Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Meroitic and Beja are related Languages



There are 134 languages in the Sudan. One of the ancient languages of the Sudan was Meroitic. The Meroitic languages was a lingua franca used by the Meroites to facilitate clear and accurate communication among the Meroites. Beja is one of the Old Sudanese Languages.
The Beja helped spread Buddhism in Central Asia. They probably also helped establish Buddhism in the Meroitic Empire.

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My research makes it clear that various languages were spoken in the Meroitic Empire. As a result, the Meroites used the Meroitic writring system as a lingua franca to facilitate clear and consistant communication Now that I have deciphered Meroitic I can clearly see the relationship between Meroitic and the Old Sudanese Languages (OSL). The OSL languages include Colloquial Sudanese Arabic (CSA) . The CSA languages show no relationship to standard Arabic, because the ancient Sudanese spoke their own languages.
One of the Old Sudanese Languages is Beja. My research indicates that Meroitic is closely related to the Beja language.


There is increasing evidence that the Beja provides a key to fully understanding the Meroitic language. Some years ago I deciphered the Kharamadoye inscription. Kharamadoye was a Beja king of the Meroitic Empire.

In 2004, my article MEROITIC EVIDENCE FOR A BLEMMY EMPIRE IN THE DODEKASCHOINS, was published by Osama Elnur in ARKAMANI Sudan Electronic Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology,http://web.archive.org/…/arkamani-lib…/meroitic/Kalabsha.htm the paper was Translated into Arabic by Osama Elnur see: http://web.archive.org/…/meroitic_studi…/kalabsha_arabic.htm
Today Beja repeat this message from their ancestors with pride as an indication to the long history of the Beja people. At Buzzle.com @  http://www.buzzle.com/…/freedom-for-dirar-ahmed-dirar-indep…
They note:
quote:
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…… Hrmdoye ne qor ene ariteñ lne mdes ne mni-t kene
mk lebne ye re qe-ne q yi-t hl-ne y es bo he-ne q r lebne tro.
S-ne ariteñ net er ek li s-ne d-b li lh ne q r kene qor ene mnpte. “
This was heard already before 1670 years at a moment the Blemmyan King Kharamadoye drove his compatriots to a point of national statehood at the northern area of the then ailing Meroitic kingdom in what is today's Sudanese North and Egyptian South. Using Meroitic scripture, the scribes of Kharamadoye immortalized down to our times an inscription on walls of the Mandulis temple at Talmis (modern Kalabsha). The beginning of the inscription reads in a plausible English translation as follows:
Kharamadoye the monarch and chief of the living Ariteñ, the great son and patron of Amani, you (who) revitalizes (man). The lord's voyage of discovery indeed gives the creation of Good. Act (now Amani) he travels to support good. Make a good welfare swell (for) the offering of the Chief, (he) desires indeed the restoration of eminence. The patron of good Ariteñ bows in reverence (before Amani) to evoke exalted nourishment (for) the patrons to leave a grand and exalted legacy to behold good. Oh Amani make indeed (a) revitalization (of) the monarch (and) commander of Great Napata…..”
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When I first saw this claim that the Beja, represented the Blemmyan people of the Meroitic and Egyptian inscriptions I thought it might be hollow indeed. But after comparing Meroitic to Beja, the claim has considerable merit.
To test the hypothesis that the Beja language was related to meroitic, I compared Meroitic and Beja. The Beja material comes from Klaus and Charlotte Wedekind and Abuzeinab Musa, Beja Pedagogical Grammar ( http://www.afrikanistik-online.de/…/beja_pedagogical_gramma… ) ,
What I found from this cursory examination was most interesting. I will need to gather more vocabulary items from Beja, but I did find a number of matches:
Meroitic ……English……….. Beja
i ‘arrive at this point’ ………… bi ‘went’
t ‘he, she’ ……………………..ta ‘she’
ya ‘go’………………………….yak ‘start’
rit ‘look’……………………….rhitaa ‘you saw’
an(a) plural suffix……………..aan ‘these’
d(d) ‘say’………………………di(y) ‘say’
lb ‘energy, dynamic…………liwa ‘burn’
ken ‘to realize’……………….kana ‘to know’
bk ‘ripen’……………………..bishakwa ‘to be ripe’
The vocabulary items are interesting, but since they come from a grammar book there was not enough to provide an extensive comparison of Beja and Meroitic.
Meroitic and Beja share many grammatical features. For example, the pronouns are usually can be placed in front or at the end verbs e.g., Beja ti bi ‘she went’, Meroitic t-i‘he goes’. In Beja, adi is used to indicate complete action Taman adi ‘I ate it completely’, Meroitic –a, serves the same purpose akin ne a ‘he has become completely learned’. In both languages the adverb is placed behind the noun Beja takii-da ‘small man’, Meroitic pt ‘praise’: pt es ‘manifest praise’. In Beja the future tense is form by ndi, Tami a ndi “I will eat’, Meroitic –n, s-ne yo-n Aman ‘The patron will bow in reverence to Aman’.
This makes it clear to me that the Beja language is related to Meroitic and that the Beja represent the Blemmy nation of Old. It provides keen information on the Old Sudanese Language.

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