The ancient literary language spoken on the banks of Rivers Sarasvati and Sindhu was Dravidian. Due to the large number of Dravidians living in India alongside the Aramaic, Munda and Indo-Aryan speakers Sanskrit was invented as a link language and lingua franca to unite the Indians. At the base of Sanskrit was the Dravidian languages.
Dr. Kalyanaraman has made it clear that he is skeptical of the integrity of the I-E linguistic discipline. I agree with Kalyanaraman. The affinities between Sanskrit and Greek/Latin result from 1) the early contact between the Indic languages when the Greeks ruled India-Pakistan; and 2) the Latin popularity and spread of Greek civilization and culture when the Romans ruled the world.
At the end of the 18th century Sir William Jones, suggested that Sanskrit was closely related to Western languages that could not be attributed purely to chance. Jones maintained that these Indic and European languages must be descended from a common ancestor. It was from this observation that Indo-European linguistics was born.
In Sir Jones time we knew little about the history of the Greeks in India. Today we know much more about the historical evidence relating to Greek influence in India. The textual material make it clear that when Sanskrit was codified Greek was spoken by many Indians and due to bilingualism, Greek elements probably used in the Prakrits and everyday speech became of the link language: Sanskrit.
The Dravidians formerly were the major linguistic group in Central Asia and India-Pakistan. Many north Dravidian people are presently found in Central Asia. The cattle rearing Brahuis may represent descendants of the Dravidian pastoral element that roamed the steppes in ancient times. North Dravidian speaking Brahuis are found in Afghan Baluchistan , Persian Sistan and the Marwoasis in Soviet Turkmenistan (Elfenbein 1987: 229).
There are islands of Dravidian speakers in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. There are over 300,000 Brahui speakers in Qualat, Hairpur and Hyderabad districts of Pakistan. Other Dravidian speakers are found in Iran, Russia and Yugoslavia (ISDL 1983: 227). The distribution of Northern Dravidian speaking groups outlined above, corresponds to the former spread of Harappan cultures in the 3rd millennium B.C., in Central Asia.
Due to early the Dravidian settlement of Central Asia the Dravidian speakers influenced many languages. There is a Dravidian substratum in Indo-Aryan. There are Dravidian loans Rg Veda, eventhough Aryan recorders of this work were situated in the Punjab, which was occupied around this time by Dravidians using BRW.
Emeneau and Burrow (1962) found 500 Dravidian loan words in Sanskrit. In addition, Indo-Aryan illustrates a widespread structural borrowing from Dravidian in addition to 700 lexical loans (Kuiper 1967; Southward 1977; Winters 1989).
It is therefore not surprising that Dravidian languages lie at the base of the languages spoken in Indo-Aryan languages spoken in Pakistan and India. It is therefore not surprising that the Dravidian languages great influenced Sanskrit.
Many researchers reject the idea that Sanskrit was greatly influenced by the Dravidian languages. They dispute this theory because of the Greek relationship to Sanskrit. Although researchers have used the relationship between Greek and Sanskrit in support of an Indo-European linguistic family, it is clear that the relationship between Sanskrit and Greek result from the long influence in India-Pakistan of the Greeks .
The Greco-Bactrians were probably bilingual . Bilingualism can be induced through two methods 1) state coercion or 2) its ability to offer advantages to two or more populations in contact. The latter method of change usually accounts for bilingualism--people use the new language to obtain better access to status, security, ritual or goods. The Greek emphasis on direct methods of political control in Bactria forced many non-Greeks to become bilingual due to its advantage as a tool for greater upward mobility during Greek rule.
The Greek colonization of Bactria, made the Greek language a link language between the non-IE languages spoken in Central Asia three thousand years ago, after many generations of bilingualism led to an interlanguage phenomena that became a permanent feature of the literate speech community in this region. We can define the institutionalization of an interlanguage as language recombination, i.e., the mixing of the vocabulary and structures of the substratum language (Dravidian) and the superstratum language (Greek and later Slavic speaking Saka people) to form a new mixed language: Tocharian.
The Greek culture was transplanted in Bactria by the army of Alexander the Great. It can be assumed that due to direct rule, the Greek language was well established in this region by the cultural matrix accompanying it since possession of Greek culture and language played a major role in the upward mobility of "colonial subjects" in Bactria.
Eteo-Tocharian is a good example of the influence of Greeks in Central Asia. Eteo-Tocharian was written in a modified Greek alphabet (Maricq 1958:398). This script is a manifestation of the Greek influence in Bactria, even after the Kushana subjugation of this area. This latter point is evident in the Grand Inscription of Kaniska (Maricq 1958).
An intruding community like the Greeks in Central Asia did not have to outnumber the colonized people in Bactria to impact on the language of the original Bactrians. The mere fact that the new speech community, although ethnically different were now recognized as socially superior to the subject peoples of Bactria, it was useful for Bactrians to become bilingual so they would be able to function both within their own culture and the new culture introduced by the conquering Greeks. This hypothesis is congruent with Ehret's (1988:569) view that people make cultural choices on the basis of what appears to be most advantageous to the lives they live.
The Greeks made a conscious effort to affect the underpinnings of the native Bactrian's material world and their relations with their spirits or gods. For example, Greek influence is evident in the Gandharan Buddhist style sculptures. This art style illustrates Hellenistic influences in the modeling of the hair and facial features.
The relationship between Greek and Indic languages results from the early contact of the speakers of these languages in Northwest India and beyond during a period in which the Greeks were a major power in Central Asia.
The Greeks also ruled Pakistan and India. The Indian rule of India is discussed in the following books: F.L. Holt, Thundering Zeus ;W.W. Tarn, The Greeks of Bastria and India ; A.K. Narain, The Indo-Greeks ; and H. Kulke & D. Rothermund, History of India .
Many Pakistanis recognize Dravidian as the root language for many languages spoken in Pakistan (Rahman.2004). They accept the fact that a Dravidian language was probably spoken by the people who formerly lived in the Indus Valley.
It was in Pakistan that the Greek language was probably corporated into Sanskrit. Many of the rules for Sanskrit were codified by Panini, who was born in Salatura, in Northwest Pakistan. Panini’s grammar contains 4000 rules.
When Panini wrote his grammar of Sanskrit, it was spoken by the elites in the area. Greek was also popular when Panini wrote the Sanskrit grammar. The Greeks were called Yunani or Yavana. Thus we learn from Agrawala (1953) that the Yavanani lipi (edict) was well known in Gandahara, and even Panini mentions the Yavana in his grammar . The term Yauna meant Ionian (Woodcock, 1966).
The history of Greeks in the area is quite interesting. When Alexander entered the HinduKush region in 327 B.C., Greek settlements were already in the area. By 180 BC, as the Mauryas fell into decline, the Greek Kings of Bactria took control of Western Punjab and Gandhara up to the Indus River. Under King Menander (d.130 B.C.) the Greeks had their capital at Taxila. The center of Greek culture in the area was Charsadda near Peshawar (Woodcock,1966).
Many Greek terms were probably already incorporated in the Prakrits of Northern India-Pakistan and Central Asia. Here the Greeks minted their coins with Kharoshthi, Brahmi and Greek inscriptions.
Greek was used for commercial purposes and served as a patrician lingua franca of the Kabul valley and of Gandhara. During the rule of Pushyamitra many Greeks settled in India. Due to the long history of Greeks in India, Ashoka had some of his edicts written in Greek and Aramaic bilinguals. In 44 A.D., Appolonius of Tyana when he visited Taxila found that merchants and kings learned Greek “as a matter of course” (Rahman, 2004; Woodcock,1966).
Given the popularity of Greek in the region it is not surprising that Sanskrit would show such a strong relationship to the Indic languages, since it was spoken throughout the area of a couple of hundred years. Commenting on the Greek rulers of India, Kulke and Rothermund (1998), said that “They are referred to as ‘Indo-Greeks’, and there were about forty such kings and rulers who controlled large areas of northwestern India and Afghanistan….They appear as Yavanas in stray references in Indian literature, and there are few but important references in European sources. In these distant outposts, the representatives of the Hellenic policy survived the defeat of their Western compatriots at the hands of the Parthians for more than a century” (p.70). The greatest of the Indo-Greek rulers was Menander, who is mentioned in the famous Milindapanho text. The Shakas adopted many elements of Indo-Greek culture which they perpetuated in India for over 100 years (Rahman, 2004).
The large corpus of non-IE words in Tocharian discussed by Blazek (1988) and Winters (1988a, 1990, 1991) is congruent with the hypothesis that IE elements in Tocharian, especially Greek (and Slavic) were loanwords into Tocharian after the Greek conquest of Bactria. This borrowing pattern is consistent with the spread of the Greek language into Bactria by a small politically dominant minority of Greek settlers into a far larger and previously long-established non-IE speaking majority population.
It is impossible to argue for a genetic relationship between Vedic and Greek languages based on the fact that speakers of these languages formerly lived in intimate contact in historical times. Secondly, we know the Dravidians were in Greece before the Indo-Europeans enter the country. These non-I-E speakers were called Pelasgians. As a result, Anna Morpurgo Davies, The linguistic evidence:Is there any?, in Gerald Cadogan, The End of the early Bronze Age in the Agean (pp.93-123), says that only 40% of Greek is of Indo-European etymology (p.105). Since only 40% of the Greek terms are of I-E origin, many of the Greek terms that agree with the Indic languages may be from the 60% of the Greek lexical items that came from non-I-E speakers which as noted by Lahovary in Dravidian origins and the West, were people who spoke either Dravidian languages, or other languages from Africa, genetically related to the Dravidian group.
In conclusion, as a result of the Greek influence in Bactria and India-Pakistan , Indians and Bactrians had to acquire "Greek Culture" to enhance their position and opportunity in North India and Bactria during Greek rule. Greek rule placed prestige on status elements introduced into the region by the Greeks, especially the Greek language. Status acquired by Bactrians and Indian-Pakistanis was thus centered around acquisition of Greek language and Greek culture. This supported by the evidence that Indian elites used Greek in business and government (Rahman, 2004). This would have inturn added pressure on the Bactrians to incorporate Greek terms into a Bactrian lingua franca (i.e., Tocharian).
Given the fact that Greek administrators in Bactria and Northern India-Pakistan ,refused to fully integrate Bactrians and Indians into the ruling elite, unless they were “well versed in Greek culture and language) led to subsequent generations of native Bactrians and Indian-Pakistanis to progressively incorporate more Greek terms into their native language. This would explain why Tocharian has many features that relate to certain IE etymologies and Panini’s Sanskrit grammar, present many terms that are associated with the Greeks, but illustrates little affinity to Indo-Iranian languages which are geographically and temporally closer to Tocharian. Some researchers might dispute the influence of the Greek language on Sanskrit because Panini’s grammar was suppose to have been written around 400 B.C. This date for the grammar might be too early, because Rahman (2004) and Agrawala (1953) maintains that Greek was spoken in Gandahara in Panini’s time.
The influence of colonial Greeks in Central Asia would explain why the most important evidence of an I-E relationship with Sanskrit and Tocharian relations within the IE family are the Greek cognates (Mallory 1989).
The "elite dominance model" hypothesis would have two basic consequences in relation to Tocharian linguistics. First, it would account for the correspondence in grammar (especially agglutination) and vocabulary between Dravidian and Tocharian on the one hand, and Tocharian and Indo-European on the other. Secondly, the settlement of the Saka in Bactria after the Greeks, would explain the great topological similarity between Tocharian and Balto-Slavic. The evidence of Saka and Greek conquest of Bactria/ Central Asia confirms the Sherratt (1988) hypothesis that Tocharian may be a trade language, and offers a plausible solution to the "Tocharian Problem".
References:
Agrawala, V.S. (1953). India as known to Panini: A study of the cultural material
in the Ashtadhyayi. Lucknow: University of Lucknow.
Elfenbein, J. 1987. A periplus of the Brahui Problem. Studia Iranica 16: 215-233.
Emeneau, M. and T. Burrow. 1962. Dravidian Borrowing from Indo Aryan.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Holt,F.L. (1999). Thundering Zeus. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
ISDL. 1983. Report on the Dravidian Languages. International Journal of
Dravidian Linguistics 12(1): 227.
Kulke, H. & Rothermund, D. (1998). History of India . New York: Routledge.
Mallory, J.P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans. London: Thames and
Hudson.
Maricq, A. 1958. La Grande inscription de Kaniska et L' eteo-
Tokharien l'ancienne langue de la Bactriane.Journal Asiatique 246:
345-439.
Narain, A.K. (1957). The Indo-Greeks . Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rahman,T. (2004). Peoples and Languages in Pre-Islamic Indus Valley.
Retrieved on : 4-21-04
http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html
Sherratt, Andrew and Susan. 1988. Archaeology of Indo-European: An
Alternative View. Antiquity 62: 584-595.
Tarn, W.W. (1984). The Greeks of Bastria and India . Chicago: Ares Press.
Winters, Clyde A..1989. Review on Dr. Asko Parpola's "The Coming of the
Aryans".International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 18 (2): 98-127.
Woodcock,G. (1966). The Greeks in India. London: Faber & Faber.
Showing posts with label Tokharian language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tokharian language. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Part 4:Winters' Response to Burlak's Meroitic and Tocharian: Meroitic Verbs
Clyde Winters response to Burlak’s Meroitic & Tocharian Part 4: Length of Meroitic Verbs are too short.
S.A. Burlak, in Meroitic and Tocharian: From the point of View of a Tocharianists (Sudan & Nubia, Bulletin 12: 99-103) disputes my decipherment of Meroitic: Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1999). The inscriptions ofTanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V., pp.355-388. Herein, I will discuss Dr. Burlak’s propositions and evidence.
3. Burlak (2008 p.99) claims that there are too many verbs that are only one character in length.
This is an unjustified criticism of my decipherment. Many verbs in Tocharian are a single character in length. Since Tocharian is the cognate language of Meroitic it is only natural that Meroitic would have a number of verbs of one character in length. Moreover, this is not surprising because Abdalla and Hintze (1979) had already noted the existence of Meroitic lexemes of one character in length.
The nature of Tocharian as the cognate language of Meroitic allowed me to translate many Meroitic verbs. 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 I searched the Tocharian language to determine if it possessed any verbs that might match the proposed hypothetical verbs of Abdalla in his “Commentary” (Hintze, 1979). 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 based on Tocharian cognates. Many of these verbs were discussed by Burlak (2008) as part of the Tocharian language.
hr , to have dignity
the , 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 even 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 (see Appendix) proved that Meroitic could be read using Kushana lexical items.
The Egyptian writing does not have vowel notations. The reality that Tocharian verbs and affixes are vowels may explain why the Meroitic script has vowel notations. They may have these vowel notations to indicate the fact that they represent lexemes.
S.A. Burlak, in Meroitic and Tocharian: From the point of View of a Tocharianists (Sudan & Nubia, Bulletin 12: 99-103) disputes my decipherment of Meroitic: Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1999). The inscriptions ofTanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V., pp.355-388. Herein, I will discuss Dr. Burlak’s propositions and evidence.
3. Burlak (2008 p.99) claims that there are too many verbs that are only one character in length.
This is an unjustified criticism of my decipherment. Many verbs in Tocharian are a single character in length. Since Tocharian is the cognate language of Meroitic it is only natural that Meroitic would have a number of verbs of one character in length. Moreover, this is not surprising because Abdalla and Hintze (1979) had already noted the existence of Meroitic lexemes of one character in length.
The nature of Tocharian as the cognate language of Meroitic allowed me to translate many Meroitic verbs. 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 I searched the Tocharian language to determine if it possessed any verbs that might match the proposed hypothetical verbs of Abdalla in his “Commentary” (Hintze, 1979). 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 based on Tocharian cognates. Many of these verbs were discussed by Burlak (2008) as part of the Tocharian language.
hr , to have dignity
the , 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 even 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 (see Appendix) proved that Meroitic could be read using Kushana lexical items.
The Egyptian writing does not have vowel notations. The reality that Tocharian verbs and affixes are vowels may explain why the Meroitic script has vowel notations. They may have these vowel notations to indicate the fact that they represent lexemes.
Part 5:Winters' Response to Burlak's Meroitic and Tocharian :Tocharian & Kharosthi dates back to 2nd Century
Clyde Winters response to Burlak’s Meroitic & Tocharian Part 5: Tocharian text do not date back to the 2nd Century BC.
4. Burlak argues that Tocharian text do not date back to the 2nd Century BC.
The Tocharian language was written in Kharosthi script. This script was used to write the Gandhararan Buddist Text. According to Glass (2000) the Kharosthi script appears fully developed in the Asokan inscriptions of Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra. These inscriptions date back to 3rd Century BC (Glass, 2000 p.20). It continued to be used in Gandhara, Kushan and Sogdian.
Glass provides evidence that Kharosthi writing dates back to the first Brahmi inscriptions of India (Glass, 2000 pp.20-21). The fact the writing was used in India by Asoka to produce the rock edicts (Glass, 2000) , demonstrates that Khasrothi was in use long before the introduction of the Meroitic script to Kush.
The Meroitic script resembles many Khaorsthi signs. Some researchers argue that the Meroites did not adopt the writing system of the Kushana/Tocharian people which was Kharosthi. Although this is their opinion a comparison of the Meroitic and Kharosthi symbols make it clear that both writing systems share many cognate signs.
Aubin (2003) did a comparison of Meroitic and Kharothi and discovered that 34 out of 42 signs or 81% matched.
Figure 1 : Aubin (2003) Comparison of Meroitic and Kharosthi Signs
Since Tocharian was written is Kharosthi the cognition between Kharosthi and Meroitic is quite interesting and shows some connection between these scripts. It also offers additional support to the Tocharian origin of Meroitic writing given the analogy between the signs.
Let's not forget that Welsby in The Kingdom of Kush, notes that "only four of the [Meroitic] letters resemble the equivalent Egyptian demotic signs" (p.193) But as you can see from the above there are more than four Kharosthi signs that match Meroitic, and even more of these signs match Kharosthi.
The summary , Kharosthi script dates back to the 3rd Century BC. It was used to write Tocharian inscriptions. This makes it clear that Kharosthi was in use long before the Meroitic script was created.
References:
Aubin,P. (2003). Evidence for an Early Nubian Dialect in Meroitic Inscriptions: Phonological and Epigraphic Considerations. Meroitic Newsletter, pp.16-39.
Glass, A. (2000). A Preliminary Study of Kharosthi Manuscript Paleography. M.A. Thesis. University of Washington.
4. Burlak argues that Tocharian text do not date back to the 2nd Century BC.
The Tocharian language was written in Kharosthi script. This script was used to write the Gandhararan Buddist Text. According to Glass (2000) the Kharosthi script appears fully developed in the Asokan inscriptions of Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra. These inscriptions date back to 3rd Century BC (Glass, 2000 p.20). It continued to be used in Gandhara, Kushan and Sogdian.
Glass provides evidence that Kharosthi writing dates back to the first Brahmi inscriptions of India (Glass, 2000 pp.20-21). The fact the writing was used in India by Asoka to produce the rock edicts (Glass, 2000) , demonstrates that Khasrothi was in use long before the introduction of the Meroitic script to Kush.
The Meroitic script resembles many Khaorsthi signs. Some researchers argue that the Meroites did not adopt the writing system of the Kushana/Tocharian people which was Kharosthi. Although this is their opinion a comparison of the Meroitic and Kharosthi symbols make it clear that both writing systems share many cognate signs.
Aubin (2003) did a comparison of Meroitic and Kharothi and discovered that 34 out of 42 signs or 81% matched.
Figure 1 : Aubin (2003) Comparison of Meroitic and Kharosthi Signs
Since Tocharian was written is Kharosthi the cognition between Kharosthi and Meroitic is quite interesting and shows some connection between these scripts. It also offers additional support to the Tocharian origin of Meroitic writing given the analogy between the signs.
Let's not forget that Welsby in The Kingdom of Kush, notes that "only four of the [Meroitic] letters resemble the equivalent Egyptian demotic signs" (p.193) But as you can see from the above there are more than four Kharosthi signs that match Meroitic, and even more of these signs match Kharosthi.
The summary , Kharosthi script dates back to the 3rd Century BC. It was used to write Tocharian inscriptions. This makes it clear that Kharosthi was in use long before the Meroitic script was created.
References:
Aubin,P. (2003). Evidence for an Early Nubian Dialect in Meroitic Inscriptions: Phonological and Epigraphic Considerations. Meroitic Newsletter, pp.16-39.
Glass, A. (2000). A Preliminary Study of Kharosthi Manuscript Paleography. M.A. Thesis. University of Washington.
Conclusion: Clyde Winters response to Burlak’s Meroitic & Tocharian: Conclusion
Clyde Winters response to Burlak’s Meroitic & Tocharian Part 9: Conclusion
In conclusion, it is clear from this review that Tocharian is the cognate language to Meroitic. It has been explained that Tocharian was probably a trade language and it was adopted by the Meroites to serve as a means of communication—a lingua franca-- for the diverse populations living in the Meroitic empire.
The ability to reliably predict a linguistic relationship between Kushana and Meroitic, was further confirmation of the Kushana Hypothesis, because the linguistic connections were deducible from prediction. I controlled the Kushana Hypothesis by comparing the statements of the classical writers, with historical, linguistic anthropological and toponymic evidence found not only in Africa, but also India and Central Asia (see Appendix).
I constructed three testable hypotheses in support of the Kushana theory, and it seems only fair that these variables must be disconfirmed, to falsify the Kushana Hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: If the Meroites used a writing system of non-African origin a tradition mentioning this fact will exist. (Hypothesis confirmed. Classical literature mentions Indian scholars in ancient Meroe.)
Hypothesis: 2. If the classical literature mentions Indians who lived in Egypt influencing the Meroites their should be historical evidence relating to this tradition. (Hypothesis confirmed .Classical literature mentions a King who left his country is mentioned in the Jaina text called the Kalakeharya-Kathanaka.)
Hypothesis: 3. If Classical literature is true about the Indian origin of the Gymnosophists Indians will be found living near the Meroites around the time the Meroitic inscriptions appear. (Hypothesis confirmed. Artifacts and coins with Indian inscriptions have been found in Egypt and Ethiopia.) Failure to disconfirm these theorem, implies validity of my prediction. Burbak (2008) attempted to deny a relationship between Meroitic and Tocharian by making claims that were not supported by the evidence. His claims that the length of words was too short, and selected elements associated with Tocharian was not evident in Meroitic have proven to be false, and did not reflect the significant in roads into reading Meroitic made by Abdalla and Hintze (1979).
My confirmation of the above variables in the Kushana Hypothesis: 1) the presence of Indians in Africa writing in their own scripts; 2) the presence of Kushana sages in India who may have migrated to Meroe;3) cognate lexical items; 4)cognate verbs and 5) cognate grammatical features; indicates systematic controlled, critical and empirical investigation of the question of Tocharian representing the Meroitic cognate language.
The evidence that the Classical references to an Indian King who conquered the Scythians is supported by the Indian literature, provides external corroboration of the tradition that some of the Meroites were of Indian origin. The presence of Indian traders and settlers in Meroe (and Egypt), makes it almost impossible to deny the possibility that Indians, familiar with the Tocharian trade language did not introduce this writing to the Meroites who needed a neutral language to unify the diverse ethnic groups who made up the Meroite state. In relation to the history of linguistic change and bilingualism, it is a mistake to believe that linguistic transfer had to take place for the Meroites to have used Tocharian, when it did not take place when they wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphics for hundreds of years.
The Classical literature makes it clear that Indians physically settled in the Meroitic Empire. It was these Indians who probably introduced Kharosthi writing and the Tocharian A language. The direct transfer of Tocharian A to the Meroites by Indian scholars would explain why the language of the Meroitic inscriptions are written in Tocharian A .
Burbak (2008) failed to illustrate that Tocharian and Meroitic were not related because he did not know that textual and archaeological material indicated that the Classical literature made it clear that Indians lived in the Meroitic empire. This provided evidence that Indians physically introduced Tocharian and the Kharosthi script to the Meroites. The physical transfer of Tocharian and Kharosthi by the Gymnosophists would explain why a specific Kushana language: Tocharian A was used to write Meroitic.
My research into Kushana or Tocharian 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). Winters (1991,1998) has illustrated how the Greek and Slavic terms in Tocharian were loanwords, absorbed by Tocharian 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\Tocharian 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
The evidence is clear Meroitic was a lingua franca that allowed the diverse people of the Meroitic Empire to communicate in a common language. I have never argued that the Kushites abandoned their native language or that Meroitic was spoken anywhere except in the Meroitic Sudan.
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.
This is supported by the abundance of Kushite documents written in Egyptian before the introduction of Meroitic. the Napatans and Meroites wrote their inscriptions in Egyptian until the Egyptians became a sizable minority in the Meroitic Empire.
The Kushites had a tradition of using a non-Kushite language to record their administrative and political religious activities due to the numerous and diverse subjects from different tribes they ruled. Since the Meroitic and Napatan documents were written in Egyptian there is no lexical evidence of the languages spoken by the Kushites and other groups in the inscriptions left by these people.
The classical literature makes it clear that there was a connection between the Gymnosophists (of Meroe) and the Indians. The fact that historical events mentioned in the classical sources are found in the Indian literature confirm the view that there were Indian-Meroites who could have introduced the Tocharian trade language to the Meroites. And that since Meroitic was probably a lingua franca, the Kushites would not have had to abandon their own native language while using Meroitic for purposes of communication.
The discovery that Tocharian 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.
In conclusion, it is clear from this review that Tocharian is the cognate language to Meroitic. It has been explained that Tocharian was probably a trade language and it was adopted by the Meroites to serve as a means of communication—a lingua franca-- for the diverse populations living in the Meroitic empire.
The ability to reliably predict a linguistic relationship between Kushana and Meroitic, was further confirmation of the Kushana Hypothesis, because the linguistic connections were deducible from prediction. I controlled the Kushana Hypothesis by comparing the statements of the classical writers, with historical, linguistic anthropological and toponymic evidence found not only in Africa, but also India and Central Asia (see Appendix).
I constructed three testable hypotheses in support of the Kushana theory, and it seems only fair that these variables must be disconfirmed, to falsify the Kushana Hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: If the Meroites used a writing system of non-African origin a tradition mentioning this fact will exist. (Hypothesis confirmed. Classical literature mentions Indian scholars in ancient Meroe.)
Hypothesis: 2. If the classical literature mentions Indians who lived in Egypt influencing the Meroites their should be historical evidence relating to this tradition. (Hypothesis confirmed .Classical literature mentions a King who left his country is mentioned in the Jaina text called the Kalakeharya-Kathanaka.)
Hypothesis: 3. If Classical literature is true about the Indian origin of the Gymnosophists Indians will be found living near the Meroites around the time the Meroitic inscriptions appear. (Hypothesis confirmed. Artifacts and coins with Indian inscriptions have been found in Egypt and Ethiopia.) Failure to disconfirm these theorem, implies validity of my prediction. Burbak (2008) attempted to deny a relationship between Meroitic and Tocharian by making claims that were not supported by the evidence. His claims that the length of words was too short, and selected elements associated with Tocharian was not evident in Meroitic have proven to be false, and did not reflect the significant in roads into reading Meroitic made by Abdalla and Hintze (1979).
My confirmation of the above variables in the Kushana Hypothesis: 1) the presence of Indians in Africa writing in their own scripts; 2) the presence of Kushana sages in India who may have migrated to Meroe;3) cognate lexical items; 4)cognate verbs and 5) cognate grammatical features; indicates systematic controlled, critical and empirical investigation of the question of Tocharian representing the Meroitic cognate language.
The evidence that the Classical references to an Indian King who conquered the Scythians is supported by the Indian literature, provides external corroboration of the tradition that some of the Meroites were of Indian origin. The presence of Indian traders and settlers in Meroe (and Egypt), makes it almost impossible to deny the possibility that Indians, familiar with the Tocharian trade language did not introduce this writing to the Meroites who needed a neutral language to unify the diverse ethnic groups who made up the Meroite state. In relation to the history of linguistic change and bilingualism, it is a mistake to believe that linguistic transfer had to take place for the Meroites to have used Tocharian, when it did not take place when they wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphics for hundreds of years.
The Classical literature makes it clear that Indians physically settled in the Meroitic Empire. It was these Indians who probably introduced Kharosthi writing and the Tocharian A language. The direct transfer of Tocharian A to the Meroites by Indian scholars would explain why the language of the Meroitic inscriptions are written in Tocharian A .
Burbak (2008) failed to illustrate that Tocharian and Meroitic were not related because he did not know that textual and archaeological material indicated that the Classical literature made it clear that Indians lived in the Meroitic empire. This provided evidence that Indians physically introduced Tocharian and the Kharosthi script to the Meroites. The physical transfer of Tocharian and Kharosthi by the Gymnosophists would explain why a specific Kushana language: Tocharian A was used to write Meroitic.
My research into Kushana or Tocharian 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). Winters (1991,1998) has illustrated how the Greek and Slavic terms in Tocharian were loanwords, absorbed by Tocharian 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\Tocharian 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
The evidence is clear Meroitic was a lingua franca that allowed the diverse people of the Meroitic Empire to communicate in a common language. I have never argued that the Kushites abandoned their native language or that Meroitic was spoken anywhere except in the Meroitic Sudan.
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.
This is supported by the abundance of Kushite documents written in Egyptian before the introduction of Meroitic. the Napatans and Meroites wrote their inscriptions in Egyptian until the Egyptians became a sizable minority in the Meroitic Empire.
The Kushites had a tradition of using a non-Kushite language to record their administrative and political religious activities due to the numerous and diverse subjects from different tribes they ruled. Since the Meroitic and Napatan documents were written in Egyptian there is no lexical evidence of the languages spoken by the Kushites and other groups in the inscriptions left by these people.
The classical literature makes it clear that there was a connection between the Gymnosophists (of Meroe) and the Indians. The fact that historical events mentioned in the classical sources are found in the Indian literature confirm the view that there were Indian-Meroites who could have introduced the Tocharian trade language to the Meroites. And that since Meroitic was probably a lingua franca, the Kushites would not have had to abandon their own native language while using Meroitic for purposes of communication.
The discovery that Tocharian 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.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Linguistic Support for Extra-Nubian Origin of Meroitic
There are many mysteries concerning the Meroites of the Meroitic civilization of Nubia and the Sudan. This ancient civilization lasted for hundreds of years and has left us many wonderful monuments. In addition to many grand monuments the Meroites left us a written language.
Although scholars have been able to read the letters of this ancient Kushite writing for many years up to now the full meaning of the Meroitic texts had alluded us.Today we can read the Meroitic text in their entirety using the cognate language for Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984,1989, 1996a, 1996b,1996c).
Although linguist call this language Tokharian in Central Asia (Winters 1988b, 1991, 1996b).The people of Meroe, the Kushites had their own alphabet of 23 signs. This was a wonderful improvement over hieroglyphic writing which was made up of numerous ideographic and phonetic signs. Prior to the introduction of Meroitic, the Meroites used Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Francis Llewellyn Griffith, an Egyptologist was able to decipher the Meroitic script over 60 years ago. Although Griffith deciphered Meroitic, we were unable to read this writing because we did not know the cognate language.Using the comparative method I was able to discover that Tokharian is cognate to Meroitic. This led to the full decipherment of the Meroitic script. We can now read Meroitic using Tokharian ( Krause,1952 ; Windekens 1941, 1979).
Maurice Pope in THE STORY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL DECIPHERMENT , has made it clear that before an unknown language can be deciphered you must have the right theoretical structure to base your inquiry upon (p.191).
Pope found that in the historical decipherments of ancient languages three preliminary conditions must be met:
1) confidence that a script can be deciphered;
2) location of proper names must be determined;
3) the grammatical rules of the target language/script must be found (pp.186-187).
We were able to read Meroitic because these preliminary conditions were met, and we were able to develop new hypothesis based on historical evidence to determine the cognate language of Meroitic. Conditions number one and two were met by Griffith when he deciphered the Meroitic script in 1910, and his discovery of the proper names of the Meroitic gods and individuals in Meroitic text.
Griffith also discovered the direction the Meroitic writing was written. This recognition by Griffith of the solubility of the Meroitic text was reinforced in 1978, with publication of UNESCO's The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Decipherment of the Meroitic Script. This was an important publication because it provided researchers with up-to-date information on the status of Meroitic.
Condition number three for the decipherment of Meroitic was met in 1979 when Fritz Hintze published his Beitrage zur meroitischen Grammatik . The research of F. Hintze (1979) and I. Hoffmann (1981) have made it possible for us to find the cognate language of Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984 ,1989).
The work of Griffith and Hintze fulfilled all the requirements for the decipherment of the Meroitic writing.The classical literature supported the view that we might be able to find the Meroitic cognate language through a comparison of the Meroitic terms and Kushan lexical items.
To test the Kushana hypothesis we had to then:
1) find agreement between Kushana and Meroitic terms;
2) compare Central Asian and Egypto-Sudanese toponomies;
3) compare Kushana and Meroitic grammatical forms.
In recent years researchers were able to develop a grammar of Meroitic, without being able to read Meroitic. The research of Hintze (1979) and Hoffman (1981) made it possible for us to find the cognate language of Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984 ,1989).
Hintze (1979) grammar of Meroitic provided the necessary material to compare Meroitic with other languages to find its cognate language. Hintze (1979) recognized three approaches to the study of Meroitic: 1) philological, 2) comparative, and 3) structural (i.e., the morphological-syntactical).
The philological methods of Hintze (1979) was informed guesses based upon context.In the comparative method the structures of two or more languages are compared to determine the relationship between languages. Hintze's (1979) discussion of the Meroitic affixes provided us with the linguistic material to compare Meroitic successfully with Tocharian.
The comparative method is used by linguist to determine the relatedness of languages, and to reconstruct earlier language states. The comparative linguist looks for patterns of correspondence, i.e., the isolation of words with common or similar meanings that have systematic consonantal agreement with little regard for location and/or type of vowel. Consonantal agreement is the regular appearance of consonants at certain locations in words having analogous meanings.
Using the comparative methods proposed by Hintze we have found that the Meroitic inscriptions are written in Tocharian, a language used as a lingua franca in Central Asia by the Kushana or Kush people. The Kushana people ruled Central Asia and India. Linguist prefer to call the Kushana language Tocharian, after the Sanskrit term for Kushana: Tu-kara.(Winters 1984, 1989, 1996a, 1996b).
There is structural, morphological and toponymic evidence which support the view that Tokharian is cognate to Meroitic(Winters 1984,1989). There are many Central Asian place names that agree with toponomies in Nubia/ Sudan. Below we list a few of these common toponomies:
CentralAsia……………….Sudan
Pap………………………………………….Pap
Karnak…………………………………Karnak
Kukushka…………………………..Kurush
Shaur ……………………………………Sarur
Kandi………………………………………….Kandi
Urban……………………………………….Borgan
Khara ……………………………………….Kara-
Kupuri………………………………………….Gabur, Capur
These placenames can be compared with the maps of Central Asia and the Sudan supplied published by Dr. Vamos-Toth Bator in his Tamana studies .
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.
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
REFERENCES
Abdalla, A.M. 1994. Personal Descriptions in Meroitic Funerary inscriptions. In Hommages a Jean Leclant, (ed.) by C. Berger, G. Clerc & N. Grimal, (Institute Francais d'Archeologie Orientale: Bibliotheque d' Etudes 106/2) pp.1-15.
Abdalla, A.M. 1978. The Meroitic Civilization:Its Mediterranean Contacts and Africaness. In Afrique Noire et monde mediterranean dans L'Antiquité Colloque de Dakar. (Dakar: Université de Senegal) 89-114.
Adams, W.Y. 1977. Nubia:Corridor to Africa. London: Penguin Ltd.
Adams, W.Y. 1975. "Meroitic North and South". Meroitica 2,Berlin:Akademie-Verlag.
Arkell, A.J. 1961. A History of the Sudan from earliest times to 1821. London: University of London Press.
Bakr, M. 1964. Drei Meroitische opfertafeln aus Qustul, Kush,12 , 293-296.
Bakr, M. 1966. Meroitische inschriften aus der umgebung von Aniba, Kush, 14, 336-346.
Griffith, F.Ll. 1909. Meroitic inscriptions. In Areika, (ed) by MacIver, D.R. & Woolley, C.L. Vol.1. Philadelphia.
Griffith, F.L.1911a. Karanog. The Meroitic Inscriptions of Shablul and Karanog. Philadelphia: Eckley B. Coxe Jr Expedition to Nubia. Vol.VI.
Griffith, F. Ll. 1911b. Meroitic Inscriptions: Part I. London: The Offices of the Egypt Exploration Fund.
Griffith, F. Ll. 1912. Meroitic Inscriptions: Part II. London: The Offices of the Egypt Exploration Fund.
Hakem,A.M.A. 1981. The civilization of Napata and Meroe. In General History of Africa, (London: Heinemann) 278-297.
Hakem, A.M.A. 1984. "Napatan-Meroitic Continuity", Meroitica, 19, 875-883.
Hakem, A.M.A. 1988. Meroitic Architecture. Khartoum: University of Khartoum.
Haycock, B.G. 1978. "The Problem of the Meroitic Language",Occasional Papers in Linguistics and Language Learning, no.5: 50-81.
Haynes, J.L. 1992. Nubia:Ancient Kingdoms of Africa. Boston:Museum of Fine Arts.
Hinkel, F.W. 1994. Les pyramides de méroé. Les Dossiers D'Archeologie, no. 196, 60-63.
Hintze, F. 1959. Studien zur Meroitischen chronologie und zu den opfertafeln aus den pyramides von Meroe. Berlin: Akadamie-Verlag.
Hintze, F. 1962. Die inschriften,des lowentempel von Mussawwarat es Sufra. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Hintze, F. 1971. Mussawwarat es Sufra. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Hintze, F. (1974). "Some problems of Meroitic philology". In Studies in Ancient Langugaes of the Sudan, (ed.) by A.M. Abdalla, (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press) pp. 73-78.
Hintze,F. 1978. The Meroitic Period. In Africa in Antiquity: The Arts of Ancient Nubia and the Sudan Vol.I. (Brooklyn, N. Y. : Brooklyn Museum) 89-105.
Hintze, F. 1979. "Beltrage zur Meroitishen Grammatik",Meroitica 3, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Hoffmann, I 1991. Steine fur die ewigkeit meroitische opferlafeln und totenstelen. Beitrage zur Sudanforschung Beiheft, 6. Wien: Modling.
Hoffmann, I. 1981. Material fur eine Meroitische Grammatik.Veroffenthchungen der Institute fur Afrikanistik und Agyptologie der Universitat Wien, No. 16. Wien.
Hummel, S. 1992. Die Meroitische Sprache und das protoaltaische Spachsubstrat als Medium zu ihrer Deutung. Febri Verlag.Karanog, Wealthy Capital of a Lower Nubian Province . 1993.Expedition, 35(2), 62-63.
Kendal, T. 1982. Kush:Lost Kingdom of the Nile. Boston,Mass :Brockton Art Museum.
Kormysheva,E. 1990. Egyptian religion in Nubia: Some considerations. Etudes Nubiennes, Vol. II. 187-191.
Leclant,J. 1981. The Empire of Kush: Napata and Meroe. In General History of Africa II, G. Mokhtar (Ed.), (Heinemann:University of California Press) 298-325.
Lepsius, C.R. 1897-1913. Denkmäleraus Aegypten und Aethiopien. Leipzig. 5 Volumes.Lewczuk, J. 1990. Studies on the decoration of the West walls of the chapels at the pyramids in Meroe and Barkal. In Etudes Nubiennes ,Vol. IV, Ch. Bonnet (ed.). (Conference de Geneve Actes der V111e Congress International. Marquette: J. G. Ceconi) 157-158.
MacAdam,M.F.L. 1949. The Temples of Kawa I. The Inscriptions. London: Oxford University Press.
MacAdam,M.F.L. 1950. Four Meroitic inscriptions, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 36, 42-46.
MacIver, D.R. and Wooley, C.L. 1909. Areika. PhiladelphiaUniversity Museum. Philadelphia.
Millet,N.B.1969. Meroitic Nubia. Yale University, Ph.D. Dissertation.
Millet, N.B. 1974. Writing and literacy in the ancient Sudan. In Studies in ancient Languages of the Sudan, (ed.) by A. M. Abdalla ,(Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1974) pp.49-57.
Millet,N.B. 1984. Meroitic Religion, Meroitica 7,8,pp.111-121.
O'Connor, D. 1993. Ancient Nubia:Egypt's Rival in Africa. Philadelphia: The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.
Pope, M. 1975. The Story of Archaeological Decipherment, New York Charles Scribner & Sons.
Reisner,A. 1922. Historical Inscriptions from Gebel Barkal, Sudan Notes and Records , 4(2), pp.59-71.
Shinnie, P.L.1967. Meroe:A Civilization of the Sudan. London: Thames & Hudson.
Taylor,J.H. 1991. Egypt and Nubia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Torok, L. 1990. Ambulatory Kingship and settlement history: a study on the contribution of archaeology to Meroitic history. Etudes Nubiennes, Vol.I, 11-126.
Torok, L. 1984. Meroitic Religion: Three Contributions in a Positivistic Manner", Meroitica 7,8, pp.156-182.
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________________1999a. The inscription of Tanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V.
_____________.(nd). The Meroitic Chamber Inscription. Nubica IV und Nubica V.
____________. n.d. Meroitic Inscriptions from Karanog. forth- coming Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities.
___________.1996a. Meroitic Decipherment.Ancient Near East Digest 3 (179). Chicago Oriental Institute. ANE Archive. 4 June . [On Line] http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html.
________.1996b. Meroitic Decipherment. Ancient Near East Journal 3 (180). Chicago Oriental Institute. ANE Archive. 8 June.[On Line] http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html.
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You can read more about my decipherment at thefollowing web site:http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/7051/mero.htm
I have written a short dictionary of Meroiticterms that you can find at the following web site:http://geocities.com/olmec982000/meroitic.pdf
My most recent article discussing Meroitic history and deciphering Meroitic documents titled theMeroitic Evidence for a Blemmy Empire in theDodekaschoinos can be found at the following site:http://arkamani.org/meroitic_studies/Kalabsha.htm
Yellin, J. 1982. The role of Anubis in Meroitic religion. In Nubian Studies, J.M. Plumley (ed.), (Cambridge: Selwyn College), 227-234..........
Although scholars have been able to read the letters of this ancient Kushite writing for many years up to now the full meaning of the Meroitic texts had alluded us.Today we can read the Meroitic text in their entirety using the cognate language for Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984,1989, 1996a, 1996b,1996c).
Although linguist call this language Tokharian in Central Asia (Winters 1988b, 1991, 1996b).The people of Meroe, the Kushites had their own alphabet of 23 signs. This was a wonderful improvement over hieroglyphic writing which was made up of numerous ideographic and phonetic signs. Prior to the introduction of Meroitic, the Meroites used Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Francis Llewellyn Griffith, an Egyptologist was able to decipher the Meroitic script over 60 years ago. Although Griffith deciphered Meroitic, we were unable to read this writing because we did not know the cognate language.Using the comparative method I was able to discover that Tokharian is cognate to Meroitic. This led to the full decipherment of the Meroitic script. We can now read Meroitic using Tokharian ( Krause,1952 ; Windekens 1941, 1979).
Maurice Pope in THE STORY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL DECIPHERMENT , has made it clear that before an unknown language can be deciphered you must have the right theoretical structure to base your inquiry upon (p.191).
Pope found that in the historical decipherments of ancient languages three preliminary conditions must be met:
1) confidence that a script can be deciphered;
2) location of proper names must be determined;
3) the grammatical rules of the target language/script must be found (pp.186-187).
We were able to read Meroitic because these preliminary conditions were met, and we were able to develop new hypothesis based on historical evidence to determine the cognate language of Meroitic. Conditions number one and two were met by Griffith when he deciphered the Meroitic script in 1910, and his discovery of the proper names of the Meroitic gods and individuals in Meroitic text.
Griffith also discovered the direction the Meroitic writing was written. This recognition by Griffith of the solubility of the Meroitic text was reinforced in 1978, with publication of UNESCO's The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Decipherment of the Meroitic Script. This was an important publication because it provided researchers with up-to-date information on the status of Meroitic.
Condition number three for the decipherment of Meroitic was met in 1979 when Fritz Hintze published his Beitrage zur meroitischen Grammatik . The research of F. Hintze (1979) and I. Hoffmann (1981) have made it possible for us to find the cognate language of Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984 ,1989).
The work of Griffith and Hintze fulfilled all the requirements for the decipherment of the Meroitic writing.The classical literature supported the view that we might be able to find the Meroitic cognate language through a comparison of the Meroitic terms and Kushan lexical items.
To test the Kushana hypothesis we had to then:
1) find agreement between Kushana and Meroitic terms;
2) compare Central Asian and Egypto-Sudanese toponomies;
3) compare Kushana and Meroitic grammatical forms.
In recent years researchers were able to develop a grammar of Meroitic, without being able to read Meroitic. The research of Hintze (1979) and Hoffman (1981) made it possible for us to find the cognate language of Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984 ,1989).
Hintze (1979) grammar of Meroitic provided the necessary material to compare Meroitic with other languages to find its cognate language. Hintze (1979) recognized three approaches to the study of Meroitic: 1) philological, 2) comparative, and 3) structural (i.e., the morphological-syntactical).
The philological methods of Hintze (1979) was informed guesses based upon context.In the comparative method the structures of two or more languages are compared to determine the relationship between languages. Hintze's (1979) discussion of the Meroitic affixes provided us with the linguistic material to compare Meroitic successfully with Tocharian.
The comparative method is used by linguist to determine the relatedness of languages, and to reconstruct earlier language states. The comparative linguist looks for patterns of correspondence, i.e., the isolation of words with common or similar meanings that have systematic consonantal agreement with little regard for location and/or type of vowel. Consonantal agreement is the regular appearance of consonants at certain locations in words having analogous meanings.
Using the comparative methods proposed by Hintze we have found that the Meroitic inscriptions are written in Tocharian, a language used as a lingua franca in Central Asia by the Kushana or Kush people. The Kushana people ruled Central Asia and India. Linguist prefer to call the Kushana language Tocharian, after the Sanskrit term for Kushana: Tu-kara.(Winters 1984, 1989, 1996a, 1996b).
There is structural, morphological and toponymic evidence which support the view that Tokharian is cognate to Meroitic(Winters 1984,1989). There are many Central Asian place names that agree with toponomies in Nubia/ Sudan. Below we list a few of these common toponomies:
CentralAsia……………….Sudan
Pap………………………………………….Pap
Karnak…………………………………Karnak
Kukushka…………………………..Kurush
Shaur ……………………………………Sarur
Kandi………………………………………….Kandi
Urban……………………………………….Borgan
Khara ……………………………………….Kara-
Kupuri………………………………………….Gabur, Capur
These placenames can be compared with the maps of Central Asia and the Sudan supplied published by Dr. Vamos-Toth Bator in his Tamana studies .
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.
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.
____________. n.d. Meroitic Inscriptions from Karanog. forth- coming Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities.
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________.1996b. Meroitic Decipherment. Ancient Near East Journal 3 (180). Chicago Oriental Institute. ANE Archive. 8 June.[On Line] http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html.
________.1996c. Meroitic Texts. Ancient Near East Digest 3 (182). Chicago Oriental Institute. ANE Archive. 14 June. [On Line]http://www-i.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html.
Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1999). The inscriptions ofTanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V., pp.355-388.
You can read more about my decipherment at thefollowing web site:http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/7051/mero.htm
I have written a short dictionary of Meroiticterms that you can find at the following web site:http://geocities.com/olmec982000/meroitic.pdf
My most recent article discussing Meroitic history and deciphering Meroitic documents titled theMeroitic Evidence for a Blemmy Empire in theDodekaschoinos can be found at the following site:http://arkamani.org/meroitic_studies/Kalabsha.htm
Yellin, J. 1982. The role of Anubis in Meroitic religion. In Nubian Studies, J.M. Plumley (ed.), (Cambridge: Selwyn College), 227-234..........
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