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Common origin of the old égytien, the copte and the modern négro-African languages. Introduction to African historical linguistics.

Theophilus OBENGA

(Paris, Harmattan, 1993)

kwgo1.gif (102419 octets)

Contents

INTRODUCTION p. 7

CHAPTER I. - Métbodologie p. 11

Principles of historical linguistics. Indo-European. Criteria legitimating the comparison enters the Pharaonic Egyptian, the modern copte and négro-African languages. Recommendations of the international Egyptological Conference of Cairo in 1974.

CHAPTER II. - Identification and documentation p. 19.

History of the Egyptian language. Dialects coptes. Process of the loan made to the Greek by the copte. Pharaonic dictionaries, lexicons and grammars and coptes. Identification of the mbochi. Mbochi and Bantu. Scientific documentation on the mbochi.

CHAPTER III. - Historical Phonetics of the Egyptian p. 29

History of Egyptian phonetics. Copte and Egyptian means: phonology. First approach relating to the vocalization of the Pharaonic Egyptian. Consonant systems Pharaonic and copte. Vowels coptes. Phonematic structure of the copte.

CHAPTER IV. - Definition and classification of the phonemes mbochi p. 53

General features. Consonants. Vowels. Tonematic analysis. Combination of the phonemes. Conclusio

CHAPTER V. - System phonological of Berber p. 67

Documentation. Berber phonology: consonant system and vowel system. Phonological observations. Languages Egyptian woman and Berber: their irremediable opposition

CHAPTER VI. - Hamito-Semitic Myths p. 79

Etymology of the word “ham” or “cham”. Morphological structure of Semitic, the Egyptian and the Berber one: systematic comparative study. Semitic, Egyptian and Berber facts lexicological: their fundamental opposition. “Hamito-Semitic language” or the “Afro-Asian one”, a true scientific swindle.

CHAPTER VII. - Morphological Correspondences between the énptien and the négo-afticain p. 97

Nominal classes and definite articles. Formation of plural. Grammatical categories of sexual kind. Grammatical formation of abstract. Verb-copula “being”. Egyptian personal pronouns and négro-African. Considered personal pronoun. Grammatical adjectives and their employment. “Nisbés” adjectives known as. Obtaining comparative and superlative. Verbs and flexional verbal conjugation. Reduplication. Causative. Verbal particles. Time and modes. Simple and complex forms of the verb: verbal inflections. Verbal auxiliary particles (morphemes copulas). Expression of the future and table of the functional elements. Verbal characteristics idiomatic. The “m” known as of preaching. Negative morphemes: comparative tables. Particles of connection: comparative tables.

CHAPTER VIII. - Cbangements and phonetic Règles of correspondences p. 181

Sound laws (“sound laws”). Data. Analyze Pharaonic facts, coptes and négro-African. Establishment of phonetic agreements: consonants. Family trees. General picture. Phenomenon of métathèse. Table. Establishment of phonetic agreements: vowels. Evolutionary tables.

CHAPTER IX. - Lexicological Facts and correspondences p. 259

General remarks. Problem of the linguistic loan and languages noncontiguës. Intervention of the copte. Problem of the common heritage in linguistics. Cultural and historical value of certain Egyptian lexemes and négroafricains: “ox”, “sheep/ram”, “monkey/baboon” “elephant”, “hippopotamus”, “meat”. Second approach relating to the vocalization of the Pharaonic Egyptian: former Egyptian/nuer/bandaged/mande. Confirmation by the négro-afticain of certain readings of Pharaonic the behaviours for doubtful. Widespread Egyptian ontological categories in all the Black Africa. The Egyptian Pantheon and négro-African divinities. Lexicological bringings together between the former Egyptian, the copte and négro-African.

CHAPTER X. - Speeches négro-Egyptians. Their classification p. 343

The Négro-Egyptian, fundamental acquisition of renewed African linguistics. Old history of the continent afticain and African linguistics. Nonexistence of the languages known as “semi” bantu. Bursting of old linguistic barriers imposed by racist theories between the African languages. Need for a linguistic geography in Aftique black. Three great African linguistic families: the négro-Egyptian, the Berber one and the khoisan. The négro-Egyptian woman family with all her branches and all its sub-groups. The verbecopule “to be” as an négro-Egyptian: systematic comparison.

CHAPTER XI. - Other African Speeches. Their classification p.361

Semitic languages of Aftique: Ethiopian Semitic group. Some loans made by this group with the couchitique one. Current Berber speeches. Languages khoisan. Lexemes hottentot. Comparison enters the khoisan and the Berber one: inexistence of the languages known as “charnitic”.

CONCLUSION p. 373

BIBLIOGRAPHY p. 377

INDEX OF the NAMES Of AUTHORS p. 391

APPENDICES p. 395

I. - Table of the Négro-Egyptian p. 394 - II. - Table of Semitic of Africa p. 396 - III. - Table of Berber p. 397 - IV. - Table of Khoisan p. 398.



METHODOLOGY

We quickly will expose the rules and principles of comparative or historical or evolutionary linguistics, like .le but.vized by this linguistics. Then, we will release the criteria which authorize and validate the comparison between the Pharaonic Egyptian, the copte and the négro-African languages modern.

French and the of Provence one, for example, meet by a form of language former to both: the vulgar Latin of Gaule, - the Latin language was spread, in Ier century before our era, in the whole of Gaule, to the Rhine. In other words, the current states of French and of Provence, now different, are states of a single former linguistic form. However what is called by convenience the vulgar Latin of Gaule is only one particular form, undoubtedly very little differentiated, of the vulgar Latin in general. Consequently, the relationship of French and of Provence widens in space and time, since the Romance languages are the linguistic diversification of spoken Latin, during the High Means Age (V, - VIIIème century). The Romance languages include/understand the gallo-novel (dialects of language of oïl of which French and Franco-Provençal; dialects cisalpins, rhéto-frioulan, gallo-Italian; dialects of language of oc, occitan and Gascon, and the Catalan which occupies an intermediate linguistic position between the gallo-novel and the ibéro-novel), the ibéro-novel (Portuguese, Spanish and dialects: Gloses de San Millàn of Cogolla, fine Xème century, constitute the first mentions written in a Spanish dialect), the italo-novel (Tuscan, dialects of the Center and South, dialects of Sardinia; the first document written in an Italian dialect vulgar completion date of Xème century: it is the charter of the Cassin Mount, 960-963), the balkano-novel (Rumanian, Dalmatian).

All these Romance modern languages are consequently historical continuities of Latin. Each one of them includes/understands dialects, local speeches, patois, trade slangs. Thus, for example, the Picardy one and the Norman one, the poitevin and the berrichon, are parents between them, and are it also of French and the Franco-Provençal, consequently of Latin. If a given Spanish patois does not have large any more - thing of commun run, today, with such other Rumanian patois for example, this difference is simply explained by the fact why the two linguistic forms separated for a very long time.

However Latin forms, with certain Indo-European languages, the group of the Italic languages (the Italic languages divisient itself as follows: Latin, the falisque one spoken in Faléries on the middle price about the Tiber, the vénète spoken in Venezia; the ombrien spoken in Apennin, the osque one is the language of Samnites of Samnium extended to Campania, Lucanie and Bruttium the dialects sabelliens, the volsque one and the marse).

The Celtic languages (the Gallic one died without almost leaving traces, the brittonique one which survives in Welsh and the Breton modern one, Gaelic attested since VIIIème century and whose principal representative is Irish) are very close to the Italic languages, as a whole Indo-European.

Other Indo-European languages, also related in a narrow way between them, form other groups: Germanic languages (German, English, Dutch or Flemish, Scandinavian languages), Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, Serbo-croatian), the Baltic group (Lithuanian), the ndo-Aryan languages i' (Sanskrit vedic, modern languages of India) and the Iranian languages (avestic, old man-Persian, languages Iranian modern among which the Persan one, Kurdish, Afghan).

The Greek, the Armenian and Albanian, the tokharien attested in VIIème century of our era and disappeared today, are isolated Indo-European languages, like the hittite.

All these languages, divided as groups, families, in branches, result from a single language, precisely the Indo-European, called thus conventionally. Forever written Indo-European. One knows neither in which region, nor on which date this common language prédialectale was spoken. In short, one is unaware of this prehistoric language very.

The attested Indo-European languages appear in the history on very diverse dates, since thousand-year-old Ilème before our era (the hittite in Asia Mineure, in the East of Ankara), until thousand-year-old Ilème of our era (Albanian, Baltic languages: Albanian is attested only from XVème century, and the Baltic as of XVIème century only in the form of the old Prussian died today, the Lithuanian and the lette preserved until our time). One follows the development of certain Indo-European languages over a long period, thus for the Greek, since the Greek mycénien of thousand-year-old IIème before our era to the modern Greek nowadays. Apparent Latin in the history in the middle of IIIème century before our era it is antiquated Latin (of IIIème century at the beginning of Ier century before our era Plaute, Terence and Caton the Old one) who will evolve/move to die with Romance Latin, of 5th in VIIIème century of our era (Boèce, Césaire of Arles, Gregoire de Tours, Isidore of Seville, Gregoire the Large one, Bède the Worthy one, Fortunat, Sidoine Appolinaire).

With the Central Asia (tokharien of Chinese Turkestan and languages indoaryennes of India) at the Western end of Europe (Celtic languages), the Indo-European covers an immense space thus. They are migrations, pre or protohistoric displacements which dispersed the populations speaking about the Indo-European languages on this space. (Cf Andre Martinet, Of the steppes to the oceans. Indo-European and the “IndoEuropéens”, Paris, Payot, 1986.)

Of all that precedes, we can validly draw the following conclusions:

- the languages evolve/move and change: diachronic linguistics precisely studies the successive modifications of the languages, their evolution;

- the evolutionary rate/rhythm of the languages is rather slow and a language evolves/moves even if she is not written: a language has an oral tradition independent of the writing;

- the object of synchronic linguistics is to study the system of a language such as it functions at a given time. Actually, linguistics diachronic and synchronic encase one in the other;

- it is the comparative method which restores the broad outline of the language-mother prédialectale, by comparing the sounds (phonetics), forms of words and grammar (morphology), lexicological facts (vocabulary) common to the various languages which are various forms taken in the course of time by a single language. The comparative method shows that a language is seldom isolated in time and space, i.e. It is rare, in the world, to meet a language which does not belong to a community or family or linguistic group, more or less vast, more or less old. This membership results in major resemblances, which are not resemblances fortuitous or acquired by the phenomenon of the linguistic loan. They are consequently inherited correspondences or resemblances.

Ferdinand de Saussure itself found just that the comparative method could succeed in fixing the prehistory of the compared languages: “The retrospective method thus makes us penetrate in the past of a language beyond the oldest documents” (Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours of general Linguistics, edict. Critical by Tullio de Mauro, Paris, Payot, 1978, p. 293)

Such is the goal: the genetic classification of the languages compared and studied beyond the written documents oldest.

A genetic and historical linguistics exists. It is in its centre that developed a general linguistics, as we have just noted it with the Indo-European.

To achieve this goal, the method is required: “The genetic relationship is a function connecting the languages: it consists in the fact that each element of expression of a language is connected by a function to an element of expression of another; the function of each element is conditioned by its entourage and the position which it occupies in the word.” (Louis Hjelmslev, the Language. An introduction, Paris, Editions of Midnight, 1966, p. 5 2).

The method is comparative and inductive. One leaves the instruction of the similarities and also of the differences between the languages compared to show the common origin of these languages. Languages now distinct derive from a single language if a continuity is more or less founded between the compared languages, genetically.

About this genetic relationship of the languages, Emile Benveniste still clarifies methodology, while specifying: “The evidence of this relationship consists of regular similarities, definite by correspondences, between complete forms, morphemes, phonemes.” (Emile Benveniste, Problems of general linguistics, Paris, Gallimard, 1966, p. 101)

It is obvious that the series are essential and that the coïncidsences of chance must be eliminated, just as the loans, the effects of convergence. The presumption of relationship is acquired if the evidence is convincing: “Thus correspondence between lat. Is: sunt, all. I' St: sind, france E: sô, etc, suppose at the same time phonetic equations, the same morphological structure, same alternation, the same verbal categories particle shapes and the same direction.” (Emile Benveniste, ibid)

The method is known. It made it possible to establish the great linguistic family which one conventionally calls the Indo-European. Can one apply this method to the languages of the African continent famous without writing?

Emile Benveniste answers: “This method is well known and it was tested in the establishment of more than one family. The proof is made that it can as well apply to languages without history whose relationship is noted today, of some structure that they raise. […] The regularity of the phonetic correspondences and the possibility of envisaging certain evolutions are limited to no type of languages nor to any area. There is thus no reason to imagine that exotic” or “primitive” languages “require other comparison criterions that Indo-European or Semitic languages.” (Emile Benveniste, COp cit., pp. 101-102)

Linguistic science is less universal than other sciences. There is no unfavourable scientific prejudice to apply the comparative and inductive method genetic and historical linguistics to the négro-African languages, with all the languages of the world. Moreover, the ultimate goal of this linguistics is to be able to operate a general classification of all the known human languages.

It is enough to pose our criteria and to thus legitimate the genetic comparison between the Pharaonic Egyptian, the modern copte and languages négro-afticaines. These criteria are essential and operational:

- The language has an oral tradition independent of the writing: Latin of IIIème century before our era and the Lithuanian of XVIème century offer one and the other, however distant are in space and time, the same faithful image of the Indo-European; we can thus compare the Egyptian forms with the corresponding négro-African forms, even if we do not have, in the eyes, all the successive states of the languages négroafricaines. Bloomfield compared in a genetic, historical way four principal languages of the group algonquin central': fox, ojibway, create and menomini; he thus could symbolize by forms rebuilt starting from the attested languages the “primitive central algonquin” (Primitive Algonquian Exchange) or the proto-algonquin, but the American linguist did not have, for the four compared languages, of recordings or former documents (” for which we cuts No older records “: L. Bloomfield, Language, Goerge Allen & Unwin, edict. Of 1965 (first edition 1933), pp. 359-360; French translation, Paris, Payot, 1970, pp. 337-338).

- The comparison criterions are guaranteed by the Pharaonic Egyptian who is the most former witness of the compared languages: “Classification is ensured of its criteria only if it lays out, for some at least of these languages, of older states.” (E. Benveniste, COp cit., p. 105). However the Egyptian texts hiéroglyphes most antiquated go back to approximately 3000 years before our era, and the first demonstrations written of the copte as of IIIème century before our era.

- Consequently, enormous geographical discontinuity militates in favour of the exclusion of the loan in these old times, on the whole of the established, morphological, phonetic and lexicological agreements. I.e. The very old separation of the common stock prédialectale eliminates the effects of convergence, chance and loan. In other words, if connections of character sérial are established between the Pharaonic Egyptian, the modern copte and négro-African languages, one is authorized to recognize a “air of family”, a “relationship by sequence” according to the expression of systematic of the plants, even if one moves away much from the initial type, of the rebuilt prototypes. Thus, the time which separates the old Egyptian from the current African languages - a 5000 years hiatus - instead of constituting a difficulty presents on the contrary as a sure criterion of comparison (time which separates the hittite from current Portuguese is also enormous, but nothing prevents from comparing these two languages directly, in a given unit, to join the Indo-European precisely).

One should not thus exaggerate the difficulties, not undoubtedly on the level of comparative work real, empirical, but on the level of the theory, the legitimacy of the comparison. The linguistic history of humanity even requires that such a work is vigorously undertaken.

For strict linguistics, the things appear clear, theoretically, the method is known with all its requirements; its goal also. And it is legitimate, linguistically, to compare the Pharaonic Egyptian, the copte with the current African languages.

But what happenhappen does side of Egyptology?

The author of the first Egyptian grammar, Champollion, was fully convinced that “the ancient Egyptian language did not differ of anything essence of the language vulgarly called copte or cophthe; that the Egyptian words written in characters hiéroglyphes on the most ancient monuments of Thèbes, and in Greek characters in the books coptes, have an identical value and in general differ only by the absence from certain vowels médiales, omitted in the primitive orthography” (Champollion the young person, Grammaire Egyptian, Paris, Firmin Didot, 1836, P. XVIII. Words underlined by the author.

Champollion wants to say that the Pharaonic Egyptian and the copte constitute only one and even language; that the copte, written with the Greek alphabet, is the vocalized Egyptian; that it is consequently possible to vocalize the old Egyptian starting from the copte; that it is eminently arbitrary to neglect the copte in the studies of Pharaonic grammar.

But Egyptology did not work in the direction indicated initially by Champollion itself. One made authority of the old Egyptian a Semitic language. One evacuated the copte silently Egyptian linguistic studies. Here, Egyptology sinned by presumption and racist pride: the ages of the Valley of the Nile égypto-Nubian, all unit, could be neither African (geographically speaking) nor of the black world (culturally gets along).

It is consequently advisable to pay a vibrating homage to the memory of Serge Sauneron: its intellectual honesty is equal to that of Champollion. For Sauneron indeed the Egyptian language is not a Semitic language and the Egyptian grammars, written up to now according to the model of Semitic grammars, do not account really for the own genius of the Pharaonic language (Serge Sauneron, Grammaires of the Egyptian language, IFAO, Extrait of “Texts and Languages of Pharaonic Egypt”. Homage to Jean-François Champollion at the time of the 150ème birthday of the deciphering of the hiéroglyphes (1822-1972).

Sauneron, then Directing of the French Institute of Oriental archeology of Cairo, Egyptologist-grammairien of international reputation which re-examined and corrected Grammai' Re of the traditional Egyptian of Gustave Lefèbvre (1955), the same scientific position will begin again, counters the secular Egyptological prejudices, with the conference organized by UNESCO in Cairo in 1974: “More largely, professor Sauneron underlined the interest of the method suggested by professor Obenga after professor Diop. [...] The Egyptian could not be isolated from its African context and the Semitic one did not give an account of its birth; it was thus legitimate to find parents or cousins in Africa to him” (the settlement of old Egypt and deciphering of the meroitic writing, Actes of the conference held in Cairo, of January 28 to February 3, 1974, Paris, UNESCO, 1978, P. 1 00).

The conference of Cairo included/understood the following Egyptologists: Abdelgadir Mr. Abdalla (Sudan), A. Abu Bakr (Egypt), Mrs. NR. White (France), F. Debono (Malta), Sheik Anta Diop (Senegal), G. Ghallad (Egypt), L. Habachi (Egypt), R. Holthoer (Finland), S. Husain (Egypt), Mrs. J. Gordon-jaquet (the USA), W. Kaisser (FRG), J. Leclant (France), G. Mokhtar (Egypt), R. El Naduri (Egypt), Th. Obenga (Congo), S. Sauneron (France), T. Save-Sôderbergh (Sweden), P.L. Shinnie (Canada) etj. Vercoutter (France). Among the observers, one noted professors V.L. Grottanelli (Italy), S. Hable Selassie (Ethiopia), Fawzia Helmy Hussein (Egypt), L.Kakosy (Hungary) and the journalist Senegalese Dad Amet Diop. UNESCO itself was represented by Mr. Glele and Mrs. Melcer. The rapporteur of the conference was professor Jean Devisse (France). Seldom, Egyptology will have joined together such a scientific learned assembly, in Egypt even. The debates were obviously free, engaging only the competence and the information of each participant.

Here still two significant declarations

- “Professor Vercoutter declared that, for him, Egypt was African in its writing, its culture and its manner of thinking”. (The settlement of old Egypt, COp cit., p. 87)

- “Professor Leclant recognized this same African character in the temperament and the manner of thinking of the Egyptians” (the settlement of old Egypt, ibid)

Here, African wants to say black, negro. Thus, civilization, Pharaonic belongs entirely to the cultural world négro-African. Pharaonic Egypt was not Semitic even Indo-European in its writing, its culture and its manner of thinking: it was African, like Nubie, Abyssinie, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Benin (Yoruba), in short like all the other civilizations built formerly on the African continent by African Blacks.

A new page of African historiography was thus written in Cairo, in 1974. African Egyptology and the other studies or “Africanists” owe the knowledge clearly.

Among the many recommendations made by the international conference of Cairo, therefore by all the participants, we raise this one: “The co-operation of the specialists in compared linguistics should be put at contribution on the international level to establish all the possible correlations between the African languages and the old Egyptian” (the settlement of old Egypt, COp cit., p. 103)

Isn't this recommendation new, important, fundamental? It was made by the best Egyptologists nowadays, then convened in Cairo, to discuss problems tees specialized in Egyptology, in the relations between this historical science and the Black Africa.

There would not be that the excuse of the incompetence to keep away from such an urgent request. The possible technical obstacles are not insurmountable.

Ultimately, linguistics (F. Of Saussure, Bloomfield, Hjelmslev, Benveniste) and Egyptology (Champollion, Sauneron, Egyptological conference of Cairo) favour a comparison systematic, well educated, between the Pharaonic Egyptian, the modern copte and négro-African languages, to find, between the languages thus compared, a unit of origin.



CONCLUSION

The African linguistic fact is varied and various, but from the Point of view of historical linguistics, three great families emerge clearly, distinctly: has) the négro-Egyptian, b) the Berber one and c) the khoisan.

There are not chamitic” or “hamitic” languages “on the African continent. Consequently, “Hamito-Semitic language” or “Afro-Asian” the residence a pure linguistic illusion. The Egyptian, Pharaonic and copte, cannot be included in the Semitic one as a class, a group or connect, as it is the case for the ugaritique one, the accadien, Babylonian, the phenician, Hebrew, Arabic, the sudarabique one, etc No sémitisant qualified does not consider the Egyptian, Pharaonic and copte, like a Semitic language, by far or of near. The Berber one, as for him, is not either genetically related to the Egyptian, Pharaonic language and copte. It is an abuse, rather an error, to make the Semitic one, of the Egyptian and the Berber one of the linguistic groups of the same family. Actually, no scientist did it, according to the only method in force in such studies, i.e. The method of linguistics comparative and historical or evolutionary, diachronic.

The conference of Cairo (1974) had sliced this false debate, while recommending “to establish all the possible correlations between the African languages and the old Egyptian”, since the Egyptian, Pharaonic language and copte, left itself the framework of the Semitic and Berber languages. During this work, we precisely showed the not-reality of the” Afro-Asian “family, by locating us on the strict level of historical linguistics.

On the other hand, we could rebuild the négro-Egyptian, that is to say the primitive language common to the historically attested languages that are the languages Egyptian woman, couchitic, tchadic, nilo-Saharan, nigéro-kordofanienne, all old and modern languages, spoken by the black people about Africa, since the old woman Pharaonic Egypt, and all genetically plain when they are compared in a tight and adequate way from every angle, phonetics, phonological, morphological, grammatical, lexicological.

Without the lighting contribution of the Egyptian language, Pharaonic and copte, which remains Sanskrit of African general linguistics, it is radically impossible to foresee the deep genetic unity of the négro-African languages, their historical, temporal dimension.

To leave African general linguistics the repetitions and current dead ends just as of its secular minor statute - that of the descriptionsstandard without end and precise linguistic project, since the comparison constantly is avoided, drawn aside or ignored -, it is necessarily necessary to take into account the Egyptian, Pharaonic language and copte, which must from now on have its place in the African University, beside the Greek and of Latin, of Arabic, of the dravidien, etc

It is in the order of the possible things that African intelligentsia masonry quickly, in Africa even, a general and historical linguistics starting from the languages of the various African people. It would be there an immense contribution with the world general linguistics of which the scientific and cultural ambition, since Ferdinand de Saussure, remains the exploration and the constitution of the linguistic families of the world within the framework of a total semiology. It was also the burning desire of Humboldt, of Benveniste in Europe, Peirce in the United States.

Our work, modest, is presented nevertheless in the form of a revealing even of the African linguistic universe, from now on plain under the glance panor mic of the historical and cultural time of the African companies, from ancient Egypt.

By joining again kind with the wire of the history, theirs clean, the African languages, joined together in a family taken again however by each one of them during time, draw then a total structure which project them together towards world linguistics as groups and branches of only one and even linguistic family.

African linguistics would make an enormous blunder by suspending the reflexion on its own statute in the production speaking about humanity.

But which is the linguistic future of Africa?

This future is in the middle same destiny of the people of Africa in the contemporary world. Multiple battles which are those of our lives: rescue of the oral traditions, schooling in the African languages, required unit of the African continent for better tackling together the problems economic, monetary, industrial, technological, military, of information and communication, control of the raw materials, co-operation with other countries and people of the world, without perpetuating old psychologies egdists unnecessarily and alienating.

The African linguistic file, closely related to the Panafrican cultural file, always worried the Africans conscious of their collective future.

Wole Sonyika, at the FESTAC 77 of Lagos, had laid the stress with strength on the need for the linguistic unit on a continental scale: it had proposed the swahili like language of communication interafricaine. Such a standpoint on behalf of a man of the scale of Sonyika had strongly marked the spirits of the participants in the FESTAC of Lagos.

One also remembers that the problem of the African languages had been the subject of many and profitable debates during the conference organized by this same FESTAC 77. Important recommendations were made at a plenary sitting:

- enseigner les langues africaines, de l'école maternelle à l'université ; - alphabétiser systématiquement les masses populaires dans les langues africaines, les leur, afin de les intégrer au développement social, culturel et économique des États africains ;

- entreprendre la formation professionnelle, scientifique, technique et technologique de l'Africain dans les langues africaines de culture et de grande communication ;

- créer dans chaque État africain des centres de recherche sur les langues, les littératures orales et écrites, les arts, etc.

Partout la nécessité est vivement ressentie, celle de considérer les langues africaines comme des outils de développement. Des spécialistes africains (Pathé Diagne, Abdoulaye Baldé de l'Université de Dakar, Gnon Samya Kondé, directeur de la Direction de la Formation permanente, de l'Action et de la Recherche pédagogique du Togo et tant d'autres) ont régulièrement accordé des interviews de grande portée sur la revalorisation des langues nationales africaines.

A Douala, du 2 au 14 juillet 1973, un séminaire décisif avait été organisé sur "Les langues africaines, facteur de développement" (Actes du Séminaire édités par le collège Libermann de Douala, 1974). Des intellectuels camerounais, sous la direction du Pr Henri Marcel Bot Ba Njock, abordèrent alors efficacement tous les aspects du problème soumis à leur réflexion : langues africaines véhicules de civilisation, transcription moderne des langues africaines, langues locales et développement de la nation, langues africaines et pensée scientifique, langues africaines et réflexion philosophique, manuels pour l'enseignement des langues africaines, élaboration d'atlas linguistiques, etc.

La "Conférence inter-gouvernementale sur les politiques culturelles en Afrique", organisée par l'Unesco avec la coopération de l'OUA, à Accra, du 27 octobre au 6 novembre 1975 (Rapport final, Paris, Unesco), avait considéré que les langues et traditions africaines constituaient des supports essentiels de toute promotion éducative et culturelle en Afrique.

Concrètement, de nombreux pays africains ont déjà ouvert la voie en Afrique noire en revalorisant et en développant les langues locales (enseignement, discours officiels, alphabétisation).

Concrètement aussi, le Pr Cheikh Anta Diop a traduit dans sa langue maternelle, le wolof, de longs textes couvrant les domaines de la théorie des ensembles, de la physique mathématique et théorique, de l'organisation de la matière au niveau subquantique et quantique, de la relativité restreinte et générale ainsi que de la cosmologie relativiste, de l'algèbre tensorielle, de la chimie quantique (C.-A. Diop, Comment enraciner la science en Afrique : exemple valaf-Sénégal, in Bulletin de l'IFAN, Dakar, t. 37, série B, n' 1, 1975, pp. 154-233).

Des progrès considérables sont toujours enregistrés grâce aux nombreux centres de recherche qui existent maintenant en Afrique. L'avenir peut être ainsi envisagé avec quelque optimisme.

Cette saisie contemporaine des Africains sur leur propre être social et culturel, sur leur histoire, et leurs langues natives qui tiennent toutes d'un ancêtre commun prédialectal, c'est encore et toujours le travail : le travail de tout le Peuple africain en marche.

I. - Tableau du négro-égyptien

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Suite du tableau du négro-égyptien

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Il. - Tableau du sémitique de l'Afrique

IlI. - Tableau du berbère

IV. - Tableau du khoisan



Parenté génétique entre l'égyptien pharaonique et des langues négro-africaines

Cheikh Anta DIOP

Les formes verbales (Extrait Chapitre III)



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Compléments à Parenté génétique ...

Cheikh Anta Diop

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