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HAMITIC RACES AND LANGUAGES

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 894 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HAMITIC RACES AND See also:

LANGUAGES . The questions in- volved in a See also:consideration of Hamitic races and Hamitic languages are See also:independent of one another and See also:call for See also:separate treatment. I. Hamitic Races.—The See also:term Hamitic as applied to See also:race is not only extremely vague but has been much abused by anthropological writers. Of the few who have attempted a precise See also:definition the most prominent is Sergi,' and his See also:classification may be taken as representing one point of view with regard to this difficult question. Sergi considers the Hamites, using the term in the racial sense, as a See also:branch of his " Mediterranean Race "; and divides them as follows: 1. Eastern Branch ' (a) See also:Ancient and See also:Modern See also:Egyptian (excluding the See also:Arabs). (b) Nubians, See also:Beja. (c) Abyssinians. (d) Galla, Danakil, Somali. G. Sergi, .The Mediterranean Race.

A Study of the Origin of See also:

European Peoples (See also:London, 1901); idem, See also:Africa, Antropologia della stirpe camitica (See also:Turin, 1897). (e) See also:Masai. (f) Wahuma or Watusi. 2. See also:Northern Branch (a) See also:Berbers of the Mediterranean, See also:Atlantic and See also:Sahara. (b) See also:Tibbu. (c) See also:Fula. (d) See also:Guanches (See also:extinct). With regard to this classification the following conclusions may be regarded as comparatively certain: that the members of See also:groups d, e and f of the first branch appear to be closely inter-connected by ties of See also:blood, and also the members of the second branch. The Abyssinians in the See also:south have absorbed a certain amount of Galla blood, but the See also:majority are Semitic or Semito-See also:Negroid. The question of the racial See also:affinities of the Ancient Egyptians and the Beja are still a See also:matter of doubt, and the relation of the two groups to each other is still controversial. Sergi, it is true, arguing from See also:physical data believes that a See also:close connexion exists; but the data are so extremely scanty that the finality of his conclusion may well be doubted.

His " Northern Branch " corresponds with the more satisfactory term " Libyan Race," represented in See also:

fair purity by the Berbers, and, mixed with See also:Negro elements, by the Fula and Tibbu. This Libyan race is distinctively a See also:white race, with dark See also:curly See also:hair; the Eastern Hamites are equally distinctively a See also:brown See also:people with frizzy hair. If, as Sergi believes, these brown people are themselves a race, and not a See also:cross between white and See also:black in varying proportions, they are found in their greatest purity among the Somali and Galla, and mixed with See also:Bantu blood among the Ba-Hima (Wahuma) and Watussi. The Masai seem to be as much Nilotic Negro as Hamite. This Galla type does not seem to appear farther See also:north than the See also:southern portion of See also:Abyssinia, and it is not unlikely that the Beja are very See also:early Semitic immigrants with an aboriginal Negroid admixture. It is also possible that they and the Ancient Egyptians may contain a See also:common See also:element. The Nubians appear akin to the Egyptians but with a strong Negroid element. To return to Sergi's two branches, besides the See also:differences in skin See also:colour and hair-texture there is also a cultural difference of See also:great importance. The Eastern Hamites are essentially a See also:pastoral people and therefore nomadic or semi-nomadic; the Berbers, who, as said above, are the purest representatives of the Libyans, are agriculturists. The pastoral habits of the Eastern Hamites are of importance, since they show the utmost reluctance to abandon them. Even the Ba-Hima and Watussi, for See also:long settled and partly intermixed with the agricultural Bantu, regard any pursuit but that of See also:cattle-tending as absolutely beneath their dignity. It would seem therefore that, while sufficient data have not been collected to decide whether, on the See also:evidence of exact anthropological measurements, the Libyans are connected racially with the Eastern Hamites, the testimony derived from broad " descriptive characteristics " and See also:general culture is against such a connexion.

To regard the Libyans as Hamites solely on the ground that the languages spoken by the two groups show affinities would be as rash and might be as false as to aver that the See also:

present-See also:day Hungarians are Mongolians because Magyar is an See also:Asiatic See also:tongue. Regarding the present See also:state of knowledge it would be safer therefore to restrict the term Hamites " to Sergi's first See also:group; and call the second by the name " Libyans." The difficult question of the origin of the ancient Egyptians is discussed elsewhere. As to the question whether the Hamites in this restricted sense are a definite race or a blend, no discussion can, in view of the paucity of evidence, as yet See also:lead to a satisfactory conclusion, but it might be suggested very tentatively that further researches may possibly connect them with the See also:Dravidian peoples of See also:India. It is sufficient for present purposes that the term Hamite, using it as coextensive with Sergi's Eastern Hamite, has a definite See also:connotation. By the term is meant a brown people with frizzy hair, of lean and sinewy physique, with slender but See also:muscular arms and legs, a thin straight or even aquiline See also:nose with delicate nostrils, thin lips and no trace of See also:prognathism. (T. A. J.) II. Hamitic Languages.—The whole north of Africa was once inhabited by tribes of the Caucasian race, speaking languages which are now generally called, after See also:Genesis x., Hamitic; a term introduced principally by See also:Friedrich See also:Muller. The linguistic coherence of that race has been broken up especially by the intrusion of Arabs, whose See also:language has exercised a powerful See also:influence on all those nations. This splitting up, and the immense distances over which those tribes were spread, have made those Languages diverge more widely than do the various See also:tongues of the Indo-European stock, but still their See also:affinity can easily be traced by the linguist, and is, perhaps, greater than the corresponding anthropologic similarity between the white Libyan, red Galla and swarthy Somali. The relationship of these languages to Semitic has long been noticed, but was at first taken for descent from Semitic (cf. the name " Syro-Arabian proposed by See also:Prichard).

Now linguists are agreed that the Proto-Semites and Proto-Hamites once formed a unity, probably in See also:

Arabia. That See also:original unity has been demonstrated especially by Friedrich Muller (Reise der osterreichischen Fregatte See also:Novara, p. 51, more fully, Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, vol. iii. fast. 2, p. 226); cf. also A. H. See also:Sayce, See also:Science of Language, ii. 178; R. N. Cust, The Modern Languages of Africa, i. 94, &c. The See also:comparative grammars of Semitic (W.

See also:

Wright, 1890, and especially H. Zimmern, 1898) demonstrate this now to everybody by comparative tables of the grammatical elements. The classification of Hamitic languages is as follows: i 1. The Libyan Dialects (mostly misnamed " See also:Berber languages," after an unfortunate, vague Arabic designation, See also:bat-Ora, " people of See also:foreign language "). The representatives of this large group extend from the See also:Senegal See also:river (where they are called See also:Zenaga; imperfect Grammaire by L. See also:Faidherbe, 1877) and from See also:Timbuktu (See also:dialect of the Auelimmiden, sketched by Heinrich See also:Barth, Travels, vol. v., 1857) to the oases of Aujila (See also:Bengazi) and of See also:Siwa on the western border of See also:Egypt. Consequently, these " dialects " differ more strongly from each other than, e.g. the Semitic languages do between themselves. The purest representative seems to be the language of the Algerian mountaineers (See also:Kabyles), especially that of the Zuawa (Zouaves) tribe, described by A. Hanoteau, Essai de grammaire kabyle (1858); See also:Ben Sedira, Cours de langue kab. (1887); Dictionnaire by See also:Olivier (1878). The learned little See also:Manuel de langue kabyle, by R. See also:Basset (1887) is an introduction to the study of the many dialects with full bibliography, cf. also Basset's Notes de lexicographie berbkre (1883 See also:foil.).

(The dictionaries by Brosselard and Venture de Paradis are imperfect.) The best now described is Shilb(a), a Moroccan dialect (H. Stumme,HandhuchdesSchilhischen, 1899), but it is an inferior dialect. That of See also:

Ghat in See also:Tripoli under-lies the See also:Grammar of F. W. See also:Newman (1845) and the Grammaire Tamashek of Hanoteau (1860); cf. also the Dictionnaire of See also:Cid Kaoui (1900). Neither See also:medieval reports on the language spoken by the Guanches of the See also:Canary Islands (fullest in A. See also:Berthelot, Antiquites canariennes, 1879; akin to Shilba; by no means See also:primitive Libyan untouched by Arabic), nor the modern dialect of Siwa (still little known; tentative grammar by Basset, 1890), have justified hopes of finding a pure Libyan dialect. Of a few See also:literary attempts in Arabic letters the religious Poeme de Cabi (ed. Basset, Journ. asiatique, vii. 476) is the most remarkable. The imperfect native See also:writing (named tifanaghen), a derivation from the Sabaean See also:alphabet (not, as See also:Halevy claimed, from the Punic), still in use among the Sahara tribes, can be traced to the 2nd See also:century H.C. (bilingual inscription of Tucca, &c.; cf.

Halevy, Essai d'epigraphie libyque, 1875), but hardly ever serve for literary uses. 2. The Cushitic or Ethiopian See also:

Family.—The nearest relative of Libyan is not Ancient Egyptian but the language of the nomadic See also:Bisharin or Beja of the Nubian See also:Desert (cf. H. Almkvist, See also:Die Bischari Sprache, 1881 [the northern dialect], and L. Reinisch, Die Bedauye Sprache, 1893, WOrterbuch, 1895). The speech of the peoples occupying the See also:lowland See also:east of Abyssinia, the Saho (Reinisch, grammar in Zeitschrift d. deutschen morgenldnd. Gesellschaft, 32, 1878; Texte, 1889; WOrterbuch, 1890; cf. also Reinisch, Die Sprache der Irob Saho, 1878), and the Afar or Danakil (Reinisch, Die Afar Sprache, 1887; G. Colizza, Lingua Afar, 1887), merely dialects of one language, See also:form the connecting See also:link with the southern Hamitic group, i.e. Somali (Reinisch, Somali Sprache, 1900-1903, 3 vols. ; Larajasse and de Sampont, See also:Practical Grammar of the Somali Language, 1897; imperfect sketches by See also:Hunter, 1880, and See also:Schleicher, 1890), and Galla (L. Tutscheck, Grammar, 1845, See also:Lexicon, 1844; Massaja, Lectiones, 1877; G.

F. F. See also:

Praetorius, Zur Grammatik der Gallasprache, 1893, &c.). All these Cushitic languages, extending from Egypt to the See also:equator, are separated by Reinisch as See also:Lower Cushitic from the High Cushitic group, i.e. the many dialects spoken by tribes dwelling in the Abyssinian See also:highlands or south of Abyssinia. Of the original inhabitants of Abyssinia, called collectively Agau (or Agau) by the Abyssinians, or See also:Falashas (this name principally for Jewish tribes), Reinisch considers the See also:Bilin or See also:Bogos tribe as preserving the most archaic dialect (Die Bilin Sprache, Texts, 1883; Grammatik, 1882; Worterbuch, 1887) ; the same See also:scholar gave sketches of the Khamir (1884) and Quara (1885) dialects. On other dialects, struggling against the spreading Semitic tongues (See also:Tigre, Amharic, &c.), see See also:Conti See also:Rossini, " Appunti See also:sulla lingua Khamta," in Giorn. See also:soc. orient. (1905); Waldmeyer, Wortersammlung (1868); J. Halevy, " Essai sur la langue Agaou " (Actes soc. philologique, 1873), &c. Similar dialects are those of the Sid(d)ama tribes, south of Abyssinia, of which only Kaf (f )a (Reinisch, Die Kafa Sprache, 1888) is known at all fully. Of the various other dialects (Kullo, Tambaro, &c.),• vocabularies only are known; cf. See also:Borelli, Ethiopie meridionale (1890). (On See also:Hausa see below.) ' There is no question that the northernmost Hamitic languages have preserved best the original See also:wealth of inflections which reminds us so strongly of the formal riches of southern Semitic.

Libyan i Only See also:

works of higher linguistic See also:standing are quoted here; many vocabularies and imperfect attempts of travellers cannot be enumerated.and Beja are the best-preserved types, and the latter especially may be called the See also:Sanskrit of Hamitic. The other Cushitic tongues exhibit increasing agglutinative tendencies the farther we go south, although single archaisms are found even in Somali. 'The early isolated High Cushitic tongues (originally branched off from a stock common with Galla and Somali) diverge most strongly from the original type. Already the Agau dialects are full of very See also:peculiar developments; the Hamitic See also:character of the Sid(d)ama languages can be traced only by lengthy comparisons. The See also:simple and See also:pretty (Haus(s)a language, the commercial language of the whole See also:Niger region and beyond (Schoen, Grammar, 1862, See also:Dictionary, 1876; See also:Charles H. See also:Robinson, 1897, in Robinson and Brookes's Dictionary) has fairly well preserved its Hamitic grammar, though its vocabulary was much influenced by the surrounding Negro languages. It is no relative of Libyan (though it has experienced some Libyan influences), but comes from the (High ?) Cushitic family; its exact See also:place in this family remains to be determined. Various languages of the Niger region were once Hamitic like Haus(s)a, or at least under some Hamitic influence, but have now lost that character too far to be classified as Hamitic, e.g. the Muzuk or Musgu language (F. Muller, 1886). The often-raised question of some (very remote) relationship between Hamitic and the great Bantu family is still undecided; more doubtful is that with the interesting Ful (a) language in the western See also:Sudan, but a relationship with the Nilotic branch of negro languages is impossible (though a few of these, e.g. Nuba, have borrowed some words from neighbouring Hamitic peoples). The development of a grammatical gender, this See also:principal characteristic of Semito-Hamitic, in See also:Bari and Masai, may be rather accidental than borrowed; certainly, the same phenomenon in Hottentot does not justify the See also:attempt often made to classify this with Hamitic.

3. Ancient Egyptian, as we have seen, does not form the connecting link between Libyan and Cushitic which its See also:

geographical position would lead us to expect. It represents a third independent branch, or rather a second one, Libyan and Cushitic forming one See also:division of Hamitic. A few resemblances with Libyan (M. de Rochemonteix in Memoires du congres internat. See also:des orientalistes, See also:Paris, 1873; elementary) are less due to original relationship than to the general better preservation of the northern idioms (see above). Frequent attempts to detach Egyptian from Hamitic and to attribute it toaSemitic See also:immigration later than that of the other Hamites cannot be proved. Egyptian is, in many respects, more remote from Semitic than the Libyan-Cushitic division, being more agglutinative than the better types of its See also:sister branch, having lost the most characteristic verbal flection (the Hamito-Semitic imperfect), forming the nominal plural in its own peculiar See also:fashion, &c. The See also:advantage of Egyptian, that it is represented in texts of 3000 B.C., while the sister tongues exist only in forms 5000 years later, allows us, e.g. to trace the Semitic principle of triliteral roots more clearly in Egyptian; but still the latter tongue is hardly more characteristically archaic or nearer Semitic than Beja or Kabylic. All this is said principally of the grammar. Of the vocabulary it must not be forgotten that none of the Hamitic tongues remained untouched by Semitic influences after the separation of the Hamites and Semites, say 4000 or 6000 B.C. Repeated Semitic immigrations and influences have brought so many layers of See also:loan-words that it is questionable if any modern Hamitic language has now more than To % of original Hamitic words. Which Semitic resemblances are due to original affinity, which come from pre-See also:Christian immigrations, which from later influences, are difficult questions not yet faced by science; e.g. the See also:half-Arabic numerals of Libyan have often been quoted as a See also:proof of primitive Hamito-Semitic kinship, but they are probably only a See also:gift of some Arab invasion, prehistoric for us. Arab tribes seem to have repeatedly swept over the whole See also:area of the Hamites, long before the See also:time of See also:Mahomet, and to have See also:left deep impressions on races and languages, but none of these migrations stands in the full See also:light of See also:history (not even that of the Gee2 tribes of Abyssinia).

Egyptian exhibits See also:

constant influences from its Canaanitish neighbours; it is crammed with such loan-words already in 3000 B.C.; new affluxes can be traced, especially c. 1600. (The Punic influences on Libyan are, however, very slight, inferior to the Latin.) Hence the relations of Semitic and Hamitic still require many investigations in detail, for which the works of Reinisch and Basset have merely built up a basis. (W. M.

End of Article: HAMITIC RACES AND LANGUAGES

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