Meroitic language

Meroitic
Period	until 400 AD
Formerly spoken in	Kush
Linguistic ; classification	Nilosaharan Meroitic language;
Language codes
ISO 639 -1	-
ISO 639 -2	-
ISO 639-3	xmr

Stele with Meroitic inscription

The Meroitic language is the language of the Meroitic state that existed between 1000 BC. BC and 750 BC Was founded in Nubia and took over the ancient Egyptian name for Nubia, Kush . The Meroitic language is only documented in writing a few centuries after the founding of the state, since the earlier inscriptions (from approx. 800 BC) were all written in Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Egyptian language . Meroitic names, words and phrases have been documented since the New Kingdom .

The seat of government of the Kushitic Empire was originally in the city of Napata near today's Karima. Around 300 BC Chr. However the capital to Meroe north of Khartoum moved. During this time, the cultural reference to Egypt was more and more abandoned, which was also reflected in the development of a separate script and the use of the Meroitic language in official texts.

The Meroitic language is not yet understandable. So far it has only been possible to translate short, formulaic texts from the victim form. There are some loan words from Egyptian. Mostly it is assumed that the Meroitic belongs to the Nilosaharanischen . Claude Rilly mentions Nilo-Saharan equivalents for 39 Meroitic words and showed that there are particularly clear relationships in lexicon and morphology with northern East Sudanese ; thus the Meroitic is probably close to the Nubian languages.

The kingdom of Kush collapsed by 300 AD at the latest , either due to an environmental catastrophe or a military defeat against the Aksumite Empire . The writing and language were still in use for a short time, but were then replaced by other languages at least in correspondence. The last Meroitic inscription comes from the local king Charamadoye , who ruled shortly after AD 400.

Examples of well-known Meroitic words

meroitic	German	comment
abese	gazelle
abore	Elephant
Amn	Amun
at	loaf
ato	water
kdi	woman
kdke	Kandake / Queen
Medewi	Meroe
mk	God, goddess
mlo	Well
nete	father
Npte	Napata
pelmos	General; governor	Loan word from Egyptian
Pesto	governor	Loan word from Egyptian
Qes	Kush	denotes the region of Nubia
qore	king
tadache	mother

Insecure vocabulary

meroitic	German	comment
adb	Country, province
abr	man

Text example

The translation of the following inscription follows Inge Hofmann.

Sacrificial stele from Karanog	Meroitic	woši šoreyi: Yidotbelileqowi: beloloke: Amnitowi: ḫmlol: ẖolkete
Sacrificial stele from Karanog	translation	O Isis, O Osiris! This is Yidotbelile. He was Beloloke (e. Title) of Amun. Give him ḫmlol!

literature

Francis Breyer : Introduction to Meroitistics (= introductions and source texts for Egyptology. Volume 8). LIT, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-12805-8 .
Claude Rilly: Les inscriptions d'offrandes funéraires: une première clé vers la comprehension du méroïtique. In: Revue d'Egyptologie. No. 54, 2003, pp. 167-175.
Claude Rilly: La langue du royaume de Méroé. A panorama of the plus ancient culture écrite d'Afrique subsaharienne . Champion, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-7453-1582-3 .
Claude Rilly: Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique . Peeters, Louvain 2010, ISBN 978-90-429-2237-2 .
Claude Rilly and Alex de Voogt: The Meroitic language and writing system. A linguistic and philological introduction . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2012, ISBN 978-1-107-00866-3 .
Jean Leclant: Repertoire d'épigraphie méroîtique: corpus des inscriptions publiées . de Boccard, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-87754-113-4 .
Derek A. Welsby: The Kingdom of Kush. British Museum Press, London 1996, ISBN 0-7141-0986-X , pp. 189-195.
Fritz Hintze : Contributions to Meroitic grammar . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1979.
Inge Hofmann: Material for a Meroitic grammar . Afro-Pub / Institute for African Studies, Vienna 1981.
Karl-Heinz Priese : The Meroitic language material in the Egyptian inscriptions of the kingdom of Kush. Berlin 1965 [machine-written dissertation].
Karl-Heinz Priese: Studies on the topography of the "Ethiopian" Nile valley in antiquity and on the Meroitic language. Berlin 1971 [typed habilitation thesis (dissertation B)].

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Claude Rilly: Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique. Louvain 2010.
^ Inge Hofmann: Meroitisch. In: Bernd Heine, Thilo C. Schadeberg, Ekkehard Wolff (eds.): The languages of Africa. Buske, Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-87118-496-9 , pages 301-304.

[Rilly_2010-1] A ^b Claude Rilly: Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique. Louvain 2010.

[2] Inge Hofmann: Meroitisch. In: Bernd Heine, Thilo C. Schadeberg, Ekkehard Wolff (eds.): The languages of Africa. Buske, Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-87118-496-9 , pages 301-304.