AFRICAN ORIGINS OF HIEROGLYPHICS (MEDU NETER)Although the ancient Kemetic language is classified within the modern Afro-Asiatic language family, this linguistic category should not be misinterpreted as implying an Asiatic origin. The language and writing system of the Kemetyu (Ancient Egyptians) were created in Africa by Africans. Asiatics played no role in the formation of these systems, despite later historical interactions across the Levant and Nile Delta.Medu Neter (also spelled Mdw Nṯr), meaning “Divine Speech” or “Sacred Script,” is the indigenous name for the writing system commonly known today as Egyptian hieroglyphics. According to African historian and linguist Dr. Théophile Obenga, “Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is the oldest writing system in the world, dating to the age of African antiquity as far back as 3400 BCE, when the pre-dynastic Nubians of ancient Egypt developed the Medu Neter system in the Nile Valley.”“Hieroglyphic writing is not only native to Africa, but it is also one of the earliest expressions of a literate African civilization. There is no influence from outside Africa in its creation.”— Théophile Obenga, in Ancient Civilizations of Africa, ed. G. Mokhtar, UNESCO General History of Africa Vol. II (London: Heinemann, 1990), 44.The Greco-Roman historian Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE) provided a classical testimony to the southern—Ethiopian or Nubian—origin of hieroglyphics. In Library of History, Book III, he wrote:“We must now speak about the Ethiopian writing which is called hieroglyphic among the Egyptians, in order that we may omit nothing in our discussion of their antiquities.”— Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book III. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. University of Chicago Penelope Project. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/3A*.htmlAdding to this, Egyptologist Gamal Mokhtar asserted that the hieroglyphic system is fundamentally African in both form and content:“The inventory of hieroglyphic symbols derived from fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African… In regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects the reality.”— Gamal Mokhtar, in Ancient Civilizations of Africa, ed. G. Mokhtar, UNESCO General History of Africa Vol. II (London: Heinemann, 1990), 11–12.Further support for this Nilotic origin is found in the scholarship of Egyptologist Frank J. Yurco, who emphasized the cultural and geographic development of Egyptian writing in Upper Egypt and Nubia, far from the Mesopotamian or Levantine zones:“Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A‑Group Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct Western Asian contact was made, further vitiates the Mesopotamian‑influence argument.”— Yurco, Frank J. “Were the Ancient Egyptians Black or White? That Depends on Your Definition of Race.” In Egypt in Africa, edited by Theodore Celenko, 25–36. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1996.Thus, Egyptian hieroglyphics (Medu Neter) emerged not from Asiatic influences, but within the Nilotic cultural and ecological context of Upper Egypt and Nubia. The flora, fauna, religious symbology, and linguistic constructs evident in Medu Neter reflect the worldview and physical environment of the Nile Valley. Even early Eurocentric scholars like E. A. Wallis Budge were compelled to acknowledge this African origin:“It is impossible for me to believe that Egyptian is a Semitic language fundamentally. There are a very large number of words that are not Semitic and were never invented by a Semitic people. These words were invented by one of the oldest African peoples of the Nile Valley… Their home lay far to the south, in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes.”— E. A. Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, Vol. I (New York: Dover Publications, 1920), Introduction.The structure of Medu Neter, including glyphs like the ideogram for “face,” aligns with symbolic forms present in other Nilotic and sub-Saharan visual systems. This further confirms the indigenous African development of Egypt’s sacred language. It is not a linguistic or cultural offshoot of Asia but rather a product of African antiquity and spiritual sophistication rooted in the Nile River civilizations.Credit : KnowThyself Institute@super fans #Kemet #Ancient #Egypt #History #Africa

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