Origin of Egyptian Language
G Horvat
>G Horvat heeft geschreven in bericht <375757b0...@news.connect.ab.ca>...
>>On Thu, 03 Jun 1999 05:05:07 -0700, Paul Kekai Manansala
>><ke...@jps.net> wrote:
>>
>>>...I guess if your argument is that the ancient Egyptians were simply
>>>dark-skinned, wooly-haired, thick-lipped, super-negroid whites
>>>who spoke African languages and came from and lived in Africa, I
>>>don't have much to quarrel with you over.
>>
>>Paul, which African language are you referring to?
>
>
>Afroasiatic (a super language family, actually).
Thats kind of vague.....
Regarding the Afro-Asiatic language group, the following was written
by the Oriental Institute (May/98) (Note the last sentence):
"There are more pieces of information around and more heterogeneous
and even contradictory hypotheses about their relationships than
anyone can easily keep track of. Thus it is becoming harder and harder
to draw together the material for potential cognate sets and sound
correspondences, as well as relevant textual, historical, and
archaeological detail, which will make possible, first, the firm
establishment of Afroasiatic as a language family ....."
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/CUS/AAindex.html#afroas
Personally, I continue to be surprised that anyone has categorized
Egyptian, yet. But let's assume that, as is claimed, it is related to
North African and Near Eastern languages. How does that information
suggest that the Afro-Asiatic language group originated in Africa?
Gisele
Paul Kekai Manansala
>
> On Sat, 5 Jun 1999 02:21:04 +0200, "Alex" <avde...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> >G Horvat heeft geschreven in bericht <375757b0...@news.connect.ab.ca>...
> >>On Thu, 03 Jun 1999 05:05:07 -0700, Paul Kekai Manansala
> >><ke...@jps.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>>...I guess if your argument is that the ancient Egyptians were simply
> >>>dark-skinned, wooly-haired, thick-lipped, super-negroid whites
> >>>who spoke African languages and came from and lived in Africa, I
> >>>don't have much to quarrel with you over.
> >>
> >>Paul, which African language are you referring to?
> >
> >
> >Afroasiatic (a super language family, actually).
>
> Thats kind of vague.....
>
> Regarding the Afro-Asiatic language group, the following was written
> by the Oriental Institute (May/98) (Note the last sentence):
>
> "There are more pieces of information around and more heterogeneous
> and even contradictory hypotheses about their relationships than
> anyone can easily keep track of. Thus it is becoming harder and harder
> to draw together the material for potential cognate sets and sound
> correspondences, as well as relevant textual, historical, and
> archaeological detail, which will make possible, first, the firm
> establishment of Afroasiatic as a language family ....."
As Afroasiatic has been studied second only to Indo-european among
Western linguists that again only verifies the fact that comparative
linguistics is a very subjective art that will always be contentious.
>
> http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/CUS/AAindex.html#afroas
>
> Personally, I continue to be surprised that anyone has categorized
> Egyptian, yet.
I don't know why you would think that. Have you ever tried to compare
Egyptian to other AA languages like Cushitic, for example? They are
*very* similar.
> But let's assume that, as is claimed, it is related to
> North African and Near Eastern languages.
Afroasiatic extends into what is known as West and Central Africa.
>How does that information
> suggest that the Afro-Asiatic language group originated in Africa?
>
Basically using *all* the standard methods for *estimating* the area
of origin, you would come up with the Horn of Africa or maybe a little
west in the southern Sahara.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
ADR
>Egyptian to other AA languages like Cushitic, for example? They are
>*very* similar.
You mean it has Egyptian loan words? Big deal. So does English.
Afro-Carribean culture (there is no race as such), has no religious
similiarites, no shared esoterical beliefs, very little linguistic
similiarity and no cultural similiarity (Did they know abour beer before the
Europeans came along?) to that of the Egyptians. The closest cultures you
can find to the ancient Egyptians today is Amero-European and Indian. Both
have beer, free-speech, philosophy, the pursuit of truth and knowledge, a
justice system based on that of the Egyptians, poetry, class system, and the
same religious beliefs - in God, in demi-gods and resurrected god-men, in
the various holy-mothers, and in the higher state of mind and being. If
anything Catholicism maintains the Egyptian creed better than Fundamentalist
Christianity. So do Kabbalist Jews, Hindus and Buddhist.
Islam, African, Chinese and Communist regimes have no similiarity to what
the ancients were doing. These are closed minded, blood thirsty regimes.
African tribal war (for what?), Islamic dictatorships and cold Slavic
mentalities are exactly what we don't need in the world.
Alex
G Horvat heeft geschreven in bericht <3758bda6...@news.connect.ab.ca>...
>On Sat, 5 Jun 1999 02:21:04 +0200, "Alex" <avde...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>Afroasiatic (a super language family, actually).
>
>Thats kind of vague.....
>
>Regarding the Afro-Asiatic language group, the following was written
>by the Oriental Institute (May/98) (Note the last sentence):
>
>"There are more pieces of information around and more heterogeneous
>and even contradictory hypotheses about their relationships than
>anyone can easily keep track of. Thus it is becoming harder and harder
>to draw together the material for potential cognate sets and sound
>correspondences, as well as relevant textual, historical, and
>archaeological detail, which will make possible, first, the firm
>establishment of Afroasiatic as a language family ....."
>
>http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/CUS/AAindex.html#afroas
>
>Personally, I continue to be surprised that anyone has categorized
>Egyptian, yet. But let's assume that, as is claimed, it is related to
>North African and Near Eastern languages.
>How does that information
>suggest that the Afro-Asiatic language group originated in Africa?
Because that's not all that Afroasiatic is. Afroasiatic is also
South Cushitic, East Cushitic, Central Cushitic, Omotic and Beja
(cheek by jowel in the Somalia/Ethiopia area), Ancient Egyptian
(northward), Semitic (to the east, thence the "asiatic" in Afroasiatic),
and flung out to the west and northwest, Chadic (Hausa, spoken in
Nigeria and Niger) and Berber (northwest Africa).
(And of course, there are the Iraqw in Tanzania, but I don't know with
which of the above families - if any - their language is associated.)
Therefore, all but one of these language families are spoken in Africa,
and 5 out of 9 are spoken in the relatively small region of Somalia/Etiopia.
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the epicenter of the breakup
of Afroasiatic, was in Somalia/Ethiopia.
Placing them well inside Africa.
As to "Near Eastern languages", I would like to point out again that
of the *9* Afroasiatic language families, only one, Semitic, is spoken
in the Near East.
Alex
Alex
>>
>>
>
>Thats kind of vague.....
Pamela Maddison
Linguistics is my field, and while starting on an analysis of it a few
months ago, I got a terrible feeling of "deja vu2 since I was already very
well acquainted with the most interesting features; I knew them all already
from Welsh.
Now, Welsh is as Celtic a language as you can get, and the Celts were as
European as you can get, and certainly in many respects, particularly
vocabulary, Welsh is a straight-down-the-line Indo-European language, with a
lot in common with Greek.
This really bothers me. I could live with Welsh being like Hittite, as that
would tie in very nicely with the "Brut" legend and the claim to come from
Troy. Unfortunately, the introductory particles, the manner of introducing
the predicate, the personal endings on prepositions - not to mention the
word order - are all so close that translating Ancient Egyptian into Welsh
is little more than a transliteration exercise.
Any comments?
Godfrey A. Whyte
Just in case any gets confused: it is definitely not a case of loan
words. The classification into Afro-asiatic is based on systematic
correspondences. There has been enough information on this thread to
guide those who really want to know the linguistic facts away from
putting forward some trite "loan-word" suggestion.
ADR
has with Egyptian!
Brian M. Scott
> Well, now, I have a problem over Egyptian language: specifically grammar.
> Linguistics is my field, and while starting on an analysis of it a few
> months ago, I got a terrible feeling of "deja vu2 since I was already very
> well acquainted with the most interesting features; I knew them all already
> from Welsh.
> Now, Welsh is as Celtic a language as you can get, and the Celts were as
> European as you can get, and certainly in many respects, particularly
> vocabulary, Welsh is a straight-down-the-line Indo-European language, with a
> lot in common with Greek.
> This really bothers me.
If linguistics is your field, it shouldn't bother you at all. It's
well-known that the Insular Celtic languages are typologically deviant;
it's been suggested that this is the result of some pre-IE local
substrate, but I don't know whether this is the consensus or merely one
view of several. It's also pretty well-known that typology is at best a
*very* poor guide to genetic relationships: there are languages with no
demonstrable kinship that are typologically similar, and fairly closely
related languages that are typologically quite distinct.
> I could live with Welsh being like Hittite, as that
> would tie in very nicely with the "Brut" legend and the claim to come from
> Troy.
Good grief! Any similarity between Welsh and Hittite is the result of
their common membership in the IE family. You might also look at the
dates involved.
[...]
Brian M. Scott
G Horvat
wrote:
>So lets look at sub-Saharan African languages and see how much in common it
>has with Egyptian!
At the url provided by Alex, there is a dictionary of the 'Chadic'
Bura language:
http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/dz/alda/data.html
Gisele
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>Personally, I continue to be surprised that anyone has categorized
>Egyptian, yet. But let's assume that, as is claimed, it is related to
>North African and Near Eastern languages. How does that information
>suggest that the Afro-Asiatic language group originated in Africa?
Gisele, Miguel has been through this here at least a couple of times;
a search of Deja easily turned up the following 14/4/98 post from a
thread 'Re: WESTERN(WHITE)CIVILIZATION IS FOUNDED ON A BLACK AFRICAN
CIVILIZATION'. (I've reformatted it slightly.)
<begin quote>
On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 11:01:46 -0600, ram...@geocities.com wrote:
>In regards to the origin point, it is my understanding, and I
>hope MCV can comment in some way, that the evidence is quite
>good for the linguistic origin n the Horn of Africa.
I'm not really a supporter of the Horn of Africa hypothesis myself. It
is true that the general region of the Horn shows a large amount of
linguistic diversity: what was once considered a single subgroup of
Afro-Asiatic, "Cushitic", has upon closer inspection turned out to be
at least 3 and maybe 4 independent groups (Omotic, Beja, Central
Cushitic, Eastern/Southern Cushitic). Omotic in particular is
generally considered linguistically coordinate with Afro-Asiatic as a
whole.
But much depends on your definition of "Horn of Africa". Beja is
better considered a language of Northern Sudan, while Omotic can be
considered either Ethiopian (i.e. "Horn") or Southern Sudanese (i.e.
"Upper Nile"): it sits half way in between. That would only leave
Cushitic (or at most the two "Cushitics") fully in the Horn of Africa.
My main problem with the "Horn hypothesis" is that it would suggest
that Semitic is a language of the Arabian peninsula (crossed over from
Eritrea) which subsequently spread to the Middle East. I think that
is incorrect: I would rather place the "Proto-Semitic" homeland in
Neolithic Palestine, from where it spread east (Akkadian) and south
(Arabic and South-Arabic/Ethiopian). The contact point with the other
Afro-Asiatic languages is in my opinion through Egypt, not through the
Horn.
There are some further objections that I have, e.g. that the Horn of
Africa is not geographically "central" enough to easily explain the
current extension of the AA languages, and that there seem to be
indications that the original population of the Horn was genetically
akin to the Hadza and Sandawe of East Africa and further to the
Khoisan of Southern Africa.
In view of this, I would rather put the Afro-Asiatic homeland in the
Nile region, maybe originally the Upper and Middle Nile (modern
Sudan), and from there south-east into the Horn and north into Egypt.
That would also explain the "North Afro-Asiatic" subgroup (consisting
of Berber-[Chadic], Egyptian and Semitic) recognized by most
linguists, resulting from the further spread of the "northern" group
from Egypt into North Africa and Palestine (roughly 10,000 BC??).
Berber <-- Egyptian --> Semitic
\/ /\
Chadic Beja
/\
Omotic --> Cushitic
In this view, Omotic would represent the "stay-at-homes", in
agreement with the linguistic evidence which strongly suggests that
Omotic is the most divergent member of Afro-Asiatic. The current
location of the Omotic-speaking area (somewhat to the east of the
Nile, as is the case with Beja), would be the result of pressure and
incursions from Nilo-Saharan [Meroitic, Nubian and Nilotic] peoples
(the homeland of which might be placed in the Tibesti area of the
Eastern Sahara) which must have pushed aside the original
Afro-Asiatic population, and who dominated the Middle and Upper Nile
in historical times until the recent advance of Arabic.
That's my theory, anyway.
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
m...@wxs.nl |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
<end quote>
Brian M. Scott
Paul Kekai Manansala
>
> >I don't know why you would think that. Have you ever tried to compare
> >Egyptian to other AA languages like Cushitic, for example? They are
> >*very* similar.
>
You don't seem in touch with these issues. Egyptian has much basic
vocabulary in common with Afroasiatic, and basic vocabulary is supposed
to be resistant to borrowing.
The root system in Egyptian, including Coptic, is very much like that of Cushitic with monosyllabic CV, CVC or CVV forms dominating. Here
are few examples from the Egyptian basic vocabulary:
tef - father
sa - son
seu - brother
af - flesh
qes - bone
tep - head
ab - heart
A - hand
tchen - self
ka - double
ka - essence of life
ba - soul, essence of life
aakh - spirit
wad - priest, shaman, hierophant
The pronoun systems are also very similar:
Egyptian Cushitic
Sing.
1st w(`) V
2nd t(k) t(k)
3rd s(f) s, n, y
Plur.
1st n n
2nd tn tn(kn)
3rd sn sn, n, y
> Afro-Carribean culture (there is no race as such), has no religious
> similiarites, no shared esoterical beliefs, very little linguistic
> similiarity and no cultural similiarity (Did they know abour beer before the
> Europeans came along?) to that of the Egyptians. The closest cultures you
> can find to the ancient Egyptians today is Amero-European and Indian. Both
> have beer, free-speech, philosophy, the pursuit of truth and knowledge, a
> justice system based on that of the Egyptians, poetry, class system, and the
> same religious beliefs - in God, in demi-gods and resurrected god-men, in
> the various holy-mothers, and in the higher state of mind and being. If
> anything Catholicism maintains the Egyptian creed better than Fundamentalist
> Christianity. So do Kabbalist Jews, Hindus and Buddhist.
Again, you sound totally disconnected. Even Eurocentrists like
Seligman could see that the Nilotic peoples preserved Egyptian culture
better than anyone else. Numerous Western scholars have commented
on the striking similarity between modern Shilluk and ancient Egyptian
culture and religion. In ancient times, it was the cultures along
the Nile to the south that shared similar religion and cultural
beliefs.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
ADR
what we call Afro-Caribbeans. Not Afro-Asiatics of the east, those are a
completely different pedigree. If you want to include them in your
definition of being 'black' you will have to produce genetic evidene that
you are all one people with next to no genetic, cultural and linguistic
diversity. The Egyptians belong to the Afro-asiatic group, but thats a very
large grouping and it could just as easily be changed the further back we
go. I prefer to think of them as coming from the north, near Anatolia. I
prefer to think of the Akkadians having come down from the north, near the
Black Sea. I prefer to think of the Sumerians coming form the east and even
what you call 'black people' coming from the east and north when the ice
sheets were expanding and driving people into a more suitable enviroment at
the time.
There is no 'black' race. That's the bottom line. Your'e trying to say
Egyptians are black the same way some New Yorker I saw on TV the other day
said that William Shakespeare was black.
Nubkhas
>vocabulary in common with Afroasiatic, and basic vocabulary is supposed
>to be resistant to borrowing.
Paul, Egyptian IS Afroasiatic.
>The root system in Egyptian, including Coptic, is very much like that of
>Cushitic with monosyllabic CV, CVC or CVV forms dominating. Here
>are few examples from the Egyptian basic vocabulary:
Hmm....... Make that
>
>tef - father it
>sa - son
>seu - brother sn
>af - flesh
>qes - bone
>tep - head
>ab - heart
>A - hand it's mainly "arm"
>tchen - self dunno this
>ka - double
>ka - essence of life
>ba - soul, essence of life
>aakh - spirit
>wad - priest, shaman, hierophant wab
So what are the Cushitic counterparts?
Nubkhas
>
>I starting to believe this SHIT!
>
Yeah. Um Kalthoum played "Mammy" in "Gone With the Wind", remember?
G Horvat
<ke...@jps.net> wrote:
>...From studying the language, it is clear to me that Egyptian was
>closest to the Cushitic languages such as Beja. But even if that
>were not the case all AA languages have an African origin.
It certainly isn't clear to me! The fact that "Semetic" peoples were
drawn to Africa (by the desire for gold, or to control the Red Sea,
etc.) does not mean that they came from there.
Gisele
G Horvat
<pam...@pemmaddison.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Well, now, I have a problem over Egyptian language: specifically grammar.
>
>Linguistics is my field, and while starting on an analysis of it a few
>months ago, I got a terrible feeling of "deja vu2 since I was already very
>well acquainted with the most interesting features; I knew them all already
>from Welsh.
>
>Now, Welsh is as Celtic a language as you can get, and the Celts were as
>European as you can get, and certainly in many respects, particularly
>vocabulary, Welsh is a straight-down-the-line Indo-European language, with a
>lot in common with Greek.
>
>This really bothers me. I could live with Welsh being like Hittite, as that
>would tie in very nicely with the "Brut" legend and the claim to come from
>Troy. Unfortunately, the introductory particles, the manner of introducing
>the predicate, the personal endings on prepositions - not to mention the
>word order - are all so close that translating Ancient Egyptian into Welsh
>is little more than a transliteration exercise.
>
>Any comments?
I think everyone who has studied Egyptian has noticed similarities to
Indo-European languages, particularly those of western Europe. If you
would like to provide some Welsh examples, I would be most interested.
Gisele
ADR
>Paul, Egyptian IS Afroasiatic.
Of course it is! But thats a huge grouping. The point of this discussion was
that somebody is trying to say they were 'black' as in Afro-Caribbean and
they are trying to use this language grouping to prove it, which is just
nonsense.
Alex
G Horvat heeft geschreven in bericht <375a05b4...@news.connect.ab.ca>...
If anything, they came from there by the virtue that their language came
from there (or at least came to Mesopotamia from there).
Is this a problem for you? If so, why?
Alex
Paul Kekai Manansala
If that were the case, why didn't they just classify Egyptian with IE?
Certainly some tried, like Waddell, and there was ample desire to do so.
The dynastic race theorists actually believed that "Aryans" founded
Egypt and would have loved to prove Egyptian as an IE language. But it
was so obvious that this was not the case.
If you
> would like to provide some Welsh examples, I would be most interested.
>
Why not provide IE examples in general.
Paul Kekai Manansala
>
> On Sat, 05 Jun 1999 17:39:14 -0700, Paul Kekai Manansala
> <ke...@jps.net> wrote:
>
> >...From studying the language, it is clear to me that Egyptian was
> >closest to the Cushitic languages such as Beja. But even if that
> >were not the case all AA languages have an African origin.
>
> It certainly isn't clear to me! The fact that "Semetic" peoples were
> drawn to Africa (by the desire for gold, or to control the Red Sea,
> etc.) does not mean that they came from there.
>
Egyptian is not a Semitic language, so why wuold you consider them
a "Semitic" people. Even the "Semites" did not consider Egyptians
as fellow Semites (see the Biblical and Koranic genealogies).
Furthermore, Egyptian civilization has southern origins linked with the
African Aqualithic aka Saharo-Sudanese and in the late period, Qustul
and Lower Nubia. Both Nabta Playa, the Lower Egyptian sites and even
the Natufian sites in West Asia show relationship with the Aqualithic,
both in terms of artifacts and physical remains.
The fact is that archaeology provides firm confirmation of an AA
movement out of Africa during the Neolithic-Holocene shifting of the
monsoons. Angel, Bar-Yosef and Keita have all discussed this evidence.
It includes the appearance of contemporary African morphologies in
neolithic West Asia, and artifacts linked with the harpoon tradition
of the Aqualithic.
Henry Polard
<thes...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In article <7jcbgl$ohg$1...@nclient3-gui.server.virgin.net>, ADR
> <a.dall...@virgin.net> wrote:
>
> > William Shakespeare was black
>
> I starting to believe this SHIT!
>
Please forgive my stupid questions.
In several threads in this newsgroup, folks are claiming the Egyptians
were black. I have not found a generally accepted definition of "black."
Is a "black² person one who has even one drop of "black" (= African)
blood, as IIRC was the rule in some part of the Unites States and South
Africa? If so, who _isn't_ "black," since we are all descended from
Africans?
So what's the deal? Is there an algorithm that one can use to determine
whether a person is "black"? Can one apply this algorithm to
archaeological remains?
--
Henry Polard || My dictionary puts the cart before the horse.
G Horvat
Scott) wrote:
>On Sat, 05 Jun 1999 07:06:45 GMT, gis...@connect.ab.ca (G Horvat)
>wrote:
>
>>Personally, I continue to be surprised that anyone has categorized
>>Egyptian, yet. But let's assume that, as is claimed, it is related to
>>North African and Near Eastern languages. How does that information
>>suggest that the Afro-Asiatic language group originated in Africa?
>
>Gisele, Miguel has been through this here at least a couple of times;
>a search of Deja easily turned up the following 14/4/98 post from a
>thread 'Re: WESTERN(WHITE)CIVILIZATION IS FOUNDED ON A BLACK AFRICAN
>CIVILIZATION'. (I've reformatted it slightly.)
How do the following quotes taken from Miguel's post support this most
conspicuous headline?
"I would rather put the Afro-Asiatic homeland in the Nile region..."
"I would rather place the "Proto-Semitic" homeland in Neolithic
Palestine, from where it spread east (Akkadian) and south (Arabic and
South-Arabic/Ethiopian). The contact point with the other
Afro-Asiatic languages is in my opinion through Egypt, not through the
Horn."
Miguel's theories are not inconsistant with an entrance of
"Proto-Semetic" people and "Proto-Egyptians" via the Mediterranean.
Also, although he doesn't appear to be around to defend himself, I
don't think he is opposed to concept of new language groups evolving
in isolation.
Gisele
G Horvat
<ke...@jps.net> wrote:
>G Horvat wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 5 Jun 1999 14:44:10 +0100, "Pamela Maddison"
>> <pam...@pemmaddison.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I think everyone who has studied Egyptian has noticed similarities to
>> Indo-European languages, particularly those of western Europe.
>
>If that were the case, why didn't they just classify Egyptian with IE?
>Certainly some tried, like Waddell, and there was ample desire to do so.
>The dynastic race theorists actually believed that "Aryans" founded
>Egypt and would have loved to prove Egyptian as an IE language. But it
>was so obvious that this was not the case.
>
> If you
>> would like to provide some Welsh examples, I would be most interested.
>>
>
>Why not provide IE examples in general.
Why would you request that? We probably need to look no further than
the languages spoken in Ancient Gaul....
Can you demonstrate that the Afro-Asiatic language group evolved from
another African language group?
Gisele
Alex
G Horvat heeft geschreven in bericht <375ac819...@news.connect.ab.ca>...
>>Gisele, Miguel has been through this here at least a couple of times;
>>a search of Deja easily turned up the following 14/4/98 post from a
>>thread 'Re: WESTERN(WHITE)CIVILIZATION IS FOUNDED ON A BLACK AFRICAN
>>CIVILIZATION'. (I've reformatted it slightly.)
>
>How do the following quotes taken from Miguel's post support this most
>conspicuous headline?
>
>"I would rather put the Afro-Asiatic homeland in the Nile region..."
Because it's further inland in Africa?
But we're talking about language now
(how a Black African origin of Afroasiatic and thereby Ancient Egyptian
makes it a Black African civilization and how they, at the peak at their
powers came to influence Ancient Greece is another thread).
>"I would rather place the "Proto-Semitic" homeland in Neolithic
>Palestine, from where it spread east (Akkadian) and south (Arabic and
>South-Arabic/Ethiopian). The contact point with the other
>Afro-Asiatic languages is in my opinion through Egypt, not through the
>Horn."
Big difference. Either you believe that Semitic is a split-off from a super
language family whose languages moved north from East Africa through
the Nile Valley, or you believe that AA originated in/near modern-day Somalia
and that Semitic split of there, moved into the Arabian peninsula and from there
north into Mesapotamia.
No difference. It is still essentially an African migration.
>Miguel's theories are not inconsistant with an entrance of
>"Proto-Semetic" people and "Proto-Egyptians" via the Mediterranean.
Entrance into where? Into North Africa from the Levant at the time we're talking
about (10k BC for Miguel, 8-7k BC for Bernal)? Do you still believe that Ancient
Egytpian is a Semitic language? That the Ancient Egyptians were Semites?
>Also, although he doesn't appear to be around to defend himself, I
>don't think he is opposed to concept of new language groups evolving
>in isolation.
I'm sure that's how they all came about and started to diverge (except from
simple contact with other language groups - like Semito-Sumerian).
It's how they're related that makes it interesting.
Cheers,
Alex
ADR
>The fact is that archaeology provides firm confirmation of an AA
>movement out of Africa during the Neolithic-Holocene shifting of the
>monsoons.
I'm sorry but thats wrong. The AA movement is into Africa. Language moved
into Africa along with Modern Homo Sapiens. Erectus moved out, Sapiens moved
back in during the Ice Age and then they became darker, many tribes. They
all look at first glance to be one race, but they are not. What you call
'black' people are in fact many different migrations of different people who
moved into Africa around 30,000 -10,000 years ago and since then have
darkened and inter-bred.
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Sat, 05 Jun 1999 18:36:41 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
>Scott) wrote:
>>On Sat, 05 Jun 1999 07:06:45 GMT, gis...@connect.ab.ca (G Horvat)
>>wrote:
>>>Personally, I continue to be surprised that anyone has categorized
>>>Egyptian, yet. But let's assume that, as is claimed, it is related to
>>>North African and Near Eastern languages. How does that information
>>>suggest that the Afro-Asiatic language group originated in Africa?
>>Gisele, Miguel has been through this here at least a couple of times;
>>a search of Deja easily turned up the following 14/4/98 post from a
>>thread 'Re: WESTERN(WHITE)CIVILIZATION IS FOUNDED ON A BLACK AFRICAN
>>CIVILIZATION'. (I've reformatted it slightly.)
>How do the following quotes taken from Miguel's post support this most
>conspicuous headline?
Are you talking about the subject line? Why on earth should anything
in his post support it? He didn't start the silly thread!
>"I would rather put the Afro-Asiatic homeland in the Nile region..."
>"I would rather place the "Proto-Semitic" homeland in Neolithic
>Palestine, from where it spread east (Akkadian) and south (Arabic and
>South-Arabic/Ethiopian). The contact point with the other
>Afro-Asiatic languages is in my opinion through Egypt, not through the
>Horn."
>Miguel's theories are not inconsistant with an entrance of
>"Proto-Semetic" people and "Proto-Egyptians" via the Mediterranean.
Of course they are. His theory puts the origin of AA in the Upper and
Middle Nile region, from which the family will have spread (among
other directions) north into Egypt and then into Palestine. In Egypt
it will (eventually) have produced Egyptian, and in Palestine,
Proto-Semitic. The Semitic languages will then have spread through
Arabia to Ethiopia.
>Also, although he doesn't appear to be around to defend himself, I
>don't think he is opposed to concept of new language groups evolving
>in isolation.
That depends on what you mean by 'new language groups'. If you're
trying to suggest that Egyptian is a language unrelated to the Berber
and Semitic languages, one that sprang forth ex nihilo, forget it.
If, on the other hand, you're talking about the normal divergence over
time of related languages that aren't in contact, no one will
disagree, but it's not clear what your point is.
Brian M. Scott
Alex
G Horvat heeft geschreven in bericht <375b00ec...@news.connect.ab.ca>...
>Can you demonstrate that the Afro-Asiatic language group evolved from
>another African language group?
Why on earth should anyone have to? This is all about 10-7k years ago
in Africa, and nowhere else.
Unless you're saying that for some reason, 10.000 years ago, some
pre-Indoeuropean types migrated into Africa...
Alex
G Horvat
wrote:
>.....who _isn't_ "black," since we are all descended from
>Africans?
Your are allowing a *theory* about what happened millions or hundreds
of thousands of years ago than to over-ride your own perceptions.
Equally valid should be the statement based upon personal observation,
"We are not all black therefore we did not all emanate from Africa."
Is it not this latter type of logic which places man in Australia
50,000 years ago despite lack of evidence of boats or landbridges?
There are artifacts or fossils, therefore they arrived.
Also, how is it that anthropologist have more answers about the origin
of man than those about the origin of many recent enigmatic cultures
for which they can obtain DNA samples, have written or oral
traditions, have artifacts, have structures, etc.? Is a small
amount of evidence or lack of it a pre-requisite for certainty?
Gisele
Paul Kekai Manansala
>
>
> That depends on what you mean by 'new language groups'. If you're
> trying to suggest that Egyptian is a language unrelated to the Berber
> and Semitic languages, one that sprang forth ex nihilo, forget it.
Again, the emphasis on Berber and Semitic while ignoring the languages
right along the Nile to the south of a Nile Valley civilization.
Didn't you know the desert supposedly prevented travel in the Sahara
before the shifting of the monsoons?
Nubkhas
also no doubt in my mind that it is also related to IE, specifically Germanic.
Bunsen, I believe, was the first to point this out around the last "fin de
siecle". The man was right. Unfortunately, he and others who believed
Egyptian was a strange jargon consisting of Semitic, African and IE found
themselves not able to defend this adequately on linguistic grounds so the
result is what we have today--Afroasiatic--completely ignoring the ties to IE
(and I am not just talking "loan words" here). Although I have absolutely no
theory as to how and why this could be, my lengthy research into how pharaonic
Egyptian was pronounced makes this more and more clear to me. And this, I
think, is a great part of the problem in seeing the intricacies of
Egyptian--lack of knowledge of the pronunciation as opposed to how the terms
appear as transliterated. For example--take the word "iAw", which means "old".
To look at the Egyptian, it seems to have no commonality with the English (a
Germanic language) but the fact is "iAw" was most probably vocalized something
like"ol". Even the prosthetic "iw", which figures in many Egyptian phrases
throughout the stages of the language, was doubtless vocalized "lo" (with a
short "o") and possibly even survives into English as the "lo" in "Lo and
behold". These pecularities of pronunciation also make, in a different
example, the Egyptian term for "color", which is "iwn" correspond to the
Semitic one, which is "lon". Even though the Egyptian writing system does not
appear to contain a glyph corresponding to English letter "l", a kind of "l"
sound does appear to have resulted from combinations of other glyphs, two of
them being /n/ and /r/. That is how we get the initial element , "ala", of the
word "alabaster" from the Egyptian "inr" meaning "stone" (most quarried stones
had names that went like "stone of something or other" and "inr" was most
certainly vocalized as "ala". (It must be mentioned that the glyph /A/
possibly having an input into the pronunciation of Egyptian terms under several
disguises, including "r", "l", "n" and some vowel sounds also adds to the
confusion). Many toponyms in modern day Egypt seem to be Arabic names, yet
they are Egyptian. They are just unrecognizable to those who have no idea of
how ancient Egyptian was pronounced.
A good example is "el Balamoun". In antiquity, it used to be "PA-iw-n-Imn".
Per my explanation above, you can easily see what occurs and that the name is
still pronounced perfectly correctly today, except that Arabic-speaking peoples
have no "p" and pronounce a "b" instead. You can also see how the ancient
"Inrk" becomes the "Eleka" of today. To make a long story short, based on
pronunciation, the affinity of Egyptian to IE is greater than most people
think. Just because it is a mysterious thing does not mean it is without
merit. The Egyptian language is all over Europe, here and there, for those who
have eyes (and ears) to comprehend this. It flew like a dove--yup, that's
right! The Egyptian term "grmpi" (dove, pigeon) , the vocalization of which
survived perfectly intact into Coptic as "krompi" is now "golob" or even
"golompki" in the Slavic languages. I could go on and on. A couple of years
ago, I started talking about this phenomenon, something very obvious to me,
even though, in those days, I was pretty ignorant of Egyptian compared to now.
Well, I don't like coming from a position of ignorance, so I corrected the
situation. Now I think I can talk Egyptian vocalization with world experts, so
if you are thinking of flaming me on this connection between Egyptian and IE,
be sure you are one of them! And don't come at me with any pontifications
about "a few words that sound alike don't mean a thing" because, while I agree
with this completely, that does not happen to be what is going on at all.
Nubkhas
>throughout the stages of the language
Hey! What did I write here? Make that "prothetic". Anyway, it's a particle
that starts many phrases, not something owned by Long John Silver.
ADR
>(and I am not just talking "loan words" here). Although I have absolutely
no
>theory as to how and why this could be, my lengthy research into how
pharaonic
>Egyptian was pronounced makes this more and more clear to me.
It was pronounced like hebrew, french or german. You have to know this, many
Frankish kings actually seems to have been related to the Egyptians, in
particular the Merovingians.
Aslo, there seems to be evidence that a cult of Osiris and Isis existed in
the south-west corner of France and that the ancient Basque people might
have been connected to it. The religious sites were later replaced with
churches, but they still are laid out in hexagonal and pentagonal designs.
Funny thing is the lay out, at least two and half thousand years old, is
based on the English mile. This is a mystery for some.
The ancient Basque goddess was named Mari, and was represented by a lone
woman with no companion, a widow or virgin. Strangely enough, though this
might sound like the virgin Mary who is no doubt modelled after the Isis
legend, the word 'meri' as you know, means 'beloved' in Egyptian. We have no
way of knowing when this goddess came to the ancient Basque.
G Horvat
>.... The Egyptian language is all over Europe, here and there, for those who
>have eyes (and ears) to comprehend this. It flew like a dove--yup, that's
>right! The Egyptian term "grmpi" (dove, pigeon) , the vocalization of which
>survived perfectly intact into Coptic as "krompi" is now "golob" or even
>"golompki" in the Slavic languages.
Dove is "colombe" in French...
There seems to be a lot of b = p = f such as:
<bik> (hawk) of Egyptian/Coptic is like part of "faucon" (falcon,
hawk) in French
<fnT> or <bnT> (worm, snake, serpent) in Egyptian/Coptic is like part
of "serpentin"
I have just started compiling a list of similarities to French where
we have 'faire' (do) which is similar to 'ir(i)' (do) of Egyptian.
"Ari" also exists as "doing" in Basque.
Corresponding with the Egyptian <pr> "come out", we have the French
"partir" but what I found most amusing lately was how Collier
translated the expression <prt> to "procession" in his book - parade!
--------------------------------------
When I think of what the people of Germany and of Egypt have in
common, beer is the first thing that comes to mind. A familiar German
brand is similar to the Coptic word for 'beer' - was that planned?
Gisele
ADR
>Unless you're saying that for some reason, 10.000 years ago, some
>pre-Indoeuropean types migrated into Africa...
>
>Alex
And who wasnt living between Europe and India prior to about 30000 years
ago. Africa should not have had many Homo Sapiens at all prior to the Ice
Age since the last major evolution occured in Asia and the far east. All
modern mutations, African and European/Middle eastern and Indo-Asian (and
that includes Semitic speakers), are developed from an oriental base.
Brian M. Scott
<ke...@jps.net> wrote:
>"Brian M. Scott" wrote:
>> That depends on what you mean by 'new language groups'. If you're
>> trying to suggest that Egyptian is a language unrelated to the Berber
>> and Semitic languages, one that sprang forth ex nihilo, forget it.
>Again, the emphasis on Berber and Semitic while ignoring the languages
>right along the Nile to the south of a Nile Valley civilization.
I picked the families generally agreed to be most closely related
linguistically so as to reduce the possibility of ill-informed
questioning of the relationship; there was no need to mention the
entire family to make the point. Geography played no part in the
choice.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
>The Egyptian language is undoubtedly related to Semitic. However, there is
>also no doubt in my mind that it is also related to IE, specifically Germanic.
There is no historical basis for supposing a closer relationship
between Egyptian and Germanic than between Egyptian and IE in general.
Moreover, it is methodologically nonsensical to look for Egyptian-Gmc.
connections and not for more general AA-IE connections.
[...]
> For example--take the word "iAw", which means "old".
> To look at the Egyptian, it seems to have no commonality with the English (a
>Germanic language) but the fact is "iAw" was most probably vocalized something
>like"ol".
But the modern vowel in <old> is just that: modern. Common Gmc. had
/a/. If there were a relationship, the Egyptian should resemble the
*old* Gmc. forms, not a modern English form.
> Even the prosthetic "iw", which figures in many Egyptian phrases
>throughout the stages of the language, was doubtless vocalized "lo" (with a
>short "o") and possibly even survives into English as the "lo" in "Lo and
>behold".
The difficulty with this is that <lo> is known to be a reflex of OE
<la:>, with a long /a/.
[...]
Brian M. Scott
Freeland
understand, fill me in.
ADR <a.dall...@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:7jjv7o$la8$1...@nclient3-gui.server.virgin.net...
Henry Polard
Horvat) wrote:
> On Sun, 06 Jun 1999 11:34:52 -0700, pol...@wenet.net (Henry Polard)
> wrote:
>
> >.....who _isn't_ "black," since we are all descended from
> >Africans?
>
> Your are allowing a *theory* about what happened millions or hundreds
> of thousands of years ago than to over-ride your own perceptions.
> Equally valid should be the statement based upon personal observation,
> "We are not all black therefore we did not all emanate from Africa."
Nope.
You chopped off something very important. Here is the whole paragraph:
Is a "black² person one who has even one drop of "black" (= African)
blood, as IIRC was the rule in some part of the Unites States and South
Africa? If so, who _isn't_ "black," since we are all descended from
Africans?
I must be very stupid, since what you write has no relationship to any
logic I know about.
In any case, I'm trying to figure out how people categorize people.
But you raise an interesting point about perceptions. How do perceptions
give me reliable information about genetics? For example, how would
perceptions (in this case, looking at somebody) tell me who has
sickle-cell anemia, which is a genetically carried condition?
Ross Clark
>
> The Egyptian language is undoubtedly related to Semitic. However, there is
> also no doubt in my mind that it is also related to IE, specifically Germanic.
> siecle". The man was right. Unfortunately, he and others who believed
> Egyptian was a strange jargon consisting of Semitic, African and IE found
> themselves not able to defend this adequately on linguistic grounds so the
> result is what we have today--Afroasiatic--completely ignoring the ties to IE
> theory as to how and why this could be, my lengthy research into how pharaonic
> think, is a great part of the problem in seeing the intricacies of
> Egyptian--lack of knowledge of the pronunciation as opposed to how the terms
> To look at the Egyptian, it seems to have no commonality with the English (a
> Germanic language) but the fact is "iAw" was most probably vocalized something
> throughout the stages of the language, was doubtless vocalized "lo" (with a
> short "o") and possibly even survives into English as the "lo" in "Lo and
> example, the Egyptian term for "color", which is "iwn" correspond to the
> Semitic one, which is "lon". Even though the Egyptian writing system does not
> appear to contain a glyph corresponding to English letter "l", a kind of "l"
> sound does appear to have resulted from combinations of other glyphs, two of
> them being /n/ and /r/. That is how we get the initial element , "ala", of the
> word "alabaster" from the Egyptian "inr" meaning "stone" (most quarried stones
> had names that went like "stone of something or other" and "inr" was most
> certainly vocalized as "ala". (It must be mentioned that the glyph /A/
> possibly having an input into the pronunciation of Egyptian terms under several
> disguises, including "r", "l", "n" and some vowel sounds also adds to the
> confusion). Many toponyms in modern day Egypt seem to be Arabic names, yet
> they are Egyptian. They are just unrecognizable to those who have no idea of
> how ancient Egyptian was pronounced.
> A good example is "el Balamoun". In antiquity, it used to be "PA-iw-n-Imn".
> Per my explanation above, you can easily see what occurs and that the name is
> still pronounced perfectly correctly today, except that Arabic-speaking peoples
> have no "p" and pronounce a "b" instead. You can also see how the ancient
> "Inrk" becomes the "Eleka" of today. To make a long story short, based on
> pronunciation, the affinity of Egyptian to IE is greater than most people
> think. Just because it is a mysterious thing does not mean it is without
> have eyes (and ears) to comprehend this. It flew like a dove--yup, that's
> right! The Egyptian term "grmpi" (dove, pigeon) , the vocalization of which
> survived perfectly intact into Coptic as "krompi" is now "golob" or even
> ago, I started talking about this phenomenon, something very obvious to me,
> even though, in those days, I was pretty ignorant of Egyptian compared to now.
> Well, I don't like coming from a position of ignorance, so I corrected the
> situation. Now I think I can talk Egyptian vocalization with world experts, so
> if you are thinking of flaming me on this connection between Egyptian and IE,
> be sure you are one of them! And don't come at me with any pontifications
> about "a few words that sound alike don't mean a thing" because, while I agree
> with this completely, that does not happen to be what is going on at all.
Funny, that's all that comes up on my screen. Try reposting.
Ross Clark
Brian M. Scott
> You have to know this, many
> Frankish kings actually seems to have been related to the Egyptians, in
> particular the Merovingians.
More unmarked humor from ADR.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
[...]
> There seems to be a lot of b = p = f such as:
> <bik> (hawk) of Egyptian/Coptic is like part of "faucon" (falcon,
> hawk) in French
And <faucon> is from Low Latin <falco>, perhaps related to <falx>
'sickle'. If there were a relationship, you'd expect the Egyptian to
resemble the *older* word more closely.
> <fnT> or <bnT> (worm, snake, serpent) in Egyptian/Coptic is like part
> of "serpentin"
Which is from Latin <serpe:ns> 'snake', itself a participle from
<serpere> 'to creep'. The <n> is grammatical, and the underlying root
is */sr.p-/, so any resemblance to the Egyptian or Coptic is quite
illusory.
> I have just started compiling a list of similarities to French where
> we have 'faire' (do) which is similar to 'ir(i)' (do) of Egyptian.
> "Ari" also exists as "doing" in Basque.
But <faire> is from Latin <facere>, which has almost no resemblance to
your Egyptian word. By now you should know that modern forms are
irrelevant; you *must* look at what they came from.
Brian M. Scott
Nubkhas
>
>>The Egyptian language is undoubtedly related to Semitic. However, there is
>>also no doubt in my mind that it is also related to IE, specifically
>Germanic.
>
>between Egyptian and Germanic than between Egyptian and IE in general.
There may be no known historical basis, but it is absolutely the case. What
is the "historical basis" for Caucasian people living in China 3,000 years ago?
I have lost all patience with people who are so sure they know how things were
"supposed to be" throughout the history of the world.
>Moreover, it is methodologically nonsensical >to look for Egyptian-Gmc.
>connections and not for more general AA-IE >connections.
It wasn't necessary to look. They are just there. And it was seen long ago.
Here's Budge in "The Mummy" on people's attempts to make sense of this
phenomenon: "Dr. Lepsius tried to show by the names of the numerals and
alphabets that the Indo-European, Semitic and Coptic families were originally
identical and Schwartze asserted that coptic was analogous to the Semitic
languages in its grammar, and to the Indo-European languages by its roots; but
that it was more akin to the Semitic languages in its simple character and lack
of logical structure. Bunsen and Paul de Lagarde thought that the Egyptian
language represented a pre-historic layer of Semitism and tried to show that
the forms of ancient Egyptian could be explained neither by Aryan nor Semitic
singly (AND THAT IS EXACTLY RIGHT!) but by both families together, and that
they formed in some way the transition from one to another."(BINGO!). That
there are "Indo-Germanic" terms in ancient Egyptian was seen long ago by
scholars who were familiar with every sub-group of IE. By why?
Let us say that scholars a thousand years hence come upon a book in the Yiddish
language, which long since died out. They can decipher it because they
recognize the Hebrew alphabet and Yiddish is written with Hebrew characters.
Also, there are numerous Hebrew terms in this language, but mostly it seems
Germanic in structure. Also seen are terms that appear to be decidedly Slavic.
What sort of language can this be? Can you imagine scholars wracking their
brains to explain the existence of a language consisting of elements which
ought to be unrelated--particularly Germanic and Semitic? We know perfectly
well how Yiddish came about and there is nothing mysterious about it. There is
a perfectly good explanation and so it makes sense. But what if this
explanation were lost in time? There is a perfectly good explanation for the
oddities connected to AE, as well. We just don't know what it is.
>[...]
>
>> For example--take the word "iAw", which means "old".
>> To look at the Egyptian, it seems to have no commonality with the English
>(a
>>Germanic language) but the fact is "iAw" was most probably vocalized
>something
>>like"ol".
>
>But the modern vowel in <old> is just that: modern. Common Gmc. had
>/a/. If there were a relationship, the Egyptian should resemble the
>*old* Gmc. forms, not a modern English >form.
Do you know how many variations there are of "o" and "a" and that some overlap
so that one can barely tell which letter should be used if writing out an
auditory perception? I can't tell you whether the AE "vowel sound" in the word
for "old (person)" leaned more toward "o" or "a". To do that I would have had
to have been there. I am no kid--but I don't go back that far.
>>> Even the prothetic "iw", which figures in many Egyptian phrases
>>throughout the stages of the language, was doubtless vocalized "lo" (with a
>>short "o") and possibly even survives into English as the "lo" in "Lo and
>>behold".
>
>The difficulty with this is that <lo> is known to be a reflex of OE
><la:>, with a long /a/.
It makes no difference whatsoever. (And what is "la" supposed to mean in OE?)
Do you think it a complete accident and coincidence then that the Egyptian
prothetic "iw" is often translated as "lo"? IE does not need a prothetic like
"lo". It serves no purpose whatever. It is just a leftover from the prothetic
particles of ancient tongues.
ADR
They believed they were from Troy and prior to that from Egypt. It's a fact.
ADR
Freeland wrote in message <4Wi73.11324$S4.4...@news.goodnet.com>...
>Oriental base is not at all where they evolved. I don't
>understand, fill me in.
All Indo-European, Middle Eastern and African facial features and anatomy
are mutations of what Oriental people look like. The reverse is impossible.
Sharp features or dark skin evolve from what we see in China, Korea and
Japan.
ADR
>> <fnT> or <bnT> (worm, snake, serpent) in Egyptian/Coptic is like part
>> of "serpentin"
>
>Which is from Latin <serpe:ns> 'snake', itself a participle from
><serpere> 'to creep'. The <n> is grammatical, and the underlying root
>is */sr.p-/, so any resemblance to the Egyptian or Coptic is quite
>illusory.
Ahh, but the snake goddess of Babylonian mythology was called 'Sarpanit'.
Ken Cox
> Brian Scott wrote:
> > ADR wrote:
> >> You have to know this, many Frankish kings actually seems to have
> >> been related to the Egyptians, in particular the Merovingians.
> >More unmarked humor from ADR.
> They believed they were from Troy and prior to that from Egypt. It's a fact.
How do you go from "the kings believed they were from Egypt" to
"the kings were related to the Egyptians"? Is belief sufficient
to establish something as reality?
--
Ken Cox k...@research.bell-labs.com
Nubkhas
nub...@aol.com (Nubkhas) wrote:
>
>>.... The Egyptian language is all over Europe, here and there, for those who
>>have eyes (and ears) to comprehend this. It flew like a dove--yup, that's
>>right! The Egyptian term "grmpi" (dove, pigeon) , the vocalization of which
>>survived perfectly intact into Coptic as "krompi" is now "golob" or even
>>"golompki" in the Slavic languages.
>
And in Italian it's "columbo". It's all the same word. So, is the Egyptian
"grmpi" a borrowing from IE or vice versa? And you can add to the the English
term "crumpet". That is also the same word. Just as a "golompka", a stuffed
cabbage roll, means "little dove" in Slavic, that is what the type of baked
goods so popular in England also implies. Notice how similar are the Coptic
and the English.
Another term commonly used in English, "hussy", a "bold, shameless or light
woman or girl", supposedly derived from "huswif", is also probably from
Egyptian. It's a spurious etymology that links wanton women with housewives!
However, a woman called a "Hsi" (pronounced "hossy") in Egyptian was a
professional singer, a class of persons who were thought "declasse" in many
lands, such as traditional India of today, for example. This is not to be
confused with women who were "chantresses" in the temple of Amun. From
Egyptian literature comes the "Report of Wenamun", an account of an Egyptian
who sailed off to obtain timber from Byblos in Phoenicia. It includes: "And he
sent to me his letter scribe bringing to me two jugs of wine and one sheep. He
had Tanetne, an Egyptian songstress whom he had, brought to me, saying; 'Sing
for him! Don't let his mind be occupied with concern.'"
Jonathan Stone
|>
|> >> You have to know this, many
|> >> Frankish kings actually seems to have been related to the Egyptians, in
|> >> particular the Merovingians.
|> >
|> >More unmarked humor from ADR.
|> >
|>
|> They believed they were from Troy and prior to that from Egypt. It's a fact.
Oh. Well. That explains a lot. Most of us recognize a distinction
between people's beliefs and reality. ADR apparently doesn't.
ADR
was the name of the child? Something that sounds like 'whore'?
Brian M. Scott
> gis...@connect.ab.ca (G Horvat) wrote:
> >Dove is "colombe" in French...
> And in Italian it's "columbo".
Not surprising, since both derive from Latin <columbus>.
> It's all the same word. So, is the Egyptian
> "grmpi" a borrowing from IE or vice versa? And you can add to the the English
> term "crumpet". That is also the same word.
It's probably from OE <crump> 'crooked' (by way of a couple of
intermediaries).
> Another term commonly used in English, "hussy", a "bold, shameless or light
> woman or girl", supposedly derived from "huswif", is also probably from
> Egyptian. It's a spurious etymology that links wanton women with housewives!
No, it's an example of a very common phenomenon. The same sort of sense
progression can be seen in <quean> 'disreputable woman, prostitute',
from OE <cwene> 'woman'. See also the names <Gillot, Jillet>:
originally just pet forms of <Gillian, Julian(a)>, they came to be
generic terms for a flighty girl. Or take <leman>, originally
'sweetheart, beloved' and used to refer to Christ or Mary; later its
primary sense was 'illicit lover'.
In the case of <hussy> no doubt is possible. In the 16th c. we find it
still used to mean 'mistress of a household' and 'a thrifty woman', and
we also find the full form <huswife> used to describe a light,
worthless, or pert woman or girl. The loss of initial /w/ in the
unstressed second syllable is a normal feature of some dialects; an
example is the modern pronunciation of the place-names <Chiswick> and
<Norwich>.
Brian M. Scott
ADR
Did you know that the name 'Jeniffer' is Egyptian? It means 'I am
beautiful'.
Marc Line
<nub...@aol.com>, saying:
snip
>It's a spurious etymology that links wanton women with housewives!
Not if you live round here! ;)
Nubkhas
>
>> gis...@connect.ab.ca (G Horvat) wrote:
>
>> >Dove is "colombe" in French...
>
>> And in Italian it's "columbo".
>
>Not surprising, since both derive from Latin <columbus>.
What is your point? Are you saying then, that you don't see any basis for
connecting the Egyptian "grmpi" to any of this?
>> It's all the same word. So, is the Egyptian
>> "grmpi" a borrowing from IE or vice versa? And you can add to the the
>English
>> term "crumpet". That is also the same word.
>
>It's probably from OE <crump> 'crooked' (by way of a couple of
>intermediaries).
Oh, come on! Can you tell us in what way a crumpet, a fat little pastry is
"crooked"?
>> Another term commonly used in English, "hussy", a "bold, shameless or light
>> woman or girl", supposedly derived from "huswif", is also probably from
>> Egyptian. It's a spurious etymology that links wanton women with
>housewives!
>
>No, it's an example of a very common phenomenon. The same sort of sense
>progression can be seen in <quean> 'disreputable woman, prostitute',
>from OE <cwene> 'woman'. See also the names <Gillot, Jillet>:
>originally just pet forms of <Gillian, Julian(a)>, they came to be
>generic terms for a flighty girl. Or take <leman>, originally
>'sweetheart, beloved' and used to refer to Christ or Mary; later its
>primary sense was 'illicit lover'.
>
>In the case of <hussy> no doubt is possible. In the 16th c. we find it
>still used to mean 'mistress of a household' and 'a thrifty woman', and
What is the context, if you don't mind giving it?
Exactly where is the term, "hussy" used as "mistress of a household"?
>we also find the full form <huswife> used to describe a light,
>worthless, or pert woman or girl. The loss of initial /w/ in the
>unstressed second syllable is a normal feature of some dialects; an
>example is the modern pronunciation of the place-names <Chiswick> and
><Norwich>
You may be right about "hussy", but I'd still like to see an example of its
usage. But, really, as you seem to have a lot of faith in these etymologies
(many of which are nothing but guesses) and I don't--we don't have too much to
discuss.
Ross CLark
Nubkhas wrote:
> >Nubkhas wrote:
> >
> >> gis...@connect.ab.ca (G Horvat) wrote:
> >
> >> >Dove is "colombe" in French...
> >
> >> And in Italian it's "columbo".
> >
> >Not surprising, since both derive from Latin <columbus>.
>
> What is your point? Are you saying then, that you don't see any basis for
> connecting the Egyptian "grmpi" to any of this?
> >> It's all the same word. So, is the Egyptian
> >> "grmpi" a borrowing from IE or vice versa? And you can add to the the
> >English
> >> term "crumpet". That is also the same word.
> >
> >It's probably from OE <crump> 'crooked' (by way of a couple of
> >intermediaries).
>
> Oh, come on! Can you tell us in what way a crumpet, a fat little pastry is
> "crooked"?
Well of course it isn't! How silly! Whereas the resemblance of a fat little pastry
to a dove is...well, obvious!
>
>
> >> Another term commonly used in English, "hussy", a "bold, shameless or light
> >> woman or girl", supposedly derived from "huswif", is also probably from
> >> Egyptian. It's a spurious etymology that links wanton women with
> >housewives!
> >
> >No, it's an example of a very common phenomenon. The same sort of sense
> >progression can be seen in <quean> 'disreputable woman, prostitute',
> >from OE <cwene> 'woman'. See also the names <Gillot, Jillet>:
> >originally just pet forms of <Gillian, Julian(a)>, they came to be
> >generic terms for a flighty girl. Or take <leman>, originally
> >'sweetheart, beloved' and used to refer to Christ or Mary; later its
> >primary sense was 'illicit lover'.
> >
> >In the case of <hussy> no doubt is possible. In the 16th c. we find it
> >still used to mean 'mistress of a household' and 'a thrifty woman', and
>
> What is the context, if you don't mind giving it?
> Exactly where is the term, "hussy" used as "mistress of a household"?
That's what the OED is for, girl! Examples dated from 1530 to 1800. Here's a nice
one:
Dame, ye maun to the pleugh the morn,
I will be hussy, gif I may.
[Lady, you must go to the plough tomorrow,
I will take care of the house, if I can]
(Moffatt, Wife of Auchtermuchty,16th c)
By the way, how were you planning to get an ancient Egyptian (or Coptic) word into
16th century English? Had you given any thought to the spatial and temporal gaps
involved?
>
>
> >we also find the full form <huswife> used to describe a light,
> >worthless, or pert woman or girl. The loss of initial /w/ in the
> >unstressed second syllable is a normal feature of some dialects; an
> >example is the modern pronunciation of the place-names <Chiswick> and
> ><Norwich>
>
> You may be right about "hussy", but I'd still like to see an example of its
> usage. But, really, as you seem to have a lot of faith in these etymologies
> (many of which are nothing but guesses) and I don't--we don't have too much to
> discuss.
So what are you suggesting -- that your "guesses" are just as good as the other
ones? Brian has been doing his best to show you that they aren't.
ADR has leapt in, in a spirit that suggests he sees the whole thing as a fun party
game that Egyptophiles can play. If that's all it is, I should stop being so
serious (and so should Brian and so should you.)
Ross Clark
Brian M. Scott
>>Nubkhas wrote:
>>> gis...@connect.ab.ca (G Horvat) wrote:
>>> >Dove is "colombe" in French...
>>> And in Italian it's "columbo".
>>Not surprising, since both derive from Latin <columbus>.
>What is your point?
That the French and Italian words aren't independent evidence of
anything, since they have a common source.
> Are you saying then, that you don't see any basis for
>connecting the Egyptian "grmpi" to any of this?
I said nothing at all about the Egyptian word.
>>> It's all the same word. So, is the Egyptian
>>> "grmpi" a borrowing from IE or vice versa? And you can add to the the
>>English
>>> term "crumpet". That is also the same word.
>>It's probably from OE <crump> 'crooked' (by way of a couple of
>>intermediaries).
>Oh, come on! Can you tell us in what way a crumpet, a fat little pastry is
>"crooked"?
Sure; if you've baked any sort of griddle-cake, you've almost
certainly seen them curl up around the edges (<crumpen> 'to curl up').
>>> Another term commonly used in English, "hussy", a "bold, shameless or light
>>> woman or girl", supposedly derived from "huswif", is also probably from
>>> Egyptian. It's a spurious etymology that links wanton women with
>>housewives!
>>No, it's an example of a very common phenomenon. The same sort of sense
>>progression can be seen in <quean> 'disreputable woman, prostitute',
>>from OE <cwene> 'woman'. See also the names <Gillot, Jillet>:
>>originally just pet forms of <Gillian, Julian(a)>, they came to be
>>generic terms for a flighty girl. Or take <leman>, originally
>>'sweetheart, beloved' and used to refer to Christ or Mary; later its
>>primary sense was 'illicit lover'.
>>In the case of <hussy> no doubt is possible. In the 16th c. we find it
>>still used to mean 'mistress of a household' and 'a thrifty woman', and
>What is the context, if you don't mind giving it?
>Exactly where is the term, "hussy" used as "mistress of a household"?
Edinburgh Burgh Records (1530): 'Na seruandis [shall] tak vther
clathis than thar masteris and husseis and thar hous-haldis clathis to
wesche.' (I.e., 'No servants shall take other clothes than their
master's and hussy's [= mistress's] and their household clothes to
wash'.)
De Foe, 'Col. Jack' (1722): 'Her being so good a hussy of what money I
had left her.' [Here it's in the second sense, 'a thrifty woman'.]
Both quotations from the OED2 s.v. hussy.
>>we also find the full form <huswife> used to describe a light,
>>worthless, or pert woman or girl. The loss of initial /w/ in the
>>unstressed second syllable is a normal feature of some dialects; an
>>example is the modern pronunciation of the place-names <Chiswick> and
>><Norwich>
>You may be right about "hussy", but I'd still like to see an example of its
>usage. But, really, as you seem to have a lot of faith in these etymologies
>(many of which are nothing but guesses) and I don't--we don't have too much to
>discuss.
Quite possibly. But I've noticed that you seem to have a good bit of
faith in your own etymological guesses.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
> Did you know that the name 'Jeniffer' is Egyptian? It means 'I am
> beautiful'.
The modern English feminine name <Jenifer>, however, is apparently a
derivative of Welsh <Gwenhwyfar> originally associated with Cornwall.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
[...]
> ADR has leapt in, in a spirit that suggests he sees the whole thing as a fun party
> game that Egyptophiles can play. If that's all it is, I should stop being so
> serious (and so should Brian and so should you.)
It's certainly more fun than the racial nonsense!
Brian M. Scott
Stephen Mann
: Well, now, I have a problem over Egyptian language: specifically grammar.
: Linguistics is my field, and while starting on an analysis of it a few
: months ago, I got a terrible feeling of "deja vu2 since I was already very
: well acquainted with the most interesting features; I knew them all already
: from Welsh.
: Now, Welsh is as Celtic a language as you can get, and the Celts were as
: European as you can get, and certainly in many respects, particularly
: vocabulary, Welsh is a straight-down-the-line Indo-European language, with a
: lot in common with Greek.
: This really bothers me. I could live with Welsh being like Hittite, as that
: would tie in very nicely with the "Brut" legend and the claim to come from
: Troy. Unfortunately, the introductory particles, the manner of introducing
: the predicate, the personal endings on prepositions - not to mention the
: word order - are all so close that translating Ancient Egyptian into Welsh
: is little more than a transliteration exercise.
: Any comments?
Pamela,
You seem to equate Greek with ancient Egyptian, but the two are from
different families. Irish origin myth records that the British Isles were
settled by both Greeks (Tuatha de Danaan) and `Fomors' (Phonecians). I'm
certain on this point because Norse myth has Semitic gods within its
pantheon and Tacitus refers to a Semitic tribe in the Baltic (the Sidoni,
or from Sidon, Lebanon). Amber must have been the draw there.
As for your reference to Hittite, I suspect they were originally Minoans
whom became Hattic and Latin (from Lydia?). The Tuatha de Danaan could
have been from the Greek mainland and Mycenaean rather than Minoan. This
area appears to be where Bronze Age navies first emerged and Minoans could
have spoken an ancient Greek which they then spread to Europe from the
Black Sea to the British Isles. At the same time, the Phonecians could
have been doing the same. The result would have been a rivalry throughout
the ancient world between these two. As Hittite was spread by trade, it
would have been changed into the various European languages now extant
which before would have been variations of the Fino-Estonian group.
Nubkhas
>
>> >> gis...@connect.ab.ca (G Horvat) wrote:
>> >
>> >> >Dove is "colombe" in French...
>> >
>> >> And in Italian it's "columbo".
>> >
>> >Not surprising, since both derive from Latin <columbus>.
>>
>> What is your point? Are you saying then, that you don't see any basis for
>> connecting the Egyptian "grmpi" to any of this?
>> >> It's all the same word. So, is the Egyptian
>> >> "grmpi" a borrowing from IE or vice versa? And you can add to the the
>> >English
>> >> term "crumpet". That is also the same word.
>> >
>> >It's probably from OE <crump> 'crooked' (by way of a couple of
>> >intermediaries).
>>
>> Oh, come on! Can you tell us in what way a crumpet, a fat little pastry is
>> "crooked"?
>
>Well of course it isn't! How silly! Whereas the resemblance of a fat little
>pastry
>to a dove is...well, obvious!
That's right, sir. And that's the same reason round, fat little stuffed
cabbage rolls are called "golompki" in Slavic--"little doves". Also, if
Brian's etymology is correct, why doesn't the latest Oxford Dictionary of
English Etymology know about it? They give for crumpet "doubtful origin".
>> >> Another term commonly used in English, "hussy", a "bold, shameless or
>light
>> >> woman or girl", supposedly derived from "huswif", is also probably from
>> >> Egyptian. It's a spurious etymology that links wanton women with
>> >housewives!
>> >
>> >No, it's an example of a very common phenomenon. The same sort of sense
>> >progression can be seen in <quean> 'disreputable woman, prostitute',
>> >from OE <cwene> 'woman'. See also the names <Gillot, Jillet>:
>> >originally just pet forms of <Gillian, Julian(a)>, they came to be
>> >generic terms for a flighty girl. Or take <leman>, originally
>> >'sweetheart, beloved' and used to refer to Christ or Mary; later its
>> >primary sense was 'illicit lover'.
>> >
>> >In the case of <hussy> no doubt is possible. In the 16th c. we find it
>> >still used to mean 'mistress of a household' and 'a thrifty woman', and
>>
>> What is the context, if you don't mind giving it?
>> Exactly where is the term, "hussy" used as "mistress of a household"?
>
>That's what the OED is for, girl! Examples dated from 1530 to 1800. Here's a
>nice
>one:
>
> Dame, ye maun to the pleugh the morn,
> I will be hussy, gif I may.
> [Lady, you must go to the plough tomorrow,
> I will take care of the house, if I can]
> (Moffatt, Wife of Auchtermuchty,16th c)
>
>By the way, how were you planning to get an ancient Egyptian (or Coptic) word
>into
>16th century English? Had you given any thought to the spatial and temporal
>gaps
>involved?
You are very naive if you think Egyptian terms cannot have come into English.
Even the more recent dictionaries are admitting these etymologies. No doubt
the Greeks and Romans were a part of the chain of diffusion. How did the word
"ibis" get into English? You tell us.
>> >we also find the full form <huswife> used to describe a light,
>> >worthless, or pert woman or girl. The loss of initial /w/ in the
>> >unstressed second syllable is a normal feature of some dialects; an
>> >example is the modern pronunciation of the place-names <Chiswick> and
>> ><Norwich>
>>
>> You may be right about "hussy", but I'd still like to see an example of its
>> usage. But, really, as you seem to have a lot of faith in these
>etymologies
>> (many of which are nothing but guesses) and I don't--we don't have too much
>to
>> discuss.
>So what are you suggesting -- that your "guesses" are just as good as the
>other
>ones? Brian has been doing his best to show you that they aren't.
Not very successfully, although I seem to have been wrong about "hussy". Admit
it, you never knew that the "ala" element in the word "alabaster" was the
Egyptian word for "stone", being "inr". Well, neither did he. These
etymologies are not fixed in stone, not even "alabaster". I suppose *you*
would say that the term had to be of classic origin--Greek perhaps. After all,
that is why the dictionary gives. But these etymologies were written by people
with Classic educations. What percentage of them do you suppose knew Egyptian?
I see no reason why we can't speculate about the origins of terms as I doubt
the
last word has been written about many of them.
>ADR has leapt in, in a spirit that suggests he sees the whole thing as a fun
>party
>game that Egyptophiles can play. If that's all it is, I should stop being so
>serious (and so should Brian and so >should you.)
Just so you don't make the mistake of confusing me with ADR.
Nubkhas
>> >>Nubkhas wrote:
>
>> > Are you saying then, that you don't see any basis for
>> > connecting the Egyptian "grmpi" to any of this?
>>
>> I said nothing at all about the Egyptian word.
>
>I shall then. :-)
>
>Late Egyptian: gry n p.t lit., "bird of (the) sky" = "pigeon"
>Demotic: grmp "dove"
>Sahaidic Coptic: groompe "pigeon; dove"
>Fayyumic Coptic: jrampi "pigeon; dove"
>Bohairic Coptic: grompi "pigion; dove"
>
>Werner Vycichl. 1983. Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue copte.
>Leuven: Editions Peeters, page 346, notes it has been suggested to
>be related to Latin <columbus>
Knowing you as I do, Troy, I feel sure you would have never have posted this
unless you felt certain that the Egyptian "grmpi" was taken from the Latin
instead of vice versa. However, if that was the case, can you tell us why
the Late Egyptian term would be " gry n p.t lit., "bird of (the) sky"?? A
borrowing from the Latin is hardly likely to break down this way! It looks to
me like you have solved the question and have pretty much confirmed that all
the IE terms related to "columbus" are from this Egyptian word.
G Horvat
<BMS...@stratos.net> wrote:
>G Horvat wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>> There seems to be a lot of b = p = f such as:
>
>> <bik> (hawk) of Egyptian/Coptic is like part of "faucon" (falcon,
>> hawk) in French
>
>And <faucon> is from Low Latin <falco>, perhaps related to <falx>
>'sickle'. If there were a relationship, you'd expect the Egyptian to
>resemble the *older* word more closely.
If 'faucon' is unrelated to the various words for 'hawk' such as G.
habicht, A.S. h(e)afoc, OE havok, and, instead, is from <falx>, then
where did the word 'falx' come from? It would seem more likely that
the falcon, being a specific type of hawk, was named after the hawk
and then the sickle was named after the falcon. The connection to the
Egyptian 'bik' would then depend upon whether the hawk was named for
it's unusal beak. Instead, the hawk is thought to be named after the
words E. 'have' & L. 'capere' even though the Latin word for 'hawk'
"accipter" seems unrelated to most other IE names for 'hawk'.
>> <fnT> or <bnT> (worm, snake, serpent) in Egyptian/Coptic is like part
>> of "serpentin"
>
>Which is from Latin <serpe:ns> 'snake', itself a participle from
><serpere> 'to creep'. The <n> is grammatical, and the underlying root
>is */sr.p-/, so any resemblance to the Egyptian or Coptic is quite
>illusory.
Ah, but the IE Root that you mention, SARP "to slip along, glide,
creep" is just an extended form of the root 'SAR' "to go, hasten,
flow, spring forward". The additional <p> came from where? Does this
suggest that the "ser" of "serpent" was just a prefix?
Secondly, the Latin word for "to creep" came in two forms; one to
describe animals, the other for humans:
serpo, serpere (animal)
repo, repere (human)
Looking at the above, one would expect that the "creeping" element of
each word would apply to the second syllable instead of the first.
>> I have just started compiling a list of similarities to French where
>> we have 'faire' (do) which is similar to 'ir(i)' (do) of Egyptian.
>> "Ari" also exists as "doing" in Basque.
>
>But <faire> is from Latin <facere>,
How do you know that the reverse wasn't true? ari > faire > facere
>which has almost no resemblance to your Egyptian word.
>By now you should know that modern forms are
>irrelevant; you *must* look at what they came from.
Fine. I agree with Nubkhus, though - etymological books may contain
valuable iinformation, but in regards to derivation, they look like
they contain a lot of guesswork.
Gisele
G Horvat
wrote:
>In article <375c05d4...@news.connect.ab.ca>, gis...@connect.ab.ca (G
>Horvat) wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 06 Jun 1999 11:34:52 -0700, pol...@wenet.net (Henry Polard)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >.....who _isn't_ "black," since we are all descended from
>> >Africans?
>>
>> Your are allowing a *theory* about what happened millions or hundreds
>> of thousands of years ago than to over-ride your own perceptions.
>> Equally valid should be the statement based upon personal observation,
>> "We are not all black therefore we did not all emanate from Africa."
>
>Nope.
>
>You chopped off something very important. Here is the whole paragraph:
>
>Is a "black² person one who has even one drop of "black" (= African)
>blood, as IIRC was the rule in some part of the Unites States and South
>Africa? If so, who _isn't_ "black," since we are all descended from
>Africans?
>I must be very stupid, since what you write has no relationship to any
>logic I know about.
Sorry, I can't diagree with you because you entirely missed my point.
>In any case, I'm trying to figure out how people categorize people.
>
>But you raise an interesting point about perceptions. How do perceptions
>give me reliable information about genetics?
Perhaps not always, but often the same results can be obtained from
both perceptions and genetics Examples based on mtDNA:
1) the Melanesians have been found to be most genetically similar to
Africans
2) Native West Coast South Americans are genetically related to
Polynesians.
Expectations, however, might lead one to believe that Melanesians
should be genetically related to SE Asians and that the South
Americans mentioned should be more genetically related to Siberians or
Mongolians. If that is the case, in these two examples (at least)
one's perceptions would agree more with genetics than one's
expectations.
>For example, how would
>perceptions (in this case, looking at somebody) tell me who has
>sickle-cell anemia, which is a genetically carried condition?
You're straying off topic.... Contributors to this newsgroup have
been known to write claims like "Native Americans *do* look Mongoloid"
(!)
The point is that many people today are allowing themselves to
mistrust their own senses.
Gisele
Nubkhas
I wrote:
>Admit
>> it, you never knew that the "ala" element in the word "
>> alabaster" was the Egyptian word for "stone", being "inr".
>
>Probably not. The Egyptian word for "alabaster" is <Ss>
>(cf. Hebrew <SayiS>, <Se:S>; Syriac <Si:Sa:>;
>Aramaic <Si:S>), which goes back to the beginning of
>Dyn. 4. This word is clearly not related to
>Greek <alabastros>.
Wait a minute. We are not talking about "Ss" necessarily. There are different
kinds of alabaster, anyway. Let me quote: " Alabaster is a calcite.
Limestone, chalk, travertine, Oriental alabaster, and marble are among the
most common of the massive forms of the mineral Alabaster is a varietal name
applied to two different minerals. One, Oriental alabaster, was extensively
used by the ancient Egyptians. It is a variety of calcite, with a hardness of
3; it is usually white and translucent, but is often banded with dark or
colored streaks." This oriental calcite is called
travertine and was quarried at Hat-nub. The other mineral, true alabaster, is
a variety of gypsum, or calcium sulphate, usually snow-white in color with a
uniform, fine grain. That was found at Um el Sawwan in the Fayyum region.
"True alabaster is softer than Oriental alabaster; it has a hardness of 1.5 and
is easily carved into intricate shapes. Deposits of fine gypsum alabaster are
found in Italy, England, Iran, and Pakistan." Limestone was quarried at Roan
or Tura not too far from Memphis and there was a yellowish-white alabaster
quarried near Mallawi in Middle Egypt.
The Greek term "alabastos" or "alabastros" cannot actually be native Greek for
the reason calcite is not quarried in Greece. Secondly, this word does not
even mean "alabaster" as a stone, strictly, but is a container, the "ointment
jar" as mentioned below.
>However, Sethe *tentatively* derives Greek <alabastros>
>from Egyptian <a n bAs.t.t> ( * `a-la-baste) "vase of
>(the godess) Bastet. The Copts apparently re-borrowed
>the word back from the Greeks as <alabastros> "perfume
>vase" as the Coptic word for "alabaster" is <kus>; <gus>.
>
>It is possible -- but very unlikely -- that <alabastros>
>derives from Egyptian *<inr bAs.t.t> "Stone of Bastet",
>but such a phrase is not attested in Egyptian, Demotic,
>or Coptic. Moreover, the /n+r/ = /l/ does not occur until
>the late New Kingdom, and is almost exclusively used with
>non-Egytian words. <inr> "stone" is attested much earlier
>than the New Kingdom, and is often written in later texts
><ini>, indicating that the /r/ had become vocalic (cf.
>Demotic <iny>). Coptic for "stone" is <une> (Sahaidic) and
><uni> (Bohairic).
>so all in all, I would say it is very likely you >are wrong
>on this one.
Alright, but I am willing to learn. I find it very persuasive, then, that the
element might be "vase", as Sethe suggests. On the other hand, there is
another "vase" word "inr" (see Hannig page 78, column 1) which may have been
pronounced "ala", as Hannig gives it as "yl" inparenthesis. So it looks like
things related to "stone" and written "inr" were not always pronounced "une".
So I may still be right ;-)
A big mystery is why a toponym in Egypt would have been called
"Alabastronpolis" by the Greeks. Where is it? And why was it called this?
Was there some kind of calcite quarried there and what sort? As I said before,
the Egyptian names of quarried stones often contained the names of the places
where the various stones were quarried. For example, "inr HD nfr n TA-sti"
is a calcite from Nubia. Try to imagine how *this* was vocalized in the
Egyptian habit of running words together! It has been mentioned that, assuming
something like "Bast.t" was present in the word, it is difficult to account for
the "r" at the end. "Bast.t" may be there and perhaps something more must
follow. But perhaps not and the "r" only got tacked onto the Greek
pronunciation somehow. We know that the main place that alabaster was
quarried in Egypt was "Hwt-nbw" and, indeed, there was something called "inr n
Hwt-nbw", which we can assume referred to travertine. Is it possible that,
instead of "HD", the term "psd" was substituted, thus "inr psd "? It's
mysterious, but our loan-word "alabaster" is Egyptian--no question.
Nubkhas
I wrote:
>> Wait a minute. We are not talking about "Ss" necessarily.
>> There are different kinds of alabaster, anyway.
>My point is that in Egyptian there is only one word for "alabaster" (<Ss>)
>and it is NOT related to the Greek word.
Okay. No, it is certainly not related. The thing is, there is some kind of
problem with
this business of alabaster. For example, J.A. Harrell wrote an article "Misuse
of the term 'alabster' in Egyptology" in GM (1990).
Probably it would be helpful to read this article.
>> The Greek term "alabastos" or "alabastros" cannot
>> actually be native Greek for the reason calcite is not
>> quarried in Greece. Secondly, this word does not even
>> mean "alabaster" as a stone, strictly, but is a container,
>> the "ointment jar" as mentioned below.
>
>
>Yes, I have no argument against this. BTW, I looked up the Greek in the
>Liddell-Scott dictionary. It seems the form with the /r/ <alabastros> is
>more recent than the form without it <alabastos>, which would work much
>better with the Egyptian evidence.
>
>[...]
>
>> Alright, but I am willing to learn. I find it very
>> persuasive, then, that the element might be "vase", as
>> Sethe suggests. On the other hand, there is another "vase"
>> word "inr" (see Hannig page 78, column 1) which may
>> have been pronounced "ala", as Hannig gives it as "yl"
>> in parenthesis.
>
>I'll grant you that this is more likely than <inr> "stone", but the word
>you mention is very likely a non-Egyptian word (hence the group writing),
>lacks any derterminative indicating it is stone, and is defined by Hannig
>as "Schale" (English, "bowl, dish" for >wine, ointment, &c.).
Hmm...okay...but this doesn't actually preclude it "possibly" being carved of
stone, I suppose. Even if it's a foreign item, by the time of the Greeks it
could have been a household word.
>> So it looks like things related to "stone"
>> and written "inr" were not always >pronounced "une".
>but it isn't stone, anymore than <inr>/<il> >"wood-worm" is.
It has a lot better chance of being stone than that!
>> So I may still be right ;-)
>
>maybe, but I doubt it.
Well, nevermind. I am still not convinced that stone, "inr", isn't somehow
involved. I grant you the way "stone" has survived in Coptic, but, given the
behavior of /r/ and /n/
in Egyptian, how can we be really certain that something pronounced "une" in
one place wasn't "ule" in another?
>> A big mystery is why a toponym in Egypt would have been
>> called "Alabastronpolis" by the Greeks. Where is it? And
>> why was it called this? Was there some kind of calcite
>> quarried there and what sort?
>
>it is generally placed at Hatnub where the Egyptians are known to have had
>alabaster quarries (as you mentioned).
>
>[...]
>
>> It has been mentioned that, assuming something like
>> "Bast.t" was present in the word, it is difficult to
>> account for the "r" at the end.
>
>As I mentioned, according to Liddell-Scott, the form without the /r/ is
>the older one, so the difficulty evaporates. Why it was added, I do not
>know.
We had better stick with Sethe. BTW, where is the place Abu Gorab?
Nubkhas
>On the other hand, there is another "vase"
>> word "inr" (see Hannig page 78, column 1) which may
>> have been pronounced "ala", as Hannig gives it as "yl"
>> in parenthesis.
Troy Sagrillo wrote:
>I'll grant you that this is more likely than <inr> "stone", but the word
>you mention is very likely a non-Egyptian word (hence the group writing),
>lacks any derterminative indicating it is stone, and is defined by Hannig
>as "Schale" (English, "bowl, dish" for wine, ointment, &c.).
Say! I just remembered something. The Spanish word for a pot or jar is
"olla". So maybe we have a Latin borrowing this time
by the Egyptians. Too bad these dictionaries don't give us the sources of
these foreign-appearing terms so we can understand their exact time-frame.
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>Equally valid should be the statement based upon personal observation,
>"We are not all black therefore we did not all emanate from Africa."
Rubbish. This assumes that your untutored, unscientific observation
is as significant as a vast body of research.
Moreover, you completely missed his point, one that has been made here
many times by many people: there is no generally accepted,
scientifically meaningful definition of 'black'. Any conclusions that
you draw on the basis of such an ill-defined, culturally dependent
concept are at best suspect and at worst worthless.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>Nubkhas wrote:
>> Well, neither did he. These
>> etymologies are not fixed in stone, not even "alabaster". I suppose *you*
>> would say that the term had to be of classic origin--Greek perhaps.
>> After all,
>> that is why the dictionary gives.
>That's as far as my Concise Oxford takes it. And since Watkins doesn't
>list an IE source, a further derivation from Egyptian is not ruled out,
>based on these two books I have within reach.
Troy's dealt pretty thoroughly with this one, but since it's handy,
let's see what the OED2 says: 'a. OFr. alabastre (mod.Fr. albātre),
ad. L. alabaster, -trum, a. Gr. alabastroj, prop. alabastoj; said to
be from name of a town in Egypt.' Looks pretty good.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
Sagrillo) wrote:
>In article <19990610130218...@ng-fp1.aol.com>, nub...@aol.com
>(Nubkhas) wrote:
>> Troy Sagrillo wrote:
>> >Late Egyptian: gry n p.t lit., "bird of (the) sky" = "pigeon"
>> >Demotic: grmp "dove"
>> >Sahaidic Coptic: groompe "pigeon; dove"
>> >Fayyumic Coptic: jrampi "pigeon; dove"
>> >Bohairic Coptic: grompi "pigion; dove"
>> >Werner Vycichl. 1983. Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue copte.
>> >Leuven: Editions Peeters, page 346, notes it has been suggested to
>> >be related to Latin <columbus>
>> Knowing you as I do, Troy, I feel sure you would have
>> never have posted this unless you felt certain that the
>> Egyptian "grmpi" was taken from the Latin instead of vice
>> versa.
>Not at all. I am not *certain* that the Latin is from Demotic or Coptic,
>but I would say it is a pretty good possibility. No, I do not think that
>the Latin was borrowed by the Egyptians; I don't believe I implied that.
>> It looks to me like you have solved the question and have
>> pretty much confirmed that all the IE terms related to
>> "columbus" are from this Egyptian word.
>that was my intention, yes. Again, I am not certain by any means, but it
>does look good, unless there is a better (Latin-based) etymology for the
>Latin. Since I am not a Latin scholar, I really can't say.
I haven't turned up anything on the Latin end, but my resources are
limited. (We could use Miguel about now.) I also agree that there's
at least a case worth looking into, and it's clear that if there was
borrowing, it was into Latin.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
>Say! I just remembered something. The Spanish word for a pot or jar is
>"olla".
And it appears to be unchanged from popular Latin <olla> 'pot, jar'.
This is apparently a later development of Latin <aulla>, which
according to C.D. Buck is cognate with Sanskrit <ukha:-> 'pot, boiler'
and Gothic <auhns> 'oven'. The exact relationship apparently isn't
clear (or wasn't when he wrote).
Brian M. Scott
Ross Clark
>
> >Nubkhas wrote:
> >
>
> >> >> gis...@connect.ab.ca (G Horvat) wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> >Dove is "colombe" in French...
> >> >
> >> >> And in Italian it's "columbo".
> >> >
> >> >Not surprising, since both derive from Latin <columbus>.
> >>
> >> connecting the Egyptian "grmpi" to any of this?
> >> >> "grmpi" a borrowing from IE or vice versa? And you can add to the the
> >> >English
> >> >> term "crumpet". That is also the same word.
> >> >
> >> >It's probably from OE <crump> 'crooked' (by way of a couple of
> >> >intermediaries).
> >>
> >> Oh, come on! Can you tell us in what way a crumpet, a fat little pastry is
> >> "crooked"?
> >
> >Well of course it isn't! How silly! Whereas the resemblance of a fat little
> >pastry
> >to a dove is...well, obvious!
>
> That's right, sir. And that's the same reason round, fat little stuffed
> cabbage rolls are called "golompki" in Slavic--"little doves". Also, if
> Brian's etymology is correct, why doesn't the latest Oxford Dictionary of
> English Etymology know about it? They give for crumpet "doubtful origin".
That's fine. They apparently don't consider any proposed etymology
clearly convincing. Brian's source favoured the connection with a word
for "crooked". Uncertain etymologies are not rare. However, your
Egyptian derivation via a strained analogy between an English muffin and
a Polish stuffed cabbage leaf gets you points for cleverness, but is
hardly a serious contender for a real origin.
Evidently you are very naive about etymology in general. I did not say
there were no Egyptian words in English. In fact I did an etymology
search for them in the CDROM OED a year or two ago when this question
came up. As I recall there were a few dozen.
Any dictionary etymology will tell you how "ibis" got into English.
English got it from Latin (where we can find it) and Latin got it from
Greek (where we can find it). And Greek got it from Egyptian. Add to
that the fact that the bird is associated with Egypt, and you have a
fully convincing etymology.
Comparing this with "crumpet" and "hussy", we have words appearing in
Early Modern English, having no particular connection in meaning with
Egypt, a thousand years after Egyptian/Coptic has ceased to be spoken,
with no intermediate forms attested. Do you see the difference?
>
> >> >we also find the full form <huswife> used to describe a light,
> >> >worthless, or pert woman or girl. The loss of initial /w/ in the
> >> >unstressed second syllable is a normal feature of some dialects; an
> >> >example is the modern pronunciation of the place-names <Chiswick> and
> >> ><Norwich>
> >>
> >> You may be right about "hussy", but I'd still like to see an example of its
> >> usage. But, really, as you seem to have a lot of faith in these
> >etymologies
> >> (many of which are nothing but guesses) and I don't--we don't have too much
> >to
> >> discuss.
>
> >So what are you suggesting -- that your "guesses" are just as good as the
> >other
> >ones? Brian has been doing his best to show you that they aren't.
>
> Not very successfully, although I seem to have been wrong about "hussy". Admit
> it, you never knew that the "ala" element in the word "alabaster" was the
> Egyptian word for "stone", being "inr".
If I admitted I didn't know it, I would be accepting that you were right
about it, which I don't. I have no source at hand that confirms what you
say, and your credibility as an authority on these matters has not been
established.
Well, neither did he. These
> etymologies are not fixed in stone, not even "alabaster". I suppose *you*
> would say that the term had to be of classic origin--Greek perhaps.
After all,
> that is why the dictionary gives.
That's as far as my Concise Oxford takes it. And since Watkins doesn't
list an IE source, a further derivation from Egyptian is not ruled out,
based on these two books I have within reach.
But these etymologies were written by people
> with Classic educations. What percentage of them do you suppose knew Egyptian?
Actually the better dictionaries do have consultants who do know
Egyptian, Tamil, Japanese, Algonquian, and the other languages from
which English words have come.
> I see no reason why we can't speculate about the origins of terms as I doubt
> the
> last word has been written about many of them.
Of course. But anybody who wants their speculations to be taken
seriously needs to do some homework.
> >ADR has leapt in, in a spirit that suggests he sees the whole thing as a fun
> >party
> >game that Egyptophiles can play. If that's all it is, I should stop being so
> >serious (and so should Brian and so >should you.)
>
> Just so you don't make the mistake of confusing me with ADR.
Never fear.:)
Ross Clark
Brian M. Scott
>Pamela Maddison (pam...@pemmaddison.freeserve.co.uk) wrote:
>: Well, now, I have a problem over Egyptian language: specifically grammar.
>: Linguistics is my field, and while starting on an analysis of it a few
>: months ago, I got a terrible feeling of "deja vu2 since I was already very
>: well acquainted with the most interesting features; I knew them all already
>: from Welsh.
>: Now, Welsh is as Celtic a language as you can get, and the Celts were as
>: European as you can get, and certainly in many respects, particularly
>: vocabulary, Welsh is a straight-down-the-line Indo-European language, with a
>: lot in common with Greek.
>: This really bothers me. I could live with Welsh being like Hittite, as that
>: would tie in very nicely with the "Brut" legend and the claim to come from
>: Troy. Unfortunately, the introductory particles, the manner of introducing
>: the predicate, the personal endings on prepositions - not to mention the
>: word order - are all so close that translating Ancient Egyptian into Welsh
>: is little more than a transliteration exercise.
>: Any comments?
>You seem to equate Greek with ancient Egyptian, but the two are from
>different families.
She's aware of that; it's what's bothering her. It shouldn't, but
that's another matter.
> Irish origin myth records that the British Isles were
>settled by both Greeks (Tuatha de Danaan) and `Fomors' (Phonecians). I'm
>certain on this point because Norse myth has Semitic gods within its
>pantheon and Tacitus refers to a Semitic tribe in the Baltic (the Sidoni,
>or from Sidon, Lebanon). Amber must have been the draw there.
Certain that this is what Irish myth says, or certain that it's true?
The latter is nonsense, and attempts to identify the mythical (and
non-human) Fomorians with an historical people are unlikely to bear
fruit, to say the least. I doubt that you'll find much serious
support for a Semitic component in the Norse pantheon. Your 'Semitic
tribe' appears to be the people called by Tacitus the Sitones; if
there's any genetic relationship between this and the place-name
Sidon, it certainly isn't apparent.
>As for your reference to Hittite, I suspect they were originally Minoans
>whom became Hattic and Latin (from Lydia?).
What *are* you trying to say? Hittite and Latin are Indo-European;
Hattic isn't; and the language of the Linear A inscriptions is
unknown. Explaining Hittites as Minoans who became Hattic is
ridiculous.
> The Tuatha de Danaan could
>have been from the Greek mainland and Mycenaean rather than Minoan. This
>area appears to be where Bronze Age navies first emerged and Minoans could
>have spoken an ancient Greek
It does not appear that they did, however, unless you're talking about
the Mycenaean and Late Minoan writings in Linear B. In that case you
have deal with the fact that the Celtic languages are not particularly
close to Greek within the IE family.
> which they then spread to Europe from the
>Black Sea to the British Isles. At the same time, the Phonecians could
>have been doing the same. The result would have been a rivalry throughout
>the ancient world between these two. As Hittite was spread by trade, it
>would have been changed into the various European languages now extant
>which before would have been variations of the Fino-Estonian group.
The Phoenicians spoke a Semitic (and hence Afro-Asiatic) language; the
Hittites spoke an IE language. I assure you that Phoenicians weren't
spreading Hittite across the ancient world.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Wed, 09 Jun 1999 00:43:14 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
><BMS...@stratos.net> wrote:
>>G Horvat wrote:
>>> There seems to be a lot of b = p = f such as:
>>> <bik> (hawk) of Egyptian/Coptic is like part of "faucon" (falcon,
>>> hawk) in French
>>And <faucon> is from Low Latin <falco>, perhaps related to <falx>
>>'sickle'. If there were a relationship, you'd expect the Egyptian to
>>resemble the *older* word more closely.
>If 'faucon' is unrelated to the various words for 'hawk' such as G.
>habicht, A.S. h(e)afoc, OE havok, and, instead, is from <falx>, then
>where did the word 'falx' come from?
There's apparently reason to think that it may be a borrowing from one
of the ill-attested and possibly non-IE languages of Italy.
> It would seem more likely that
>the falcon, being a specific type of hawk, was named after the hawk
>and then the sickle was named after the falcon.
In modern English the falcon is a specific type of hawk; you can't
assume without evidence that this is necessarily true of the
precursors of these words. In any case, if you'd paid attention to
what I wrote, you'd have realized that <falco> is a younger word than
<falx>; the latter can't be derived from the former. It's not certain
that <falco> is from <falx>, but naming the bird for its claws is in
fact not at all implausible.
> The connection to the
>Egyptian 'bik' would then depend upon whether the hawk was named for
>it's unusal beak.
You're moving the goal-posts. Your original claim was for a
connection between <bik> and <faucon>, apparently on the basis of the
vague resemblance between /b-k/ and /f-k/. Now you apparently want to
claim a connection between Egyptian <bik> (if it exists) and English
<beak> and a further connection between that and PrGmc *habukaz
'hawk'. Your theory has changed completely. If you can flip-flop
that violently without even noticing, why should we pay any attention
at all?
Since you mention it, however, <beak> is from Latin <beccus>, of
Celtic origin; I don't know for sure, but this suggests that the word
is not represented throughout IE. PrGmc *habukaz, on the other hand,
derives from a familiar IE root. Moreover, the root, *kap-, accounts
for the *hab- of the PrGmc; the *-buk- isn't a unit.
> Instead, the hawk is thought to be named after the
>words E. 'have' & L. 'capere' even though the Latin word for 'hawk'
>"accipter" seems unrelated to most other IE names for 'hawk'.
No. The word <hawk> goes back to the same IE root as <have> and
<capere>; it is *not* derived from either of those words. Latin
<accipiter> is obviously derived from <accipere> 'to take, to receive'
(and other less relevant senses). This last apparently derives from a
compound <ad + capere>, so the same IE root is apparently present;
perhaps more to the point, the same basic metaphor is clearly present.
>>> <fnT> or <bnT> (worm, snake, serpent) in Egyptian/Coptic is like part
>>> of "serpentin"
>>Which is from Latin <serpe:ns> 'snake', itself a participle from
>><serpere> 'to creep'. The <n> is grammatical, and the underlying root
>>is */sr.p-/, so any resemblance to the Egyptian or Coptic is quite
>>illusory.
>Ah, but the IE Root that you mention, SARP "to slip along, glide,
>creep" is just an extended form of the root 'SAR' "to go, hasten,
>flow, spring forward". The additional <p> came from where? Does this
>suggest that the "ser" of "serpent" was just a prefix?
No; if anything, quite the reverse. What's your source for IE roots?
The usual reconstruction for 'to flow' is *sreu-, and the 'creep' root
is either *sr.p- or *serp-.
In any case this is completely irrelevant to your original claim:
you're moving the goal-posts again.
>Secondly, the Latin word for "to creep" came in two forms; one to
>describe animals, the other for humans:
>serpo, serpere (animal)
>repo, repere (human)
>Looking at the above, one would expect that the "creeping" element of
>each word would apply to the second syllable instead of the first.
Only if one knew absolutely nothing about Latin verbs. The <-o> and
<-ere> are inflectional endings.
>>> I have just started compiling a list of similarities to French where
>>> we have 'faire' (do) which is similar to 'ir(i)' (do) of Egyptian.
>>> "Ari" also exists as "doing" in Basque.
>>But <faire> is from Latin <facere>,
>How do you know that the reverse wasn't true? ari > faire > facere
Because time doesn't flow backwards. Even if you didn't know that
French was a descendant of Latin, you surely must be aware that Latin
is much the older language.
>>which has almost no resemblance to your Egyptian word.
>>By now you should know that modern forms are
>>irrelevant; you *must* look at what they came from.
>Fine. I agree with Nubkhus, though - etymological books may contain
>valuable iinformation, but in regards to derivation, they look like
>they contain a lot of guesswork.
Educated guesswork, backed up in many cases by a good deal of
evidence. Your guesses, on the other hand, are based largely on
superficialities, and your ignorance of the underlying science
disqualifies you from holding a worthwhile opinion on the merits of
etymology in general.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
Sagrillo) wrote:
[Egyptian origin of the Scots]
Ha! I'll have you know that they were Orcs. <Cairnech fri secht
mbliadhna immór rígi Bretan 7 Cat 7 Orc 7 Saxan> 'Cairnech was for
seven years high king over Britons and Cats and Orcs and Saxons' (Book
of Ballymote); <for firu Bolc 7 for Orcca> 'on the Fir Bolg and on the
Orcs' (Rawlinson 512); <indse Orc> 'the isles of Orcs' (BB). Where
*they* came from I have no idea, though.
(Personally I think that it's all the fault of the MacWasherwomen from
Mars, but you'd have to have been reading soc.history.medieval a while
back to appreciate that bit of lunacy.)
Brian
ADR
G Horvat
Scott) wrote:
>On Mon, 07 Jun 1999 19:19:35 GMT, gis...@connect.ab.ca (G Horvat)
>wrote:
>
>>Equally valid should be the statement based upon personal observation,
>>"We are not all black therefore we did not all emanate from Africa."
>
>Rubbish. This assumes that your untutored, unscientific observation
>is as significant as a vast body of research.
A "vast body of research" based on numerous assumptions and
unscientific observations such as that 'skin tones are related to
latitude'....
>Moreover, you completely missed his point, one that has been made here
>many times by many people: there is no generally accepted,
>scientifically meaningful definition of 'black'.
Let me give you one, then. 'Black' refers the skin tones of the
darkest individuals which ever lived upon earth (which can probably be
determined from the darkest individuals which exist today) and the
physical characteristics associated with them. 'Brown' which has
often been called 'Black' (!) is the result of interbreeding.
A "vast body of knowledge" recognizes that when individuals of
different color intermarry, the resulting color of their offspring is
somewhere *between* the colors of both parents. This knowledge is
*also* consistant with personal observation (look at OJ Simpson's
children) Try and tell me that this paragraph is rubbish!
In regards to the origin of man, I'll have much more confidence in
anthropological theories about millions of years ago when when
anthropologists can determine what happened thousands of years ago.
Gisele
G Horvat
Scott) wrote:
>... Your guesses, on the other hand, are based largely on
>superficialities, and your ignorance of the underlying science
>disqualifies you from holding a worthwhile opinion on the merits of
>etymology in general.
And you, dear sir, are merely quoting what you can quickly look up in
a book. Of course, none of these etymologies will agree with anything
I've written because Egyptian words were not taken into consideration!
Unless you're open to the idea of an IE- Egyptian connection or at
least willing to put a little thought into it, your contribution is
little more than the upholding of the integrity of linguists.
Gisele
Nubkhas
I wrote:
>> You are very naive if you think Egyptian terms cannot have come into
>English.
>> Even the more recent dictionaries are admitting these etymologies. No
>doubt
>> the Greeks and Romans were a part of the chain of diffusion. How did the
>word
>> "ibis" get into English? You tell us.
>
>Evidently you are very naive about etymology in general. I did not say
>there were no Egyptian words in English. In fact I did an etymology
>search for them in the CDROM OED a year or two ago when this question
>came up. As I recall there were a few >dozen.
If you'd had me around you'd have come up with a lot more!
>Any dictionary etymology will tell you how "ibis" got into English.
>English got it from Latin (where we can find it) and Latin got it from
>Greek (where we can find it). And Greek got it from Egyptian. Add to
>that the fact that the bird is associated with Egypt, and you have a
>fully convincing etymology.
Duh!
>Comparing this with "crumpet" and "hussy", we have words appearing in
>Early Modern English, having no particular connection in meaning with
>Egypt, a thousand years after Egyptian/Coptic has ceased to be spoken,
>with no intermediate forms attested. Do you see the difference?
Yes, I do. But just because the explanation of the diffusion of some terms is
not so clear doesn't mean there is no possible connection. Language works in
mysterious ways sometimes, as you ought to know. Take the Egyptian "grmpi",
for example. A man so well versed in etymologies such as yourself should have
already known what someone so ignorant of it (as you claim I am) perceived
immediately. Yes, one would think doves are to be found almost anywhere, but
other people took the Egyptian word. Now, I suppose it would be helpful to
know just how long "crumpets" have been popular in Britain, who perhaps
introduced them and who gave them that name. Right?
(snip)
>> >So what are you suggesting -- that your "guesses" are just as good as the
>> >other
>> >ones? Brian has been doing his best to show you that they aren't.
>>
>> Not very successfully, although I seem to have been wrong about "hussy".
>Admit
>> it, you never knew that the "ala" element in the word "alabaster" was the
>> Egyptian word for "stone", being "inr".
>
>If I admitted I didn't know it, I would be accepting that you were right
>about it, which I don't. I have no source at hand that confirms what you
>say, and your credibility as an authority on these matters has not been
>established.
Feel better about it now?
> Well, neither did he. These
>> etymologies are not fixed in stone, not even "alabaster". I suppose *you*
>> would say that the term had to be of classic origin--Greek perhaps.
>After all,
>> that is why the dictionary gives.
>
>That's as far as my Concise Oxford takes it. And since Watkins doesn't
>list an IE source, a further derivation from Egyptian is not ruled out,
>based on these two books I have within reach.
>
>But these etymologies were written by people
>> with Classic educations. What percentage of them do you suppose knew
>Egyptian?
>
>Actually the better dictionaries do have consultants who do know
>Egyptian, Tamil, Japanese, Algonquian, and the other languages from
>which English words have come.
>
>> I see no reason why we can't speculate about the origins of terms as I
>doubt
>> the
>> last word has been written about many of them.
>
>Of course. But anybody who wants their speculations to be taken
>seriously needs to do some homework.
I seem to have done mine pretty well. I was wrong, in part, but so were you.
I have admitted my error. Now be man enough to admit yours! See below.
>
>> >ADR has leapt in, in a spirit that suggests he sees the whole thing as a
>fun
>> >party
>> >game that Egyptophiles can play. If that's all it is, I should stop being
>so
>> >serious (and so should Brian and so >should you.)
>>
>> Just so you don't make the mistake of confusing me with ADR.
>
>Never fear.:)
I fear nothing, as you ought to know by now. You owe me an apology.
Nubkhas
I wrote:
> I am still not convinced that stone, "inr", isn't somehow
> involved. I grant you the way "stone" has survived in
> Coptic, but, given the behavior of /r/ and /n/ in
> Egyptian, how can we be really certain that something
> pronounced "une" in one place wasn't "ule" in another?
>Because it it pretty clear from Coptic that >it was not. Both Demotic and
>some dialects of Coptic (esp. Fayyumic) >regularly write <l>, but not in
>this case. Had there been any instances >of it being pronounced /l/
>*somewhere* in Egypt, it would have been >recorded in that Coptic dialect.
I guess so. Even the toponyms seem to bear this out--"Inrwtj"--el-Gebelein.
(the "Gebel" part, I would think, being from Arabic for "mountain") BTW, it
seems to me that this toponym must also have crawled into IE usage. The German
term "Gobelin" or "tapestry" must come from this Egyptian toponym. No doubt due
to some fabric that was produced there by the Copts, who are known for their
ability with textiles. If I am correct, then the Egyptian term "inr" does
manage to become involved in a loan word, after all, in a very round-about way!
But, then, what do I know. I am very naive about all this. Just ask Ross
Clark.
Nubkhas
>I wrote:
>
>> I am still not convinced that stone, "inr", isn't somehow
>> involved. I grant you the way "stone" has survived in
>> Coptic, but, given the behavior of /r/ and /n/ in
>> Egyptian, how can we be really certain that something
>> pronounced "une" in one place wasn't "ule" in another?
>
>>Because it it pretty clear from Coptic that >it was not. Both Demotic and
>>some dialects of Coptic (esp. Fayyumic) >regularly write <l>, but not in
>>this case. Had there been any instances >of it being pronounced /l/
>>*somewhere* in Egypt, it would have >>been >recorded in that Coptic dialect.
The plot possibly thickens. Budge, page 112 A gives the following:
aAnrA --pebbles, round stones
aAr.t-- a kind of stone, a natural block of stone (?)
aArArA--pebbles
Coptic for "pebble" is "al"
Unfortunately, I could find none of this in Hannig. The "aAr.t" interests me
in particular, as it doubtless is going to be vocalized "ala" or close to.
Freeland
Nubkhas <nub...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:19990611113900...@ng-fz1.aol.com...
> Ross Clark wrote:
> I wrote:
>
come into
> >English.
> >> Even the more recent dictionaries are admitting these
etymologies. No
> >doubt
> >> the Greeks and Romans were a part of the chain of diffusion.
How did the
> >word
> >> "ibis" get into English? You tell us.
> >
> >Evidently you are very naive about etymology in general. I did
not say
> >there were no Egyptian words in English. In fact I did an
etymology
> >search for them in the CDROM OED a year or two ago when this
question
> >came up. As I recall there were a few >dozen.
>
>
English.
> >English got it from Latin (where we can find it) and Latin got
it from
> >Greek (where we can find it). And Greek got it from Egyptian.
Add to
> >that the fact that the bird is associated with Egypt, and you
have a
> >fully convincing etymology.
>
>
> >Comparing this with "crumpet" and "hussy", we have words
appearing in
> >Early Modern English, having no particular connection in
meaning with
> >Egypt, a thousand years after Egyptian/Coptic has ceased to be
spoken,
> >with no intermediate forms attested. Do you see the
difference?
>
crumpet was breasts, but had no clue on its whereabouts.
>
> Yes, I do. But just because the explanation of the diffusion
of some terms is
> not so clear doesn't mean there is no possible connection.
Language works in
> mysterious ways sometimes, as you ought to know. Take the
Egyptian "grmpi",
> for example. A man so well versed in etymologies such as
yourself should have
> already known what someone so ignorant of it (as you claim I
am) perceived
> immediately. Yes, one would think doves are to be found almost
anywhere, but
> other people took the Egyptian word. Now, I suppose it would
be helpful to
> know just how long "crumpets" have been popular in Britain, who
perhaps
> introduced them and who gave them that name. Right?
> (snip)
as good as the
> >> >other
> >> >ones? Brian has been doing his best to show you that they
aren't.
> >>
> >> Not very successfully, although I seem to have been wrong
about "hussy".
> >Admit
> >> it, you never knew that the "ala" element in the word
"alabaster" was the
> >> Egyptian word for "stone", being "inr".
> >
> >If I admitted I didn't know it, I would be accepting that you
were right
> >about it, which I don't. I have no source at hand that
confirms what you
> >say, and your credibility as an authority on these matters has
not been
> >established.
>
>
but so were you.
> I have admitted my error. Now be man enough to admit yours!
See below.
> >
whole thing as a
> >fun
> >> >party
> >> >game that Egyptophiles can play. If that's all it is, I
should stop being
> >so
> >> >serious (and so should Brian and so >should you.)
> >>
> >> Just so you don't make the mistake of confusing me with ADR.
> >
> >Never fear.:)
>
Brian M. Scott
> On Thu, 10 Jun 1999 23:29:34 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
> Scott) wrote:
> >On Mon, 07 Jun 1999 19:19:35 GMT, gis...@connect.ab.ca (G Horvat)
> >wrote:
> >>Equally valid should be the statement based upon personal observation,
> >>"We are not all black therefore we did not all emanate from Africa."
> >Rubbish. This assumes that your untutored, unscientific observation
> >is as significant as a vast body of research.
> A "vast body of research" based on numerous assumptions and
> unscientific observations such as that 'skin tones are related to
> latitude'....
This particular observation -- true or false, scientific or otherwise --
has absolutely nothing to do with the scientific evidence for an African
genesis of modern man.
> >Moreover, you completely missed his point, one that has been made here
> >many times by many people: there is no generally accepted,
> >scientifically meaningful definition of 'black'.
> Let me give you one, then.
You can't: there isn't one. (And I seriously doubt that you're capable
of giving a scientifically meaningful definition of anything unless you
quote it from some other source.)
> 'Black' refers the skin tones of the
> darkest individuals which ever lived upon earth (which can probably be
> determined from the darkest individuals which exist today) and the
> physical characteristics associated with them.
'[T]he physical characteristics associated with them', eh? And which
would those be? Does it occur to you that it may depend on how you
define 'dark' and which representatives you choose?
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
> On Fri, 11 Jun 1999 06:13:15 GMT, sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M.
> Scott) wrote:
> >... Your guesses, on the other hand, are based largely on
> >superficialities, and your ignorance of the underlying science
> >disqualifies you from holding a worthwhile opinion on the merits of
> >etymology in general.
> And you, dear sir, are merely quoting what you can quickly look up in
> a book.
No. The difference between us is that I understand not only what I
quote or paraphrase, but also the principles of the underlying science
and in many cases the specific reasoning on which the conclusions are
based.
> Of course, none of these etymologies will agree with anything
> I've written because Egyptian words were not taken into consideration!
> Unless you're open to the idea of an IE- Egyptian connection or at
> least willing to put a little thought into it, your contribution is
> little more than the upholding of the integrity of linguists.
Egyptian borrowings into historical IE languages are well known. There
are a few suspected borrowings from AA into some early stage of IE as
well (and some in the opposite direction, too). For that matter, there
are linguists who believe that IE and AA (among others) have a common
ancestor, some of whom use traditional methodologies to which in
principle no linguist would take exception, but they haven't yet managed
to produce a generally convincing case. And they would be among the
first to dismiss as nonsense your attempts to draw conclusions from
superficial lexical resemblances between any stage of Egyptian and
modern IE languages. Until you understand why your approach is
worthless, your opinions on the subject are equally worthless. Your
persistent delusion that you can discuss a subject intelligently (and
even make original contributions!) without bothering to learn its basics
is very tiresome.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
> The German
> term "Gobelin" or "tapestry" must come from this Egyptian toponym.
The fabric was first produced at the Gobelin works in Paris, which took
its name from a 15th c. family of dyers. <Gobelin> is a French surname,
a diminutive of Old French <gobel> 'goblet, small cup'. This in turn is
apparently from Gaulish <*gobbo-> 'mouth'.
Brian M. Scott
Dave Timpe
Troy Sagrillo wrote in message ...
|As you will note, these two quotes from the OED are not, despite the title
|of the dictionary, English. They are Lallans Scots. As you might know, the
|ancestors of the the Scots were the Ancient Egyptians.
Does that mean the Scots are black?
Dave Timpe
Note the obvious spam trap in my e-mail address
Nubkhas
Could be. But in the back of my mind I seemed to recall some other connection.
However, as it turns out, the Egyptian toponym, Gebelein seems to be purely
Arabic and no longer has anything to do with its old name. Since I see now
there are two hills there and not one, it must mean "The Two Hills" in Arabic.
Interestingly, the Museum of fabric at Gobelins has a piece of tapestry the
threads of the woof of which are pure silk, which comes from Egypt and is said
to come from a period subsequent to the 8th Century because silk is not
supposed to appear in Egypt before then--but nobody seems to know for sure. So
perhaps this is the connection I recalled and it has nothing to do with an
Egyptian toponym at all. Your etymology seems much more likely. Now I am
wondering if "Gobelin" and "goblin" aren't related. "Goblin" is from medLatin
"gobelinus" and is a dimin. of "Gobel" (now, Gobeau) which is apparently
related to the term "cobalt", which is a fairy or demon from the mine! This
was a term applied to cobalt by miners due to ignorance of its value.
Ross Clark
>
> Ross Clark wrote:
> I wrote:
>
> >English.
> >> Even the more recent dictionaries are admitting these etymologies. No
> >doubt
> >> the Greeks and Romans were a part of the chain of diffusion. How did the
> >word
> >> "ibis" get into English? You tell us.
> >
> >Evidently you are very naive about etymology in general. I did not say
> >there were no Egyptian words in English. In fact I did an etymology
> >search for them in the CDROM OED a year or two ago when this question
> >came up. As I recall there were a few >dozen.
>
Yes, that's just the problem....
>
> >Any dictionary etymology will tell you how "ibis" got into English.
> >English got it from Latin (where we can find it) and Latin got it from
> >Greek (where we can find it). And Greek got it from Egyptian. Add to
> >that the fact that the bird is associated with Egypt, and you have a
> >fully convincing etymology.
>
> Duh!
>
> >Comparing this with "crumpet" and "hussy", we have words appearing in
> >Early Modern English, having no particular connection in meaning with
> >Egypt, a thousand years after Egyptian/Coptic has ceased to be spoken,
> >with no intermediate forms attested. Do you see the difference?
>
> Yes, I do. But just because the explanation of the diffusion of some terms is
> not so clear doesn't mean there is no possible connection.
Just how unlikely would it have to be before you would be willing to say
it was "not possible"? The similarities of form and meaning are not
particularly impressive, the historical and geographical connections
simply are not there. Is it simply your obsession with Egypt that makes
you continue to think there may be a connection?
Language works in
> mysterious ways sometimes, as you ought to know. Take the Egyptian "grmpi",
> for example. A man so well versed in etymologies such as yourself should have
> already known what someone so ignorant of it (as you claim I am) perceived
> immediately. Yes, one would think doves are to be found almost anywhere, but
> other people took the Egyptian word.
Actually the Rock Dove (Columba livia), which became the universal urban
pigeon, is not naturally found "almost anywhere", but originates in
North Africa and the Middle East. Who knows, if "grmpi" and "columba"
are in fact related, the name might have referred to this species? Of
course, people do sometimes borrow words that don't refer to novel
objects or ideas. But if the word was borrowed, it was borrowed at a
time when Egyptian was a living language, by speakers of another living
language on the shores of the Mediterranean.
Now, I suppose it would be helpful to
> know just how long "crumpets" have been popular in Britain, who perhaps
> introduced them and who gave them that name. Right?
Are you prepared to offer us a scenario in which they were introduced by
Egyptian speakers who called them "pigeons"?
> (snip)
> >> >So what are you suggesting -- that your "guesses" are just as good as the
> >> >other
> >> >ones? Brian has been doing his best to show you that they aren't.
> >>
> >> Not very successfully, although I seem to have been wrong about "hussy".
> >Admit
> >> it, you never knew that the "ala" element in the word "alabaster" was the
> >> Egyptian word for "stone", being "inr".
> >
> >If I admitted I didn't know it, I would be accepting that you were right
> >about it, which I don't. I have no source at hand that confirms what you
> >say, and your credibility as an authority on these matters has not been
> >established.
>
> Feel better about it now?
Not a bit.
> > Well, neither did he. These
> >> etymologies are not fixed in stone, not even "alabaster". I suppose *you*
> >> would say that the term had to be of classic origin--Greek perhaps.
> >After all,
> >> that is why the dictionary gives.
> >
> >That's as far as my Concise Oxford takes it. And since Watkins doesn't
> >list an IE source, a further derivation from Egyptian is not ruled out,
> >based on these two books I have within reach.
> >
> >But these etymologies were written by people
> >> with Classic educations. What percentage of them do you suppose knew
> >Egyptian?
> >
> >Actually the better dictionaries do have consultants who do know
> >Egyptian, Tamil, Japanese, Algonquian, and the other languages from
> >which English words have come.
> >
> >> I see no reason why we can't speculate about the origins of terms as I
> >doubt
> >> the
> >> last word has been written about many of them.
> >
> >Of course. But anybody who wants their speculations to be taken
> >seriously needs to do some homework.
>
> I seem to have done mine pretty well.
I don't see the evidence of that. The homework I had in mind was knowing
something about the history of the European words and languages you're
dealing with, not just browsing around and crying "Bingo!" every time
you see something that reminds you of Egyptian.
> I was wrong, in part, but so were you.
About what?
> I have admitted my error. Now be man enough to admit yours! See below.
> >
> >> >ADR has leapt in, in a spirit that suggests he sees the whole thing as a
> >fun
> >> >party
> >> >game that Egyptophiles can play. If that's all it is, I should stop being
> >so
> >> >serious (and so should Brian and so >should you.)
> >>
> >> Just so you don't make the mistake of confusing me with ADR.
> >
> >Never fear.:)
>
> I fear nothing, as you ought to know by now. You owe me an apology.
I looked below and I didn't see any explanation of what my "error" was
or what I'm supposed to be apologizing for.
Ross Clark
Nubkhas
>or what I'm supposed to be apologizing for.
Your first error is being patronizing. You don't know what I know. And I
don't cry "Bingo!" everytime something "reminds" me of an Egyptian word. You
have absolutely no basis for saying that. I brought up a term "grmpi" that
meets every criteria for something that could well be borrowed into other
languages. So far, you are the only one pig-headed (or dull and unimaginative)
enough to refuse to admit that I was correct. What is obviously eating you,
sir, is that I DO know a great deal about languages of various groups. I have
found in the past that some of the men here get very resentful of erudition in
a woman. No use talking to a block-head like you. Piss off!
> If you'd had me around you'd have come up with a lot more!
>Yes, that's just the problem....
You mean it wouldn't have helped to have someone around who actually knew
Egyptian??? Now THERE'S a beautiful logic for you.
Ross CLark
> >I looked below and I didn't see any explanation of what my "error" was
> >or what I'm supposed to be apologizing for.
>
> Your first error is being patronizing. You don't know what I know.
I've read enough of your posts over the last couple of years to have a pretty good
idea. You know an awful lot about Egypt, I don't doubt. What you don't know has
become apparent in the course of the present discussion.
> And I
> don't cry "Bingo!" everytime something "reminds" me of an Egyptian word. You
> have absolutely no basis for saying that.
My basis for saying it was the handful of examples you brought up. If they were
selected on the basis of some more rigorous criteria, perhaps you could explain
what they were.
> I brought up a term "grmpi" that
> meets every criteria for something that could well be borrowed into other
> languages. So far, you are the only one pig-headed (or dull and unimaginative)
> enough to refuse to admit that I was correct.
Remind me of where I said you were wrong.
> What is obviously eating you,
> sir, is that I DO know a great deal about languages of various groups. I have
> found in the past that some of the men here get very resentful of erudition in
> a woman. No use talking to a block-head like you. Piss off!
Ah yes, "sexist" -- like "patronizing", pretty much an unanswerable charge.Want to
try "racist"?
> > If you'd had me around you'd have come up with a lot more!
>
> >Yes, that's just the problem....
>
> You mean it wouldn't have helped to have someone around who actually knew
> Egyptian???
No, that's not what I mean. The idea that English etymology has been done entirely
by people utterly ignorant of Egyptian is your own invention. My comment was based
on your apparent unwillingness to discriminate between the obvious (ibis), the
possible (columba) and the silly (crumpet, hussy).
Ross Clark
Alex Green
>[snip] The idea that English etymology has been done entirely
>by people utterly ignorant of Egyptian is your own invention.
I'm not qualified to discuss egyptian roots, but English etymology has
always been biased towards Latin and Greek.
A Celtic example: Vinegar
Latin 'vinum acer' (sour wine)
Manx 'feeyn geayr' (sour wine)
Sincerely,
Alex Green
Ars artis est celare artem
Freeland
Or black, or maybe a chimp typing!!!
Ross CLark <r.c...@auckland.ac.nz> wrote in message
news:37622310...@auckland.ac.nz...
> Nubkhas wrote:
>
> > >I looked below and I didn't see any explanation of what my
"error" was
> > >or what I'm supposed to be apologizing for.
> >
> > > If you'd had me around you'd have come up with a lot more!
> >
> > >Yes, that's just the problem....
> >
> > You mean it wouldn't have helped to have someone around who
actually knew
> > Egyptian???
>
> No, that's not what I mean. The idea that English etymology has
been done entirely
> by people utterly ignorant of Egyptian is your own invention.
Freeland
speculation!!!
smiley <thes...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:120619991313467238%thes...@hotmail.com...
> In article <sagrillo-120...@k56-pip44.idcomm.com>,
Troy
> Sagrillo <sagr...@read.the.sig> wrote:
>
> > In article <7jru81$fp2$8...@news.inc.net>, "Dave Timpe"
> > <dave...@NOSPAMcybrzn.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Troy Sagrillo wrote in message ...
> > >
> > > |As you will note, these two quotes from the OED are not,
despite the title
> > > |of the dictionary, English. They are Lallans Scots. As you
might know, the
> > > |ancestors of the the Scots were the Ancient Egyptians.
> > >
> > > Does that mean the Scots are black?
> >
> > LOL! sure! They are after all the decendants of the Black
Irish ;-)
>
> I thought that the Irish were always Irish!
>
> --
> :-)
Brian M. Scott
> Alex Green wrote:
> > I'm not qualified to discuss egyptian roots, but English etymology has
> > always been biased towards Latin and Greek.
> > A Celtic example: Vinegar
> > Latin 'vinum acer' (sour wine)
> > Manx 'feeyn geayr' (sour wine)
> Is this supposed to demonstrate that Manx is a more likely source than
> Latin?
> In fact the immediate source of the English word is French "vinaigre",
> which goes back to Latin vinum acrum. Wine itself came to northern
> Europe from the Mediterranean. The Germanic word is a borrowing from
> Latin, and my guess would be that the Celtic is too. [...]
Manx <feeyn> pretty clearly corresponds to Old Irish <fín>, a borrowing
of Latin <vinum>. Thurneysen says that it's an early loan-word,
appearing in Welsh as <gwin>. Manx <geayr> matches Old Irish <gér>
'sharp, keen; intense', etymology unknown. The Manx phrase and the Sc.
Gaelic <fìon geur> appear to be calques whose resemblance to English and
French in the second part is fortuitous.
Brian M. Scott
Nubkhas
>
>> aAr.t-- a kind of stone, a natural block of stone (?)
>
>the WB, nor in Harris' lexicon of minerological terms. Possibly related to
>the others you cite.
>>
>> aArArA--pebbles Coptic for "pebble" is "al"
>
>testicle; grain; spot, stain; fruit-pit"
>
>the word is almost positively non-Egyptian (the group writing, and one of
>the sources being pAnastasi 1:23/3 (well known for its non-Egyptian
>vocabulary), are evidence of this), though I can suggest no donor language
>off the top of my head.
>
>> Unfortunately, I could find none of this in Hannig. The
>> "aAr.t" interests me in particular, as it doubtless is
>> going to be vocalized "ala" or close
>
>derived form). I would vocalise them as */3al/ (3 = `ayin); Coptic had
>lost the `ayin however. However, as these terms all start with `ayin, not
>a glottal stop
> (as <inr>), I doubt they are related to <inr> "stone" at all.
I didn't think they were. Only a "kind" of stone that might figure in the term
"alabaster", perhaps the "aAr.t". But, now you mention it, it happens I recall
the context in the pAnastasi. It is rather mysterious. "Mki Hr tA mwt.t m
SAdttit n mDwt mH MM mHtw m txwt aArr" This last is probably "pebbles", all
right, but the "aAr.t" has the determinative not of a little circle but a block
of stone. I don't think all this is Semitic, at least.
Brian M. Scott
> Brian M. Scott wrote
> >Ross Clark wrote:
> >> Alex Green wrote:
> >> > I'm not qualified to discuss egyptian roots, but English etymology has
> >> > always been biased towards Latin and Greek.
> >> > A Celtic example: Vinegar
> >> > Latin 'vinum acer' (sour wine)
> >> > Manx 'feeyn geayr' (sour wine)
[...]
> >> In fact the immediate source of the English word is French "vinaigre",
> >> which goes back to Latin vinum acrum. Wine itself came to northern
> >> Europe from the Mediterranean. The Germanic word is a borrowing from
> >> Latin, and my guess would be that the Celtic is too. [...]
> There were vineyards in Scandinavia in the Bronze Age, in particular in the
> south of Jutland, where we find Pramne (now Bramming), where Circe got her
> wine from (Od. X, 235).
I assume that you're talking about Pramnian wine; according to Pliny it
came from Smyrna, though other Classical writers give other sources in
the eastern Mediterranean. It seems to have been a kind of raisin
wine. (Information from the Perseus Project)
> The Celts learnt the art of making fine wine from the Etruscans in Lombardy.
> No Latin borrowing was necessary. And of course there were Celts in Gaul,
> too.
The fact remains that the Insular Celtic words for wine go back to Latin
<uinum>.
> >Manx <feeyn> pretty clearly corresponds to Old Irish <fín>, a borrowing
> >of Latin <vinum>. Thurneysen says that it's an early loan-word,
> >appearing in Welsh as <gwin>. Manx <geayr> matches Old Irish <gér>
> >'sharp, keen; intense', etymology unknown. The Manx phrase and the Sc.
> >Gaelic <fìon geur> appear to be calques whose resemblance to English and
> >French in the second part is fortuitous.
> So we have:
> Old Irish <fín gér>
No such compound or phrase seems to have been known to the compilers of
the Dictionary of the Irish Language, which is a sort of Irish OED for
Old and Middle Irish.
> In Celtic languages the difference between f and v is purely grammatical,
As it stands, this is nonsense. Welsh /f/, written <ff>, is not a
'grammatical' variant of /v/, written <f>. Gaelic /v/ arises from /b/
and /m/ by lenition, not from /f/. What *is* true, on the other hand,
is that before OIr initial /w/ became a bilabial voiced spirant, /B/,
which when not lenited gave OIr /f/. Latin <uinum> was borrowed early
enough to have participated in this development. (This /B/ remained
elsewhere and was written <b> (e.g., OIr <banb>).)
> so
> your argument that <fìon geur> and <feeyn geayr> are calques appears
> circular.
You miss the point. We know that OIr <fín> is a borrowing from Lat
<uinum>. We are reasonably sure that OIr <gér> is not a borrowing, or
even a cognate, of Lat <a:cris>. It is, however, a reasonable
translation. Further, there is apparently no evidence for the term in
OIr, Dwelly's dictionary identifies the Sc. Gael. term as having been
taken from a dictionary compiled for a specific dialect of Sc. Gael.,
and modern Ir. uses <fínéagar> instead of the <fíon géar> that would
correspond to Sc. Gael. <fìon geur>. Conclusion: the term does not have
an OIr ancestry, the Manx and Sc. Gael. forms are calques (perhaps
chosen with an ear to the sound), and the Ir. form is a borrowing.
Brian M. Scott
Brian M. Scott
> Alex Green wrote: <<Latin 'vinum acer' (sour wine)>>
> Ross wrote: <<Latin vinum acrum.>>
> Hello? The Latin <a:cer, a:cris, a:cre> 'sharp' is one of Allen & Greenough's
> paradigmatic third-declension adjectives. Ross, did you have a reason for
> putting it into the second declension? Is that an assumed form?
> Since <vi:num> is neuter, the phrase is rightly <vi:num a:cre>. Is this an
> assumed late collocation? (Classical Latin for 'vinegar' was <ace:tum>.) I ask
> merely for information. Jacob.
Petit Robert derives French <aigre> from Low Latin <acrus>, Classical
<acer>. I imagine that the second declension attracted quite a few
adjectives over time.
Brian M. Scott
Ross Clark
> >by people utterly ignorant of Egyptian is your own invention.
>
> always been biased towards Latin and Greek.
>
> A Celtic example: Vinegar
>
>
>
>
> Alex Green
>
> Ars artis est celare artem
Is this supposed to demonstrate that Manx is a more likely source than
Latin?
In fact the immediate source of the English word is French "vinaigre",
which goes back to Latin vinum acrum. Wine itself came to northern
Europe from the Mediterranean. The Germanic word is a borrowing from
Latin, and my guess would be that the Celtic is too. However, I admit to
knowing nothing about the history of vinegar. If you could show that it
was invented in the Isle of Man, you might have something going.
There may well be a Latin/Greek bias in etymology, but this is not a
good example of it.
Ross Clark
Alex Green
>Ross Clark wrote:
>
>> Alex Green wrote:
>
>> > always been biased towards Latin and Greek.
>
>> > A Celtic example: Vinegar
>
>> > Latin 'vinum acer' (sour wine)
>
>> > Manx 'feeyn geayr' (sour wine)
>
>> Latin?
No. Manx is the Celtic language I know best. I was drawing attention to
the possibility of an older Celtic derivation.
>
>> In fact the immediate source of the English word is French "vinaigre",
>> which goes back to Latin vinum acrum. Wine itself came to northern
>> Europe from the Mediterranean. The Germanic word is a borrowing from
>> Latin, and my guess would be that the Celtic is too. [...]
There were vineyards in Scandinavia in the Bronze Age, in particular in the
south of Jutland, where we find Pramne (now Bramming), where Circe got her
wine from (Od. X, 235).
The Celts learnt the art of making fine wine from the Etruscans in Lombardy.
No Latin borrowing was necessary. And of course there were Celts in Gaul,
too.
>
>Manx <feeyn> pretty clearly corresponds to Old Irish <fín>, a borrowing
>of Latin <vinum>. Thurneysen says that it's an early loan-word,
>appearing in Welsh as <gwin>. Manx <geayr> matches Old Irish <gér>
>'sharp, keen; intense', etymology unknown. The Manx phrase and the Sc.
>Gaelic <fìon geur> appear to be calques whose resemblance to English and
>French in the second part is fortuitous.
So we have:
Old Irish <fín gér>
In Celtic languages the difference between f and v is purely grammatical, so
your argument that <fìon geur> and <feeyn geayr> are calques appears
circular.
Lovejw
Ross Clark
That's what the Concise Oxford gives as a starred (assumed)
early-Romance form. I don't know why. Not good Classical Latin, as you
point out.
Ross Clark
Ross Clark