Theophilus Mwené Ndzalé Obenga , born with Mbaya, (Republic of Congo), on February 2nd, 1936, is Egyptologist, Linguiste and Historien. With Sheik Anta Diop, it defends a vision of the African history centred on the concerns of the African researchers and intellectual, anxious to revisit their inheritance (Afrocentrisme).

Doctor d' arts État in Social sciences (Sorbonne), it studied various disciplines: philosophy, comparative historical linguistics, prehistoric archeology, sciences of education, Egyptology. Theophilus Obenga studied philosophy at the university of Bordeaux. He made studies of history at the Collège de France, Paris, and learned Egyptology with Geneva. He also followed a training in sciences of education to Pittsburgh. Among its professors, there were Emile Benveniste in historical linguistics, Jean Leclant and Charles Maystre in Egyptology, Rodolphe Kasser in copte, Lionel Balout in human paleontology. Former managing director of the international Center of civilizations bantu (CICIBA) to Libreville, he is today professor with the faculty of African civilizations to the Université of State of San Francisco, which is a campus of the University of California.

He also Co-directs Ankh , the “Review of Egyptology and African civilizations” published in Paris region. Inter alia scientific concerns, this review explores the various ways of research initiated or renewed by Sheik Anta Diop, from the epistemological point of view replaçant old Egypt in what he regards as his “African natural framework” and like one of “old négro-African civilizations”.

Common origin of the négro-African languages

Theophilus Obenga is the author of a historical theory of linguistics which he baptized “négro-Egyptian”, this one would identify properties common to the “négro-African” languages, establishing a genetic relationship between the aforementioned languages; including the old Egyptian and the copte. The négro-Egyptian would be, according to Theophilus Obenga, “the common ancestor prédialectal” of the old or contemporary “négro-African” languages.

This author thus thinks to have theoretically reconstituted the linguistic matrix of this genetic relationship of the négro-African languages.

In 1925, the linguist Antoine Meillet, in his work entitled the comparative method in historical linguistics , wondered about the possibility of a common origin of the “negro languages of Africa”. But the bases of a theory of “African historical linguistics” were thrown by the professor Sheik Anta Diop, as of its first work entitled negro Nations and culture (1954) where it presented, inter alia, a “Egyptian comparative study of grammars and valaf”. For Sheik Anta Diop, the theory of the négro-Egyptian is certainly the basic element of the afrocentric sales economy on a cultural unit of high antiquity between the various “populations autochtones of Africa”.

Obenga distinguishes three big families from languages in Africa; namely the khoisan, the Berber one, and the négro-Egyptian. It subdivides this last family in five sub-groups: Egyptian languages (old Egyptian and copte), tchadic languages, couchitic languages, nilo-Saharan languages and the languages nigéro-kordofaniennes.

Methodology

Rules of historical linguistics

According to Theophilus Obenga, in general the languages evolve/move, were not written; as well in space with the liking of the migrations of their speakers, as in time because of the historicity of the sociétaux phenomena.

For him, “historical linguistics” or “linguistic historical genetics” consists of a diachronic prospect for the study of the languages aiming at giving an account of this dynamic nature of the linguistic phenomena. With this intention, this scientific discipline mobilizes the descriptive data placed at the disposal by the synchronic linguistic studies (lexicology, phonology, morphology, grammar, etc), by comparing them of a language with others (or of language with language) inside a beforehand given corpus thanks to the empirical observation of some similarities. This comparative step aims, according to him, to test the aforementioned similarities, in order to know if they “fortuitous”, “are borrowed”, “convergent”, or “inherited”.

In the group of languages considered, only the regular character of the inherited linguistic properties would be constitutive of the “genetic relationship” common to these languages. In other words, according to Obenga, one should only speak about “genetic relationship” common to languages, on the one hand if they present between them inherited similarities; in addition if the regular evolution in time and space of the aforesaid similarities can be highlighted by the method of historical linguistics.

Though initially elaborate within the framework of the study of the languages known as Indo-European or Semitic, according to Emile Beneveniste historical linguistics can also apply to other languages of the world; they were known as “exotics”, “primitives” or “without history”. Theophilus Obenga, estimating that the “ultimate goal of this linguistics is to be able to operate a general classification of all the known human languages”, undertook - following Sheik Anta Diop - to apply the method of historical linguistics to the linguistic phenomena “négro-African”.

Criteria of validity of the négro-Egyptian

Africa is famous to shelter a very great multitude of languages; but it also produced several written forms autochtones.

According to Theophilus Obenga, “the language has an oral tradition independent of the writing”; i.e. it consists of an autonomous system, having its own properties, independently of what it is written or not. These properties could thus be studied for themselves, but also compared with those of other languages of the same space time.

However, according to this author, the knowledge of these properties, a fortiori the knowledge of their evolution, supposes that are available scriptural documents, higher possible seniority, making it possible to attest some scientifically. With regard to the evolution of the African linguistic phenomena, the Egyptian hieroglyphic texts would hold this role of “witness”; because according to Theophilus Obenga, the heuristicity of the study of the old Egyptian within the framework of the African languages would have been recognized with the International symposium of Cairo 1974 on the settlement of old Egypt by “ all the participants”.

For the knowledge of the phonological properties of the old Egyptian, Obenga considers that the sound system of the copte can be mobilized. It is based in that on the opinion of Champollion the Young person who, in his Egyptian Grammaire , saw the copte, for “essence”, like a late state of the old Egyptian.

Moreover, Obenga poses that the important hiatus, in time and space, between the “pilot” language - the old Egyptian - and the other African languages consolidates the assumption of the character inherited the similarities highlighted by their comparison, with the detriment of phenomena of loan, convergence, or chance.

Morphological correspondences

Work of Theophilus Obenga has a double objective: to propose the bringings together between the old Egyptian and the languages of Black Africa to accredit its theory of a common origin, and to propose the divergences between the old Egyptian and the Berber and Semitic languages to try to extract it from the family of the Afro-Asian Languages in which linguistics place usually the old Egyptian.

Formation of plural

According to Theophilus Obenga, many African languages, including the old Egyptian and the copte, form the plural of the substantives in - W (- or) for the male names; and - wt (- out) for the female names:

• Egyptian old: RN, " nom" ; pl. rnw/snt, " soeur" ; pl. snwt
• Azer : sane, " étoile" , pl. sanu/fare, " âne" , pl. faru
• Bambara (mandé): Ba, " mère" ; pl. beam/morho, " homme" , pl. morhu
• Ewe: ATI, " arbre" ; pl. atiwo
• Sarakollé : kompe, " case" , pl. kompu/iaharé, " femme" , pl. iaharu

By comparison with Berber plural:

• alut, " orgelet" , pl. iluten
• to gadir, " mur" ; pl. igudar
• were, " main" ; pl. ifessen
• azmez, " nègre" ; pl. zemzan

For this author: “the formation of plural as an Egyptian and négro-African is done by suffixation of elements to the forms of the singular”; while into Semitic and Berber, the plural of a word can be a very other word (azmez/zemzan), or an internal transformation of the singular (were/ifessen).

Grammatical formation of abstract

For Theophilus Obenga, into an old Egyptian, bw results in “place”, “place”. And according to this author, bw (or my in copte) is used like prefixes of a verb to form a name; or of an adjective to form abstract. According to him, this linguistic property is also observed in other négro-African languages. And he considers that it has nothing to do with the way in which are formed names and abstract into Berber and into Semitic.

• Egyptian old: nfr, “good”; bw nfr, “the good”
• Copte: shopi, “to live”; my-N-shopi, “remains”
• Hausa: sabka, “to discharge”; masabki, “a housing”
• Wolof: rafèt, “(to be) beautiful”; drunk rafèt, “what is beautiful” = “beautiful” the

Theophilus Obenga considers more generally than in the family of language négro-égytienne, to form a name or abstract starting from morpheme, one suffix or affix particle:

• Ewe: keke, “broad”; kekeme, “width”
• Luganda: Bi, “bad”; bubi, “badly”
• Teke: bwe, “beautiful”; bubwe, “beauty”

Syntactic similarities

• Egyptian old: bw nfr hpr m bw bin
• Translation: “what was good became, transformed itself (hpr) into quality of (m) what was bad. ”
• Wolof: drunk rafèt mel nor drunk good
• Translation: “what is good resembles (mel) as (nor) what is bad.”

For Theophilus Obenga, the syntax of the sentence wolof is similar to that of the sentence as former Egyptians to express the same opinion rigorously. In other words, he considers that Wolof and Anciens Egyptians grammatically organize the words in the same way, in order to express the same ideas. And this syntactic paradigm would differ from what is in force into Berber or in the Semitic languages.

• Other examples of syntactic similarities

• fang/Egyptian old
• Fang = " nlo dzo Ba adzo dzam da" : " head sky and head word business une"
• Fang = " akom Ba akua dzam da" : " dance and crucible thing une"
• Egyptian old = " hprr hpr m Hpri: " scarabé to exist en/dans genius of the sun levant"
• Egyptian old = " S Mrw it.k" : " scribe Merou father toi"
• Egyptian old/duala
• Egyptian old: bin N **it = " it is (will be) badly for the père"
• Duala: di-bena Na *te = " the evil is (will be) for the père"
• Egyptian old: *** N **it = " come towards the père"
• Duala: yi-a Na *te = " come towards the père"

According to Alain Anselin, the rules of construction of a sentence, those controlling the fitting of the words to produce direction, are similar in Fang and an old Egyptian; just like between the duala and the old Egyptian.

Phonology of the négro-Egyptian

Lexicology of the négro-Egyptian

Classification of the languages négro-Egyptian women

Critical of afroasiatic by Obenga

Case of the inherited lexicon

According to Theophilus Obenga, certain words are seldom borrowed by a language from another; they known as “are inherited”. According to him, it would be the case, in particular, of the words to name the parts of the body, or the stars visible with the naked eye. So that the morphological and lexicological similarity of these words in several languages would forecast, according to him, of a filiation between these languages, even if that is not enough to conclude. Here, for the same series of words, which it is the Semitic one, former Egyptian and the Berber one according to Theophilus Obenga:

• “Sun”

• Semitic commun run: sms
• Arab: sams
• ugarit = sps
• former Egyptian: ruffle, Berber D
• : tafukt

• “year”

• lihyanite: Hebrew Sn
• : sànà
• Arab: sanat
• former Egyptian: rnpt, rompè, rompi
• Berber: asggas

• Arab “night”

• : layl
• Ethiopian: lèlit
• Hebrew: lùn, flax
• ugaritic: lyn
• former Egyptian: grh, d3w
• Berber: id

• “ear”

• accadien: uzun
• Assyrian: uzan
• Hebrew: ozen
• Arab: udn
• former Egyptian: msdr
• Berber: amezzuγ

• “brother”

• accadien: ahu
• ugaritique : ah
• Hebrew: `àh
• syriaque : `ahà
• former Egyptian: Sn, its
• Berber: G-my (pl. have-my)

• Arab “tooth”

• : sinn
• éthiopen : SEN
• former Egyptian: tst
• Berber: akhs, ahs

• “black”

• Arab: aswad
• kémètique : km, Berber kame, kèmi
• : isgin, isggan, istif

• “blood”

• Semitic commun run: prejudice
• former Egyptian: snf, snof, snfw
• Berber: idammen

• Hebrew “house”

• : bayit
• former Egyptian: Berber Pr
• : tigemmi

According to Theophilus Obenga, there are no lexical correspondences between Semitic, Berber and former Egyptian, for the series suggested. Admittedly, according to him, the lexical series, even with regard to the inherited words, would not prove the genetic relationship. But, he considers that a very strong correlation of these series between several languages could be the consequence, the least difficult to check, of a genetic relationship between these languages. Moreover, according to Theophilus Obenga, méthodologiquement it would not be interdict to start from one of the strongly probable consequences of a phenomenon to identify the cause of it.

Case of the unilitères roots

• “Mouth”
• accadien = pù
• ugaritic = p
• Hebraic = Arab EP
• = fu; fam
• Ethiopian = `af
• former Egyptian = r3
• Berber = imi
• ghadamsi = friendly
• zenaga = immi

• “Sheep”

• accadien = known' U
• ugaritic = S
• Hebraic =
• Arab = its'
• former Egyptian = Zr, Sr
• copte = sro
• Berber = ahruy

when the Semitic one is unilitère the Egyptian is, him, bilitère on inherited words: accadien ahu, “brother”, ugaritic `ah, Hebraic `ah, syriaque `aha, rabe `ah in comparison of the Egyptian Sn and the copte his, san, SEN. The Berber one also appears separately, morphologiquement and phonetically: gma, pl. aitma. That one still considers ugaritic G, “voice”, vis-a-vis the Egyptian hrw, the copte hroù, hroou. It is also noted that, when the Egyptian is typically unilitère, the Semitic one is either bilitère or trilitère on the same inherited words: Egyptian z3, s3, “wire”, the Semitic commun run is bn, the phenician bl, araméen Br; Egyptian Z, S, “man”, vis-a-vis old the accadien abilum/awilum, “man”. The Berber one is distant and from the accadien and the Pharaonic Egyptian: yiwi, “my son”, pl. tarua, “my sons”; azag, “man”. The copte is obviously of the vocalized Egyptian: its, “man”. The mbochi (language bantu) is close to the Pharaonic Egyptian and the copte: OSI, “man originating in”.

Case of the bilitères roots

• “name”
• former Egyptian = RN
• copte = ran, ren, lan, len
• accadien = sumu
• ugaritic = sèm
• Hebraic = sèm
• araméen = sum
• Arab = `ism
• Berber = ism

For Theophilus Obenga: RN, ran, len, lan, would be of nothing similar morphologiquement with sem, sumu, ism, sum.

• “all”

• former Egyptian = Nb
• copte = nim, niben, nifen, nibi, nibe
• ugaritic = kl
• Hebraic = kol
• syriaque = kol
• Berber = kul, kullu

According to Theophilus Obenga, there would be no morphological agreement between nb/nibe and kl/kol, or kul/kullu.

• “ground”

• former Egyptian = T3
• copte = to, to, you
• ugaritic = àrs
• Hebraic = `eras
• syriaque = `rear' with
• Arab = `ard
• Berber = akal

For Theophilus Obenga, “when the Semitic one is bilitère (r-s) and even trilitère (r-s-t), the Egyptian, Pharaonic and copte, are presented in the form of a unilitère (T). The Berber one as for him wants to be other (k-l). The differences are eloquent by themselves. ”.

Case of the trilitères roots

• “star”
• accadien = kakkabu
• Hebraic = kokàb
• Arab = kawkab
• former Egyptian = sb3
• copte = siwu
• Berber = itri

For Theophilus Obenga, the consonant roots would be very different enters, respectively, Semitic (k-k-b), former Egyptian (Sb, s-w) and the Berber one (tr).

Critics Africanists of the négro-Egyptian

In a collective work entitled Afrocentrismes, the history of the Africans between Egypt and America , Henry Tourneux and Pascal Vernus showed themselves very critical against the arguments called upon in favor of a linguistic family “négro-Egyptian woman”.

In a article published in the African review Political , Henry Tourneux stresses that all the references of Obenga on the tchadique one would go back to before 1950; no mention would have been made of “the series published in the editions of CNRS under the direction of J. Perrot: languages in the old and modern world , whose one very large volume is devoted to the languages of sub-Saharan Africa (1981) and another with the Hamito-Semitic languages (1988). ”

According to Henry Tourneux, “the coincidence of three noncontiguous languages is enough Obenga to guarantee the common character, “négro-Egyptian”, of a mot.” In other words, it would be enough that a linguistic fact is attested in one or two languages of “négro-African” of Obenga (the third language being the Egyptian) so that the proof is had that the linguistic fact in question concerns a “négro-Egyptian”. However, according to Tourneux, it would be necessary that it had there correspondents in all the branches of the alleged négro-Egyptian woman family.

For Tourneux, certain correspondences made by Obenga would be erroneous. Thus of the Egyptian S (3) m ( sm3 according to Obenga), “priest S (3) m ”, related by Obenga with:

• kanuri same “sky”
• hawsa sama “sky”,
• sénoufo sama “good”,
• songhai sama “to be beautiful”,
• sainua “to preserve health, to save death”,
• will bambara sama “to offer a gift”

However, according to H. Tourneux, the kanuri and the hawsa sama would be actually loans “proven” with Arabic sama “sky”, the sénoufo and the songhai same would come from beautiful Arabic samha “, good”. Moreover, known as the author, the Egyptian word S (3) m would not mean “sky”, “good”, “beautiful” etc But, according to the determinative one, it would have as a direction “to seize”, “to burn” or “to sadden”. Tourneux challenges the fastening of this vast semantic field négro-African with the Egyptian S (3) m . According to him, the explanation of Obenga would not be admissible, namely that “the priest sem “sm3, sowed”, was to make the god equipped beautiful and strong, to preserve his health thus; the present did not miss. Thus equipped, honoured, purified, the god was to keep the cosmic order, the celestial order. ”. Tourneux estimates that identity of two semantic fields, Obenga would deduce a linguistic relationship wrongly.

Answers of Theophilus Obenga

In an opuscule entitled the direction of the fight against the Africanism eurocentrist , Theophilus Obenga answered criticisms of the two Africanists, whom he regards as not being specialists in historical linguistics. The word négro-Egyptian sem which Tourneux (pp.90-91) examines '' Afrocentrismes ''… is precisely rich, in the plan lexicological, semantic, cultural and anthropological; the vocabulary is not only the lexicon; it is also culture, company, psychology; - the facts remain valid, excluded the loans:

• Egyptian: sem " prêtre" , vêtu of a skin of leopard, charged with the divine toilet
• will bambara: " sowed; chief of culte"
• malinké: sow " chief of culte"
• kikongo: " sowed; to sanctify, honor, bénir"
• teke: sow " prier" , " sanctifier" , " to honor, bénir" , even thing in Mbochi
• fang: sow " to adore, honorer"

According to Jean-Pierre Bamouan Boyala, the priest sem , with his skin of leopard and his functions in the funerary rites, evokes similar institutions in Black Africa, in particular that of the nganga . So that, according to Theophilus Obenga, it is not only the word, but also what it names and its context of performance which are common to the cultures ancient Egyptian woman and négro-African contemporary.

For Theophilus Obenga, It is well damage, Tourneux does not say the truth:

• Egyptian: fdw " quatre"
• copte: ftoou, ftau, ftoe, fto, bto, bta, fteu, fte
• tchadic: fad, fwot, fudo, fudu, mfad, pudu, etc: 42 certificates
• burji: foola, foole; the burji is couchitic: I give it after the tchadique one, but Tourneux sees without seeing; it is its choice, and yet it quotes page 324 of my book where precisely the burji is. My demonstration, according to the rules, remains convincing, because " a bringing together, even limited to two dialects, can pass for sure in certain cases particuliers" (Antoine Millet, " Introduction to the comparative study of the languages indo-européennes" , Alabama, university off Alabama Near, 1978, p.380).

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