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Fuzzy Boundaries or Hard Borders? Cultural
Groupings in Second Millennium bc Nubia from
the View of Linguistic Evidence
Julien Cooper
Macquarie
julien.cooper@mq.edu.au
Abstract
in the archaeological record demonstrate similar homogeneity in linguistic identity?
this linguistic map? With a focus on pragmatic arguments and the use of later linguistic
Keywords
1 Sources for Identifying Languages in the Middle Nile
any models that attempt to trace the ancient languages of the region are all
the linguist can also ‘look backwards’ or retroject the contemporary linguistic
in doing so can make educated guesses or hypotheses about where certain
multiple languages and their possible geographic origins or migrations from the
postulated ‘homeland’ (Urheimat) (
words can also demonstrate the broad linguistic phylum to which these names
dynasties along with their parentage and place of origin (
cooper
2 Mapping Languages in the Second Millennium bce
Middle
Breyer
C) does not
by
fuzzy boundaries or hard borders?
from the Biblical usage of ‘Cush’ (
Nubische Grammatik mit einer Einleitung über die Völker und
cooper
Sprachen Afrika’s (
fuzzy boundaries or hard borders?
along with the addition of other ‘Meroitic’ personal names present in the
This language could be a Cushitic
cooper
Cooper
fuzzy boundaries or hard borders?
‘to
kehan ‘to
etc
2.1 Names for Peoples and Polities in Nubia in the Second Millennium
bce
there is a
by one ruler (
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and later regularized as and
after all it was used much later in the indigenous Meroitic script for the name
Qes (
in the form of the large Kerma classique
and ‘Bowmen’ unlikely concord to any realities on the ground and were used
(
‘Medjay’ (
but rather it did not suit the purpose of
Obsomer
fuzzy boundaries or hard borders?
all
in
md.t) of
Kush’ after or before which as yet untranslatable utterances are recited (Thissen
the ‘speech of Nsk
the Beja language (
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the Ramesseum and the temple of Ramesses
likewise accompanied by what must be a few words of foreign speech in the
While
interpreters belonged to each of these places – although it is not certain that
in each case these ‘interpreters’ were necessarily concerned with linguistic
Alù in press)
‘(that
2.2 Linguistic Frontiers and Boundaries in the Middle Nile
modern societies and just how ‘marked’ cultural and linguistic boundaries
see
fuzzy boundaries or hard borders?
de
The Kushite realm
King Trh
of dialogue and bilingualism between foreign speakers and scribes trained in
and
cooper
Often languages spread not only along ecological
Cooper
This
fuzzy boundaries or hard borders?
The third linguistic boundary that can be inferred from our sources is the long
and
so there has always been a strong interface between the desert pastoralists and
‘
who while finding
from Beja tak
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3 Languages, Archaeological Horizons, and Migrations in Middle
Nubia
genetically related languages across large regions almost certainly indicates
and migrants shifting to the host language (
elements and aspects of both
The older school of historical linguistics and archaeology that posits masses
fuzzy boundaries or hard borders?
dominant paradigm
for cultural change when many other factors are also at play such as cultural
archaeologists would more or less draw circles on maps around a common
this is a method of identifying sets of material culture unquestionably with an
‘pots equal people’ model (
horizon both
Much of this discomfort relates to a package of associations that come
along with the term ‘migration’ which has quintessentially in the past entailed
sweeping across the landscape and wholesale interrupting and replacing
Urheimat)
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polarized interpretations of migration in history (
these same historical sources has been undermined by a reaction against
migration which started with the archaeologists’ ferocious rejection of
How such historical migrations would manifest on the archaeological record is
fuzzy boundaries or hard borders?
discount ancestral communities speaking this tongue much later in history
The
at least some
there are no traces of this language – but also no
The general thrust of the migration was the
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(
k-languages
These
terminus ante quem
would link this migration to the emergence of the term ‘Kush’ at the beginning
Kerma
ancien) and This model
perhaps after this migration were also speaking another tongue which might
meaning that this migration had
n-
this pronoun with the consonant n
Rilly
was championed by and
fuzzy boundaries or hard borders?
migrations are primarily linguistic in nature – it does not necessarily follow
Although the isolated
of
with the earliest
and
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assist with building projects (
Conclusion
reasonable suggestion based on pragmatics and what we know of regions like
do
languages (
polities of and
Beja or other similar languages – although it seems problematic to link this
fuzzy boundaries or hard borders?
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