Black Athena: Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization; Volume III: The Linguistic Evidence

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments xv Transcriptions and Phonetics xvii Maps and Charts xxi INTRODUCTION 1 The previous volumes and their reception 1 “Classics has been misunderstood” 4 Anathema from a G.O.M. 6 Outline of Volume 3 10 Chapter 1 HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS AND THE IMAGE OF ANCIENT GREEK 28 Nineteenth-century romantic linguistics: The tree and the family 28 Saussure and the twentieth-century epigones of nineteenth-century Indo-European studies 36 Ramification or interlacing 37 CONTENTS viii CONTENTS Chapter 2 THE “NOSTRATIC” AND “EUROASIATIC” HYPERAND SUPER-FAMILIES 39 Nostratic and Eurasiatic 40 Archaeological evidence for the origin of Nostratic and Euroasiatic 48 Gordon Childe and Colin Renfrew 53 Language and genetics 56 Conclusion 57 Chapter 3 AFROASIATIC, EGYPTIAN AND SEMITIC 58 The origins of African languages and the development of agriculture in Africa 58 The origins and spread of Afroasiatic 60 Conclusion 88 Chapter 4 THE ORIGINS OF INDO-HITTITE AND INDOEUROPEAN AND THEIR CONTACTS WITH OTHER LANGUAGES 90 The origins and diffusion of Indo-Hittite and Indo-European 90 Loans from other languages into PIH 98 Development of an Indo-European gender system based on sex 108 Conclusion 115 Chapter 5 THE GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN CONTEXT: PART 1, PHONOLOGY 116 Greek: Result of a linguistic shift or of language contact? 116 The elements of the Greek linguistic amalgam 121 CONTENTS ix The phonologies of Indo-Hittite and Indo-European 122 Phonological developments from PIE to Greek 126 Conclusion 154 Chapter 6 THE GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN CONTEXT: PART 2, MORPHOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTICAL DEVELOPMENTS 155 Morphology 155 Syntax 157 Summary on syntactical changes 163 Conclusion 164 Chapter 7 THE GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN CONTEXT: PART 3, LEXICON 165 Introduction 165 The study of lexical borrowings 165 Ancient Greeks’ sense of lexical borrowing 175 Loans from Afroasiatic into Greek and into Albanian or Armenian 178 Conclusion 185 Chapter 8 PHONETIC DEVELOPMENTS IN EGYPTIAN, WEST SEMITIC AND GREEK OVER THE LAST THREE MILLENNIA BCE, AS REFLECTED IN LEXICAL BORROWINGS 187 Introduction 187 Semitic 189 Egyptian 192 Conclusion 207 x CONTENTS Chapter 9 GREEK BORROWINGS FROM EGYPTIAN PREFIXES, INCLUDING THE DEFINITE ARTICLES 209 Introduction 209 Greek Borrowings from Egyptian definite article prefixes 210 The Egyptian word pr “house, temple, palace” 231 R- “entry” or local prefix 240 (R)dˆt, “causal prefix” 241 Greek borrowings from Egyptian verbs beginning with dˆ(t)- 242 Conclusion 244 Chapter 10 MAJOR EGYPTIAN TERMS IN GREEK: PART 1 245 1. Ntr/KÅ 245 2. Œn∆ 258 3. M(w)dw, mu'qo" 262 4. SbÅ 262 5. Dr, R-dr, drw 267 6. ÷Mwr,MÅŒt, Moi'ra, Meivromai and MmÅŒt, Ma 269 7. Ôpr 271 Conclusion 275 Chapter 11 MAJOR EGYPTIAN TERMS IN GREEK: PART 2 276 nfr (w)/ms 276 nfr/ms 278 Conclusion 298 CONTENTS xi Chapter 12 SIXTEEN MINOR ROOTS 300 Introduction 300 CONCLUSION 311 Chapter 13 SEMITIC SIBILANTS 312 Introduction 312 Loans of sibilants from Canaanite into Greek 313 Lateral fricatives 319 Sheltered /s/ sC /s/ before consonants 322 Conclusion 324 Chapter 14 MORE SEMITIC LOANS INTO GREEK 325 Introduction 325 Conclusion 339 Chapter 15 SOME EGYPTIAN AND SEMITIC SEMANTIC CLUSTERS IN GREEK 340 Nature and agriculture 341 Cooking 365 Medicine 371 Conclusion 378 Chapter 16 SEMANTIC CLUSTERS: WARFARE, HUNTING AND SHIPPING 380 Weapons, warfare and hunting 380 Shipping 399 xii CONTENTS Chapter 17 SEMANTIC CLUSTERS: SOCIETY, POLITICS, LAW AND ABSTRACTION 405 Introduction 405 Society 405 Politics 413 Law and order 416 Abstraction 420 Chapter 18 RELIGIOUS TERMINOLOGY 425 Structures 425 Personnel 430 Cult objects 433 Rituals 434 Sacrifices 437 Incense, flowers, scents 439 Aura 439 Mysteries 441 Conclusion 451 Chapter 19 DIVINE NAMES: GODS, MYTHICAL CREATURES, HEROES 453 Introduction: Gods 453 Ôpr, “become” Ôprr, Apollo, Askle\pios, Python and Delphi 454 Apollo the “Aryan” 454 Was Apollo a sun god before the fifth century? 456 CONTENTS xiii Twins, Apollo and Artemis 464 Other Olympians 477 Zeus Nsw 478 Other gods 479 Herodotos’ non-Egyptian divine names 480 Demigods 481 Mythical creatures 482 Some heroes 483 Conclusion 484 Chapter 20 GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES AND PLACE-NAMES 485 Introduction 485 Natural features 487 City names 503 Conclusion 511 Chapter 21 SPARTA 512 Introduction 512 Sparta: *sper and SpÅt 513 Anubis, Hermes and Sparta 516 “Late” borrowings and Lykurgos 529 Lakonian terminology...