ancestry was absorbed by seemingly more European and near easterner populations in North Africa. Seen Starting with the KEB, then the guanches to modern Berbers and other North Africans. The Guanche samples are the best early examples of possible Berber speakers and they have clear Early Bronze age Near eastern ancestry in addition to their Taforalt-related ancestry..
regarding the PN samples of the Great lakes. The consensus is formed based on the autosomal similarity of the PN populations and Cushitic speakers. I am very critical of this form of confirmation bias as I've shown in the PN/Elmentietan thread and elsewhere. But it's widely accepted that E-M293 were associated with early cushitic speakers traveling south, being that related V6, M34 and even upstream V1515 are ubiquitous with cushitic speakers. The PN samples were almost fixed for M293. And I'm not sure why you're overlooking Iraqw and Burunge speakers located in these areas till this day.
My comments on ANA wasn't to support Greenburg btw. I see it only as evidence of AA being of African Origin. What it means for the phylum and how it relates to other so called non AA languages is what I find interesting and worthy of serious discussion. Which is why I mentioned that as enigmatic (Not to you but in general.)
Do you or do you not feel multidisciplinary observations are the best way to objectively form a perspective? Do you know that with linguistics in a vacuum one can link Celtic and Semitic, greek and Hebrew, Welsh and Ancient Egyptian, Bantu and linear A and etc. We need additional evidence to not only support proposed relationships but help us understand the basis for them.. (Whether the languages converged, borrowed or share a protoform.)
But lets say I'm taking Ngozi's side in the critique of grouping Ciluba, Egypt and Sumeria together. I would ask how can we historically support their relationship, and what evidence do we have for this historical connection? Do you have any concrete evidence of cultural exchange, what are the words for certain fauna and which regions were they endemic to? are there any practices transferred or exclusive with these groups? and lastly how biologically similar were they, morphologically and genetically?
That's where I'm at with these things now. We need stronger foundations in understanding what we're relaying. I'm not gonna take Asars word for it when he says the ankh is associated with the thorax or the sternum, based on the similarities in shape, when I know first hand that the ankh looks nothing like anything in the thoracic region for example... I do agree with Asar about Nilo-Saharan Languages... But both those guys were trash in answering the question about the differences in Merimde and Badarians, though there are no Genetic evidence, the question could have been answered with at least an educated prediction.
Posts: 1781 | From: New York | Registered: Jul 2016
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quote:Originally posted by Elmaestro: Um.... Natufians predated Sumeria by almost the time range Sumeria predates us? Can you elaborate?
Also lets talk about the OP a bit... Particularly about Semetic, Berber and Chadic.
There is something to be said about Chadic being the largest AA language family (in terms of languages spoken), almost as large as all other AA languages combined yet so understudied when it comes to understanding Afroasiatic origins.
There also might be room for discussion when it comes to the origin of Bantu languages, and when and where it originated. There is some serious discussions to be had.
You're correct. Natufians did predate Sumer and Sumerians are a totally different people from the Natufians. By the way, there is evidence to suggest a Proto-Euphratean people in Mesopotamia preceding the Sumerians.
We can't know for sure what language the Natufians spoke but according to linguistic studies it was too early to be proto-Semitic.
I'm actually of the popular opinion that proto-Semitic itself is a branch of a larger group that diverged from proto-Afrasian, since Semitic languages are not as diverse as the other subfamilies. You can call this group pre-proto-Semitic. The same way Berber is even younger and is a vestige of an older 'Libyco-Berber' super-group.
You also bring up a valid point about Chadic but again we have so little about nil info about the languages in Africa in antiquity to make positive connections.
As for the dispute over Bantu origins, I should remind people that other subfamilies of Niger-Congo are also in dispute in regards to origins or even their placement in the phylum. It should be clear to anyone familiar with African linguistics that Joseph Greenberg was indeed not the be all, end all of African linguistics.
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I have been a part of this website since the mid 2000’s and I have seen my fair share of discussions regarding the languages of Africa. What boggles my mind is that the primary people who comment on the discussions and have these big arguments are individuals, throughout all of these years, who have never taken the time to actually study the field of linguistics, its history, methodologies, controversies, and arguments. As a result, much of the conversations go in circles because the commentators do not understand the basics.
When it comes to Afro-Asiatic, or any of Greenberg’s phylums (i.e., Khoisan, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo), it is an unproven hypothesis and you will never find a single publication that demonstrates its validity using the comparative method. The comparative method is key to confirming hypotheses. To confirm this, we will take a quote from Michael Weiss from his article “The Comparative Method” (In: Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics, 2014). Regarding the comparative method (CM), Weiss informs us that:
quote: The first step in applying CM is formulating a hypothesis that the given languages to be compared are in fact descended from a common source. It obviously makes little sense to apply the Comparative Method to languages that evidently aren’t related – at any reasonable time depth – and the failure of the procedure to reveal any regularity of correspondence would be a strong argument against a theory of genetic common origin. Thus, the Comparative Method, strictly speaking, is not a method for generating relationship hypotheses, but rather is a crucial tool for either confirming or not confirming hypotheses.(Bowern & Evans, 2014: 128)
This is critical to understand. Without the comparative method, you have no means by which to confirm a hypothesis of relationship in historical comparative linguistics. When it comes to Afro-Asiatic, there is not ONE, and mean there is not ONE publication that demonstrates that Berber, Semitic, Egyptian, ‘Chadic’, or Cushitic are related language families. To demonstrate a relationship between all five families, linguists would have to show regular sound-meaning correspondences in basic vocabulary, grammar, and morphology and reconstruct the parent language. All this must be done simultaneously with all five groups. This has NEVER been done. All linguists have done is discussed typological features, which could be the result of borrowing via area diffusion in NE Africa. All linguists agree that typological similarities cannot establish genetic relationships: 1) because of its high ‘borrowability’, and 2) because these types of features can arise independently in the world’s languages.
Thus, since Afro-Asiatic as a hypothesis has yet to be proven via a scientific process, as it stands now it does not exist. And because it doesn’t exist, any biological genetic studies attempting to link up and make arguments using these unproven hypotheses (Greenberg’s phylums), all of those studies are null and void and lack any scientific merit. The key is understanding scientific methods and questioning whether these proposals by historians have in fact been validated by the methods of the field: one’s that eliminate chance from its comparative sets. Therefore, much of what is posted in this very post is, to be frank, garbage. It has no scientific merit and we have to be more vigilant in our research and not just accept ideas because some of them come from prominent people. Learn how science works and apply the rigors of science to your studies.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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I admit to not seeing eye-to-eye with DJ on a number of political topics (though I'd rather not get into an argument with him over those, since I still respect him as a scholar or student of anthropology and a human being). However, I believe he's right when he says that many people who declare themselves "Afrocentric" tend to endorse pseudohistorical and pseudoscientific claims to support their biases. Identifying ancient Egyptian as Niger-Congo-related to the exclusion of other Afrasan languages is only one example of that.
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep:
Based on linguistic studies from the likes of Chiekh Anta Diop, Rkhty Amen Wimby, Um Ndigi, Mubabinge Bilolo, Alain Anselin, Theophilus Obenga, GJK Campbell-Dunn, Modupe Oduyoye, Aboubacry Moussa Lam and countless others in the field of Africana linguistics, the establishment of the relationship between the ancient Egyptian and Black African languages (mainly of Kongo-Saharan) is well established. The linguistic studies over the past 5 decades had provided enough information to seriously challenge the current classification of African languages in general and the ancient Egyptian language in particular. This job Dr. Theophile Obenga has taken head-on in his publication Origine commune de l'egyptien ancien, du copte et des langues negro-africaines modernes: Introduction a la linguistique historique africaine (Common Origin of the Ancient Egyptian, Coptic and Modern Negro African Languages: Introduction to African Historical Linguistics).
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: I have been a part of this website since the mid 2000’s and I have seen my fair share of discussions regarding the languages of Africa. What boggles my mind is that the primary people who comment on the discussions and have these big arguments are individuals, throughout all of these years, who have never taken the time to actually study the field of linguistics, its history, methodologies, controversies, and arguments. As a result, much of the conversations go in circles because the commentators do not understand the basics.
When it comes to Afro-Asiatic, or any of Greenberg’s phylums (i.e., Khoisan, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo), it is an unproven hypothesis and you will never find a single publication that demonstrates its validity using the comparative method. The comparative method is key to confirming hypotheses. To confirm this, we will take a quote from Michael Weiss from his article “The Comparative Method” (In: Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics, 2014). Regarding the comparative method (CM), Weiss informs us that:
This is critical to understand. Without the comparative method, you have no means by which to confirm a hypothesis of relationship in historical comparative linguistics. When it comes to Afro-Asiatic, there is not ONE, and mean there is not ONE publication that demonstrates that Berber, Semitic, Egyptian, ‘Chadic’, or Cushitic are related language families. To demonstrate a relationship between all five families, linguists would have to show regular sound-meaning correspondences in basic vocabulary, grammar, and morphology and reconstruct the parent language. All this must be done simultaneously with all five groups. This has NEVER been done. All linguists have done is discussed typological features, which could be the result of borrowing via area diffusion in NE Africa. All linguists agree that typological similarities cannot establish genetic relationships: 1) because of its high ‘borrowability’, and 2) because these types of features can arise independently in the world’s languages.
Thus, since Afro-Asiatic as a hypothesis has yet to be proven via a scientific process, as it stands now it does not exist. And because it doesn’t exist, any biological genetic studies attempting to link up and make arguments using these unproven hypotheses (Greenberg’s phylums), all of those studies are null and void and lack any scientific merit. The key is understanding scientific methods and questioning whether these proposals by historians have in fact been validated by the methods of the field: one’s that eliminate chance from its comparative sets. Therefore, much of what is posted in this very post is, to be frank, garbage. It has no scientific merit and we have to be more vigilant in our research and not just accept ideas because some of them come from prominent people. Learn how science works and apply the rigors of science to your studies.
It's interesting how you act as if the revised greenberg model isn't the standard. In which it is up to you (and me to be frank) to disprove or redefine it. I'm not sure who it is nor what "Big Argument" you're addressing in this post (you didn't make it clear) but it seems a bit tone deaf, or at the very least misguided. Here's a quote from the OP;
quote:"Nevertheless, even with the imperfect state of research (the reconstruction of PAA very much is a work in progress), there are sufficient grounds to dismiss a closer phylogenetic relationship between Semitic and Egyptian within AA. The most important element in my view is that Cushitic, Semitic and Berber share a set of common innovations in their verbal morphology, something which is extremely unlikely to be due to borrowing (and at the same time extremely likely to indicate common descent). **The clearest innovation is the presence of personal verbal prefixes to mark finite verbs, the so-called ˀ-t-y-n "block pattern" which is only found in Cushitic, Semitic and Berber.**"
Don't take my word on it, but I believe he's actually working on reconstructing the phylum or maybe the branch that preceded the aforementioned language groupings. Nonetheless I posted that quote for multiple reasons though. Not only am I showing you that he blatantly shares your sentiment about the absence of a proper reconstruction and loose association due to eyeballing lexical similarities, But he also has grounds for creating a working and testable hypothesis.
Which brings me to my critique of non-accepted reconstructions using the comparative method. How is your work different from the many examples of other work attempting show relatedness between unrelated languages via the Comparative method? What is the basis for they hypothesis that Ciluba and Semitic share a recent proto-language?
Side note: I have read YOUR work, in fact as far as linguistics went your work was some of the first I've read on a serious level. It was significant, So much so that I had to unlearn some of your concepts... so please, if you can state your premise succinctly and not dismissively (stating one should read through pages of unrelated text before addressing you.) it would really be helpful for everyone moving forward.
Posts: 1781 | From: New York | Registered: Jul 2016
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quote:Originally posted by Fourty2Tribes: Did you watch the video? Ngozi struggles with the idea of Niger-Congo being related to Sumerian based on genetics.
Taforalt was 15K. This is close to the estimated age of proto Afro-Asiatic. When did Moroccan Berbers start speaking an Afro-Asiatic language? If Taforalt didn't inherit Afro-Asiatic from the link then they share with Natufians we are running out of time because the language is ubiquitous. It goes back to an old shared ancestry with North Africa out to Natufians. If I'm arguing that genetics supports Greenberg I would like for that ancestry to be what brought Afro-Asiatic to North Africa else it means Berbers language speakers were replaced. Expect to hear the argument that Taf was replaced by Near Easterners.
What is that consensus based on? They were testing regions that are mostly Niger-Congo and Bantu today. After Niger-Congo its Nilo-Saharan. You don't have Afro-Asiatic speakers living there today. People always make genetic arguments to support Greenberg. Sounds like you made one 'all Major AfroAsiatic speakers from Berber to Semitic, to Chadic has or has had some degree of ANA ancestry.'
Who doesn't have ANA ancestry?
Ngozi is holding a genetic argument against Ciluba, Egypt and Sumeria sharing linguistic correspondence. Confirmation bias leads to Afro-Asiatic speakers coming into central Africa only to be replaced by Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo speakers.
Asar Imhotep said that Nilo-Saharan was a catch all for languages that weren't analyzed and nobody argues with him. That may be why its understudied. Asar also argues that the the entire Greenberg model is flawed. I wanted to test this so I put up money for a debate and the Greenberg supporters never followed through with it.
In the video, Ngozi and Asar were asked if there was a genetic study on Badarians. Asar answered that there wasn't but there was an anthropological study on skulls. He was cut off before he could expand. Ngozi goes on to say that there was such a study. I don't know why but dude just straight up lied. When I tried to host the debate I ran into similar character issues from Greenberg supporters.
- I'm not Ngozi - I'm not an Ironclad supporter of Greenburg. - I'm not even all in on Ehrets AfroAsiatic Stratigraphy.
Now that the strawmen are out the way. -Berber languages might be as young as 3kya. I haven't seen no clear evidence that Oranian industries were that of Proto Afroasiatic/Afroasiatic speakers. It wasn't until the Capsian that those North Africans were suggested to speak Afro-Asiatic, as they were the harbingers of later Berber culture upto 4000 years after. This is why the OP is interesting. It's no secret how much Berber relates to Semitic exclusively... The relationship is ready to be explained.
As far as genetics goes; relating to the previous point. local Taforalt-IAM ancestry was absorbed by seemingly more European and near easterner populations in North Africa. Seen Starting with the KEB, then the guanches to modern Berbers and other North Africans. The Guanche samples are the best early examples of possible Berber speakers and they have clear Early Bronze age Near eastern ancestry in addition to their Taforalt-related ancestry..
regarding the PN samples of the Great lakes. The consensus is formed based on the autosomal similarity of the PN populations and Cushitic speakers. I am very critical of this form of confirmation bias as I've shown in the PN/Elmentietan thread and elsewhere. But it's widely accepted that E-M293 were associated with early cushitic speakers traveling south, being that related V6, M34 and even upstream V1515 are ubiquitous with cushitic speakers. The PN samples were almost fixed for M293. And I'm not sure why you're overlooking Iraqw and Burunge speakers located in these areas till this day.
My comments on ANA wasn't to support Greenburg btw. I see it only as evidence of AA being of African Origin. What it means for the phylum and how it relates to other so called non AA languages is what I find interesting and worthy of serious discussion. Which is why I mentioned that as enigmatic (Not to you but in general.)
I know you aren’t Ngozi and I’m not making those assumptions. I’m trying to add context because my argument isn’t against the Greenberg families. That is out of my field. My argument is against using genetics to support the Greenberg families in context with a specific linguistic argument. This isn't to say I don't have issues with the Greenberg families. That's why I wanted a debate.
If the Berber language is as young as 3kya then it would mean a population shared a divergent proto language 3kya. How could Siwa Berbers and Gaunches on the Canaries share as much as recent? It seems implausible unless you have more divergent branches of Berber.
A Capsian culture model seems reasonable. The timing is better, the east African Berber phylogeny substantiates the link with Kenya/Cushitic languages and you get your Berber Semitic explanation since Berbers are ancestralish to Semites.
I forgot about the Iraqw and have never heard of the Burunge. I was looking at multiple Greenberg maps and I just found one with Afro-Asiatic in Tanzania and Kenya. I guess Afro-Asiatic extends further south than the unclassified Nilo-Saharan. That begs some questions and answers especially if Egyptian is more related to a Chadic branch.
This is where I have issues with Greenberg. If Nilo-Saharan and other languages like Dogon and Sumerian are unclassified how can there be an argument against the relationship with Bantu and Sumer?
I assumed the PN were more related to a Nilo-Saharan group like the Datog. Kenya has more Nilo Saharan tribes so what would be the chances of testing the handful of Afro-Asiatics?
The PN Mtdna markers are more diverse and M293 has a presence in Burundi and the Congo though I haven’t studied what few test there are in the Congo so I’m just going by percentages in Wiki.
quote: Do you or do you not feel multidisciplinary observations are the best way to objectively form a perspective? Sure. The problem I’m having is when one is used to deflect from a deeper analysis of the other.
Do you know that with linguistics in a vacuum one can link Celtic and Semitic, greek and Hebrew, Welsh and Ancient Egyptian, Bantu and linear A and etc. We need additional evidence to not only support proposed relationships but help us understand the basis for them.. (Whether the languages converged, borrowed or share a protoform.)?
But lets say I'm taking Ngozi's side in the critique of grouping Ciluba, Egypt and Sumeria together. I would ask how can we historically support their relationship, and what evidence do we have for this historical connection? Do you have any concrete evidence of cultural exchange, what are the words for certain fauna and which regions were they endemic to? are there any practices transferred or exclusive with these groups? and lastly how biologically similar were they, morphologically and genetically?
The correspondence of place names, rivers, land and related concepts with Egyptian, Kalenjiin, Sumerian and Ciluba is both falsifiable and encompassing. It answers a lot of said questions. I’m not sure how relevant biology is. We know how Marsh Arabs are related to Africans genetically and culturally.
Asar was answering the question about Badarians until he was disconnected. He was referring to Keita’s work. I do wish that he or Ngozi mentioned the actual genetic test. Ngozi had plenty of time to answer it and just started making stuff up. I think Ngozi’s biggest problem isn’t that he’s reliant on Greenberg as much as he is stuck in the mainstream OoA 2 wonton back migration model. He was talking about black basal Eurasians back migrating into west Africa. Huh?
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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If the Berber language is as young as 3kya then it would mean a population shared a divergent proto language 3kya. How could Siwa Berbers and Gaunches on the Canaries share as much as recent? It seems implausible unless you have more divergent branches of Berber.
I'm not versed enough to know if there aren't any modern divergent branches of Berber, but most Contemporary Berber languages lacks internal diversity. So much so that people have it being leveled to an age as young as the fall of carthage. Tamasheq which has some of the most solid evidence for its old age, is known to be as old as 2.4Kya and that's it.
"The Tamajaq writing system is the Tifinagh (also called Shifinagh and Tifinar), whose origins remain unclear. An old version of Tifinagh, also known as Libyco-Berber, dates to between the 3rd century BC and the 3rd century AD in northwestern Africa (Gaudio, 1993)."
Other early extinct languages coupled with it such as those spoken by the Guanche and Garamantes have recorded evidence in Tifinagh but is proposed to have reached as far west as late as 700BC
on the archaic form of Tifinagh: "The Archaic Script The aforementioned original type of alphabet, which can be called the archaic one, spread to the East as far as the Kabylia and to the West as far as the Canary Islands. The most plausible time of this transfer to the islands as deduced from the epigraphic development is the sixth century BC" - A. De La Rosa 2010
If I'm allowed to cheat, I would assume that Siwa languages are probably most divergent based on DNA, but even with Siwa included in protoberber reconstructions the proto-language is said to be spoken as recent 3ya.
A Capsian culture model seems reasonable. The timing is better, the east African Berber phylogeny substantiates the link with Kenya/Cushitic languages and you get your Berber Semitic explanation since Berbers are ancestralish to Semites. I don't know about that. Consider, the pre Arab conquest scarcity of divergent Semetic languages in the interior of Africa as well as the pure absence of Berber outside of Africa. It's implausible to assume Berber is ancestral to Semitic under those pretenses. Yeah I believe The capsian spoke a pre-proto-Berber, which was probably later influenced by Semitic, phonoecian?) I want to find out the degree of coninuity of the Capsian culture/early Berber into Modern Amazigh.... which is why the OP is interesting.
I forgot about the Iraqw and have never heard of the Burunge. I was looking at multiple Greenberg maps and I just found one with Afro-Asiatic in Tanzania and Kenya. I guess Afro-Asiatic extends further south than the unclassified Nilo-Saharan. That begs some questions and answers especially if Egyptian is more related to a Chadic branch.
I assumed the PN were more related to a Nilo-Saharan group like the Datog. Kenya has more Nilo Saharan tribes so what would be the chances of testing the handful of Afro-Asiatics? with the exception of Lybico-Berber, African AfroAsiatic speakers in the and nilo-Saharan speakers are so intertwined in distribution (and culture to a lesser degree) I find it puzzling how underdeveloped NiloSaharan is Especially in comparison to AA. I wouldn't be shocked if some or (even all tbh) early M293 carriers spoke NiloSaharan. Like I said, Most people put the cart before the horse and use the genetic similarity to justify the language placement. The PN populations are clearly differentiated from modern Cushitic speakers but how it translates to the language they spoke requires a different conversation. Like early V1515 speakers could have spoken an early form of proto cushitic that resembled pre-proto-Berber or vice versa. There is room to speculate. C group nubians probably spoke berber, but based on Biological studies, they clearly had some Mesolithic Nubian/Modern Nilotic admix, which is a hallmark of Modern Cushitic speakers. The PN populations don't have that particular Nilotic admixture which means they probably traveled south before the late Holocene saharans migrated to the nile. and then you have stone age populations of the great lakes who shows cultural and biological similarity with Capsian cultures of coastal North Africa. They in turn should have contributed to the PN populations.
The PN Mtdna markers are more diverse and M293 has a presence in Burundi and the Congo though I haven’t studied what few test there are in the Congo so I’m just going by percentages in Wiki. In regards to M293 in the congo, Don't overlook tribes like the Hema and the Banyamulenge who have Cushitic-related ancestry of some sort.
This is where I have issues with Greenberg. If Nilo-Saharan and other languages like Dogon and Sumerian are unclassified how can there be an argument against the relationship with Bantu and Sumer? According to greenberg Bantu is under Niger Kordofanian, which is then joined to other African Macrofamilies starting with Nilo Saharan. The argument would be were does Sumerian fit into Niger Kordofanian, or does Proto Bantu works with the inclusion of Sumerian. ...But I will say, there's a cultural argument of cultural diffusion from Africa to southern Mesopotamia, so maybe we can get the idea of a possible Saharan influence on Sumerian language off the floor soon.
quote: Do you know that with linguistics in a vacuum one can link Celtic and Semitic, greek and Hebrew, Welsh and Ancient Egyptian, Bantu and linear A and etc. We need additional evidence to not only support proposed relationships but help us understand the basis for them.. (Whether the languages converged, borrowed or share a protoform.)?
If you are lost about what I mean by this you can look at Asars post and my response to it.
quote:But lets say I'm taking Ngozi's side in the critique of grouping Ciluba, Egypt and Sumeria together. I would ask how can we historically support their relationship, and what evidence do we have for this historical connection? Do you have any concrete evidence of cultural exchange, what are the words for certain fauna and which regions were they endemic to? are there any practices transferred or exclusive with these groups? and lastly how biologically similar were they, morphologically and genetically?
The correspondence of place names, rivers, land and related concepts with Egyptian, Kalenjiin, Sumerian and Ciluba is both falsifiable and encompassing. It answers a lot of said questions. I’m not sure how relevant biology is. We know how Marsh Arabs are related to Africans genetically and culturally. I'm aware of the Kalenjin situation which in my opinion is criminally overlooked, but we need more to validate how we are linking these languages.
Asar was answering the question about Badarians until he was disconnected. He was referring to Keita’s work. I do wish that he or Ngozi mentioned the actual genetic test. Ngozi had plenty of time to answer it and just started making stuff up. I think Ngozi’s biggest problem isn’t that he’s reliant on Greenberg as much as he is stuck in the mainstream OoA 2 wonton back migration model. He was talking about black basal Eurasians back migrating into west Africa. Huh? Yeah I don't know about all of that. "black basal Eurasians back migrating" is quite the angel step, it's a reach on top of a reach, on some space jam shit. It's not impossible, but there are significantly better explanations even proposed by the max planck guys.
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