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The Semitic Languages Originated in Nile Valley
The Semitic languages are native to the Nile Valley. As a result, Semitic should be recognized as an African language. I call the Semitic languages Puntite languages. The Semitic speaking people are native to the Nile Valley and Northeast Africa, they did not originate in Arabia.
The Semitic languages are divided into four groups: North-east Semitic, Northwest Semitic, Southeast Semitic and Southwest Semitic. The Ethiopian Semitic languages belong to the Southeast Semitic subgroup.
In ancient times modern Ethiopia and Somalia was called Punt. As a result I call the Semitic languages of Ethiopia: Puntite languages. In the Sumerian texts these Puntites may have been called Meluhhaites.
The Puntites lived in the Eastern desert of Egypt and Arabia for many years and on the Horn of Africa. The earliest representatives of this group are depicted on the Ivory label of King Dan (Udimu) of the first Dynasty of Kemit.
In the Ivory label of King Dan , we see Dan holding a mace “smiting the enemy”. The people were identified a jwntj.w "people with hunting bows”, and inhabitants of the Eastern Desert. The jewenetejes, were probably Semitic or Puntite speakers . Like the Jewenetejes the Puntites wore beards. The use of the bow by the Jeweneteje suggest that they were related to the Kushites.
The existence of Punt, in areas where Semitic languages is spoken plus several Semitic languages in the Sudan, especially Habesha suggest the presence of Semitic speakers in the Nile Valley since pre-Egyptian times. The Egyptians referred to Punt as "God's Land".
Punt is usually situated by researchers in the Red Sea Coast near the region where the Medjay lived, on into modern Ethiopia. this part of Africa was called Meluhha by the Assyrians.
Much of what we know about Punt comes from the Deir el-Bahri temple , On this mural is depicted the Puntite King Parahu (right) and his wife Ati. Note that King Parahu wears a beard
These areas today are inhabited by Semitic speakers ( Puntites, Habesha and etc). The intimacy between the Puntites and Egyptians make it clear that Semitic speakers were recognized as a respected population related to the Egyptians. This would explain the Semitic speaking populations in the Nile Valley who are not Arabic speakers. This is why I call the African Semitic languages Puntite languages because they were probably formerly spoken by the people of Punt.
The pre-Egyptian presence of Semitic speakers in the Nile Valley is supported by 1) the presence of Habesha and Colloquial Sudanese Arabic (CSA) in the Sudan and Nile Valley; and 2) Semitic loan words in ancient Egyptian and Meroitic.. Is a semitic language but it is not Arabic. If Semitic languages in the Sudan were the result of the spread of Islam, CSA would be an Arabic dialect--but it is not an Arabic dialect.
Anta Diop found an African root at the base of Semitic root words. Dr. Diop noted that the Semitic tri consonant root system is genetically related to the African root words in Semitic.
As a result, I call the Semitic languages Puntite languages. Egyptian and Semitic languages shared grammatical features and cognate. Egyptian Semitic terms were recognized by Erman and Albright (See: A. Erman. 1885. "Das Verhiltnis des Aegyptischen zu den semitischen Sprachen" ,ZDMG,1 XLVI, 9.; and W. F. Albright, Egypto-Semitic Etymology, The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Jan.),pp. 81-98). CSL and Arabic are two distinct Semitic languages. In modern day Sudan, Colloquial Sudanese Arabic is recognized as a lingua franca or slang language.
Anas Elbashir Ahmed Musa has used comparative linguistic methods to illustrate the genetic linguistic relationship between Old Sudanese Language (Colloquial Sudanese Arabic) and Meroitic. Brother Anas Elbashir has illustrated the continued use of classical Meroitic terms among contemporary Sudanese.
Arabic scholars recognize that CSL is a Semitic language unique to the Sudanese because it has many vocabulary items from Sudanese languages including Nubian, but, especially Beja or Bidaweet.The relationship between Egyptian and Semitic and the Cognate Meroitic-Colloquial Sudanese Arabic or Classical Sudanese Language (CSL) Semitic terms makes it clear the Semitic languages originated in the Nile Valley and expanded from there into Eurasia.
The earliest civilization in Southwest Arabia date back to the 2nd Millenium. This culture is called the Tihama culture which originated in Africa. The people of the Tihama culture included Puntites.
This civilization probably originated in Nubia. It is characterized by the cheesecake or pillbox burial monuments which extend from Dhofar in Nubia, the Gara mountains to Adulis on the Gulf of Zula, to Hadramaut, Qataban, Ausan, Adenm, Asir, the Main area and Tihama.
Brother Anas Elbashir, after comparing Colloquial Sudanese Arabic to words in my Meroitic Word List, has illustrated the continued use of classical Meroitic terms among contemporary Sudanese.
In conclusion the Semitic speakers originated in the Nile Valley. The Puntites like the jwntj.w and other people in the Eastern Desert wore beards .
There was no back migration of Semitic speakers from Arabia into Africa. The migration was not into the Sudan, the Tihama material makes it clear the migration was from the Sudan/Nile Valley into Arabia.
Semitic and CSL are related to ancient Egyptian and Meroitic If the Semitic speakers in the Nile Valley , were due to a back migration from Asia into the Nile Valley Semitic speakers would speak an Arabic dialect instead of CSL.The Puntites were Semitic speakers.
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I was about to make my own thread but I saw this . Hopefully someone create a thread for this paper on ESR. Since ESR has better search and archiving features
Semitic upside-down: a new proposal for the origins of Modern South Arabian languages.
Roger Blench McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research University of Cambridge Department of History, University of Jos Kay Williamson Educational Foundation 8, Guest Road Cambridge CB1 2AL United Kingdom
ABSTRACT The Modern South Arabian (MSA) languages onstitute a significant outlier in Semitic, maintaining a phonological inventory which has all but disappeared elsewhere in the family. Although they have been thought to represent an archaic migration to the south of the Arabian Peninsula, their high level of lexical similarity argues that the current MSA languages dispersed quite recently. Despite being in neighbouring regions, they seem to have no special relationship with Epigraphic South Arabian (ESA), the cluster of i nscriptional languages found in Southwest Arabia. However, they do have a distinctive relationship with Ethiosemitic. Ethiosemitic is highly internally diverse, suggesting that it must have been speakers of MSA languages who migrated across the Red Sea **from **Ethiopia relatively recently. Archaeological evidence points to the ancient settlement of the Arabian Peninsula by pastoralists, and thus MSA speakers must have replaced an earlier pastoral population. If this is so, then something is wrong with our understanding of the genesis of Semitic and its relationship with the other branches of Afroasiatic. The paper proposes there was a ‘South Afroasiatic’ node consisting of Semitic, Cushitic and Chadic, co-ordinate with Egyptian, which developed after the split with Omotic. This node was characterised by a complex phonology which included both lateral fricatives and an ejective series. Although these features survive in peripheral branches of Chadic, Cushitic and Semitic, they have disappeared in Ethiopia proper, as a result of a levelling process which took place after the dispersal of MSA. The paper proposes that MSA languages resulted from a seaborne migration of pastoralists from the Ethiopian mainland around 500 AD.
Keywords: Semitic; Modern South Arabian; archeology; genetics
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Tukuler
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This is typical Africanist poor methodology. This is a typological discussion and one not based on the comparative method. No isoglosses and no analysis based on morphology. There are no indigenous Semitic languages in Africa. Not one!
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^Linguistics is not my forte. May be someone can challenge you on this. But the author is saying otherwise.
edit
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Tukuler
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^ MensaMind, I don't know but it seems Semitic arose in so-called SW Asia as Akkadian on the Arabian Tectonic plate technically an African sub-plate.
Some unidentified Africanasio language probably birthed pre or proto Semitic but, if so, it happened off the continent proper.
Gurage peoples speak Cushitic & Semitic. This gave the appearance that Gurage ppl were the first Semitic speakers.
Because written Ethio-Semitic is rather young applying comparative method to it may not be as revealing as desired.
Bottomline "no indigenous continental African Semitic languages" appears a factual conclusion since Semitic as a family was born off-continent.
African origins of Semitic and EthioSemitic --> MSA in independent black agency Africana studies goes back to Rawlinson
posted
I wouldn't say that Semitic originated in Africa per se (which is hard to prove given the timeframe). But Semitic as a branch of Afroasiatic implies a connection between Africa and populations in the Levant from which Semitic languages originated. One population that may be associated with this is the Natufians.....
quote: Levant hypothesis Map of Semitic languages and statistically inferred dispersals. One hypothesized location of the divergence of ancestral Semitic from Afroasiatic between the African coast of the Red Sea and the Near East is also indicated.
A Bayesian analysis performed in 2009 suggests an origin for all known Semitic languages in the Levant around 3750 BCE, with a later single introduction from South Arabia into the Horn of Africa around 800 BCE. This statistical analysis could not, however, estimate when or where the ancestor of all Semitic languages diverged from Afroasiatic.[1] It thus neither contradicts nor confirms the hypothesis that the divergence of ancestral Semitic from Afroasiatic occurred in Africa.
Christopher Ehret has hypothesized that genetic analyses (specifically those of Y chromosome phylogeography and TaqI 49a,f haplotypes) shows populations of proto-Semitic speakers may have moved from the Horn of Africa or southeastern Sahara northwards to the Nile Valley, northwest Africa, the Levant, and Aegean.[4]
Some geneticists and archaeologists have argued for a back-migration of proto-Afroasiatic speakers from Western Asia to Africa as early as the 10th millennium BC. They suggest the Natufian culture might have spoken a proto-Afroasiatic language just prior to its disintegration into sub-languages.[5][6] The hypothesis is supported by the Afroasiatic terms for early livestock and crops in both Anatolia and Iran.[7]
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: This is typical Africanist poor methodology. This is a typological discussion and one not based on the comparative method. No isoglosses and no analysis based on morphology. There are no indigenous Semitic languages in Africa. Not one!
Stop pretending you know linguistics. You have never written a professional linguistics articleand you continue to soread ignorance among anyone who reads your comments.
We are not talking about a typological relationship. The fact that Semitic languages are related to Meroitic and Egyptian prove that Semitic languages were spoken in the Nile Valley before the first Semitic speakers enter history as the Akkadians.The Semitic and Nile Valley languages.
The Egyptiand textual evidence make it clear that the Puntites lived in God's land. These people were Semitic speakers.
The earliest recorded civilization in the Horn of Africa, was Punt. Punt is often, recognized as including parts of modern Ethiopia and Nubia. Today the population in this part Africa, mainly, speak Semitic languages. As a result, in this paper I will refer to the Ethiopian or African Semitic languages as Puntite.
In 2300 BC, the Egyptians forced the Puntites out of Nubia into Northeast Africa. Some of these Puntites migrated across the Red Sea into Arabia and Mesopotamia . In Mesopotamia they were called Akkadians. The Akkadians defeated the Sumerians and spread the Semitic language into the Middle East.
The earliest civilization in Southwest Arabia date back to the 3- 2nd Millenium. The Gash culture was followed by the Tihama civilization. Pottery in the Horn and South Arabia belong to the Gash culture (2700-1400 BC). The Gash pottery indicates a common culture for the inhabitants of the Horn of Africa and South Arabia ( Fattovich, 2012).
The ceramics from Kassala in the Gash Delta of southeastern Sudan was similar to the wavy-line pottery of the C-Croup people, and is also found on the Island of Dakla Kabir offshore Eritrea and in Yemen. The people of al-Midamman, later crossed the Red Sea and settled in Tihama (Keall,2000).
The Tihama culture which originated in Africa (Fattovich, 2008). One of the first civilization in Northeast Africa and Arabia, was the Tihama culture (Winters, 2013a). Tihama material has been found at the lower strata of Adulis, Matara (Akkele Guzay) and Yeha (Tigray).
This view is supported by the archaeological evidence that support a close relationship between the Puntites/ Ethiopians and Nile Valley Semitic speakers. For example, according to Fattovich, the pottery from Tihama Cultural Complex and other Ethiopian sites shows similarities to the Kerma and C-Group pottery. Given this connection between Ethiopian civilizations and civilizations in Nubia, make it clear that the Ethiopians would have been familiar with the ancient writing system used in this area discussed above.
If the story represents the C-Group people it would explain the affinity between the earliest Ethio-Semitic culture Tihama and the C-Group. At Tihama and other sites in Arabia we find pottery related to the C-Group people of Nubia (Keall, 2000;2008; Fattovish, 2008; Giumlia-Mair, 2002) .
. Also it should be noted that the Classical Sudanese (Semitic) Laguage is different from Arabic. If the Arabs introduced Semitic it would be the type of Semitic language spoken by the Nile Valley people.
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I don't know why this is so hard for people to comprehend. You'd think that after all these years, people would read material on how to classify languages: how to distinguish between genetic and non-genetic classifications. If any field of study is to be taken serious as a discipline, its methodology has to be done in such a way that chance and coincidence are hard fought against so that their conclusions cannot be the result of chance or coincidence.
The historical comparative method is the scientific method of linguistics. It has proven itself time and time again precisely for this reason. This is why Greenberg's method is considered pseudo-science and not used around the world by professional linguists because it doesn't eliminate chance and brings about a lot of false positives. It doesn't even allow you to determine if a word/morpheme is cognate or not because it is not based on sound laws, which you establish via the comparative method. The entire Greenberg phyla (Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic, Khoisan, and Nilo-Saharan) was 'built' from these non-scientific methods.
Anyone who has studied linguistics knows that typology cannot be used to classify languages. In Chapter 9 of my text Aaluja Vol. II: Cyena-Ntu Religion and Philosophy (2020), I spend a lot of time educating people on how linguistics is done and judged. One source I cite Heine & Nurse, African languages: An introduction (2000), where they state:
quote:Language classification must be based on specific points of resemblance and no n on the presence or absence of general features of a typlogical nature. Thus whether two or more languages are tonal or not or whether they have an odd number vs. an even number of vowels might be interesting from a typological or areal point of view, but in and of itself is irrelevant in determining relatedness. (Heine & Nurse, 2000: 260-261)
Whether a set of languages possesses certain types of consonants or not is irrelevant to determining relatedness, let alone determining the 'birth' of a language family. This is a typological feature. And while it is an interesting sub-field of study in linguistics, the reason why typpology isn't used in determining relatedness or anything regarding it is because consonants, tones, etc., can easily be borrowed and be present in an area simply due to trade and not inherited from the mother tongues of the languages that possess the features. Just because isiZulu, for example, has the click phonemes, doesn't mean that it was inherited from Proto-Bantu. This language has it interacting with Khoi-Khoi people who inherited these phonemes. Just because I find clicks in south-African Bantu, this doesn't give me grounds to make the argument that Proto-Bantu originated in South Africa. It is no different than Blench and this unfounded argument for Proto-Semitic in Africa.
There are no indigenous Semitic languages in Africa. It is what it is. Obenga was right on this issue and Mboli provides the proper context on how this came to be. Christopher Ehret in his 2009 paper had to concede this point as well: that Semitic began in the Levant. As Edzard noted, in his book Polygenesis, Convergence, and Entropy: An Alternative Model of Linguistic Evolution Applied to Semitic Linguistics (1998), there is no such thing as a "Proto-Semitic" in the sense that it was a single language that spread out and evolved into daughter languages. It is the result of creolizations of various languages and features. This was reaffirmed in Mboli (2010) and Christopher Ehret (2009). A group of African speakers migrated into the Levant to find people who have always been there from the time of the OOA series of events. When they settled and merged with these people, it is that settlement that caused a convergence process and Proto-Semitic is born. This is why you cannot use the comparative method and reconstruct a "Proto-Afroasiatic" using, for example, Semitic and Berber.
Linguistics is very involved and there is a lot to consider. But we must always approach subject matters understanding the methodology used in the field to make sound arguments. Otherwise we just talk in circles.
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quote:Originally posted by Tukuler: ^ Mensamimd, I don't know but it seems Semitic arose in so-called SW Asia as Akkadian on the Arabian Tectonic plate technically an African sub-plate.
Some Africanasio language probably birthed Semitic but it happened off the continent proper.
Gurage peoples speak Cushitic & Semitic. This gave the appearance that Gurage ppl were the first Semitic speakers.
Because written Ethio-Semitic is rather young applying comparative method to it may not be as revealing as desired.
Bottomline "no indigenous continental African Semitic languages" appears a factual conclusion since Semitic as a family was born off-continent.
African origins of Semitic and EthioSemitic --> MSA in independent black agency Africana studies goes back to Rawlinson [img] coming up [/IMG] from JG Jackson 1934
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: I don't know why this is so hard for people to comprehend. You'd think that after all these years, people would read material on how to classify languages: how to distinguish between genetic and non-genetic classifications. If any field of study is to be taken serious as a discipline, its methodology has to be done in such a way that chance and coincidence are hard fought against so that their conclusions cannot be the result of chance or coincidence.
The historical comparative method is the scientific method of linguistics. It has proven itself time and time again precisely for this reason. This is why Greenberg's method is considered pseudo-science and not used around the world by professional linguists because it doesn't eliminate chance and brings about a lot of false positives. It doesn't even allow you to determine if a word/morpheme is cognate or not because it is not based on sound laws, which you establish via the comparative method. The entire Greenberg phyla (Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic, Khoisan, and Nilo-Saharan) was 'built' from these non-scientific methods.
Anyone who has studied linguistics knows that typology cannot be used to classify languages. In Chapter 9 of my text Aaluja Vol. II: Cyena-Ntu Religion and Philosophy (2020), I spend a lot of time educating people on how linguistics is done and judged. One source I cite Heine & Nurse, African languages: An introduction (2000), where they state:
quote:Language classification must be based on specific points of resemblance and no n on the presence or absence of general features of a typlogical nature. Thus whether two or more languages are tonal or not or whether they have an odd number vs. an even number of vowels might be interesting from a typological or areal point of view, but in and of itself is irrelevant in determining relatedness. (Heine & Nurse, 2000: 260-261)
Whether a set of languages possesses certain types of consonants or not is irrelevant to determining relatedness, let alone determining the 'birth' of a language family. This is a typological feature. And while it is an interesting sub-field of study in linguistics, the reason why typpology isn't used in determining relatedness or anything regarding it is because consonants, tones, etc., can easily be borrowed and be present in an area simply due to trade and not inherited from the mother tongues of the languages that possess the features. Just because isiZulu, for example, has the click phonemes, doesn't mean that it was inherited from Proto-Bantu. This language has it interacting with Khoi-Khoi people who inherited these phonemes. Just because I find clicks in south-African Bantu, this doesn't give me grounds to make the argument that Proto-Bantu originated in South Africa. It is no different than Blench and this unfounded argument for Proto-Semitic in Africa.
There are no indigenous Semitic languages in Africa. It is what it is. Obenga was right on this issue and Mboli provides the proper context on how this came to be. Christopher Ehret in his 2009 paper had to concede this point as well: that Semitic began in the Levant. As Edzard noted, in his book Polygenesis, Convergence, and Entropy: An Alternative Model of Linguistic Evolution Applied to Semitic Linguistics (1998), there is no such thing as a "Proto-Semitic" in the sense that it was a single language that spread out and evolved into daughter languages. It is the result of creolizations of various languages and features. This was reaffirmed in Mboli (2010) and Christopher Ehret (2009). A group of African speakers migrated into the Levant to find people who have always been there from the time of the OOA series of events. When they settled and merged with these people, it is that settlement that caused a convergence process and Proto-Semitic is born. This is why you cannot use the comparative method and reconstruct a "Proto-Afroasiatic" using, for example, Semitic and Berber.
Linguistics is very involved and there is a lot to consider. But we must always approach subject matters understanding the methodology used in the field to make sound arguments. Otherwise we just talk in circles.
Again, you are showing your ignorance of linguistics. We do have Proto-Semitic.
Also, please cite the archaeological evidence Semitic speakers were in Eurasia prior to the Akkadians who came from the Nile Valley. The first literary language of Mesopotamia was Sumerian a language related to the Dravidian and Niger-Congo family of languages. Sumerian records allow us to know when the Akkadians invaded the region.
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quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: It is the result of creolizations of various languages and features. This was reaffirmed in Mboli (2010) and Christopher Ehret (2009). A group of African speakers migrated into the Levant to find people who have always been there from the time of the OOA series of events. When they settled and merged with these people, it is that settlement that caused a convergence process and Proto-Semitic is born. This is why you cannot use the comparative method and reconstruct a "Proto-Afroasiatic" using, for example, Semitic and Berber.
Linguistics is very involved and there is a lot to consider. But we must always approach subject matters understanding the methodology used in the field to make sound arguments. Otherwise we just talk in circles.
The origin of semitic languages have nothing to do with creolization. Sociologist Robin Cohen writes that creolization occurs when “participants select particular elements from incoming or inherited cultures, endow these with meanings different from those they possessed in the original cultures, and then creatively merge these to create new varieties that supersede the prior forms.”
The differences between Semitic languages is not due to changes in culture, it is due the languages evolving differently.
It is clear that the Proto-Semitic speakers lived in Africa. Wolf Leslau (1943) has made it clear that Ethiopic and South Arabic form a dialectical unity. Dialectical unity means that two or more languages form a unified dialect.
According to Haupt, Akkadian ,Minaean and Ethiopic all belong to the same group of Semitic languages , even though they are separated in time and by great geographical distance. This is surprising considering the fact that Ethiopic and Akkadian are separated by many hundreds of years. The best example of this unity is the presence of shared archaicism (Leslau 1943) .The linguistic feature of shared archaicism is the appearance of the vowel after the first consonant of the imperfect.
The original verbal pattern in Semitic was yVqattVl , which is found in East Semitic and Ethiopian (Rubin 2008). For example, one of the most outstanding features of Puntite, is the presence of a vowel following the first consonant in the verb form known as the imperfect, e.g., yi quattul (using the hypothetical verb consonants q-t-l, yi is the person marking prefix) or yi k'ettl 'he kills'. In Southwest Semitic the form of the perfect is yu qtul-u . Here we have the same hypothetical q-t-l form, but there is no vowel following the first consonant of the verb root. This results from the fact that in Black African languages we rarely, if at all find words formed with double consonants.
The fact that East Semitic has shared archaicism with with West Semitic family and Puntite, shows that at the time the Akkadians and Ethiopic speakers separated these groups had dialectical unity. The lack of this trait in Arabic and Hebrew shows that they have been influenced by the Indo-European speakers who invaded Palestine and Arabia between 1300 B.C. and 900 B.C. Semitic verb root
Akkadian Ethiopic/ S. Arabian
kl 'to be dark' ekelu Soqotri okil 'to cover'
mr 'to see' amaru Geez ammara; Tigre amara
br 'to catch' baru Soqotri b'r
dgh 'remove' daqu Geez dagba 'to perforate'
kdn 'to protect' kidin Tigre kadna
The evidence of shared archaism for Akkadian and Ethio-Semitic indicate that the speakers of these languages shared many linguistic features when they separated. It also suggest that the speakers of these languages separated in Africa, since the Ethio-Semitic speakers have long been established in their present home, as supported by the Egyptian inscriptions relating to Punt and aechaeology.
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
quote:Originally posted by Tukuler:
... seems Semitic arose in so-called SW Asia as Akkadian on the Arabian Tectonic plate ...
Some African-[Arabian Plate] language probably birthed Semitic ... off the continent proper.
... written Ethio-Semitic is rather young ...
Bottomline "no indigenous continental African Semitic languages" ... family was born off-continent.
African origins of Semitic and EthioSemitic --> MSA in independent ... Africana studies, goes back to Rawlinson from JG Jackson 1939
. How are African Semitic languages considered young,
WrittenWrittenWritten Ethio-Semitic is rather young. I have no idea how much older any previous to writing, spoken, E-S languages may be.
Does comparative method apply to spoken-only languages? Can glottochronology, and how trustworthy is it? (link) .
quote:they are genetically related to Akkadian which is the oldest recorded Semitic language.
Can't fathom genetic relation making two subjects near the same age. I mean my grands are related to my great-grands. How's that's proof they're close to the same age? .
quote:Col. Rawlinson proved that the Sumerians and Akkadians came from Africa.
Yes, he posited that OPINION. Just because its a pro-Africa opinion doesn't make it foolproof. .
quote: If they came from Africa how could the language be younger.
What? Being from the same place means being from the same time? .
quote:In addition, the earliest cultures in Arabia are of Nubia origin. It stands to reason that these early Semitic speakers came from Nubia. .
I got no idea what was spoken in Nubia (which Nubia?) at the time that culture colonized Arabia (where in Arabia?) or Arabians adapted said culture.
quote: If they came from Africa how could the language be younger.
What? Being from the same place means being from the same time? .
quote:In addition, the earliest cultures in Arabia are of Nubia origin. It stands to reason that these early Semitic speakers came from Nubia. .
I got no idea what was spoken in Nubia (which Nubia?) at the time that culture colonized Arabia (where in Arabia?) or Arabians adapted said culture.
You asked two good questions:
quote: 1) What? Being [a language ]from the same place means being from the same time?
2) [qb]I got no idea what was spoken in Nubia (which Nubia?) at the time that culture colonized Arabia (where in Arabia?) or Arabians adapted said culture.
Lets discuss these questions. Artifacts can not identify the language spoken by the creators of a specific artifactual assemblage. But we can determine the possible language spoken by a population if we look at textual evidence from the area where the artifacts originated beginning with question one.
We Know that Semitic speakers are characterized in ancient iconography as wearing beards. The Ivory label of King Den (c. 2970) show Dan holding a mace “smiting the enemy”. The people were identified a jwntj.w "people with hunting bows”, and inhabitants of the Eastern Desert. The jewenetejes, were probably Semitic or Puntite speakers . Like the Jewenetejes the Puntites wore beards. The use of the bow by the Jeweneteje suggest that they were related to the Kushites. They were probably Kushites, because this population is characterized as users of the "bow".
The earliest cultures in Arabia came from Nubia. As a result, we can assume that these people spoke a Semitic language since the Puntites and jwntj.w "people with hunting bows”, came from parts of Nubia and Northeast Africa where Semitic languages were spoken. This is why we can say the Arabians from Nubia spoke a Semitic language.
This makes it clear that the Eastern desert was occupied by Semitic speaker. The ancient Arabian cultures were founded by Eastern desert people.The Gash Group is a neolithic, prehistoric culture that flourished around 3000 to 1800 BC in Eritrea and the Eastern Sudan.
The earliest civilization in Southwest Arabia date back to the 3- 2nd Millenium. The Gash culture was followed by the Tihama civilization. Pottery in the Horn and South Arabia belong to the Gash culture (2700-1400 BC). The Gash pottery indicates a common culture for the inhabitants of the Horn of Africa and South Arabia ( Fattovich, 2012).
The ceramics from Kassala in the Gash Delta of southeastern Sudan was similar to the wavy-line pottery of the C-Croup people, and is also found on the Island of Dakla Kabir offshore Eritrea and in Yemen. The people of al-Midamman, later crossed the Red Sea and settled in Tihama (Keall,2000).
The Tihama culture which originated in Africa (Fattovich, 2008). One of the first civilization in Northeast Africa and Arabia, was the Tihama culture (Winters, 2013a). Tihama material has been found at the lower strata of Adulis, Matara (Akkele Guzay) and Yeha (Tigray).
This view is supported by the archaeological evidence that support a close relationship between the Puntites/ Ethiopians and Nile Valley Semitic speakers. The answer to question two is simple the people did not adopt a Nubian culture thay were already practicing the Gash and Tihama cultures. It for these reasons we can assume the Souith Arabians were Semitic speakers from the Nile Valley.
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
quote:The occurrence of fragments of foreign ceramics ... point to contacts with * Egypt, Nubia and Southern Arabia in the Early Gash Group phase (c. 2700–2300 BC) * Kerma in the Middle (c. 2300–1900 BC) and Classic (c. 1900–1700 BC) Gash Group phases * Egypt, Nubia and Southern Arabia in the Late Gash Group phase (c. 1700–1500/1400 BC)
(Fattovich et al. 1988–1989; Fattovich 1991c, 1993a, b; Manzo 1997).
Gash is too young, 2700-1400 BCE, to have transmitted any kind of Semitic founder languages as base of Akkadian up in ancient Iraq plus there's no solid proof that I know for Gash peoples speaking Semitic instead of speaking a Cushitic lect. I'm willing to learn otherwise IF via direct data, but not by argumentations.
quote:The occurrence of fragments of foreign ceramics ... point to contacts with * Egypt, Nubia and Southern Arabia in the Early Gash Group phase (c. 2700–2300 BC) * Kerma in the Middle (c. 2300–1900 BC) and Classic (c. 1900–1700 BC) Gash Group phases * Egypt, Nubia and Southern Arabia in the Late Gash Group phase (c. 1700–1500/1400 BC)
(Fattovich et al. 1988–1989; Fattovich 1991c, 1993a, b; Manzo 1997).
Gash is too young, 2700-1400 BCE, to have transmitted any kind of Semitic founder languages as base of Akkadian up in ancient Iraq plus there's no solid proof that I know for Gash peoples speaking Semitic instead of speaking a Cushitic lect. I'm willing to learn otherwise IF via direct data, but not by argumentations.
Anachronisms aren't sufficient answers to Semitic origins in Sudan or Eritrea instead of in Levant or ancient Iraq.
Not claiming my opinion is better than any else just sticking to my guns until compelling evidence suggests I do an update.
Being from the same place means being from the same time? remains unanswered, eg place ≠ time, that I'm aware of.
Stop talking about Afro-Asiatic languages this linguistic family does not exist. Whereas we have Proto-Semitic, we do not have Proto-Afro-Asiatic.
Proto-Afrasian 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.
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.
Obenga made it clear that AfroAsiatic does not exist and you can not reconstruct the Proto-language.
This is true. 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.
You have not presented any evidence that Gash was too early for African Semitic speakers to have settled Arabia. Remember Den was fighting Semitic speakers around 2900 BC, this was 200 years before the founding of the Gash culture. This gave them plenty of time to expand out of the Nile Valley into Arabia.
In addition, the Sumerians do not report any Semitic speakers in the area when they arrived so we can assume they had not settle the area before Sumerians. Akkad began around 2334 BC. This was 600 years after Semitic speakers were identified in the Eastern Desert fighting Den.
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. .
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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