The Misiri Legend Explored

Kipkoeech Araap

Description

How can a black people, who do not even profess to Islam, claim to have originated from Egypt, which is such an Arabic and Islamic geographical setting? But the Kalenjiin people of Kenya have held on fast to a tradition that their ancestors in antiquity were part of ancient Pharaonic Egypt, which they variously call Tto and Misiri. As unlikely as it may sound, the persistence in keeping this oral tradition alive does not seem to be dying with time and distance from the claimed place of origin. The Misiri Legend Explored: A Linguistic Inquiry into the Kalenjiin People�s Oral Tradition of Ancient Egyptian Origin establishes the Kalenjin oral tradition of Misirian origin on the basis of linguistic evidence�a genuine tool which Egyptology scholars and researchers need to have relied on much more to bring greater and more final results to their investigations. Students of ancient Egypt willing to accept that there is an irrational prejudice against the concept of ancient black African ingenuity will upgrade their stock of knowledge regarding ancient Egypt with the numerous discoveries laid out here. They will discover a powerful new tool for their trade in the form of the African languages and cultures that now lie South of the Sahara.

Informations

• Publié par: University of Nairobi Press
• Date de parution: 29 décembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789966792471
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

T HE M ISIRI L EGEND E XPLORED

The author, Dr Kipkoeech araap Sambu, 2011

T HE M ISIRI L EGEND E XPLORED A Linguistic Inquiry into the Kalenjiin People’s Oral Tradition of Ancient Egyptian Origin

Kipkoeech araap Sambu

University of Nairobi Press

First published 2011 by University of Nairobi Press Jomo Kenyatta Memorial Library P.O. Box 30197 – 00100, Nairobi Kenya Email: [e-mail] | website: http//www.uonbi.ac.ke/press The University of Nairobi Press supports and promotes the University’s objectives of discovery, dissemination and preservation of knowledge and stimulation of intellectual and cultural life by publishing works of the highest quality in association with partners in different parts of the world. In doing so, it adheres to the university’s tradition of excellence, innovation, and scholarship. The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. © Kipkoeech araap Sambu, 2011. All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of fully acknowledged short passages for the purposes of criticism, review, research or teaching, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the University of Nairobi Press. University of Nairobi Library CIP Data Sambu, Kipkoeech The Misiri legend explored: a linguistic inquiry into the Kalenjiin people’s oral tradition of ancient Egyptian origin / K. Sambu, –Nairobi: University of Nairobi Press, 2011 272p ISBN–10–9966–792–14–7 ISBN–13–978–9966–792–14–3 1. Kalenjiin community – Origin 2. Kalenjiin community – Language and languages 3. Anthropological linguistics – Kenya – Kalenjiin 4. Kalenjin community – Culture – Origin I. Title DT 429 .K3S3 Printed by Sitima Printers and Stationers Ltd. P.O. Box 53987 – 00200 Nairobi

Table of Contents

List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................ vii List of Figures ...................................................................................................................................... vii List of Maps.......................................................................................................................................... vii List of Pictures ..................................................................................................................................... vii Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ xi Introduction...........................................................................................................................................xv

PART I: CULTURAL BACKGROUND .............................................................1 Introduction to Part I ..............................................................................................................1

Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................................3 Who are the Kalenjiin? ...............................................................................................3 The People .......................................................................................................................3

Chapter 2 ..............................................................................................................................11 The Hamite Factor ................................................................................................... 11 DefinitionandOverview................................................................................................11 The Hamitisation and De-Hamitisation of the Kalenjiin ...............................................26 Merker’s Maasai/Kalenjiin Ancient Egyptian “Semites” Theory, 1904 ........................33

Chapter 3 ..............................................................................................................................37 Locating the Kalenjiin’s Cradle-land and Establishing the Migration Route............ 37 The Likely Misrian Abode of Tto....................................................................................47 Assigning Reasons for the Departure from Egypt and a Time Frame ...........................48 The Kalenjiin Language after Egypt ..............................................................................57

Chapter 4 ..............................................................................................................................61 And Who are the Egyptians? .................................................................................... 61 Ancient Egyptian Society as an Extension of Nilotic Africa ..........................................61 Modern Egyptian Society, the Copts, and the Coptic Language....................................64 Summary of Part I: Cultural Background......................................................................76

PART II: COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS ....................................................... 81 Introduction to Part II...........................................................................................................83 Chapter 5 ..............................................................................................................................85 Comparative vs. the Contrastive Method................................................................. 85 Genetic Classification: A Comparative Linguistics Exercise ........................................88 Diachronic and Synchronic Linguistics .........................................................................89 Identifying and Declaring Items for a Comparative Exercise........................................90 Brief Notes on the Comparative Linguistics Techniques Applied in this Study .............92 Summary of Part II: Comparative Linguistics ...............................................................98

PART III: RELATING THE KALENJIIN LANGUAGE TO THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE ................................................................. 101 Introduction to Part III ....................................................................................................... 103

Chapter 6............................................................................................................................ 105 How Important is a Linguistics Discussion to an Oral Tradition Investigating Process? ............................................................................................. 105 Lexicostatistical Analysis ............................................................................................ 107

Chapter 7............................................................................................................................ 133 Ancient Egyptian-Kalenjiin Syntactic Analysis ....................................................... 133 Word Order ................................................................................................................. 136 Summary of Part III: Relating the Kalenjiin Language to the Ancient Egyptian Language ..................................................................................................................... 150

PART IV: CONCLUSION ................................................................................. 153 A.Conclusions from the Angle of Oral Traditions................................................. 155 B.Conclusions from the Comparative Linguistics Exercise .................................. 156

PART V: APPENDICES ................................................................................... 159 Appendix 1.............................................................................................................. 161 The Country Name “Egypt” and Other Place-name Etymologies .............................. 161 Appendix 2.............................................................................................................. 166 The Civilising Debt as the Bone of Contention............................................................ 166 Appendix 3.............................................................................................................. 171 James Massam’s Kalenjiin Hieroglyphs Story of 1927, and the Ancient Egyptian Contribution to the Modern “Western” Alphabet ....................................................... 171 Appendix 4.............................................................................................................. 174 Simplified Cognate Words Table ................................................................................. 175 Glossary .................................................................................................................. 187 Pronunciation Guide ................................................................................................... 187 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 217 Index ....................................................................................................................... 2 43

Table 1: Table 2: Table 3: Table 4:

Figure 1: Figure 2:

Map 1: Map 2: Map 3:

List of Tables

A lexicostatistical analysis, Kalenjiin-Ancient Egyptian/Coptic ..................112 Word arrangement by semantic domain .......................................................123 Huntingford’s list of Kalenjiin-Ancient Egyptian Cognate words, 1926 .....131 Word order ...................................................................................................139

List of Figures

Mathematical model .......................................................................................59 Hypothetical pairs of languages in a cline ranging from those with nothing in common to those that are identical ................................................86

List of Maps

Pre-colonial Kalenjiin landmass shown on a modern Kenya map....................9 Kalenjiin landmasses during the colonial period ............................................10 Probable routes of proto-Kalenjiin migration and settlements still inhabited by linguistically akin peoples. ........................................................40

List of Pictures

Picture 1:The famous Sphinx of Giza, Egypt.................................................................13 Picture 2:A bust of “goddess” Hathor, carved on both sides of this slip of wood from Gurob.. .........................................................................................16 Picture 3:..............16Isis, who was worshiped in Egypt for many thousands of years BC Picture 4:Head of Athena the Greek Goddess of the cities, arts, industry, wisdom and war..............................................................................................16 Picture 5:A lady from Nandi, Chapkwe Kibirir as painted by Joy Adamson in the late 1940’s..........................................................................................2..2 Picture 6:The portrait of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, 1200 BC............................................23 Picture 7:More faces of Tutankhamun...........................................................................24 Picture 8:The occasional Cushitic-speaking African exhibits an aquiline nose in the manner described byWebster.......................................25........................ Picture 9:The Maasai moran, Moroyan, as painted by Joy Adamson in the 1940’s ......26 th Picture 10:century .........................27The “Nandi Man” portrait by Ray Nestor, early 20 Picture 11:The Kalenjiin man of Marakwet, Jano araap Kessir, as painted by Joy Adamson in the 1940’s................................82................................................... Picture 12:Hathorneferhetep, limestone, 3rd Dyn, (Cairo CG 1386)...............................29 Picture 13:Head of Queen Tiy, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty.........................................30

Picture 14:The 3,300+ year old head of Pharaoh Ikhnaton from his 4-meter stone statue in Cairo Museum. .................................................................... 31 Picture 15(a):The distant picture of the pyramid of Ngundeng, the Nineteenth century king of the Nuer........................................................................................... 56 Picture 15(b):The close-up picture of the pyramid of Ngundeng, the Nineteenth century king of the Nuer.....65......................................................................... th Picture 16:A very long, narrow-sleeved linen dress from a 5 Dynasty (2500–2200 BC) tomb at Deshashesh. ........................................................ 62 Picture 17:Professor Dr Zaki Shenouda (left), then Director of the Institute of Coptic Studies, and the author..................................................................... 65 Appendix picture 1:The Great Pyramid of Cheops, Giza, Cairo, Egypt ..................... 166 Appendix picture 2:A statue of Cheops, Abydos, the Dynasty, around 2600 BC....... 167 Appendix picture 3:King’s head, thought to be Cheops’. ........................................... 167 Appendix picture 4:Cheop’s head restored electronically by the author..................... 168 Appendix picture 5:Thought to be the earliest preserved garment from Egypt........... 168

Grammatical imperative

Inclusive plural noun

sing.

MEE

v.

pl.

OIE

n.

e.s.n.

def.

e.p.n.

Abbreviations

Compare/contrast with.

Budge, E.A.W., 1920, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary

Crum

B

Crum, W.E. 1939. A Coptic Dictionary

Inclusive singular noun

N. Mattar, 1989, A Study in Bohairic Coptic

Noun

Oxford Interactive Encyclopedia

Exclusive singular noun

Definite

Mattar

GME

The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Release 6, 1993

Verb

Singular

C

Faulkner, R.O., 1962, Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian

Kal./Kalenj. Kalenjiin

indef.

Indefinite

i.p.n.

Exclusive plural noun

Editor

F.Dict.

imp.

ed.

i.s.n.

Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, 1993–1997

B.Dict.

Cf.

Budge, E.A.W., 1920, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary

Plural

Crum, W.E. 1939. A Coptic Dictionary