MEROITIC LANGUAGE


Meroitic funerary stela of Waleye son or daughter of Kadeye, from Sai North Sudan, now at the British Museum.

The 'Meroitic language' was spoken in Meroë and the Sudan during the Meroitic period (about 300 BC-400 AD), and is now extinct. It was written in the Meroitic alphabet. It is not very well understood due to the paucity of bilingual texts; the few words whose meanings have been confirmed are inadequate to determine its genetic affiliation, but some linguists have tentatively suggested that it may be Nilo-Saharan, while others see it as a language isolate. It was written in two types of script, demotic (which was written with a stylus and was used for general record keeping, and hieroglyphic, which was used for royal or religious documents.

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Bibliography
External links

Bibliography



★ Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Hrsg.): ''Meroitic newsletter.'' Paris 1968 ff.

★ Gerhard Böhm: ''Die Sprache der Aithiopen im Lande Kusch'' in Beiträge zur Afrikanistik, Band 34, Wien 1988, ISBN 3-85043-047-2

★ Derek A. Welsby: ''The Kingdom of Kush'', British Museum Press, London 1996, S. 189-195, ISBN 071410986X

External links



★ The Linguistic Position of Meroitic, Claude Rilly, CNRS

★ [1]&[2]&[3]& ]&[4]&[5] many texts on deciphering Meroitic language from its writings by Clyde A. Winters(e.g. The Meroitic Word List). Note, these translations are disputed and not accepted by the Meroitic scholarly community.

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