Why use the term God/god to refer to Kmtyw spiritual entities?-gctid28847

[Agbede]

The giver of destruction (g.o.d.) is the being who our enemies called upon to help them to destroy us. Let's not invoke that energy.

---
I have another question on the topic of the residue left behind by our enemys' religious imposition.

Can anyone comment on the assigning of gender to the Creator. Is it appropriate to refer to Onyame/Olodumare/Chukwu/Amma/Nzambi as "he" or "she?"

Contradictory statements such as the quote below (from a known Kmtyw author) seem to point to a strong patriarchal (christian) influence that seems incompatible with the Kmtyw reality:

"In the Dogon explanation of things, Amma created and recreated the world twice over. He created the new universe in this fashion: 'Starting from the primordial 'traces,' bummo, Amma first drew the 'marks,' yala, of a new uinverse inside his 'womb'..." [emphasis added]

"His womb" does not sit right in my consciousness. I would be more apt to accept "Her womb," but that still may not be the correct Kmtyw idea.

Is the Kmtyw conception of the Creator that of an oversized human male or female with "super powers?"

[kofiasr]

Yes we have quite a bit of de ytenizing to do. One of our problems is that of language. Even as we reclaim indiginous Kmtyw languages we still have to overcome the barrier of translating in our minds. Since most of us think in a yt language, we want to assign the idea of "Onyame" to god so that we know what we are saying. ( I hope that makes sense). But how can the Creator have one gender? "It" Must be of both genders to give birth to life, that is natural. Furthermore, in the Akan tradition, Onyame is unique. So maybe the Creator created gender itself. I mean to say maybe "Onyame" or "Nebercher" is beyond gender.:khepera: Check out Odwirafo.com and Metu Neter vol 1 & 2 for more insight. I don't know if I or Kwesi Ra or Ra Un Nefer is correct, but it is something that needs to be discussed among Kmtyws. One thing is for sure; yt concepts need to be cleansed from our psyche.
Abibifahodie!

[liongod]

i agree with brother kofi we should cleanse our minds of yorugu languages and reclaim our own at any cost but i, personally will always have a stake in the english language becuase i love music and most of what i listen to and even read is in this language. although i plan to learn other languages i cant un-learn english i wont deny my roots, however vile thier source is (U.S.). knowledge/information/language are powerful tools we should use, our knowledge is what the yoruga stole from us and are still using it to control us, so we should strive to learn as much as possible, mor than our enemy and about the enemy to eliminate surprises.
 
As for the image of God i have my own painting of my personal vision of the creator. I believe everyone should have thier own vision of him/her(used in the english/latin language to specify a person of no-gender), i dont think he is neither man nor woman. 'we were made in his image' he could change images, he is beyond a gender or skin color, all powerful, omnipotent.
the brother in the previous post said 'he is a god of destruction whom our enemies pray to'; to that i partially agree. he can be a god of vengence but everything happens for a reason. the quran demands that a muslim stands up and defends his community, family, and person with whatever means necessary, which is why the middle east is in turmoil but he also a god of mercy.
 
as i stated in previous posts i hate using the term god as i believe it is beneath the creator, not a worthyname. as long as yoruga refer to thier greek idols Zues, Apollo, Baal, etc. as "God" i will strive to use the most original/worthy name i have heard "Allah"
 
Uhuru sasa!
 
P.S. (11/04/2009)After further research his true name would be that of his original people: OLODUMARE!!

[kofiasr]

Hotep Brother.
 
First let me say that I do not like to debate about religion. It is a waist of our time concidering the situation that we, Kmtyws, are in. We would serve ourselves better by concentrating our energy on solving the Biggest Problem on the Planet.
 
You say that you know your roots. If the english language is in your roots then you are yurugu. Perhaps you should SanKoFa (That is Akan for 'Return Go Take'). Sankofa is the meaning behind the bird with it's head facing its tail. I'm sure you have seen it on Abibitumikasa. It comes from a proverb that says "To go back and reclaim what is yours is not taboo". It is particularly important for Kmtyws in the Diaspora because a major portion of our roots, language, was taken away or lost in the Middle Passage. Maybe I am misinterpreting what you mean. Maybe you just have not studied enough to know. That is cool, I am not bashing you. We are all in our onw stages of awakening and Re-membering.
 
The aAmws who gave you the word allah are also yurugu (please read The Destruction of Black Civilizatoin by Dr Chancellor Williams. It is a requirment for all Kmtyws). The word allah is not original nor worthy (of you). allah has its real origin in Kmt (Nile Valley Cicilization otherwise known as Egypt). It comes from Ur Ra. The "r" in Ur Ra has a rolling sound produce by rattling the tounge agains the roof of the mouth. In ancient language of  Medu Neter (Metu-word; Neter- "god" ie words of god or god speech) which we know as hyroglyphs, the "r" and "l" are interchangable. So Ur Ra became Ul La, Ulla, Allah, after the aAmws invaded Kemet and began slaughtering and enslaving Kmtyws ( unless the converted to islam) in the 6th century AD. Ur Ra or Ra Ur means Ra the Great.
 
After you read The Destruction of Black Civilization, you should check out Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man by Albert Churchward
Metu Neter Vol 1 &2 by Ra UnNefer Amen
Ancient Egypt: Light of the World by Gerald Massey
 
You can also visit www.odwirafo.com for more on the origin of judeo-christion characters.
and of course www.abibitumikasa.com for everything concerning Abibifahodie (Kmtyw Liberation).
 
Abibifahodie seesei!


:hello:

[liongod]

thankyou kofaisr for that knowledge you like sister katami have once again knocked me out of my realm and back into the research of my personal religion. i have not yet read chancellor williams book although i have been meaning for several years my reading list is every increasing but it is most defnitely next on the list (side note: currently reading soledad brother by george jackson).
you are correct it would be futile for us to debate religion as we are all on different levels of the sankofa journey and becuase our people have been converted (by force) into so many different religions its hard not to be confused. i did first learned of the fact that aAmws enslaving Kmtyws before christians from dr. john clarke. but i did not know the origin of the word "Allah". I thankyou for the website and although i didnot finish reading all that it had to say from what i have read i encourage all Kmtyws to go to that site odriwafo.com.
 
Uhuru Sasa!

[Agbede]

@kofiasr.  Meda ase brotha.

I think the he/she/it discussion (assigning of gender to the Creator) is directly related to this discussion of the use of the giver of destruction to refer to Kmtyw Spiritual entities. The he/she/it thing is a consequence of the fact that we are speaking a crakkka language; as is the use of the giver of destruction.

In the Kmtyw languages that I have been exposed to the pronouns he/she/it are only distinguished in the context of the conversation and not in the word itself. Right?

In Twi she/he/it = ɔ. In Yorùbá he/she/it = ó.

So it seems that when we reclaim our languages, when we sankɔfa, issues such as how we refer to our Spiritual entities should disappear.

:sankofa:

[pain]

^^ This is true. Even in the most basilectal form of how we speak in Jamaica, the term "im" or a more nasalized "een" is what's used for both males and females and you know what gender one is speaking of because of the context of the conversation.

Now I know that they have Nyamewa in Twi also, wa being a feminine indicator suffix. Usually, they just don't capitalize the N for the feminine form which of course makes me wonder. I think they say that it's just a term to reference feminine abosom in general and not any divine feminine compliment to Nyame. Don't know if it's always been that way or if it's a later development.

Nana Buruku, if I'm not mistaken, is the Supreme Deity for the Ewe/ Aja/ Fon people. And Nana Buruku, from various material I've read, is described as androgynous. Nana Buruku had twins in the form of Mawu and Lisa, yet Mawu-Lisa is also seen as androgynous & separate at different times. We do know that Mawu-Lisa (Mawu-feminine and Lisa-masculine) is the Creatress and the Creator for the Ewe/ Aja/ Fon peoples. And I have heard that one of the praise names for Mawu is Nyamewu which is very similar to Nyamewa. I could be totally off but maybe the thing to do is find out if for the Ewe, Aja or Fon people, "wu" is a feminine indicating suffix.

Now, some people will write Nyame and others will write Onyame. I'm wondering about the latter. Should it be an "o" or should it be that "ɔ" character? And if it is that latter character then could it have been, in the past, something to the effect of Ɔnyame being an androgynous type, but maybe moreso in an inactive state while Nyame and Nyamewa explains the active state of creation?

Just thoughts.

What I do know is that it seems harder to figure this out among the Akan tradition because a lot of what I see could be compared to the deities of other traditions such as those of the Ewe/ Aja/ Fon peoples, the Akan in general don't even acknowledge them as Abosom, but rather as either "nicknames" or bywords for Nyame or as the 7 souls of Nyame. Others have deities that represent these huge universal concepts in existence. In Akan moreso what they acknowledge as Abosom seem more local. Don't hear much at all about an actual abosom of thunder and/ or an abosom of fire. Don't hear much about an abosom of wisdom or divination. Ananse is, what we would say in Jamaica, "ded stamp ah" Eshu meaning he's virtually indisinguishable from Eshu  but they say he ayne an abosom. Odumankoma seems sorta like an Olorun type but they say he ayne an abosom. Oboadee seems sorta like an Obatala type but they say he ayne an abosom. Awoɔ seems like a Shango type but they say he ayne an abosom. Afi seems like an Osun type, but they say she ayne an abosom. Awusi, again, seems like an Obatala type but they say he ayne an abosom. Bena seems like an Ogun type, but they say he ayne an abosom.

Makes me wonder if it's true or if they ARE but they ayne acknowledged anymore predominantly.

Anyway, the point is that while oneness for them means one gender and always male, it seems that a lot of our traditions do acknowledge a state of oneness as undifferentiated energy/ matter (male and female properties united into one) as well as the state of "dependent separation" or "cooperative change" if you will. No complete and utter dominance of one gender over the other or alienation of any gender.

***shrugs***

[Agbede]

"...

• ne of the most 'unsacred and pathological acts' that we Culturally Misoriented Kmtyws engage in is our ignoring and rejecting the cumulative-collective wisdom of our Ancestors by calling the Creator by 'foreign/alien' names; names from the cultures of Kmt's staunchest enemies (in effect, calling the Creator 'out of her/his name'). We must return to and reaffirm our own Kmtyw-centered spiritual traditions."
  
  ~Kobi K. K. Kambon
  The Kmtyw Personality in America: An Kmtyw-Centered Framework

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

Akhu;35746 wrote: "...

• ne of the most 'unsacred and pathological acts' that we Culturally Misoriented Kmtyws engage in is our ignoring and rejecting the cumulative-collective wisdom of our Ancestors by calling the Creator by 'foreign/alien' names; names from the cultures of Kmt's staunchest enemies (in effect, calling the Creator 'out of her/his name'). We must return to and reaffirm our own Kmtyw-centered spiritual traditions."
  
  ~Kobi K. K. Kambon
  The Kmtyw Personality in America: An Kmtyw-Centered Framework

BlackTastic quote, Akhu!

[imhotep1906]

I find the notion of God being an Indo-eureurasiaan word to be folk etymology. The word is not Indo-eureurasiaan, but Kmtyw. It comes from an old Niger-Congo/Kongo-Saharan root that means "sky, heaven." In proto-Bantu this is *godo/*gudu "sky, heaven." You know this term as Kulu "sky, heaven" in Bantu. The k/g is a prefix.The real root is lu/du/ru which denotes "height, distance, top, exhalation, elevation, etc." This same root gave us Olu in Yoruba, El in Canaanite, Ilu in Babylonian, Allah in aAmwic. All are terms denoting sky and elevation. The Indo-eureurasiaan languages have many old Kmtyw terms because they derive ultimately from Kmtyw languages. There are such things as global-etymologies.

The concept of "that which is invoked" is guess work. God is a "title" used for the Creator, ancestors or elders in Kmtyw languages. It denotes age and why Unkulunkulu among the Zulu means "the oldest of the old." A matter of fact, the word Zulu is a palatalized form of *godo/*gudu. In Proto-Bantu the /l/ sound derived often from /d/. So among the Chagga-Bantu the term for the creator is Gulu.

I discuss this at length in my latest eBook Passion of the Christ or Passion of Osiris: the Kongo Origins of the Jesus Myth. More information can be seen here: Passion of the Christ, or Passion of Osiris

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

At what point did all the /l/ sounds in the history of english become /d/ sounds?
Also what motivated the shift? Was it a push chain or a pull chain?

[imhotep1906]

Okyeame Kwame;42185 wrote: At what point did all the /l/ sounds in the history of english become /d/ sounds?
Also what motivated the shift? Was it a push chain or a pull chain?

Who said all the l's in the history of English became d's? And why would that be relevant given that I stated, as an example in Bantu, that the /d/ became /l/ in terms of the Proto-Bantu reconstruction of *godo/*gudu?

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

imhotep1906;42188 wrote: Who said all the l's in the history of English became d's? And why would that be relevant given that I stated, as an example in Bantu, that the /d/ became /l/ in terms of the Proto-Bantu reconstruction of *godo/*gudu?

I ask because you seem to be unaware of grimm's law and verner's law. Do you know what those are?
Are you aware that sound change is
1) regular
2) phonologically motivated/conditioned?

Are you saying that contemporary english "god" is derived from the proto-form *godo/*gudu? If you are then you are saying a lot in terms of sound changes that must have/or must have not occurred throughout the language so I'd like to pin down exactly what you are saying.

[imhotep1906]

Well we shouldn't assume. I am very familiar with both "laws" and others; especially the Neogrammarian Hypothesis which states that every word has its own history. This challenges the regularity of sound change and "lexical diffusion" which assumes sound change affects all words at the same rate. The point is that researchers "assume", as attested in their works, that God derives from Sanskrit hu which means "that which is invoked." They do this without explaining the final /d/ (t in Germanic). Several  definitions I've seen states "the gods which are invoked" which means it can't mean "gods" if the "gods" are invoked. They don't know what the word means and usually this means that they haven't examined Kmtyw languages so they resort to folk etymology.

All names for "God" in eureurasiaan languages, no matter what the pronunciation, is equivalent to "sky, heavens, high." It is the same in Kmtyw languages. Again, I deal with this partially in the already mentioned publication and I will expand on another dedicated to the titled God.

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

imhotep1906;42201 wrote: Well we shouldn't assume. I am very familiar  with both "laws" and others; especially the Neogrammarian Hypothesis  which states that every word has its own history. This challenges the  regularity of sound change and "lexical diffusion" which assumes sound  change affects all words at the same rate. The point is that researchers  "assume", as attested in their works, that God derives from Sanskrit hu  which means "that which is invoked." They do this without explaining  the final /d/ (t in Germanic). Several  definitions I've seen states  "the gods which are invoked" which means it can't mean "gods" if the  "gods" are invoked. They don't know what the word means and usually this  means that they haven't examined Kmtyw languages so they resort to  folk etymology.

All names for "God" in eureurasiaan languages, no matter what the  pronunciation, is equivalent to "sky, heavens, high." It is the same in  Kmtyw languages. Again, I deal with this partially in the already  mentioned publication and I will expand on another dedicated to the  titled God.

Let's get to the bottom of this so we can resolve this issue quickly (and also so innocent people are not confused about what historical linguistics is and what it isn't)

Are you saying that contemporary english "god" is derived from the  proto-form *godo/*gudu?  

Please give the proto-form that you are positing english god is derived from.

1) If the proto-form you are positing english god is derived from is from guthrie's reconstruction of proto-Bantu, what methodology did guthrie use to arrive at the proto-form? Was it the comparative method assuming regular sound change?  
2) If you've arrived at your own proto-form, what methodology are you yourself using other than looking at surface forms and similar glosses into contemporary english and assuming that they are related?
3) What, if any, relationship is there between dutch god, german gott, old nordic guð, gothic guþ and english god?
4) What is the english gloss of sanskrit huta?Please number your responses to the questions.

Also, if you plan on using wikipedia's page on the comparative method to understand historical linguistics on the fly, you may want to read clearly. The Neogrammarian Hypothesis says the EXACT OPPOSITE!!! It says that there are NO EXCEPTIONS to sound laws. :hello: