Ancient Egyptian - Arabic contacts in lexicon: clue to Arabic Urheimat?

Abstract

The present paper aims at demonstrating possibilities of the comparative and historical method in linguistics in reconstructing ethno-cultural prehistory of ancient peoples. Methodologically, it is based upon the analysis of 46 Ancient Egyptian-Arabic lexical parallels most of which are unattested in other Semitic and Afrasian languages, collected by the Hungarian specialist in Egyptian and Aftrasian languages G. Takacs and his predecessors. The author was the first to notice that some of 46 lexical parallels for semantic or phonetic reasons can hardly be considered to be randomly surviving cognates; neither can they be descarded as lookalikes. He suggests that they are direct lexical borrowings. This suggestion implies undiscovered contacts between Egypt and proto-Arabic speakers. According to the author's glottochronological dating, proto-Arabic separated from Central Semitic in early 3rdmill. BCE. These contacts started as early as the Old Kingdom and lasted through Middle to New Kingdoms. He concludes that the striking feature in this discovery is not only presumed Egyptian loans in Arabic but a small minority of very likely Arabisms in Egyptian language of all these periods. He argues that the most “robust” cases may testify to the Urheimat of proto-Arabic speakers located within reach of Egypt. The author is also inclined to identify the people of Midianites mentioned in both Hebrew and Arabic sources as Proto-Arabic speakers. However, as his competence is limited to comparative Afrasian linguistics and Semitic etymology, he leaves this arguable question to discuss archaeologists and historians.