EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE IS AFRICAN

"The Egyptian language was st one time classified as a non-African tongue. Scholars claimed that it belonged to a Middle Eastern family called Semitic. This position, however, was publicly refuted once and for all. In 1974 UNESCO called the now historic conference , the Cairo Symposium. UNESCO's aim was to sponsor the writhing of an authentic history of Africa but the ancient Egyptians and their place in African history was a major sticking point. Twenty of the world 's leading Egyptologists participated, including Professor Cheikh Anta Diop and Professor Theophile Obenga. The two Africans presented a mass of linguistic comparisons between Egyptian and Wolof (Senegalese), and Egyptian and Bantu languages. It was generally agreed among the participants that the Egyptian language was indeed an indigenous African tongue related to other African languages. "Moreover, the Semitic or Afro-Semitic language group did not, however, originate in the Middle East, as is popularly believed. Joseph Greenberg , a linguist of great distinction , demonstrated that their true origins were in Ethiopia. Ethiopia and Eritrea has the largest number of Semitic languages spoken today such as Tigrinia and Amharic... "It has always been a puzzle to us how Dr. Greenberg located the parent of Semitic in the highlands of Ethiopia. We have an idea that he derived this view from Herodotus. Herodotus reported, as we shall see in the next chapter, reported that the Phoenicians (a Semitic speaking people), 'according to their own account) originated in Eritrea before migrating to the Middle East. Eritrea is, of course, next door to Ethiopia. "Many modern writers have vented their anger against Herodotus for recording data such as this. Furthermore, they have taken particular exception to the Father of History describing the Egyptians as having black skins and woolly hair, as contained in Book II, section 104 of his 'The Histories.' P. 268-269, "The Egyptian Question," WHEN WE RULED by Robin Walker (2006)