The linguistic evidence / Martin Bernal.

Author
Bernal, Martin [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Εdition
1st ed.
Published/​Created
New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2006.
Description
1 online resource (848 p.)

Details

Subject(s)
Series
Black Athena: the Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization ; 3
Summary note
Winner of the American Book Award, 1990. Could Greek philosophy be rooted in Egyptian thought? Is it possible that the Pythagorean theory was conceived on the shores of the Nile and the Euphrates rather than in ancient Greece? Could it be that Western civilization was born on the so-called Dark Continent? For almost two centuries, Western scholars have given little credence to the possibility of such scenarios. In Black Athena, an audacious three-volume series that strikes at the heart of today's most heated culture wars, Martin Bernal challenges Eurocentric attitudes by calling into question two of the longest-established explanations for the origins of classical civilization. The Aryan Model, which is current today, claims that Greek culture arose as the result of the conquest from the north by Indo-European speakers, or "Aryans," of the native "pre-Hellenes." The Ancient Model, which was maintained in Classical Greece, held that the native population of Greece had initially been civilized by Egyptian and Phoenician colonists and that additional Near Eastern culture had been introduced to Greece by Greeks studying in Egypt and Southwest Asia. Moving beyond these prevailing models, Bernal proposes a Revised Ancient Model, which suggests that classical civilization in fact had deep roots in Afroasiatic cultures. This long-awaited third and final volume of the series is concerned with the linguistic evidence that contradicts the Aryan Model of ancient Greece. Bernal shows how nearly 40 percent of the Greek vocabulary has been plausibly derived from two Afroasiatic languages-Ancient Egyptian and West Semitic. He also reveals how these derivations are not limited to matters of trade, but extended to the sophisticated language of politics, religion, and philosophy. This evidence, according to Bernal, confirms the fact that in Greece an Indo-European people was culturally dominated by speakers of Ancient Egyptian and West Semitic. Provocative, passionate, and colossal in scope, this volume caps a thoughtful rewriting of history that has been stirring academic and political controversy since the publication of the first volume. "A work which has much to offer the lay reader, and its multi-disciplinary sweep is refreshing: it is an important contribution to his to historiography and the sociology of knowledge, written with elegance, wit, and self-awareness. a thrilling journey. his account is as gripping a tale of scholarly detection and discovery as one could hope to find." -- Margaret Drabble, The Observer "An astonishing work, breathtaking bold in conception and passionately written. salutary, exciting, and in its historiographical aspects, convincing." -- G. W. Bowersock, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton "The next far in book. A formidable work of intellectual history." -- Christian Science Monitor
Notes
Description based upon print version of record.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliography: p. [523]-564 and index.
Contents
  • Contents; Preface and Acknowledgments; Transcriptions and Phonetics; Maps and Charts; Introduction; The Previous Volumes and Their Reception; ""Classics Has Been Misunderstood""; Anathema from a G.O.M.; Outline of Volume 3; Chapter 1: Historical Linguistics and the Image of Ancient Greek; Nineteenth-Century Romantic Linguistics: The Tree and the Family; Saussure and the Twentieth-Century Epigones of Nineteenth-Century Indo-European Studies; Ramification or Interlacing; Chapter 2: The ""Nostratic"" and ""Euroasiatic"" Hyper- and Super-Families; Nostratic and Euroasiatic
  • Archaeological Evidence for the Origin of Nostratic and Euroasiatic Gordon Childe and Colin Renfrew; Language and Genetics; Conclusion; Chapter 3: Afroasiatic, Egyptian and Semitic; The Origins of African Languages and the Development of Agriculture in Africa; The Origins and Spread of Afroasiatic; Conclusion; Chapter 4: The Origins of Indo-Hittite and Indo-European and Their Contacts with Other Languages; The Origins and Diffusion of Indo-Hittite and Indo-European; Loans from Other Languages into PIH; Development of an Indo-European Gender System Based on Sex; Conclusion
  • Chapter 5: The Greek Language in the Mediterranean Context: Part 1, Phonology Greek: Result of a Linguistic Shift or of Language Contact?; The Elements of the Greek Linguistic Amalgam; The Phonologies of Indo-Hittite and Indo-European; Phonological Developments from PIE to Greek; Conclusion; Chapter 6: The Greek Language in the Mediterranean Context: Part 2, Morphological and Syntactical Developments; Morphology; Syntax; Summary on Syntactical Changes; Conclusion; Chapter 7: The Greek Language in the Mediterranean Context: Part 3, Lexicon; Introduction; The Study of Lexical Borrowings
  • Chapter 14: More Semitic Loans into Greek
Other title(s)
Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization.
ISBN
  • 0-8135-6441-7
  • 1-281-24426-0
  • 9786611244262
  • 0-8135-3754-1
OCLC
  • 476144437
  • 1121054755
Doi
  • 10.36019/9780813564418
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...
Other views
Staff view