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Can anyone tell me the languages of Ancient Egypt? Particularly, pre-dynastic. I have also heard a story pertaining to Akhnaton regarding stella origins (i.e. he is from a different star system???) is there anything to collaborate this?
ausar Member # 1797
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ancient Egyptian language is classified in the large language phylum of Afro-Asiatic. Not really sure what AE sounded like during the pre-dyanstic but I am sure you might try Lorpenio's book on ancient Egyptian language or Faulkner's book. I am sure it was probabaly some proto-Afro-Asiatic language. You might also check out Christopher Ehret in Reconstruting Afro-Asiatic.
rA Member # 4225
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r u sure!!! That would seem to cover only part of the picture....I was certain there is more...of course I could be wrong...
ausar Member # 1797
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This is what most linguist say. You have something different then present evidence against it. AE is an Afro-Asiatic language,and has been probabaly since pre-dyanstic times.
In response to Rick McCallister's question, I have written one article on Nostratic. It's the fourth chapter in the recent volume, Nostratic: Examining a Linguistic Macrofamily, edited by Colin Renfrew and Daniel Nettle. In it I consider what emerges if we compare one version of Nostratic with reconstructions from two sub-Saharan African language families. I use those findings not so much give my views on Nostratic per se as to raise issues about what we are dealing with and what we need to take account of in pursuing deep-time reconstruction.
On the Afroasiatic family and its origins, I actually have several pieces, some available in print and some in the works still. My arguments are essentially that Afroasiatic is a resoundingly African family in origin and that the proto-Afroasiatic peoples were (arguing from reconstructed subsistence vocabulary) distinctly preagricultural in economy. The evidence is very strong that they used grasses or grains as food. But diagnostic vocabulary of cultivation is entirely lacking before the proto-periods of the major branches of the family. Wild grass/grain collection is attested in the archaeology of northeastern Africa from before 15,000 BP down to the beginnings of cultivation. I argue in favor of the correlation of the early Afroasiatic peoples with this archaeology.
A recent rather full account of the evidence and my reading of it, but difficult to get because it was published on CD, is somewhat misleadingly titled, "Who were the rock artists? Linguistic evidence for the Holocene populations of the Sahara." It appears in a volume published about a year ago, edited by Alfred Muzzolini and Jean-Loic Le Quellec, forming part of the proceedings of the 1995 international rock art congress held in Turin. (An unusual forum, I'm afraid; I'll choose better in future.)