Meroitic and Tokharian

My decipherment of Meroitic indicates that many terms alleged to be Meroitic by Griffith and others must be discarded. I am forced to ignore the proposed meaning for some proposed Meroitic lexical items because they do not agree with my research into Meroitic. But I accept some of the alleged Meroitic terms as being verified by my decipherment both due to their Egyptian origin, or affinity to Tokharian terms.

I explain in detail how to read Meroitic in my Book Meroitic Writing and Literature.

It must be remembered that most of the alleged Meroitic lexical items were simply guesses by the researchers. These terms become valid only when they can be read in all the Meroitic text and have consistent meaning. I found that some of these terms are homonyms, while other terms "discovered " by Griffith and others were good guesses that do not prove valid given our discovery of the cognate language of Meroitic.


There are several recognized Meroitic words (Hintze 1979).The following words correspond to Tokharian words:

Meroitic..................... Tokharian

Ø kadke / ktke # queen……………… Ø katak # master of the house

Ø ato # water ……………………………………… Ø ap

#Ø s # 'race'……………………………………………………… Ø sah # 'man'


Ø wide # youth ……………………………………………… Ø wir #

Ø qor # monarch ……………………………………………. Ø oroce # 'the grand king'


Ø parite # agent……………………………………………… Ø parwe # 'first'


Ø apote # 'envoy'………………………………………………..Ø ap # 'father'


It is obvious that apote and parite do not relate to Tokharian because these are Egyptian loan words adopted by the Meroites. But around 57% of these terms show agreement. This made it highly probable that Meroitic and Tokharian were cognate languages.

The grammar of Meroitic determined by Hintze (1979) allowed us to also make comparisons with Tocharian to test the Kushana hypothesis for reading Meroitic. This comparison of grammatical structures showed cognition between this language and Meroitic.

Hintze was sure that there were a number of Meroitic affixes including:

p

ye

-te


-to


-o


B.G. Trigger in his "Commentary" (Hintze 1979) mentioned several other possible Meroitic affixes including:

-n

-te

-b


In addition , A. M. Abdalla in his "Commentary" (Hintze 1979)mentioned three possible verbal suffixes , including:

-ñ


-t


-y


These alleged Meroitic grammatical elements encouraged me to seek out a language that contained these typological features as the possible cognate language for Meroitic. The Kushana language includes all of these affixes.


Researchers working on Meroitic determined several possible prefixes:

p,


p


-s


y.

In Tokharian we find these prefixes: p(ä), the imperfect prefix and imperative, y- the Tokharian element joined to demonstratives, and yopsa ‘in between’.


There are other affixes that relate to the Meroitic suffixes including –te, the demonstrative ‘this, etc.’; -o, the suffix used to change nouns into adjectives. For example: aiśamñe ‘knowledge’, asimo ‘knowing; klyomñ ’nobility’, klyomo ‘noble’.


Other Tokharian affixes which agree with Meroitic include –te and -l. The Tokharian locative suffix is –te. The ending particle in Tokharian is –l.


The Meroitic –t, corresponds to the –t ‘you’. In Tokharian the pronouns are placed at the end of words: nas-a-m ‘I am’, träkä-s ‘he says’, träkä-t ‘you say’.


The –t element in Tokharian can also be used to represent the third person singular e.g., kälpa-t ‘he found’.The p-, element used to form the imperative in Tokharian and imperfect . This affix is used in both Tokharian A and B. For example,Tokh.A klyos "to hear, to listen"p(a)klyos "You listen"p(a)klyossu "s/he listens"Tokh. B klyausp(a)klyaus 'you listen"A. ta, tas, "to lay, to put"ptas 'you lay'B. tes, tas 'to put, to lay'ptes 'you put'.


The Tokharian -n-, has many uses in Tokharian. It can be used to form the subjuntive, e.g., yam 'to do', yaman 's/he do(es). It is also used to form the plural se 'son', pl. sewan 'sons; ri 'city', pl. rin 'cities'.The plural in Tokharian is formed by the –ñ. For example,are ‘plough’, pl. areñ‘ploughs’ ri ‘city’ , pl. riñ ‘cities.

Recognition of analogous structural elements in relation to Kushana and Meroitic allowed us to divide the Meroitic phonemes into words. Griffith provided us with evidenec for selected Meroitic nouns.


Abdalla (Hintze 1979, 149) was sure that he detected several common verbs in Meroitic including:


hr,


the,


tk,


we,


pl,


do,

mde


yi mde.


Following this lead we searched the Kushan language to determine if it possessed any verbs that might match the proposed hypothetical verbs of Abdalla. A comparison of Kushan and Meroitic proved to be successful. We now know that he was absolutely right about his interpretation of possible Meroitic verbs.

Below is the interpretation of these Meroitic verbs:


hr , to have dignity


the , suggested posssible to move


tk , to set in motion, to investigate



w-e , to give escort


pl , to boast, to praise


m-de , measure the offering


y i m-de go make (full) measure of the offering



Recognition of these Meroitic terms as verbs gave us any more confirmation that Kushana was probably the Meroitic cognate language. This discovery of Meroitic verbs and nouns, and cognate toponomies in Central Asia and Upper-Nubia-Sudan proved that Meroitic could be read using Kushana lexical items.


The discovery that Tokharian is cognate to Meroitic has led to the full decipherment of the Meroitic script. We can now translate Meroitic using Tokharian. This allows us to obtain new information about the Meroitic civilization.


My research into Kushana or Tokharian has led me to recognize that this language was probably used as a lingua franca or trade language in Central Asia by the diverse peoples living there in an intense bilingual environment (Winters 1996a, 1996b). C. A. Winters (1991) has illustrated how the Greek and Slavic terms in Tokharian were loanwords, absorbed by Tokharian after the Greek conquest of Bactria.


This borrowing pattern was consistent with the spread of the Greek language into Bactria by a small elite group of warriors.The classical and Egyptian sources make it clear that Upper Nubia and the Sudan was inhabited by numerous tribes. The possible early use of Kushan\Tokharian as a trade language made it an ideal candidate for use by the Meroitic elites who ruled an empire that was made up of many diverse ethnic groups as the language for literate Meroites


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________________1999a. The inscription of Tanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V.


_____________.(nd). The Meroitic Chamber Inscription. Nubica IV und Nubica V.


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I have written a short dictionary of Meroitic terms that you can find at the following web site: http://olmec98.net/meroitic.pdf


My most recent article discussing Meroitic history and deciphering Meroitic documents titled theMeroitic Evidence for a Blemmy Empire in the Dodekaschoinos can be found at the following http://olmec98.net/KALABSHA.htm

Yellin, J. 1982. The role of Anubis in Meroitic religion. In Nubian Studies, J.M. Plumley (ed.), (Cambridge: Selwyn College), 227-234...