Meroitic language

The Meroitic language () is an extinct language of uncertain linguistic affiliation formerly spoken in Meroë (in present-day Sudan) during the Meroitic period (attested from 300 BC) and became extinct about 400 AD. It was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphabet: Meroitic Cursive, which was written with a stylus and was used for general record-keeping; and Meroitic Hieroglyphic, which was carved in stone or used for royal or religious documents. It is poorly understood, owing to the scarcity of bilingual texts.

Name Meroitic is also referred to in some publications as Kushite after the apparent attested endoethnonym"Vers 2000 av. J.-C., la montée en puissance du royaume de Kerma, le premier État historiquement connu d'Afrique noire, fondé au sud de la 3e cataracte cinq siècles plus tôt, stoppa l'avance égyptienne et contraignit les rois de la xiie dynastie à ériger un dispositif de forteresses entre la 1e et la 2e cataracte pour se protéger des incursions kermaïtes. Un nom apparaît alors dans les textes égyptiens pour désigner ce nouvel ennemi : Koush (ég. Kȝš), sans doute l'appellation que se donnaient les Kermaïtes eux-mêmes, et qui continuera à les désigner jusqu'à la disparition de la langue égyptienne. " — paragraph #2 — Claude Rilly, « Le royaume de Méroé », Afriques [En ligne], Varia, mis en ligne le 21 avril 2010, consulté le 20 juin 2018. URL: https://journals.openedition.org/afriques/379"En fait, si notre hypothèse concernant l'équivalence du peuple de langue méroïtique avec l'ethnonyme « Koush » est avérée, c'est plus au nord encore, entre la deuxième cataracte et l'île de Saï 3, qu'on pourrait envisager de situer le berceau de cette population." — Rilly, Claude. 2007. La langue du royaume de Méroé: Un panorama de la plus ancienne culture écrite d'Afrique subsaharienne. (Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Études, 344.) Paris: Honoré Champion. 624pp. p. 37 Meroitic qes, qos (transcribed in Egyptian as kꜣš). phonetically = q/kwesa, phonetically = q/kwusa. There is a form , but this may simply be + an affix. See, J. Leclant: "Recherches sur la toponymie meroitique". La toponymie antique. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg, 12–14 juin 1975, Université des sciences humaines de Strasbourg, Travaux du Centre de recherche sur le Proche-Orient et la Grèce antiques, t. 4, 1977, Leiden. Brill. p. 264. pp.155 – 156. The name Meroitic in English dates to 1852 where it occurs as a translation of German . The term derives from Latin , corresponding to Greek . These latter names are representations of the name of the royal city of Meroë of the Kingdom of Kush. In Meroitic, this city is referred to as bedewe (or sometimes bedewi), which is represented in ancient Egyptian texts as or similar variants.

Classification

The classification of the Meroitic language is uncertain due to the scarcity of data and difficulty in interpreting it. Since the alphabet was deciphered in 1909, it has been proposed that Meroitic is related to the Nubian languages and similar languages of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. The competing claim is that Meroitic is a member of the Afroasiatic phylum.

Rowan (2006, 2011) proposes that the Meroitic sound inventory and phonotactics (the only aspects of the language that are secure) are similar to those of the Afroasiatic languages, and dissimilar from Nilo-Saharan languages. For example, she notes that very rarely does one find the sequence CVC, where the consonants (C) are both labials or both velars, noting that is similar to consonant restrictions found throughout the Afroasiatic language family, suggesting that Meroitic might have been an Afroasiatic language like Egyptian. Semitist Edward Lipiński (2011) also argues in favour of an Afroasiatic origin for Meroitic, based primarily on vocabulary.

Claude Rilly (2004, 2007, 2012, 2016) is the most recent proponent of the Nilo-Saharan idea: he proposes, based on its syntax, morphology, and known vocabulary, that Meroitic is Eastern Sudanic, the Nilo-Saharan family that includes the Nubian languages. He finds, for example, that word order in Meroitic "conforms perfectly with other Eastern Sudanic languages, in which sentences exhibit verb-final order (SOV: subject-object-verb); there are postpositions and no prepositions; the genitive is placed before the main noun; the adjective follows the noun."

Location and period of attestation The Meroitic period began ca. 300 BC and ended ca. 350 AD. Most attestations of the Meroitic language, via native inscriptions, hail from this period, though some attestations pre- and post-date this period. The Kushite territory stretched from the area of the First Cataract of the Nile to the Khartoum area of Sudan.Egyptian rulers recognized the 1st Cataract of the Nile as the natural southern border of ancient Egypt. — Bianchi, Robert Steven. Daily Life of the Nubians. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2004. p.6. It can be assumed that speakers of Meroitic covered much of that territory, based on the language contact evidenced in Egyptian texts. Attestations of Meroitic in Egyptian texts, span across the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, and the late 3rd Intermediate, Late, Ptolemaic, and Roman periods – respectively corresponding to the Kushite Kerman (ca. 2600–ca. 1500 BC),Louis Chaix (2017). Chapter 26: Cattle, A Major Component of the Kerma Culture (Sudan). In: Umberto Albarella with Mauro Rizzetto, Hannah Russ, Kim Vickers, and Sarah Viner-Daniels, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Zooarchaeology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, xxii and 839 pp., 126 figs, 40 tables, online supplementary material, ). p. 414. Napatan (ca. 900/750–ca. 300 BC), and Meroitic periods."Meroitic was the main language spoken in northern Sudan not only during the time of the Kingdom of Meroe (c. 300 BC–350 AD), after which it is named, but probably from as early as the time of the Kingdom of Kerma (2500–1500 BC), as is suggested by a list of personal names transcribed in Egyptian on Papyrus Golenischeff (Rilly 2007b). Similar transcriptions of early Meroitic names are known from some Egyptian texts of the New Kingdom, but such names occur with particular frequency with the rise of the Kushite 25th Dynasty and its Napatan successor state (664–ca. 300 BC), since the birth names of rulers and other members of the royal family were necessarily written in Egyptian documents. These Napatan transcriptions in Egyptian paved the way for the emergence of a local writing around the second half of the third century BC." – Claude Rilly (2016). "Meroitic" in UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3128r3sw. p. 1 The Meroitic toponym , , as well as Meroitic anthroponyms, are attested as early as Middle Kingdom Egypt's 12th Dynasty (ca. 2000 BC) in the Egyptian execration texts concerning Kerma.Claude Rilly (2011). Recent Research on Meroitic, the Ancient Language of Sudan. http://www.ityopis.org/Issues-1_files/ITYOPIS-I-Rilly.pdf. Under the sub-heading – The original cradle of Proto-NES: chronological and palaeoclimatic issues. p. 18Claude Rilly (2007). La langue du royaume de Méroé, Un panorama de la plus ancienne culture écrite d'Afrique subsaharienne, Paris: Champion (Bibliothèque de l'École pratique des hautes études, Sciences historiques et philologiques, t. 344)Claude Rilly (2004). THE LINGUISTIC POSITION OF MEROITIC. http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/projets/clhass/PageWeb/ressources/Isolats/Meroitic%20Rilly%202004.pdf . p. 1Ahmed Abuelgasim Elhassan. Religious Motifs in Meroitic Painted and Stamped Pottery. Oxford, England: John and Erica Hedges Ltd., 2004. xii, 176 p. BAR international series. p.1. Meroitic names and phrases appear in the New Kingdom Book of the Dead (Book of Coming Forth by Day) in the "Nubian" chapters or spells (162–165).Leonard Lesko (2003). "Nubian Influence on the Later Versions of the Books of the Dead", in: Zahi Hawass (ed.), Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century: Proceedings of the Eight International Congress of Egyptologists. Cairo 2003. vol. 1,314–318. https://www.academia.edu/36035303/Nubian_Influence_on_the_Later_Versions_of_the_Book_of_the_DeadLeonard Lesko (1999). "Some Further Thoughts on Chapter 162 of the Book of the Dead", in: Emily Teeter and John A. Larson (eds.), Gold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente. SAOC 58. Chicago 158 1999, 255–59.Leonard Lesko (2006). "On Some Aspects of the Books of the Dead from the Ptolemaic Period". Aegyptus et Pannonia 3 2006. pp. 151 -159. https://www.academia.edu/36035302/ON_SOME_ASPECTS_OF_THE_BOOKS_OF_THE_DEAD_FROM_THE_PTOLEMAIC_PERIOD Meroitic names and lexical items, in Egyptian texts, are most frequently attested during Napatan Kushite control of some or all parts of EgyptPeust, Carsten (1999). "Das Napatanische: Ein ägyptischer Dialekt aus dem Nubien des späten ersten vorchristlichen Jahrtausends". Monographien zur Ägyptischen Sprache 3. Göttingen: Peust & Gutschmidt Verlag. http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/peust1999a in the late 3rd Intermediate and Late Periods (ca. 750–656 BC). Both the Meroitic Period and the Kingdom of Kush itself ended with the fall of Meroë (ca. 350 AD), but use of the Meroitic language continued for a time after that event as there are detectable Meroitic lexemes and morphological features in Old Nubian. Two examples are: Meroitic: masa (sun) + la (determinant) "the sun" → Old Nubian: mašal "sun"MEROITES AND NUBIANS: TERRITORY AND CONFLICTS: 2.5. Traces of extinct languages in Nile Nubian, p. 222 — https://www.academia.edu/36487671/Claude_Rilly_ENEMY_BROTHERS._KINSHIP_AND_RELATIONSHIP_BETWEEN_MEROITES_AND_NUBIANS_NOBA. There is also Ken(u)z(i): masil. See http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?root=new100&morpho=0&basename=new100\esu\nub&first=1&off=&text_word=sun for Ken(u)z(i). Further notes, Midob: *massal — proto-Nubian: */b/ or */m/ → Midob: /p/ and Midob: /l/ → /r/. and Old Nubian: -lo (focus particle) ← Meroitic: -, which consists of two morphemes, - (determinant) and (copula). The language likely became fully extinct by the 6th century when it was supplanted by Byzantine Greek, Coptic, and Old Nubian.

Orthography

During the Meroitic period, Meroitic was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphasyllabary: Meroitic Cursive, which was written with a stylus and was used for general record-keeping; and Meroitic Hieroglyphic, which was carved in stone or used for royal or religious documents. The last known Meroitic inscription is written in Meroitic Cursive and dates to the 5th century.The inscription of the Blemmye king, Kharamadoye.

Vocabulary