Talk:Meroitic language

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NS meeting

The text sasy that a "recent" N-S meeting agreed that Meroitic is Nilo-Saharan. This calls for further documentation. Pete unseth (talk) 20:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Deleted, since the ref used was not published when that statement was made. — kwami (talk) 21:53, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

May 25th Edit

Kwamikagami's edit, which was solely a removal of content, was based on the idea that "data from the 40s is completely out of date." Is that really true? It's an extinct language. Looking at the deleted content, I would be happy to see it re-organized and perhaps rephrased-- it's about the historical difficulty of identifying relations. Any other thoughts? Dan Cottrell (talk) 18:25, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Check the sources referred to in the deleted portion – they were only about the languages to compare, not about Meroitic. The whole thing was thinly veiled OR. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Kushite/ Meroitic and Afroasiatic (Updated Apr 20, 2018)

Kushite/ Meroitic: < l(a)ẖ(a) > "great, big, elder" — Afroasiatic: *l-ḫ “good” [G. Takacs] or *lVq̇- "to surpass/ exceed": Egyptian: < 3ḫ > [< 3 > ← */l/] "excellent, august, admirable, (be) effective, advantageous, beneficial, useful, helpful, profitable, successful, right" (OK, Wb I 13–14) (Gabor Takacs ← FD 4) ||| Berber: *l-ɣ “to be good” [GT] ||| N-Omotic: *loq- "good" | S-Omotic: *laq- “good” ||| Cf. Semitic: Arabic: alḫa "grow high and luxuriantly", laḫt "big" (F. Steingass)

Afroasiatic: /q̇/ ← Berber: */ɣ/, Egyptian: /ḫ, ẖ/, Omotic: */ḳ/, Arabic:: /ḫ/. Nigh-invariably Kushite/ Meroitic: < ḫ(a) >, < ẖ(a) > ←→ Egyptian: /ḫ, ẖ/. Interestingly, Egyptian /g/, /ḳ/ consistently = Semitic /ɣ/ in roots containing Proto-Semitic */ɣ/.

Kushite/ Meroitic: < s(a)t(e) > "mother (or tutor)" — Egyptian: < z./s.t > "woman" ||| Cf. Arabic: sitt "lady" ||| Berber: *sit- "daughters" ||| Cushitic (East): Ts’amakko: šitt-e “girl” (G. Sava)

< z./s.t > ← Egyptian: < z/s > "man (of rank), some-/ any-/ no-one, person" + < .t > (feminine).

Kushite/ Meroitic: < (a)b(a)r(a) > "man" — Afroasiatic: *bar- "man"
Kushite/ Meroitic: < k(a)(n)di >/ < k(e)(n)ti > "woman" — Afroasiatic: *gVn- "woman; mother", *kVn- "co-wife, sister-in-law" + ?Afroasiatic: *t(V)-/-(V)t (feminine affix)

= base of < k(a)(n)d(a)ke >, < k(e)(n)t(a)ke >, "female ruler" and < k(a)(n)dit(e) > → < k(a)(n)dis(e) > "(royal) sister". Cf. Egyptian: < kntı͗ky >, Greek: κανδάκη, Latin: Candace, and Ge'ez: xan(ə)dākē. Hesychius transcribes Kushite/ Meroitic: < k(a)di > as κάνδη /kɒndɛː/ = Greek: γυνὴ "woman, lady, wife". Rilly adduces < k(a)(n)di >, < k(e)(n)ti > = Nobiin: kàrréé, karre "feminine, female" | Ken(u)z(i)-Dongola(wi): kari, kárri | Midob: árr (Nubian: */k-/ → Midob: ∅) || Nyima: Nyimang/ Ama: kér, kár, kɛ́r "female, woman" | Nyima: Afitti/ Dinik: kə̀rí "woman" || Nara: kede, kàdè "sister". Rilly transcribes < k(a)(n)di >, < k(e)(n)ti > as /kaɖi/, seemingly ignoring sound evidence of an unwritten, resyllabified /n/ in coda position.

1. */-nd-/, */-nt-/ → (/-d-/) → /-r-/ is unsupported in Nilo-Saharan (C. Ehret).
2. The Nara form = Kushite/ Meroitic only if an '*/-nd-/ → /-d-/' language (like Nubian or Kunama) → Nara. No known Nubian or Kunama forms exist(ed).
3. Rilly adduces /ɖ/ (retroflex stop) for /d/ (coronal stop) in Kushite/ Meroitic. */-ɖ-/ → /-d͡ʒ-/ in Astaboran (C. Ehret). If genuinely Astaboran, then Rilly's /kaɖi/ → /kad͡ʒi/. /d͡ʒ/ = Kushite/ Meroitic: < t(a) > e.g. Egyptian: < Ḥr-nḏ-jt.f > → Greek: Harendotes ||| Kushite/ Meroitic: < Ar(e)(n)t(a/e)t(e) >/ < Ḫir(e)(n)t(a)te >.

Likely Astaboran: *kad(V) "woman, female": Nubian: *kar(r)V (Pre-Nubian: *d → r) || Nara: *kadV (*d → d/ V_) || Nyima: *kar (*d → r /_#). All based on C. Ehret's phonological rules. Cf., Astaboran: *kad(V) "woman, female" and Bantu: *-kádi "woman, female" (connection?). See Roger Blench's Niger-Saharan proposal.

Kushite/ Meroitic: < k(a)(n)dit(e) > → < k(a)(n)dis(e) > "(royal) sister". See Kushite/ Meroitic: < k(a)(n)di >, < k(e)(n)ti > "woman, female, lady". < k(a)(n)di > "woman, female, lady" + -< t(e) > → -< s(e) > (suffix). /t/ → /θ, s/ spirantization.

Rilly adduces Nubian: *kegi-di → (kegi "woman" + ti "child") somehow from Nubian: **kedi-di — **kari-di is expected (Pre-Nubian: */d/ → /r/ already). Rilly's *kegi-di → Dongola(wi): ɛ́ŋ-kɛgid [plural: ɛ́ŋ-kɛg-id-i] (C. H. Armbruster), ɛ:n-kɛg-id (C. Ehret), anaynkaygid (Taha A. Taha), Ken(u)z(i): -kegid (A. S. Abdel-Hafiz) "mother's sister" (maternal aunt) → ɛ:n, ɛ́n, anayn "mother" + kɛg, kayg, keg "sister" + id (noun suffix). Rilly’s *kegidi is a plural form (keg [sister] -id [noun suffix] -i [plural suffix]) = “sisters”. Cf. C. Ehret’s etymology: Eastern Sudanic: *k^(h)ek^(h) “female relation”: Dongola(wi): -kɛg- "sister" | Ken(u)z(i): -keg- "sister" ||| Proto-Rub: *kek: Ik: ɕēk, ɕēkⁱ [B. Heine]; tʃɛk [T. B. Schrock]; cçēk [S. Wiedemann, P. Nannyombi] “wife woman”. Rilly further adduces Nara: **kàdè-tè = Nubian: **kedi-di - both unevidenced and untenable.

Kushite/ Meroitic: < m(a)t(e) >, < m(a)s(e) > "child, son" — Afroasiatic: *ma/itʲ ~ *ma/ič "small boy": Semitic: *ma/iθ- "child, twin" ||| Egyptian: <ms> "child" ||| cf. Cushitic (East): Lowland: Dirasha: meet (R. Hayward), meetį (K. Wedekind) | Lowland: Bussa (North): méétʃa "child" (K. Wedekind), (West): méeta (Harlow) ||| cf. S-Omotic: Galila: mahti "child" (Alemayehu Abebe), maʜti (H. Fleming).

< m(a)t(e) > → < m(a)s(e) > (/t/ → /θ, s/ spirantization). Kushite/ Meroitic: < yem(a)t(e) > "child, son" = Greek and Demotic equivalents in 5th century AD “feet graffiti”.

Kushite/ Meroitic: < at(a) > "bread" — Afroasiatic: *tiʔ- "bread": Egyptian: < t(A) > "bread". Cf. Egyptian: < ı͗dA > "bread", < ı͗t > "barley, wheat, corn, grain", < htyw > "bread, cakes, pastries"

Egyptian: < d > = /tˀ/, < w > (plural). The laryngeals /h, ḥ, ʔ, ʕ, ɣ/ → Kushite/ Meroitic: < a > based on Egyptian transcriptions.

Kushite/ Meroitic: < ḫ(a)r(e) > "meal"; < ḫ(a)r(a) > "to eat, to feed" — Egyptian: < ẖr.t > */çu'rit, ẖarít/ "food offerings, ration, due" → Coptic: hrε /hreʔ/ (A. Loprieno), hrε, hri (J. P. Allen) ||| Cf. Cushitic (Central): Khamtanga: χurə, χɨrə "meal, food" (T. Belay)

Kushite/ Meroitic: < yer(a) > /era, ira/ "milk" — Egyptian: < ı͗rṯ/tt >, < ı͗3tt > [*irtt] "milk, cream; milky (sap)", < hr > "to milk" → Coptic: e/arôt(e) "milk" ||| Ethio-Semitic (South): Amharic: are/ära "buttermilk or a kind of buttered milk; a mixture of whey or milk and water" ||| Cf. Cushitic (East): Lowland: Oromo: areera ||| Highland: *ʔarer- “whey” ||| cf. Afroasiatic: *ʔVr(a)r- "chest and belly, breast"

Kushite/ Meroitic: < w(a)l(e) > "dog" — Cf.

• Old Egyptian (*/l/ dialect): < wḥr(.t) > ← */waḥal/ (< r > ← */l/) “dog, hound” → Demotic: < whl(.w) > → Coptic: Fayyumic: (ouhol)
• Old Egyptian (*/r/ dialect): < wḥr(.t) > “dog, hound” → Demotic: < wḥ/hr(.t) > → Coptic: Bohairic: (ouhor)

< .t > feminine, < .w > plural. Either cognate or Egyptian: *< wḥl > /// Cushitic → Kushite/ Meroitic. /h, ḥ, ʔ, ʕ, ɣ/ → Kushite/ Meroitic: < a >. /h/ → ∅ in Nubian and most of Nilo-Saharan (C. Ehret). Egyptian < wḥr(.t) > = Berber: *-wVhar- “fox” (W. Vicychl) ||| Cushitic (East): *warh/hr(-ab-) “hyena” (A. Militarev)

Cushitic (East): Lowland: Arbore: wolá-te (feminine) ─ “Lycaon Pictus (African [Painted] Hunting or Wild Dog)” (R. Hayward) ||| Cushitic (East): Highland: Gedeo: wœl (Mukarovsky), wol-co pl. wor-sha (Gasparini), wol-t͡ʃo (Wolde), wal-co pl. war-sha (Hudson) “dog” | Highland: Alaba-Kʼabeena: wolanga (J. Crass), wolangaa (W. Leslau) (perhaps wol(a) + -([a]nga[a]) “jackal” ||| Cushitic (East): Ongota: wál-ta (feminine) “species of 'feline'; Johnston’s Genet; Broad-banded Mongoose” (H. C. Fleming) ||| Cf. Semitic: Arabic: وللس wallaas “wolf” (F. Steingass)

• (HEC →) Ethio-Semitic (North): Ge’ez: wālgā “kind of jackal” (W. Leslau) || (South): Amharic: wälg(e/a) “jackal” | (South): Gurage: Sǝ/ilt(’)i, Wolane: wälängäyä “fox, jackal”, Ǝndegegn: wäläng(e/iya), “fox, jackal” (W. Leslau)

Nubian: Dongola(wi): wɛ́/el | Ken(u)z(i): wel || Nyima-Afitti: wi/ə̀l “dog” ≠ Nubian: *bəl "dog" [G. Starostin]: Hill Nubian: *bol | Birgid: mɛl | Midob: pə̀ə̀l.

• Nubian: */b/ → Dongola(wi): /b-/, /-w-/. (C. Ehret)

• Nubian: */b-/ → Hill Nubian: */b-/, Midob: /p-/, and Birgid: /m-/. Nubian: */m-/ → Hill Nubian */b-/ also (V. Blažek).

Cushitic → Ken(u)z(i)-Dongola(wi) and Nyima-Afitti? For Nubian: *bəl "dog" cf. Niger-Congo: #gbɛ̃lɛ̃ "dog" ~ Pepel: ɔ-bol ||| ‘Dongo-Ko: ɓélà ||| Baka bóló (R. Blench)...See Roger Blench's Niger-Saharan Macrophylum proposal.

This example IS allowed on talk pages via rules according to WP:VERIFY, but NOT TO BE USED IN THE ARTICLE until it appears in the necessary reputable peer-reviewed journal according to WP rules. The original list is unchanged only the proposed cognates have been changed.

I used the Afroasiatic Etymology Database at starling.rinet.ru and and many, many papers by Afroasiatic experts/ specialists to find Afroasiatic likely cognates.

I think Meroitic has a significant inherited Afroasiatic vocabulary (based on the "securely" translated words given by Griffith and Rilly) and significant Egyptian borrowing. There is not a word in Rilly's list that does not have an extraordinarily plausible Afroasiatic cognate. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 01:57, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The "classification", if you want to call it that, is the only sound one. Rilly assigns invented meanings to words to make them look Sudanic. — kwami (talk) 05:48, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Kwami, okay, I may have misspoke on calling it a classification. I am sorry it has taken so long to respond...I have been very involved in researching this and I am nearly convinced Meroitic can be Afroasiatic. After going through Rilly's list, a massive portion of the words can have Afroasiatic roots...it is puzzling, I don't see how he could miss that. Some of the words are quite clearly Afroasiatic. I have amassed a list of possible Afroasiatic cognates to the words Rilly proposed. Of the 26 words proposed by Griffith to have a secure translation, 20 of them can easily be of Afroasiatic derivation. Some of Griffith's words might be bad translations. I have also noticed a great deal of possibly Afroasiatic words in the Sudanic languages, very especially, Eastern Sudanic which many authors acknowledge. The Nubian languages are riddled with Afroasiatic words also. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 12:23, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, teasing apart such contact effects can be nearly impossible with a limited corpus like this. The criticism I've heard of Rilly is that he fails to say that many of his glosses are his own, that they are apparently motivated to fit Sudanic, and that he presents the Sudanic connection as secure when it's tentative. — kwami (talk) 19:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Clauderilly (talk) 07:48, 10 May 2013 (UTC) (Claude Rilly, Khartoum, 10 May 2013) As a scientist, I cannot leave these grave attacks without reply. I would suggest that those who suppose ("I've heard that") that I have been forging translations for some Meroitic words would refer to my actual publications. Not only the recent synthesis in English (Rilly & De Voogt 2012), which is a simplified handbook without "demonstrations", but first my recent book (in French, I know, but aren't you linguists?) which deals thoroughly with the matter of where does Meroitic belong: "Claude Rilly. Le meroitique et sa famille linguistique, Peeters, 2010". They would read at length in the 100 first pages how new translations of words have been worked out independently from any prejudice in favour of this or thst linguistic family. I am primarily a specialist of Meroitic (not an amateur classifier of languages!)and my aim is of course to understand the texts. Forging translations for Meroitic words would not be of course a good method for understanding the texts!Secondly, they would also read that the relation between Meroitic and Eastern Sudanic (Nilo-Saharan branch) isevidence not only in vocabulary but also in syntax and morphology. Third: of course, at a moment of my research, I contemplated the Afro-Asiatic option: this can be found in a specific chapter in Rilly 2007. I am an Egyptologist, I speak Arabic and so I had to explore the Afro-Asiatic hypothesis. But in spite of some loanwords, the results were desappointing. Rowan's arguments have been reviewed in Rilly 2010: 30-31. She relies on phonotacics and topological features, which cannot in any case tell us much about linguistic genealogy: Meroitic and Turkish for instance have many grammatical features in common, as they are both "agglutinative" languages. Clauderilly (talk) 07:48, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I think we'd need an independent review. The features are characteristically AA ones, not generic things like agglutination. — kwami (talk) 06:06, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

This whole thing is incorrectly done for Wikipedia. Wikipedia's classification relies on the consensus of historical linguistic thought for its classification scheme. Meroitic is most widely considered to be unclassified. There are suggestions that it might be Afro-Asiatic. There are an equal number of suggestions it might be Nilo-Saharan. But nothing definitive has ever been accepted by the linguistic community. Therefore, until the broader historical linguistic community comes to some more definitive consensus about the placement of Meroitic, it is POV to be coloring the template box anything other than "Isolate" (I don't recall if there is an "Unclassified" color). I have changed the template box to reflect the Isolate color and the indeterminacy of the two primary candidates for Meroitic's paternity. That is the proper neutral point of view on the issue. --Taivo (talk) 06:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, there is. — kwami (talk) 06:54, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Reading the article, its neutrality is problematic and seems to be rather anti-Rilly. It needs to be written to express a much more neutral viewpoint--describing both hypotheses without taking sides on either. Right now it sounds like, "Rilly thinks its X, but here's evidence against it." That's not WP:NPOV. --Taivo (talk) 06:46, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't know of any 2ary source that compares and evaluates them. — kwami (talk) 06:54, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. We don't have any neutral evaluation of the competing proposals, so it is best to be neutral here. I look through several classifications I've got (V&V (NS), Ruhlen (uncl), Klose (NS), Intl Ency Ling (NS)) and while most put Meroitic questionably in NS, Ruhlen (following Greenberg) leaves it as unclassified. --Taivo (talk) 07:13, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm rather concerned about the "does not appear to be related to any existing language of Africa" quote, esp. as it's half a century old. It makes it sound like an isolate, and AFAIK no-one claims that. It's simply too sparsely attested to classify convincingly. — kwami (talk) 07:42, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

And the quote isn't from a half-century ago, only Greenberg's part of it. The quote is from 2002. I included it because GREENBERG said that it can't be classified. If Greenberg wasn't willing to put it somewhere..... --Taivo (talk) 14:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Interesting discussion guys! I wish I could join in but I don't know enough about linguistics to be of much use. Just thought I'd share some related genetic information that might perhaps provide further insight on the matter. Hisham Yousif Hassan Mohamed of Khartoum University in 2009 published the results of an NRY analysis that he had performed on some human remains from the Meroitic period in addition to a few other epochs. He was attempting to ascertain the paternal ancestry of these ancient Sudanese populations. The specimens were all found to belong to the haplogroups E and F, which are largely absent from present-day Nilotic populations. None belonged to the haplogroups A and B that are ubiquitous among Nilotic groups. Judging by this, at least as far as their male lineages are concerned, the Meroites would appear to have not been genetically closely related to the ancestors of modern Nilo-Saharan speakers. http://etd2.uofk.edu/documents/4312/uofk_etd-ID4312.en.pdf Hope this helps! 76.71.218.127 (talk) 18:02, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

And if you took genetic samples of the population of Chinatown in New York you'd find that none of them share genetic material with the English-speaking population of London either, but they still share a common language :). Genetic evidence can only offer, at best, corroborating evidence for something we already have solid linguistic evidence for. --Taivo (talk) 18:44, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Wow, a lot has happened in my absence. First of all, I would like to apologize to you Mr. Rilly. I was not intending to insult you or your work (I used you as a reference on the Beja/ Bedauye People Talk page...someone please check it), however, I have read through your book and the lexical comparisons you give and rather frankly...virtually all of them have Afroasiatic equivalents (Christopher Ehret says, it should be spelled...Afroasiatic not Afro-Asiatic). I have, so far (still collecting and adjusting and will upload it for critique, review, and revision by you and others on Academia.edu when I have collected as much as I can), amassed a nearly 35 page word list of possible Afroasiatic cognates for the words you listed and the words Griffith listed even words suggested by the late Dr. Nicholas Millet. The only word for which there is NOT a possible Afroasiatic equivalent is Griffith's rendering, tɲyi "lion" , which, for all the world, looks like the words for "cow" in Nubian and other East Sudanic languages

Also Mr. Rilly, your reference is to Hintze's comparison of Meroitic to the Ural-Altaic languages (you chose Turkish) (Hintze,1974:76-78) in his critique of Trigger's methods. Dr. Kirsty Rowan states in her article, Meroitic – an Afroasiatic language?*, "...Hintze (1974) critically remarked on the associations drawn and the conclusion made in Trigger’s paper (1964). In summary Hintze’s remarks include the following points; (i) ‘the meaning of only a few Meroitic words is well enough established to be used as a basis for lexical comparison’ (1974:75). (ii) comparison with Nubian ‘is made even more difficult because of the known existence of Meroitic loan words in Nubian’ (1974:75). (iii) There are no established sound change rules to show regular equivalents in the different languages. (iv) The grammatical elements should be concentrated on more than lexical comparisons as these are ‘partially much better known than the meaning of words’ (1974:76). Finally, Hintze showed that by Trigger’s method, one could also erroneously propose that if Meroitic is a member of the Eastern Sudanic family and therefore related to Nubian, with more linguistic data it could be shown that Nubian, and subsequently Meroitic, is a member of the Ural-Altaic languages (1974:76-78).⁹

Hintze’s conclusion to his paper states that he is in doubt whether ‘a kind of comparative method, which compares isolated elements from different languages without considering their inner history, will help us very much in the better understanding of the Meroitic language and texts’ (1974:78)."

Notes to the above quote from Dr. Rowan's article:

⁹"Unfortunately, some scholars did not notice the point of Hintze’s (1974) comparison of Meroitic with Ural-Altaic languages to show that scanty data could be used to evidence erroneous proposals and saw this association as a valid line of research thereby proposals have been put forward that Meroitic is a Ural-Altaic language [Hummel 1992, 1993, 1995])"

Back to my point about Afroasiatic and Meroitic, for instance, Mr. Rilly, the interpretation of the hydronym Astaboras as "river of the Barya/ Barea (modern Nara)" does not fit with Pliny the Elder's etymology at all (also we have no idea of the ethnicity of the Megabaroi - suggested by some to be the Barya/ Barea (modern Nara) [Wikipedia - Atbarah river]). Hans Bernard states in his article, Sire, il n'y a pas de Blemmyes. A Re-Evaluation of Historical and Archaeological Data, "...It is remarkable that the son of the Blemmyan mentioned in PHauswaldt VI (no. 123) is identified as a Megabaroi in PHauswaldt XV. This may indicate that Blemmyes and Megabaroi were somehow connected or that it was possible to belong to more than one ethnic group at the same time...".

Pliny the Elder's etymology does fit extremely well with known Afroasiatic roots.

The rivers that go by the names Astapus and Astasobas can likewise be explained through Afroasiatic. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 06:12, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

This is all original research and therefore inappropriate for Wikipedia to use. Please read WP:OR, WP:SYN, and WP:RS in order to understand why this material cannot be used or considered in the text of this article. --Taivo (talk) 11:25, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Shalom, Taivo! I think you misunderstood. I was not adducing that to be put in the article and, technically, ALL RESEARCH IS ORIGINAL :). I was using that as an example of how most toponyms and hydronyms in that region have an easily Afroasiatic origin, especially, since it is believed (by most, not all) that this region is, generally, the urheimat of Afroasiatic. So it stands to reason that most of the oldest toponyms and hydronyms would be Afroasiatic in origin. Most of the words that Mr. Rilly claim are evidence of Meroitic belonging to NE Sudanic are easily Afroasiatic and so Meroitic CAN be Afroasiatic also. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 20:43, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

You still don't understand Wikipedia's policy on original research, A. Tamar Chabadi. That means that you should not be conducting your own research and publishing it here on Wikipedia. That means that you should not be synthesizing primary data and coming to conclusions here on Wikipedia. This thread has become your personal research page. Wikipedia does not offer you free web space to promote your theories and debate those whose own theories move in a different direction. This article's Talk Page is not the place to present primary data and debate competing syntheses of that data. This Talk Page is the place to discuss how to improve the article based on reliable sources, which your synthesis of primary data is not. If you want to keep this compilation of data, you have a day to move it somewhere else on the web. Otherwise it will be moved off this page. --Taivo (talk) 13:12, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Taivo. I will try to keep this civil and restrain my indignation at your..."accusations/ assertions"...as best I can in the following words to you. Let's begin...I was sharing information from reliable sources, not myself. I am not using this page for the publication of my research (which is vastly more extensive than anything you saw here). I was merely sharing what many authors have said themselves. I am not sure of your hostility concerning that sharing of other authors information. So the next time you have the feeling that I (or anyone else who shares information from other authors) am attempting to use Wikipedia for the purpose of posting research...ask yourself a question..."Are these sources posted reliable?", if so, then there is no issue as it is the mere sharing what other authors have said. You act as if I were editing the article with that information...I do not edit articles ever...I leave that for others...I merely share useful information to help the articles be their very best if possible. It is laudable that you have such high standards, but the feeling of the public and academia is much less enthusiastic about the validity of information on WP. I am trying to help with that by helping where I am good...collecting information and sharing it. I think I mentioned that I would be posting my research on Academia.edu and that is where it will eventually be anyway. I am well aware of Wikipedia's rules and am not fond of being lectured about things I already entirely aware of...I am a well-educated woman and can be conversed with in a non-condescending tone. I will not be lectured by the likes of you as if I were a child, understand that very well. If this were a phone call you would have heard a click (me ending the call). If we were face to face...some very perjorative words would have been unapologetically said to you. As I said, I will remove most of the information so as to be civil and respect Wikipedia, as for you...it is best to be silent rather than say something not very nice. I must say this experience has had a severe chilling effect and I will be extremely hesitant to share information from authors in the future, even the ones I have personal contact and communication with. Have a blessed day, Taivo :). A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 06:05, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi. We don't know if someone writing on this page knows the rules or not. This field attracts a lot of OR, much of it impassioned. Take the alleged Celtic affiliation of Tartessian, or any number of other proposals. Often the talk page is used to establish "truth", which the author then edit-wars to impose on the article. It can get rather tiresome. — kwami (talk) 19:17, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Kwami. Thank you and I understand. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 01:11, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

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Edward Lipinski's Review of Claude Rilly's, "Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique".

And by extension, Rilly's book, "The Meroitic Language and Writing System". I just found this review today.

In his review, Mr. Lipinski connects Meroitic to Afroasiatic and within Afroasiatic, very tentatively (with caveats), closest to South Ethio-Semitic, but defers until more can be known. He said that most of the vocabulary instead seems to be related to Afroasiatic. This is interesting because I pointed out the same things awhile ago, except that I would not dare classify it beyond Afroasiatic. Although I disagree with him on some points, the paper is a great contribution to Wikipedia's Meroitic language article. http://repozytorium.uni.lodz.pl:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11089/4031/No_2_2011.87-104.pdf?sequence=1

Mr. Lipinski states:

"Meroitic is attested by written records found in the Nile valley of northern Sudan and dating from the 3rd century B.C. through the 5th century A.D. They are inscribed in a particular script, either hieroglyphic or more often cursive, which has been deciphered, although our understanding of the language is very limited. Basing himself on about fifty words, the meaning of which is relatively well established, on a few morphological features and phonetic correspondences, Claude Rilly proposes to regard Meroitic as a North-Eastern Sudanic tongue of the Nilo-Saharan language family and to classify it in the same group as Nubian (Sudan), Nara (Eritrea), Taman (Chad), and Nyima (Sudan). The examination of the fifty words in question shows instead that most of them seem to belong to the Afro-Asiatic vocabulary, in particular Semitic, with some Egyptian loanwords and lexical Cushitic analogies. The limited lexical material at our disposal and the extremely poor knowledge of the verbal system prevent us from a more precise classification of Meroitic in the Afro-Asiatic phylum. In fact, the only system of classification of languages is the genealogical one, founded on the genetic and historical connection between languages as determined by phonological and morpho-syntactic correspondences, with confirmation, wherever possible, from history, archaeology, and kindred sciences."

In his conclusion he states:

"One could be tempted to regard Meroitic as a Semitic language, close to South-Ethiopic and influenced, as expected, by Cushitic, ancient Egyptian, and Coptic. However, the lack of verbal paradigms, very important in this question, does not allow us to follow this idea in the present state of our knowledge. The question should thus remain open.

Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique is an important work. It does not settle the question of the linguistic appurtenance of Meroitic, but it constitutes a major contribution to the study of Nilo-Saharan languages. As indicated on the back cover of the book, the Author deals at present with the spoken Nara and Nyima languages, a research which will certainly provide new insights." - A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 15:29, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

The Glottolog website's assessment is given too much WP:Weight

Hi, it has come to my attention this article is giving to much weight to the glottolog website opinion about Riley's assessment of the Meroitic language. When I tried to undo the edit, I was responded with "sure it is" by the user Kwamikagami/kwami, which of course is not much of a proof. Please present reliable sources using the glottolog assessment as reference. DrLewisphd (talk) 13:50, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, we can add to Glottolog's criticism Edward Lipinski's critiques also, although, I respectfully, do not agree with a portion of his comparisons. Glottolog 2.2 is edited by Nordhoff, Sebastian & Hammarström, Harald & Forkel, Robert & Haspelmath, Martin, so one might try to contact one or all of them. I think one or more them has reviewed the work of Rilly. It is interesting that we have both, independently, found it to be massively methodologically flawed. I am currently working on what is known of the language lexically, morphologically, and phonemically. I will repeat what I said before, how can he have skipped over such obvious Afroasiatic comparisons? It boggles the mind. It is like he did not seriously even look at Afroasiatic at all. If it was easy for me to find obvious comparisons in Afroasiatic, how easy should it have been for him, a Ph.D? I will leave it by saying that Meroitic being cast as Nilo-Saharan/ Eastern Sudanic and beyond that related to Nubian is the result of perhaps unintentional or outright willful bias(es). Ms. Rowan speaks of this in her paper Meroitic – an Afroasiatic language?, in section 2 The classification of Meroitic, pages 3-6 http://www.soas.ac.uk/linguistics/research/workingpapers/volume-14/file37822.pdf. I do agree that kwami needs to do better than just, "sure it is". So, Kwami, if you can please try to do better than just "sure it is" (which I know you can). - A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 18:51, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

We don't spend much time on the Glottolog evaluation, we just state what it concludes. I don't think that's too much weight. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) The other objection was that it's not a RS. Unfortunately, we don't have much in the way of peer review of Rilly, so we don't have a lot to choose from. Rowan is good, but she advocates a competing theory, which is not a recipe for objectivity. Glottolog (most likely Hammarström) has no ball in the game, so objectivity is not an issue. Hammarström has made evaluations of dozens of classifications that we cite here on WP, so as an author he's acceptable even though there is no detail at Glottolog. My reason for including G was that it is significant that we have agreement between a competing scholar who knows the unpublished material well, and an uninvolved scholar evaluating the published evidence and methodology as they have dozens of other proposals. The second suggests that the first isn't cherry-picking the evidence, or can't see the obvious due to being too close to their own ideas, or to professional jealousy, or to some other bias resulting from competition.

Note that G evaluated Rilly (2009) and Rowan (2006) when deciding the classification, and accepted the claims of neither. It took the time to point out flaws in Rilly, something it doesn't do unless they're pretty obvious (like classifying languages which don't actually exist). — kwami (talk) 22:04, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

It does seem pretty clear to me the Glottolog's website assessment on Rilly and Meroitic is given too much WP:Weight as it is referenced by no reliable sources. DrLewisphd (talk) 10:54, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps a re-edit of the sentence is appropriate, kwami and DrLewisphd. Perhaps, the two of you would agree to the compromise. "However, there are too few words with known meanings for the comparison to be convincing, and Rilly's inferred readings are circular."...it can perhaps be amended to say, "According to a review by the editors of Glottolog 2.2, there are too few words with known meanings for the comparison to be convincing, and Rilly's inferred readings are circular."

Also, I think the fact that the editors of Glottolog 2.2 are in themselves 'degreed' linguists (I suppose. I know, at least, some are) and I know some of them have published works in reputable journals (they may all have published works) that would seem to qualify them as reliable sources.

Also, I got a different impression than you, Kwami, when reading the Glottolog 2.2 review. They mention nothing of Kirsty Rowan's work. They may have used her work as a reference, but they don't up or down her work. It is only Rilly's that they outright reject (speaks volumes). It seems they consider the subject to be an open question, but the lack of criticism towards Rowan speaks volumes to me also. The only criticism of Rowan's work that I have seen by various authors, is that it is typological (that is even the criticism leveled by E. Lipinski in his article above), but if that is the worst that can be leveled at it...it is rather weak as a critique. Her work is on the right track, it seems, by the rather weak critique's of it. I have seen far worse criticism leveled at Rilly's work, the Glottolog 2.2 review included. - A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 21:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, wording like that would be fine. As for Rowan, true, they didn't feel the need to point out any deficiencies, but they didn't accept it either, perhaps because they don't accept typological arguments. That's not a criticism, just acknowledgement that the data is insufficient for classification. — kwami (talk) 22:00, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree with this. I don't think the Glottolog website opinion on meroitic and on Rilly's assessment on meroitic should be used at all. No other academic source beside Wikipedia use the glottolog website as reference and source material on Meroitic (or at all frankly). I think the glottolog reference as well as their opinion on Rilly's assessment on meroitic should be removed completely. Wikipedia is the only place using glottolog as a source material on meroitic. The glottolog website is not reliable source on the Meroitic language. DrLewisphd (talk) 09:22, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Saying something repeatedly doesn't make it true. — kwami (talk) 02:16, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

That's why I'm asking you repeatedly to "Please present reliable sources using the glottolog assessment as reference" on this subject. DrLewisphd (talk) 11:10, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

DrLewisphd, in doing a cursory search on Google, it presents a number of written academic articles that cite Glottolog. The editors of Glottolog are reliable sources individually and taken together. I do not see the conflict here. A compromise has been sought, but you are not willing. This will only be resolved by a mutually agreed upon compromise. As long as you try to edit the article to remove the comment, Kwami will put the comment back. So you need to think of compromise that the both of you can be satisfied with. Again, I have to agree with Kwami here. The editors of Glottolog are reliable sources, so it is not understood why you protest so strongly. - A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 17:29, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Please present here citations of those reliable sources using the glottolog website assessment as reference on this subject. DrLewisphd (talk) 12:33, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Posted on noticeboard

See WP:RSN#Is the Glottolog website a reliable source on Meroitic or Rilly's assessment of Meroitic?. — kwami (talk) 07:36, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Slight Edit

I added those few words to the line concerning Glottolog, kwami, since you said that would be okay with you. - A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 22:07, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

The recent edit...

The paragraphs are fair, but the last sentence is problematic. Problematic because of the wording and where it should belong. It is removed until the errors are fixed.

The problematic sentence...

Finally, Meroë was conquered by a Beja dynasty in the 1st century AD and the later cursive Meroitic script may represent a Nubian-Beja creole.

Firstly, the Beja (actually their ancestors, the Blemmyes) came into control of part of the Nile Valley around Kalabsha only after the fall of Meroe...which was in the 4th Century CE, ~350 CE to be more specific.

Secondly, after the above is corrected, this sentence seems to me to belong under the Meroitic Script page. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 13:02, 30 June 2017 (UTC)