Saturday, January 31, 2009

Ge'ez origin of Devanagari Writing of India


Ge'ez
Sanskrit/ Nagari

Brahmi

Ancient Ethiopian traditions support the rule of Puntites or Ethiopians of India. In the Kebra Nagast, we find mention of the Arwe kings who ruled India. The founder of the dynasty was Za Besi Angabo. This dynasty according to the Kebra Nagast began around 1370 BC. These rulers of India and Ethiopia were called Nagas.


The Kebra Nagast claims that " Queen Makeda "had servants and merchants; they traded for her at sea and on land in the Indies and Aswan". It also says that her son Ebna Hakim or Menelik I, made a campaign in the Indian Sea; the king of India made gifts and donations and prostrated himself before him". It is also said that Menalik ruled an empire that extended from the rivers of Egypt (Blue Nile) to the west and from the south Shoa to eastern India", according to the Kebra Nagast. The Kebra Nagast identification of an eastern Indian empre ruled by the Naga, corresponds to the Naga colonies in the Dekkan, and on the East coast between the Kaviri and Vaigai rivers.


The major gift of the Naga to India was the writing system: Nagari. Nagari is the name for the Sanskrit script. Over a hundred years ago Sir William Jones, pointed out that the ancient Ethiopic and Sanskrit writing are one and the same.

William Jones, explained that the Ethiopian origin of Sanskrit was supported by the fact that both writing systems the writing went from left to right and the vowelswere annexed to the consonants. Today Eurocentric scholars teach that theIndians taught writing to the Ethiopians, yet the name Nagari for Sanskritbetrays the Ethiopia origin of this form of writing. Moreover, it is interesting to note that Sanskrit vowels: a,aa,',I,u,e,o, virama etc., are in the same order as Geez.



The Indian Ethiopians called Naga, made one important improvement over the Ethiopic alphabetic scripts. This improvement was the addition of vowels to the alphabet.

The major contribution to the Ethiopian Nagas was the Indian writing system called Deva-Nagari. Nagari is the name for the Sanskrit writing system. Over a hundred years ago Sir William Jones, pointed out that Ge'ez and Sanskrit writing are one and the same. He explained that this was supported by the fact that both writing systems went from left to right, Sanskrit and Ge'ez share udentical vowels in the same order, and the vowels were annexed to the consonants.


Today Eurocentric scholars teach that the Indians taught writing to the Ethioipians, or Ethiopian writing came from Yemen, yet the name Nagari for Sanskrit betrays the Ethiopian origin for this form of writing. In Ge'ez the term nagar means 'speech, to speak'. Thus we have in Ge'ez, with the addition of pronouns: nagara 'he spoke, nagast 'she spoke' and nagarku 'I spoke'.

The origin of Devanagari was as a trade language or lingua franca is evident in any discussion of this term. Sanskrit was, and has always been mainly an oral language until Panini and others wrote a grammar for it . This is why neither the Ge'ez or Sanscript word for 'writing' was ever applied to Devanagari. It is for this reason that it was called Deva+nagari 'the sacre speech'.

There is no Indian etymology that explains Nagari as the name for the Sanskrit language. It is clear that Devanagari means 'Divine city' or 'Sacre city' or 'City of God'. That is why the term script, is placed in brackets in your definitions:" meaning the "urban(e) [script] of the deities (= gods)", i.e. "divine urban(e) [script]".

There is nothing in Sanascrit that allows the term Deva+nagari to represent anything but Deva (sacre, deity, god)+ nagari (city, of the city). For example lets look at deva+ , e.g., devata+maya 'containing all the gods'; deva+putra 'son of god'; deva+nadi 'divine river'; deva+linga 'statue of god ; and deva+nagari 'sacre city'. Lets look at nagari: avanti+nagari 'the city of Uggayini; Yama-nagari 'city of Yama'; and Indra+nagari 'city of Indra'.

These Sanskrit examples make it clear that Deva and nagari has nothing to do with 'writing'. Some researchers have claimed that devanagari= "sacre urbane [wiritng]", because they want to have an etymology for this term. Yet as noted by the Wikipedia site Sanskrit is often simply known as "Nagari" .

This supports my earlier view that the Ethiopian term Nagari, was used to represent writing by the inventors of Sanskrit, which was probably used as a lingua franca by the Ethiopians who ruled India and lived primarially in Indian urban areas. This means that Deva+nagari = 'Sacre Writing', not 'urbane [script] of the Deity'.

They used the term nagari, due to the fact that Sanskrit was originally a lingua franca used by the Ethiopians to communicate with their subjects and other diverse people in India. Because of its possible origin as a trade language, spoken Sanskrit acquired the name "Nagari" 'speech'.
Since it probably originated as a lingua franca, it was later written in Ge'ez or some other Ethiopian script. When Panini and others wrote grammars of Sanskrit they continued to call it by the name given it by its creator: Nagari 'speech'.

This is why attempts to provide a native etymology for nagari 'city, urban(e)' when interpreting Devanagari fails, it fails because Devanagari was a lingua franca and over time the proper meaning of the term was lost as various grammarian refined Sanskrit.

First of all Ge'ez dates back to 500 BC, whereas Brahmi dates to 264-271BC. As a result Devanagari has nothing to do with Brahmi. Brami is a syllabary whereas Devanagari is abugida.


A cursory comparison of the scripts, indicates that Ge'ez shows more similarity to Devanagari that Brahmi does to Devanagari.A comparison of Devanagari and Ge'ez shows many similar signs.


Deavanagari …………..Ge'ez

Ka………………………k'a,



k'eÞa…………………….ta



Þha……………….ta



Ya…………………ye



^Jha ……………he



Ha………………he



Va………………wa



Ra……………..rä



Dha………….da



Ba…………….be



Ra…………….rä



Da………………dä



Œa…………..ze



Sa…………..zu


Vowels



u………….u



e…………ä



u………..a

It is clear fron this comparison of Devanagari and Ge'ez we see the following consonantal patterns:K/kÞ/tD/dS/zŒ/zVowel patternA/äU/ uU/aA/e


This comparison of Ge'ez and Devanagari suggest a stronger influence of Ge'ez on Devanagari than Brahmi.

As you can clearly see from a comparison of the scripts that Ge'ez shows more similarity to Devanagari than Brahmi does to Devanagari.

5 comments:

REE MEZEZE said...

Hey there,

good info you got there.
From my research I know that there is no language and writting called Ge'ez. The fidels are abstractions of the hieroglyphs dating back more than 5000 years back. The hieroglyphs are written in Amaharigna and Tigrigna.
So there could be a possible link between the role of Eritrean/ Ethiopian people and there conquests in India.

E

Unknown said...

Its a pity the Ethopians who are from Africa did no spread their writing to the rest of dark Africa. And what about the intellect of the Ethopians on the maths front.We dont hear anything about that?

Anonymous said...

Ethopians a great people are Semites like the Jews. Indians are mainly Aryan with very strong epics and Aryan history. The history of India, Iran and central Asian is pure Aryan

Anonymous said...

Ethopians a great people are Semites like the Jews. Indians are mainly Aryan with very strong epics and Aryan history. The history of India, Iran and central Asian is pure Aryan. From India

ma – ayi kimanveastavyam.
Avivahasamayad grihe vane shaishave tadanu yauvane puna.
svapaheturanupashritonyaya ramavahurupadhanamesa te.. 37..

Sita – (nidram natyayanti.) astyetat. Aryaputra astyetat. ( iti svapiti. ) (ka)

From Iran

I am Dariush, the great king, the king of kings
The king of many countries and many peoples
The king of this expansive land,
The son of Wishtaspa of Achaemenid,
Persian, the son of a Persian,
'Aryan', from the Aryan race
"From the Darius the Great's Inscription in Naqshe-e-Rostam"
Written in 500BC

Thus you and your semitc friends can have no effect on Aryavarta.

Tejaswininimburia said...

Most of the fairskinned people of India are suffering from Western phobia. What Jones had said last century is perfectly true. The North Indian soceity presents diametrically opposite way of life unlike Andhra-Tamilnadu where urban centers were existing and there is no pure equivalent word in Dravidian Languages for village since the scriptures always speaks about Parvathas, Aranyas and Gramas. It is a fact that these three category of people do not need Varnasrama since Varnasrama is required only for urban people and not for rural people. Even now we find that village people have their own way of life as compared to Hindu conscious urban people. The paradox is that most Brahmins dont want to live in villages due to absence of hierarchy as well as money in villages. Thus what has actually done in Sanskrit is sophistication of village rituals in good Sanskrit - CITY LANGUAGE-DEVA NAGARI, even now if we look into the worship of southern tip of Tamil nadu you will find that the so called Aryan rituals are done for GUARDIAN DEITIES unlike in the case of SIVA PERUMAL TEMPLES. It is further interesting to note that all the major festivals commence with the worship of Guardian Deities only. Hence setting aside the greatness of Aryans etc., Sanskrit has evolved from a more urbane language and the the village rituals have been given sophistication just like translation of all books in English. The proposition is completely correct. Tejaswini