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| Figure 1: Meroitic Language |
Africa is considered the cradle of humanity based on the
number of ancestral humans found on the continent, and as a result it is
considered the location of the world’s oldest languages. Historical linguists focus their studies on
several San click languages as they are believed to most closely resemble early
languages, and today’s blog post is going to discuss one of those early
languages: Meroitic.
Meroitic is Africa’s oldest written language, but very
little is currently known about the language.
The lack of information about Meroitic is due to two primary factors:
first, it is unlike any spoken language that exists today. There are no known descendants of Meroitic
spoken in modern day Sudan, but it is believed to have been a parent language
to several other north-central African languages. Also, there is no translated sources, like
the Rosetta Stone that made deciphering ancient Egyptian easier.
Despite these challenges there is quite a bit known about
the language. First, it is known that
Meroitic was an ancient language spoken widely within the Kush kingdom, which
existed in Nile River Valley of modern day Sudan. It was a language spoken between the 3rd
century BC to the 5th century AD by both elites and commoners, demonstrating
that the citizens of Kush were literate as well as multilingual as Kushites
spoke multiple languages, not just Meroitic.
It was named after its capital city, Meroe, by British archaeologist Francis
Llewellyn Griffith, who was the first to attempt to translate the language.
Meroitic existed in two written forms: hieroglyphs (made up
of pictures) and a cursive script (Figure 1).
It is believed that the Meroitic hieroglyphic text borrowed from ancient
Egyptian hieroglyphs, which is one parent of the language, but additional parent
languages included Arabic, Semitic, and Akkadian languages. It is believed to be an Afro-Asiatic language
in part due to the Arabian language influences, but some scholars believe other
Asian languages also influenced the language.
Unfortunately, this is still debated among linguists.
With the recent discovery of Meroitic texts at the city of
Sedeinga there is renewed hope that more information will be gained about this
ancient language. What we do know about Meroitic
provides us a great deal of information about the formation of language, cultural
contacts among African groups, and that influence on language evolution. Further study can only help to clarify the fascinating
information we already have.
Bibliography
Khalil, M., & Miller, C. (1996). Old Nubian and
Language Uses in Nubia. Les Langues en Egypte, 27-28.
Lipiński, E. (2011). Meroitic (Review Article). Rocznik
Orientalistyczny, 87-104.
Omer, I. (2009). Writing: Meroitic. Retrieved
from Ancient Sudan-Kush: http://www.ancientsudan.org/writing_02_meroitic.htm
Rowan , K. (2006). Meroitic-An Afroasiatic Language?
SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics, 169-206.
Smith, R. (2009). Constructing Word Similarities in
Meroitic as an Aid to Decipherment. British Museum Studies in Ancient
Egypt and Sudan, 1-10.
5 comments:
Its amazing that African culture started so many things that are publicly unknown as common knowledge. I've never known about this language or the transcription behind it. To know that its still exists in Sudan makes me want to learn more about it. I have the question on what made the written language sort of disappear? Or more of the question , why is it not widely used today still from Africans? I know it says that it was more of a parent language to other written languages? I may want to look more into the history behind this one. Thank You.
-Jazlyn Logan
This was an interesting blog. I see these symbols a lot on social media in people's screen names. I honestly never knew these where a part of a language. I wonder why it kind of disappeared.
-Kyla Thomas
I found it fascinating to learn about the Meroitic language. It's interesting that cursive script is used so long ago.
Elaine christopher
This language considered to be extinct as the speaking language? Meroitic has forms and then gets manipulated and passed in as a parent language and influence other cultures. If there is no descedents could it be made-up?
Qwynn Marquez
The ancient significance of the Meroitic language (one of the first languages spoken in Africa) is skillfully emphasized in this piece. It emphasizes the significance of Meroitic in comprehending the linguistic and cultural history of Africa by pointing out its origins in the Kush dynasty and its function in ancient Sudanese culture. The post raises the fascinating possibility that Afro-Asiatic languages like Arabic and Egyptian, among others, may have had an effect on Meroitic. This realization creates opportunities for more investigation into the language relationships and cross-cultural interactions that produced the Meroitic civilization.
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