posted
Recently Asar has implied that you can use historical linguistics to determine the meaning of ancient Egyptian terms. He claims that the meaning of Egyptian terms today can not be truly known, umtil you compare them to contemporary cognate Black African terms, Asar wrote:
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: Peace Dtango
I would have to disagree that the /bA/ is a "man." The definition usually given for /bA/ is "soul" or "might, power." This is a very common word in African languages. The only way you will get to the heart of the lexemes of obscure conceptualization, is to do a cross linguistic comparative analysis with ciKam (Egyptian) and related languages.
Firstly, we should understand that the /A/ ([3] grapheme is an /r/ or /l/ sound. As I noted on my brief note on my homepage (with additional notes here):
quote: b3[1] ~ *b-l, ‘soul’ (Old Kingdom; Wb I, 411; on the identification of /3/ as /l/, see above and Anselin 2007a): West Chadic (Nigeria): Angas-sura: bĕl, ‘reason, sense, to be wise, intelligence, understanding’ (Takács 2004, 31); Central Chadic: Matakam (Cameroon): *bl, ‘genius, spirit, mboko’, belbele-hay, ‘genius’; Niger-Congo: Fulfulde (Cameroon): ηbeelu (ηgu), 'vital principle in man - in danger of being devoured by soul eaters' (Noye 1989, 40; see also, Anselin 2007b, 92); Semitic: *bāl, ‘spirit, mind’; Aramaic: bl, ‘spirit, intelligence’; Northern Syriac: bālā, ‘reason, attention’; Arabic: bāl, ‘attention, consciousness, mind’ (Takács 2001, 6).
si3 ~ *s-r, ‘to understand, know > god of the knowledge’ (Old Kingdom; Wb IV 30, 1-21), written with the hieroglyph of the cloth (Gardiner S32); si3.t, (Pyramid Texts; Coffin Texts variant, sr3.t, identifying /i/ as a reflex of /r/): Central Chadic: Mofu-gudur: sǝr, ‘to know’ (Barreteau 1988, 198); Merey: sǝr, ‘to know’ (Gravina et al. 2003); Udlam: -sǝr, ‘to know’ (Kinnaird and Oumate 2003); Muyang: sǝr, ‘to get to know’ (Smith 2003).
m33 ~ *mVl, ‘to see, look, examine’ (Old Kingdom; Wb II 7, 1-10, 7), phonetically written with the hieroglyph of the sickle (Gardiner U1), the phonetic complement of the vulture (Gardiner G1) or the determinative of the eye (Gardiner D4) (Kahl 2004, 166-7): Cushitic: Agaw: Bilin: miliʡy-, ‘to look, examine’; Kemant: mel-, ‘to examine, observe’; Eastern Cushitic: Oromo: mal-, ‘to think’; Sidamo: mal-, ‘to perceive, advise’; Somali: mala, ‘thought’; Burji: mala, ‘plan’ (Anselin 2001). Omotic: Wolamo: mil, ‘to believe’; Kafa: mallet, ‘to observe’ (Dolgopolsky 1973, 180).
The dispute between a man and his /bA/ is an argument with a man and his spirit double: his "mind." In African cultures, the mind is his spirit double. In Yoruba we say /ori/ "mind," and also /ori/ "spirit double" (Egyptian /Hr/ "head, mind"). In ciLuba-Bantu we say /mwoyo/ "mind, intelligence," and also /mwoyo/ "spirit, heart" (Egyptian /jb/ "heart, mind, spirit"=/bA/). The man in the story is simply having a conversation with himself and not another man. He's trying to rationalize the political situation.
If you want to get at the heart of ancient Egyptian concepts, you're going to have to study related African languages. These concepts are still alive and well and they will give you a sense of what is going on in the texts.
Asar claims that this method of comparing Egyptian terms and modern African terms is a historical linguistic method. Asar wrote:
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: Greetings the Lioness
I think that you should study historical comparative linguistics so you know the procedures that we take in order to establish a relationship and reconstruct proto-forms. Without that knowledge, you won't understand the nature of your own question. Because the answer was already given in my response. And if you can't recognize the answer, then that means you are unfamiliar with historical linguistics. So I would take some time to get familiar with the field so you can see how your questioned was answered before you asked it.
This may be the claim of Asar, but in reality the method he uses has nothing to do with historical linguistics.
HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
Linguistic resemblances denote a historical relationship. This suggest that resemblances in fundamental vocabulary and culture terms can help one reconstruct the culture of the speakers of related languages. We use historical linguistic methods to document the history of a language in both vocabulary and grammar.
The historical linguist looks at language across languages and uses the knowledge he learns to reconstruct the Proto (hypothetical)-language form of a present language traced back to ancient times. Each lexical item traced back to the Proto-language is called a cognate.
This makes it clear that a person's language provides us with evidence of the elements of a group's culture. Using semantic anthropology we can reconstruct Paleo-terms. Paleo-terms can help us make inferences about a culture going backwards in time to an impenetrable past undocumented by written records. This is semantic anthropology, a linguistic approach which seeks to discover aspects of man's culture from his language. Thusly, linguistic resemblances can help the anthropologist make precise inferences about a groups culture elements.
Phonology is the study of changes, transformations, modifications, etc., of phonemes or speech sounds during the history and development of a language. To denote these changes the linguist considers each phoneme in the light of the part it plays in the structure of speech forms.
There are no clearly established linguistic markers that can measure language change. Languages are not constrained by a preprogrammed reproductive cycle. This means that language can undergo extensive and radical changes over a either a short, or long time span.
This makes it very difficult for historical and comparative linguist to chart linguistic changes based solely or archaeologi -cal data. Thusly, borrowing and convergence are important factors which must be accounted for in any discussion of language change. Linguists therefore, can not examine language change in isolation from the social and historical factors affecting the speaker of the language(s) being examined and discussed.
The socioderme is the transitional unit in language change. This view is especially true, given the fact that language is communal property, i.e. the property of the social or ethnic group which speaks it.
It is the group that identifies aspects of a language and legitimize its proper usage in society. Group membership not only produces variations across gender and ethnic groups, it also helps establish the norms of language spoken by that particular group.
In summary, Historical linguistics, you reconstruct the Proto-Language of the the Super-Language Family and the proto-language of the subgroups or branches in the family tree. As you can see, historical linguistics is not used to explain the use of a specific term, in a specific language it is used to determine term proto-terms used in a family of languages. This means tha you can not use terms from cognate languages to explain the meaning of: ‘Ba”. The meaning of Ba has already been determined by the Egyptians themselves.
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Clyde Winters Member # 10129
posted
In Historical linguistics, you reconstruct the Proto-Language of the the Super-Language Family and the proto-language of the subgroups or branches in the family tree.
In Historical linguistics the goals of comparative and internal reconstruction differ. Comparative reconstruction seeks to recover the prehistoric linguistics elements of a language or group of languages and establish a genetic relationship between or among language speakers. Linguistic reconstruction is used to establish specific relationships between and among language speakers.
Internal Reconstruction is used to compare languages with corresponding forms--that must be attested by a review of earlier stages of a language documented in text. Having text of earlier stages of a language for comparative purposes provides credibility to the methods used in internal reconstructions. Thisn is why many of the reconstruction proposed by Saussure of Proto-Indo European were not empirically confirmed until the discovery of Hittite.
To confirm a genetic relationship you must reconstruct the proto-language. A proto-language is a term used to refer to the earliest form of a language established by means of the comparative method of reconstruction.
Reconstruction of the proto-language allows us to discover the superordinate proto-language (SPL) which represents the 'mother language'of a Super Family of languages. It can also lead to the establishment of reconstructed descendant languages closely related to one-another that form a subgroup in the Super Family of languages like Proto-Indo-European, which would represent a intermediate proto-language (IPL).
As a result, we can reconstruct the Proto-language of the Super Family: Negro/Black African-Egyptian (BAE) the SPL, while reconstructing the proto-language of the the languages in each subgroup, e.g., Mande, which includes a variety of dialects and represent the IPLs. But neither Proto-Bantu or Proto-Mande forms any sort of hierarchy for BAE, the Mande and Bantu language families are simply sub-groups in the much larger BAE Super Family of African languages.
HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
A person's language provides us with evidence of the elements of a group's culture. Diop has noted that reconstruction of Paleo-African terms can help us make inferences about a group's culture going backwards in time to an impenetrable past undocumented by written records. This is semantic anthropology, a linguistic approach which seeks to discover aspects of man's culture from his language. Thusly, linguistic resemblances can help the anthropologist make precise inferences about a groups culture elements.
Linguistic resemblances denote a historical relationship. This suggest that resemblances in fundamental vocabulary and culture terms can help one reconstruct the culture of the speakers of genetically related languages.
LINGUISTIC CONSTANCY
The rate at which languages change is variable. It appears that linguistic change is culture specific. Consequently, the social organization and political culture of a particular speech community can influence the speed at which languages change.
Based on the history of language change in Europe most linguists believe that the rate of change for all languages is both rapid and constant.(Diagne, 1981,p.238) The idea that all languages change rapidly is not valid for all the World's languages.
African languages change much slower than European languages. (Armstrong, 1962) For example, African vocabulary items collected by Arab explorers over a thousand years ago are analogous to contemporary lexical items.(Diagne,1981, p.239) In addition there are striking resemblances between the ancient Egyptian language and Coptic, and Pharonic Egyptian and African languages.(Diagne, 1981; Diop, 1977; Obenga, 1993)
The political stability of African political institutions has caused languages to change very slowly in Africa. Pawley and Ross (1993) argue that a sedentary life style may account for the conservative nature of a language.
African oral traditions and the eye witness accounts of travelers to Africa, make it clear that African empires although made up of diverse nationalities illustrated continuity. To accomodate the plural nature of African empires Africans developed a Federal system of government. (Niane , 1984) In fact we can not really describe ancient African state systems as empires, since this implies absolute rule or authority in a single individual. This political state of affairs rarely existed in ancient Africa, because in each African speech community local leadership was elected by the people within the community. (Diop, 1987) For example the Egyptians often appointed administrators over the conquered territories from among the conquered people. (Diop ,1991)
The continuity of many African languages may result from the steady state nature of African political systems, and long standing cultural stability since neolithic times. (Diop, 1991 ; Winters 1985) This cultural stability has affected the speed at which African languages change.
In Africa due to the relative stability of socio-political structures and settled life, there has not been enough pressure exerted on African societies as a whole and African speech communities in particular, to cause radical internal linguistic changes within most African languages. Permanent settlements led to a clearly defined system of inheritance and royal succession. These traits led to stability on both the social and political levels.
This leads to the hypothesis that linguistic continuity exist in Africa due to the stability of African socio-political structures and cultural systems. This relative cultural stability has led African languages to change more slowly then European and
Asian languages. Diop (1974) observed that:
First the evolution of languages, instead of moving everywhere at the same rate of speed seems linked to other factors; such as , the stability of social organizations or the opposite, social upheavals. Understandably in relatively stable societies man's language has changed less with the passage of time.(pp.153-154)
There is considerable evidence which supports the African continuity concept. Dr. Armstrong (1962) noted the linguistic continuity of African languages when he used glottochronology to test the rate of change in Yoruba. Comparing modern Yoruba words with a list of identical terms collected 130 years ago by Koelle , Dr. Armstrong found little if any internal or external changes in the terms. He concluded that:
I would have said that on this evidence African languages are changing with glacial slowness, but it seems to me that in a century a glacier would have changed a lot more than that. Perhaps it would be more in order to say that these languages are changing with geological slowness. (Armstrong, 1962, p.285).
Diop's theory of linguistic constancy recognizes the social role language plays in African language change. Language being a variable phenomena has as much to do with a speaker's society as with the language itself. Thus social organization can influence the rate of change within languages. Meillet (1926, 17) wrote that:
Since language is a social institution it follows that linguistics is a social science, and the only variable element to which one may appeal in order to account for a linguistic change is social change, of which language variations are but the consequences.
THE BLACK AFRICAN ORIGIN OF EGYPT
Diop has contributed much to African linguistics. He was a major proponent of the Dravidian-African relationship (Diop 1974, 116), and the African substratum in Indo-European languages in relationship to cacuminal sounds and terms for social organiza-tion and culture (1974, 115). Diop (1978, 113) also recognized that in relation to Arabic words, after the suppression of the first consonant, there is often an African root.
Diop's major linguistic effort has been the classification of Black African and Egyptian languages . Up until 1977 Diop'smajor area of interest were morphological and phonological similarities between Egyptian and Black African languages. Diop (1977, 77-84) explains many of his sound laws for the Egyptian-Black African connection.
In Parènte Génétique de l'Egyptien pharraonique et des Langues Négro Africaines (PGEPLNA), Diop explains in some detail his linguistic views in the introduction of this book. In PGEPLNA , Diop demonstrates the genetic relationship between ancient Egyptian and the languages of Black Africa. Diop provides thousands of cognate Wolof and Egyptian terms in support of his Black African-Egyptian linguistic relationship.
Clyde Winters Member # 10129
posted PALEO-AFRICAN
African languages are divided into Supersets (i.e., a family of genetically related languages, e.g., Niger-Congo) sets, and subsets. In the sets of African languages there are many parallels between phonological terms, eventhough there may be an arbitrary use of consonants which may have a similar sound. The reason for these changes is that when the speakers of Paleo-African languages separated, the various sets of languages underwent separate developments. As a result a /b/ sound in one language may be /p/ or /f/ in a sister language. For example, in African languages the word for father may be baba , pa or fa, while in the Dravidian languages we have appan to denote father.
Diop has noted that reconstruction of Paleo-African terms can help us make inferences about an ethnic group's culture going backwards in time to an impenetrable past undocumented by written records. This is semantic anthropology, a linguistic approach which seeks to discover aspects of man's culture from his language. Thusly, linguistic resemblances can help the anthropologists make precise inferences about a linguistic group's cultural elements.
BLACKS IN WEST ASIA
In PGEPLNA Diop makes clear his views on the role of African languages in the rise of other languages. Using archaeological evidence Diop makes it clear that the original West Asians: Elamites and Sumerians were of Black origin (1974, 1977, xxix-xxxvii).
Diop (1974, 1991) advocates the unity of Black Africans
and Blacks in West Asia. Winters (1985,1989,1994) has elaborated on the linguistic affinity of African and West Asian languages.
This view is supported by linguistic evidence. For example these languages share demonstrative bases:
Proximate Distant Finite
Dravidian i a u
Manding i a u
Sumerian bi a
Wolof i a u
The speakers of West Asian and Black African languages also share basic culture items:
Chief city,village black,burnt
Dravidian cira, ca uru kam
Elamite Salu
Sumerian Sar ur
Manding Sa furu kami,"charcoal'
Nubia sirgi mar
Egyptian Sr mer kemit
Paleo-African *sar *uru *kam
OBENGA
Obenga (1978) gives a phonetic analysis of Black African and Egyptian. He illustrates the genetic affinity of consonants within the Black African (BA) and Egyptian languages especially the occlusive bilateral sonorous, the occlusive nasal apico-dental /n/ and /m/ , the apico-alveolar /r/ and the radical
proto-form sa: 'man, female, posterity' in Black Africa.
Language
Agaw asau, aso 'masculine
Sidama asu 'man'
Oromo asa id.
Caffino aso id.
Yoruba so 'produce'
Meroitic s' man
Fonge sunu id.
Bini eso 'someone'
Kikongo sa,se,si 'father'
Swahili (m)zee 'old person'
Egyptian sa 'man'
Manding si,se 'descendant,posterity,family'
Azer se 'individual, person'
Obenga (1978) also illustrated the unity between the verbs 'to come, to be, to arrive':
Language
Egyptian ii, ey Samo, Loma dye
Mbosi yaa Bisa gye
Sidama/Omo wa Wolof nyeu
Caffino wa Peul yah, yade
Yoruba wa Fonge wa
Bini ya Mpongwe bya
Manding ya,dya Swahili (Ku)ya
between t =/= d, highlight the alternation patterns of many Paleo-African consonants including b =/= p, l =/= r ,and
g =/= k.
The Egyptian term for grain is 0 sa #. This corresponds to many African terms for seed,grain:
Galla senyi
Malinke se , si
Sumerian se
Egyptian sen 'granary'
Kannanda cigur
Bozo sii
Bambara sii
Daba sisin
Somali sinni
Loma sii
Susu sansi
Oromo sanyi
Dime siimu
Egyptian ssr 'corn'
id. ssn 'lotus plant'
id. sm 'herb, plant'
id. isw 'weeds'
In conclusion, Diop has done much to encourage the African recovery of their history. His theories on linguistics has inspired many African scholars to explain and elaborate the African role in the history of Africa and the world. This has made his work important to our understanding of the role of Black people in History.
REFERENCES
Armstrong,R.G. (1962). Glottochronology and African linguistics. Journal of African History,3(2), 283-290.
Baines, J. (1991, August 11). Was civilization made in Africa? The New York Times Review of Books, 12-13.
Bynon,T. (1978). Historical linguistics. London: Cambridge University Press.
Crawley,T. 1992. An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Delafosse,M. (1901). La Langue Mandigue. Paris.
Diagne,P. (1981). In J. Ki-Zerbo (Ed.), General history of Africa I: Methodology and African prehistory (233-260). London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd.
Diop, C.A. (1974). The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. Westport, Conn.:Lawrence Hill and Company.
Diop,C.A. (1977). Parentè gènètique de l'Egyptien Pharaonique et des languues Negro-Africaines. Dakar: Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire.
Diop, C.A. (1978). Precolonial Black Africa. Wesport, Conn. :Lawrence Hill and Company.
Diop, C.A. 1981. A methodology for the study of migrations. In African Ethnonyms and Toponyms, by UNESCO. (Unesco: Paris) 86--110.
Diop, C.A. (1991). Civilization or Barbarism. Brooklyn,N.Y.:
Lawrence Hill Books.
Dweyer, D.J. (1989). 2. Mande. In John Bendor-Samuel (Ed.), The Niger-Congo Languages (47-65). New York: University Press of America.
Ehret,C. (1988). Language change and the material correlates of language and ethnic shift. Antiquity, 62, 564-574.
Ehret,C. & Posnansky (Eds.). (1982). The Archaeological and linguistic reconstruction of African history. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hock,H.H. (1988). Principles of historical linguistics. Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter.
Labov,W.(1965). The social motivation of a sound change. Word, 19, 273-309.
Labov.,W. (1972). The internal evolution of linguistic rules. In Stokwell,R.P. and Macaulay, R.K.S. (eds.) Linguistic change and generative theory (101-171). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Lefkowitz, M. (1992, February 10). Not out of Africa. The New Republic, 29-36.
Mbiti, J. S. 1970. African religions and Philosophy. Garden City: Anchor Press.
Meillet, A. 1926. Introduction à l'etude comparatif des languages Indo-Europeennes. Paris.
Moitt,B. (1989) Chiekh Anta Diop and the African diaspora: Historical continuity and socio-cultural symbolism. Presence Africaine, 149/150, 347-360.
Pawley,A. & Ross,M. (1993). Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history. Annual Review of Anthropology, 22, 425-459.
McIntosh, S. K. & McIntosh, R. (1983). Forgotten Tells of Mali. Expedition, 35-47.
Niane,D.T.(Ed.). (1984). Introduction. General History of Africa IV (1-14). London: Heinemann Educational Books.
Obenga,T. (1978). The genetic relationship between Egyptian (ancient Egyptian and Coptic) and modern African languages. In
UNESCO (Ed.), The peopling of ancient Egypt and the deciphering of the Meroitic script (65-72). Paris: UNESCO.
Obenga, T. (1993). Origine commune de l'Egyptien Ancien du Copte et des langues Negro-Africaines Modernes. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan.
Lord,R. (1966). Comparative Linguistics. London: St. Paul's House.
Olderogge, L. (1981). Migrations and ethnic and linguistic differentiations. In J. Ki-Zerbo (Ed.),General History of Africa I: Methodology and African History (271-278). Paris: UNESCO.
Robins, R.H. (1974). General Linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana State University Press.
Ruhlen, M. 1994. The origin of language. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Welmers, W. (1968). Niger Congo-Mande. In T.A. Sebeok (Ed.), Current Trends in Linguistics, 7,113-140.
Williams, B. (1987). The A-Group Royal Cemetery at Qustul:Cemetery L. Chicago: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago Press.
Winters,C.A. (1985). The Proto-Culture of the Dravidians, Manding and Sumerians.Tamil Civilization,3(1), 1-9.
Winters,C.A. (1986). The Migration routes of the Proto-Mande. The Mankind Quarterly,27(1), 77-96.
Winters, C.A. 1989. Tamil, Sumerian, Manding and the genetic model. International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 18 (1), 98-127.
Winters, C.A. (1994). Afrocentrism:A valid frame of reference. Journal of Black Studies, 25 (2), 170-190.
Yurco,F. 1989. Were the ancient Egyptians Black? Biblical Archaeology.
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Amun-Ra The Ultimate Member # 20039
posted
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: [QB] This means tha you can not use terms from cognate languages to explain the meaning of: ‘Ba”.
Sure, you can. We already been over this.
quote: The meaning of Ba has already been determined by modern linguists .
I corrected that for you.
Since modern African languages and Ancient Egyptians are from the same family (Negro-Egyptian), and Ancient Egyptians didn't provide us with an English-AEians dictionary, linguist can certainly use cognates from other genetically related languages (languages from the same family) to try to determine the significance of certain words in AEian.
So using cognates from other genetically related languages can be a powerful tool to help derive the meaning of Ancient Egyptians words. The task is a bit difficult because the meaning of words changes with time (in genetically related languages). For example, maybe (again maybe not) the Ancient Egyptian definition of Ba is a bit different than definition the Negro-Egyptian speakers had of Ba (as well as different from the definition of other daughter languages of Negro-Egyptian). On the other hand, maybe many languages from the Negro-Egyptian family, including Ancient Egyptian and modern Cushitic or Niger-Congo languages, for example, kept the same definition of the word/cognate Ba. If that's the case they we just found the definition of the word Ba using modern African languages. Then we can read Ancient Egyptian text and translate them in english with this definition of Ba shared between Ancient Egyptians and many, in my example, Cushitic and Niger-Congo languages.
Before speaking the Ancient Egyptian languages, Ancient Egyptians, as well as most other African people (Cushitic, Niger-Congo , Nilo-Saharan, etc) spoke a language called Negro-Egyptian.
So of course, some words/cognates and their meaning are shared between modern African languages and Ancient Egyptians.
Amun-Ra The Ultimate Member # 20039
posted
I will provide another example.
Let's say in Ancient Egyptians there's a word 'tataki'(ttk) we don't know the definition of. So every time we try to translate a sentence of Ancient Egyptians with the word tataki in it, we must put ?? at the word tataki for the translation in english, since we don't know what the word means.
For example: Bring your tataki with you. Another AEian text: Put some eggs in your tataki. Another text:I've lost my tataki so I need to use my hands instead. I hope I don't drop any.
Here in the first example, linguists could translate 'Bring your' and 'with you' in English but not the Ancient Egyptian word tataki. Same for the other AEian sentences.
Let's say this word 'tataki' appears in many modern African languages and is determined to be a cognate. It often means bowl/container (like a bowl of soup or a bowl of eggs) in those modern African languages.
So since Ancient Egyptians and modern African languages are all from the same family, it's a possibility that tataki also means bowl in Ancient Egyptians.
To make the determination, we must use Ancient Egyptian texts and see if 'tataki' as meaning 'bowl' make sense in those texts.
Clyde Winters Member # 10129
posted
quote:Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate:
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: [QB] This means tha you can not use terms from cognate languages to explain the meaning of: ‘Ba”.
Sure, you can. We already been over this.
quote: The meaning of Ba has already been determined by modern linguists .
I corrected that for you.
Since modern African languages and Ancient Egyptians are from the same family (Negro-Egyptian), and Ancient Egyptians didn't provide us with an English-AEians dictionary, linguist can certainly use cognates from other genetically related languages (languages from the same family) to try to determine the significance of certain words in AEian.
So using cognates from other genetically related languages can be a powerful tool to help derive the meaning of Ancient Egyptians words. The task is a bit difficult because the meaning of words changes with time (in genetically related languages). For example, maybe (again maybe not) the Ancient Egyptian definition of Ba is a bit different than definition the Negro-Egyptian speakers had of Ba (as well as different from the definition of other daughter languages of Negro-Egyptian). On the other hand, maybe many languages from the Negro-Egyptian family, including Ancient Egyptian and modern Cushitic or Niger-Congo languages, for example, kept the same definition of the word/cognate Ba. If that's the case they we just found the definition of the word Ba using modern African languages. Then we can read Ancient Egyptian text and translate them in english with this definition of Ba shared between Ancient Egyptians and many, in my example, Cushitic and Niger-Congo languages.
Before speaking the Ancient Egyptian languages, Ancient Egyptians, as well as most other African people (Cushitic, Niger-Congo , Nilo-Saharan, etc) spoke a language called Negro-Egyptian.
So of course, some words/cognates and their meaning are shared between modern African languages and Ancient Egyptians.
You can not use Historical linguistics to determine the of meaning words for specific Egyptian words.
Please cite any linguistic articles supporting this method.
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Clyde Winters Member # 10129
posted
quote:Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate: I will provide another example.
Let's say in Ancient Egyptians there's a word 'tataki'(ttk) we don't know the definition of. So every time we try to translate a sentence of Ancient Egyptians with the word tataki in it, we must put ?? at the word tataki for the translation in english, since we don't know what the word means.
For example: Bring your tataki with you. Another AEian text: Put some eggs in your tataki. Another text:I've lost my tataki so I need to use my hands instead. I hope I don't drop any.
Here in the first example, linguists could translate 'Bring your' and 'with you' in English but not the Ancient Egyptian word tataki. Same for the other AEian sentences.
Let's say this word 'tataki' appears in many modern African languages and is determined to be a cognate. It often means bowl/container (like a bowl of soup or a bowl of eggs) in those modern African languages.
So since Ancient Egyptians and modern African languages are all from the same family, it's a possibility that tataki also means bowl in Ancient Egyptians.
To make the determination, we must use Ancient Egyptian texts and see if 'tataki' as meaning 'bowl' make sense in those texts.
This example is related to comparative linguistics. In this example you are looking for Black African terms that show the cvcvcv form: tataki and have the meaning 'bowl'.Here the Egyptian word in maintaing the same meaning.
This not what Asar is doing. To the Egyptians, the term ba= soul. But Asar is claiming that the actual meaning of ba, is mind.
Asar wrote:
quote:
The dispute between a man and his /bA/ is an argument with a man and his spirit double: his "mind." In African cultures, the mind is his spirit double. In Yoruba we say /ori/ "mind," and also /ori/ "spirit double" (Egyptian /Hr/ "head, mind"). In ciLuba-Bantu we say /mwoyo/ "mind, intelligence," and also /mwoyo/ "spirit, heart" (Egyptian /jb/ "heart, mind, spirit"=/bA/). The man in the story is simply having a conversation with himself and not another man. He's trying to rationalize the political situation.
Historical linguistics has nothing to do with Asar's use of cognate terms as a method to "determine" the actual meaning of an Egyptian word by interpreting the Egyptian word via a cognate word in another African languages. Historical linguistics would take the cognate terms and reconstruct the proto-term for Ba, in the Proto-Egyptian -Black African language.
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