...
Post A Reply
my profile
|
directory
login
|
register
|
search
|
faq
|
forum home
»
EgyptSearch Forums
»
Egyptology
»
Kushites: “Nilo-Saharan” speakers vs. a “language isolate” speakers
» Post A Reply
Post A Reply
Login Name:
Password:
Message Icon:
Message:
HTML is not enabled.
UBB Code™ is enabled.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Supercar: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Clyde Winters: [QUOTE] supercar quote: …indeed, a “neutral” language, that seems to have adopted a script sporting certain influences from Egyptian hieroglyphics”, “hieratic” and “demotic” characters. [/QUOTE]This is not unknown in history. Using the alphabet, and the introduction of few additional signs we can write any known language. Moreover, Semitic, Sumerian and Elamite, to name a few languages was written in cuneiform.[/QUOTE]So are you suggesting that this foreign script, that happens to now be Meroitic (according to you, that is), was also influenced by Egyptian characters, from hieroglyphics, hieratic to demotic? [QUOTE]Clyde Winters: The use of cuneiform to write these languages was different from the use of Egyptians by the Napatans and Meroites. The Kushites did not write their own language in Egyptian characters, they wrote all of their correspondence in Egyptian and later Meroitic without leaving evidence of their own language in the inscriptions.[/QUOTE]Meroitic shows influences from the aforementioned Egyptian characters. You must be the only one, who seems to not be aware of this yet. [QUOTE]Clyde Winters: [QUOTE] Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a [b]common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory. [/QUOTE]This is pure conjecture and can not be supported by the linguistic evidence. It can not be supported by the linguistic evidence because we have no collections of Kerman, Napatan or Meroitic lexical items.[/QUOTE]How is this pure conjecture? Do you have material to the contrary, with regards to migratory routes mentioned, the climatic history, and the general history that Rilly was referring to? [QUOTE]Clyde Winters: Granted we do have Kerman, Napatan and Meroitic toponyms (place names) and names in Egyptian text but this data can not be correlated with contemporary languages because most, if not all of these personal names do not exist among contemporary groups.[/QUOTE]...and yet you make claims that the Kushites didn't abandon their language? Which is it: they abandoned it, in favor of a totally foreign language, and hence Kushitic is supposedly completely dead, or it has been carried on through the ages, having been fused with the various related languages now spoken in the region? [QUOTE]Clyde Winters: I have never argued that the Kushites abandoned their native language. I have argued, and supported with evidence the fact that the Kushites. never wrote their inscriptions in a Kushite language. They used lingua francas to unite the diverse speakers in the Napatan and Meroitic civilizations first Egyptian and later Meroitic.[/QUOTE]Well, if the language hasn't been abandoned, then the correlations Rilly mentioned, should be possible after careful and painstaking analysis of the various related languages now spoken in the region. [QUOTE]Clyde Winters: As I pointed out in may original post the Napatans and Meroites wrote their inscriptions in Egyptian. They had a tradition of using a non-Kushite language to record their administrative and political religious activities. Since they were written in Egyptian there is no lexical evidence of of the languages spoken by the Kushites and other groups in the inscriptions left by these people. [/QUOTE]This is where, names come into play, as Rilly pointed out.[see the notes above, to see how] [QUOTE]Clyde Winters: As I pointed out earlier without lexical data from the period any attempts to read Meroitic using a proto-language will result in failure. It will result in failure because you can not compare your results with known lexical items.[/QUOTE]I'm still waiting for the presentation of the specifics of Meroitic script from Asia, and how it is anymore genetically "known" than the Meroitic script itself. [/QB][/QUOTE]
Instant Graemlins
Instant UBB Code™
What is UBB Code™?
Options
Disable Graemlins in this post.
*** Click here to review this topic. ***
Contact Us
|
EgyptSearch!
(c) 2015 EgyptSearch.com
Powered by UBB.classic™ 6.7.3