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WEST-AFRICAN ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE: THE CASE OF IGBO Catherine Obianuju Acholonu & Erich Fred Legner Review of a paper presented at the
Conference on Indigenous Knowledge and the Challenges of the 21st
Century, Institute of African Studies, UNN, Nsukka. It was
elicited by a recent article in the world renowned New York Times newspaper published on April, 14th,
2011, authored by Nicholas Wade
under the title: “Phonetic Clues Hint Language is Africa-Born” Please CLICK
on Subject of choice:
A researcher analyzing the sounds in languages spoken
around the world has detected an ancient signal that points to southern
Africa (meaning Sub-Sahara) as the place where modern human language
originated. The finding fits well with the evidence from fossil skulls and
DNA that modern humans originated in Africa. The detection of such an ancient
signal in language is surprising. Because words change so rapidly, many
linguists think that languages cannot be traced very far back in time. The
oldest language tree so far reconstructed, that of the Indo-European family,
which includes English, goes back 9,000 years at most. Quentin D. Atkinson, a biologist at the University
of Auckland in New Zealand, has shattered this time barrier, if his claim is
correct, by looking not at words but at phonemes — the consonants, vowels and
tones are the simplest elements of language. Dr. Atkinson, an expert at
applying mathematical methods to linguistics, has found a simple but striking
pattern in some 500 languages spoken throughout the world: A language area uses
fewer phonemes the farther that early humans had to travel from Africa to
reach it. Some of the click-using languages of Africa have
more than 100 phonemes, whereas Hawaiian, toward the far end of the human
migration route out of Africa, has only 13. English has about 45 phonemes.
This pattern of decreasing diversity with distance, similar to the
well-established decrease in genetic diversity with distance from Africa,
implies that the origin of modern human language is in the region of southwestern
Africa, Dr. Atkinson says in an article published on Thursday in
the journal Science. Language is at least 50,000 years old, and the time
that modern humans dispersed from Africa, and some experts say it is at least
100,000 years old. Dr. Atkinson. If
his work is correct, he is picking up a distant echo from this far back in
time….Dr. Atkinson is one of several biologists who have started applying to
historical linguistics the sophisticated statistical methods developed for
constructing genetic trees based on DNA sequences. Some linguists have
regarded these efforts with suspicion. In 2003 Dr. Atkinson and Russell Gray, another
biologist at the University of Auckland, reconstructed the tree
of Indo-European languages with a DNA tree-drawing method called Bayesian
phylogeny. The tree indicated that Indo-European was much older than
historical linguists had estimated and hence favored the theory that the
language family had diversified with the spread of agriculture some 10,000
years ago, and not with a military invasion by steppe people some 6,000 years
ago, the idea favored by most historical linguists. Dr. Atkinson’s finding fits with other evidence about the
origins of language. The Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert belong to one of the
earliest branches of the genetic tree based on human mitochondrial DNA. Their
languages belong to a family known as Khoisan and include many click sounds,
which seem to be a very ancient feature of language. They live in southern
Africa, which Dr. Atkinson’s calculations point to as the origin of language.
But whether Khoisan is closest to some ancestral form of language “is not
something my method can speak to,” Dr. Atkinson said. A recent finding that the number of phonemes in a
language increases with the number of people who speak it prompted his study.
This gave him the idea that phoneme diversity would increase as a population
grew, but would fall again when a small group split off and migrated away
from the parent group. Such a continual budding process, which is the way the
first modern humans expanded around the world, is known to produce what
biologists call a serial founder effect. Each time a smaller group moves
away, there is a reduction in its genetic diversity. The reduction in
phonemic diversity over increasing distances from Africa, as seen by Dr.
Atkinson, parallels the reduction in genetic diversity already recorded by
biologists. For either kind of reduction in diversity to occur, the
population budding process must be rapid, or diversity will build up again. This
implies that the human expansion out of Africa was very rapid at each stage.
The acquisition of modern language, or the technology it made possible, may
have prompted the expansion, Dr. Atkinson said. What is so remarkable about this work is that it
shows language doesn’t change all that fast, rather it retains a signal of
its ancestry over tens of thousands of years,” said Mark Pagel, a biologist
at the University of Reading in England who advised Dr. Atkinson. Dr. Pagel
sees language as central to human expansion across the globe. “Language was
our secret weapon, and as soon as we got language we became a really
dangerous species,” he said. CATHERINE ACHOLONU RESEARCH CENTER In
several recent articles presented by the Catherine Acholonu Research Center
at various Fora including the 2011 Igbo Studies Association Conference,
Howard University, Washington DC, USA; the 2010 World Igbo Congress,
Philadelphia, USA and a recent lecture at the African Studies Center,
University of Nigeria, Dr. Acholonu has continued to emphasize the thesis of
an Igbo origin of language, argued most convincingly in volumes 2 and 3 of
the African Adam Trilogy: They Lived
Before Adam: Pre-historic Origins of the Igbo, The Never Been Ruled
(2009) and The Lost Testament of the
Ancestors of Adam: Unearthing Heliopolis/Igbo Ukwu – The Celestial City of
the Gods of Egypt and Dravidian India (2010). This
recent article in New York Times,
by Nicholas Wade ex-raying new research findings that use mathematical
methods of biological DNA analyses to analyze phoneme frequencies
(frequencies of sounds and tones of vowels and consonants) as they occur in
various distant languages of the world to determine language origins, has not
only lend much weight to our own conclusions, but it has made the Igbo
language and cultural area a subject for international linguistic and
historical discourse. The
conclusion by the Atkinson research team that language originated in the
Western part of Sub-Saharan Africa supports our own thesis of an Igbo origin
of languages because Igbo language is based in the Western part of
Sub-Saharan Africa. Also the conclusion that this ancient mother-language
left Africa during the earliest ‘Out of Africa’ migrations is the same as our
own conclusions that Homo Erectus left Africa with a Language and a Culture
intact, and not, as animal-like ‘primitive man’. Our thesis that the San
(Khoisan) Bushmen of the Kalahari were among the earliest carriers of this
Proto-Proto-Igbo mother tongue, was also confirmed in the Atkinson research
findings. Therefore,
Igbo scholars worldwide ought to seize upon this added scientific evidence
provided by Dr. Atkinson’s research[1]
to bring global research interest/funding to Igbo studies to save it from
extinction and to restore its pride of place as the mother language of
humankind. This will have powerful ripple effects on the study and
development of Igbo culture, Igbo identity and on the restoration of the
soul-essence of Igbo civilization as the mother of world civilizations, for
as Dr. Mark Pegel, a biologist at the university of Reading, England, argues
(see above), “language is central to human expansion across the globe” and as
such central to human civilization. EVIDENCE FROM PRE-HISTORY BACKING
UP AN IGBO ORIGIN OF HUMANKIND, LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION Our
claims to an Igbo origin of language, culture and civilization are not based
on spoken language alone, but on the equally compelling fact that among the archaeological
discoveries at Igbo Ukwu by British archaeologist Thurstan Shaw, were several
inscriptions on pottery and bronze, which when compared with ancient Middle
Eastern inscriptions (Egyptian and Cretan Hieroglyphics, Hittite, Old
Phoenician, Old Sumerian, Proto-Palestinian, etc)[2]
show several striking similarities. This shows that there was a civilization
of note, based in Igbo land, now lost, which might have birthed the Middle
Eastern civilizations and writing systems, but also their spoken languages. Equally
compelling is the discovery of an Early, Middle and Late Stone Age Homo
Erectus (the ancestor of Homo Sapiens Sapiens or Modern Man) habitation in
Ugwuele, Isuikwuato, Abia State in Igbo land in the early seventies by a team
of archaeologists from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka[3].
This adds tons of weight to an Igbo origin of the ‘Out of Africa’
migrations of Early Man; but to also an Igbo origin of human language and
culture; while the Igbo Ukwu inscriptions backed up by the mythologies and
written records of the Egyptians, Sumerians, Dravidians, Hebrews and Kwa
peoples of Nigeria lend credence to a Post-Deluge Kwa-Igbo origin of
civilization[4]. INDELIBLE SIGNALS OF THE
MOTHER-LANGUAGE ARE RETAINED THROUGH THOUSANDS OF YEARS Dr Pegel noted[5],
most interestingly, that “What’s so remarkable about this (Atkinson’s) work
is that it shows language doesn’t change all that fast — it retains a signal
of its ancestry over tens of thousands of years”. We wish to demonstrate how
signals of Igbo language has been retained in some of the most ancient as
well as the most modern languages (and cultures) of the world, proving
without any shadow of doubt that the Igbo was the mother of languages such as
Sanskrit, Egyptian, Sumerian, English and Semitic languages[6], or
at least that Igbo is the longest surviving child of a global mother language
spoken by gods and men alike. Linguists
believe that when words from two or more separate languages share
similarities in sound and meaning, it is a sign of borrowing or common
origin.[7]
Using this method, hundreds of words have been found of similar sounds and
meanings with those of Igbo language across several languages of the globe,
showing, indeed that signals of the mother language are retained “through
tens of thousands of years”. In fact there is over-weighing evidence in the
Adam Trilogy[8]
that every language retains traces of cultural and historical experiences it
has lived through in the course of millennia. There are even several traces
that Igbo was the language spoken by God when he ‘spoke’ creation into being
and that it was the language spoken by the first Homo sapiens family –
Adam’s.[9] Here
are listed words from diverse ancient and modern languages that have retained
Igbo signals in the form of common sounds and meanings with the mother
language, and in some cases, powerful evidence of having originated in an
Igbo cultural environment. The
Egyptian word for ‘gods’ is NTR or Neter. It means
‘Guardian or Watcher’. Its Igbo equivalent/original is Onetara (meaning – ‘He
who guards and watches’ over a thing on behalf of
someone else). The Igbo original is more explicit, for it shows that these
lesser gods are answerable to a Higher Being. The
highest and oldest of the known gods of Egypt was Ptah. He was the father of
all the other gods. His name, Ptah, means in Egyptian, ‘He who
fashions things by carving and opening up”.[10]
The Igbo original of this word is Okpu-atu (meaning ‘He who
moulds/fashions things by carving and opening up’. Igbo word tuo/atu
means both ‘to carve and to open a hole’). Ptah’s rule over Egypt
began as early as 21,000 BC! If his name and the collective name for the gods
of Egypt, Neter, were Igbo in origin, it implies that an ancient
civilization of Igbo extraction existed in West Africa, where the gods, and
not men ruled, by at least 22,000 BC; that Egypt was an originally
Igbo-speaking civilization and that early Egyptians were Igbos.[11]
These linguistic pieces of evidence suggest that the earliest Egyptian
civilization (the time when gods and not men ruled Egypt) before Pharaohnic
rule began in 3,100 BC was based in West Africa and not in North Africa – the
civilization, now lost to which the Igbo Ukwu archaeological findings belong. Ptah’s
son was called Ra, meaning ‘Sun/Daylight’. It’s Igbo original was Ora
(which in Afa – the cult language of Igbo native priests, also meant
‘Sun/daylight’). The
grandson of Ra was called Osiris by the Greeks and Asar
by the Egyptians. Osiris’ was associated with the number ‘seven’. No one
knows the meaning of his name in Egypt[12],
but in Igbo language Asaa means ‘seven’! The
son of Osiris was called Horus. This is a Greek version of
a native Egyptian word Heru, which means ‘Face’, as in
‘Face of the Sun’. Its Igbo original is Iru – ‘Face’. Horus was known as
the Lord of the Horizon. The Horizon being known to the Egyptians as the land
of the Rising Sun, a place located in the Southwestern direction from Egypt -
the original mythological home of the gods of Egypt. Our analyses shows that
this land of the Rising sun was known in several other world mythologies as
the Center/Navel of the Earth. The actual cartographical center of the earth,
as indicated in all old maps of the world is ‘Median Biafra’, for median means ‘Center’. Biafra is the ancient name for the place now known as
Igbo land. It’s location on world maps shows that Igbo land was the true
‘navel of the earth’. Igbo land was thus, that Land of the Rising Sun/that
Horizon Land to which Egyptian mythologies and pyramid records refer as the
Heaven of the Egyptians. The international word ‘Horizon’ is thus derived from the name ‘Horus’, which in itself
is derived from Igbo word Iru – ‘Face of the Sun’. To
demonstrate their genetic claim to being the true god-men who lived in this
land of the gods, Igbo initiates marked themselves with the symbol of the sun
– ichi,
a word derived from another name of the Sun/daylight, chi, which is also the
name of the spirit of God in Man and from which originated the Greek word Christ[13]. Egypt’s
most ancient god is called Amun/Amen/Ammun. He is a god residing under the
earth and his name implies ‘Hidden inside the bowels of Earth’. According to
Martin Bernal[14]
the word Amen is derived from imn which is pronounced Amana.
These two words have Igbo origins. Igbo equivalent of imn (Egyptian words are
usually not written with vowels) is ime ana, and means
‘inside the earth’, while amana is equally an Igbo word
referring to the Earth religion, further supporting an originally Igbo-based
Egyptian religion and civilization. Egyptian
words with Igbo sounds and meanings are legion. They include but are not limited
to the following: Egyptian:
Musi/mose/msi – ‘to give birth’ (Igbo – mmusi ‘to give birth to
many children’). From this word is derived names of Pharaohs such as Thoth-mose
(‘Born of Thoth’), Rameses (‘Descended from Ra’), etc.
The fact that many pharaohs of Egypt bear this word in their names would tend
to add weight to an Igbo origin of Egyptian civilization and divinities. Egyptian: tuf - ‘to throw away’ (Igbo: tufuo – ‘to throw away’) Egyptian: akhu – ‘fire/light’ (Igbo: oku
– ‘fire/light’). Akhu is the sacred
vernacular name for the Giza Pyramid – one of the greatest wonders of the
world. Its native Igbo name implies that an Igbo-speaking team of ancient
engineers possibly constructed it, especially because noted in They Lived Before Adam, many key words
in Egyptian Engineering lexicon are cognates of Igbo language. Egyptian: aru - ‘body/form’ (Igbo: aru - ‘body’) Egyptian: ba - ‘heart’(Igbo: obi
– ‘heart’) Egyptian: Busiris ‘House of Osiris’ (Igbo/Nri/Nsukka dialect: ‘Obu Osiris’ – ‘House of Osiris’). Egypt was known as ‘Black land’.
Probably the word ‘Egypt’ could
have been derived from the Igbo word Ojikputu,
which means ‘Pitch Black’ (Orlu dialect) Egyptian: hike – ‘power/strength’ (Igbo – ike – ‘power/strength’ Egyptian - hekau – ‘word of power’ (Igbo - ike okwu – ‘word of power’) Eguptian xut/pronounced kut ‘sunrise’
(Igbo ukutu ‘dawn’ – Orlu dialect) Egyptian sa ‘to shine’ (Igbo saa
‘to shine’ - Orlu dialect) Egyptian satu ‘shine down’ (Igbo satuo
– ‘ shine down’ - Orlu dialect) Egyptian tua ‘glorify’ (Igbo too
‘glorify’ Orlu dialect) Egyptian hru ‘the day dawns’ (Igbo horo
‘the day dawns’- Orlu dialect) Egyptian xerkert (pronounced kirkir)
‘pieces’ (Igbo kirikiri ‘pieces’ -
Orlu dialect Egyptian transitive –k ‘you’ Igbo transitive –k ‘you’ as in si ku - ‘say to you’ - Nsukka dialect). Egyptian
borrowings from Igbo are in two groups: words borrowed from Orlu/Okigwe
dialectal family are far older in chronological time that those borrowed from
the Anambra dialectal family since Orlu/Okigwe are held by Igbo historians[15] to
belong to the autochthonous (non-migrant descendants of Homo Erectus) group. This implies that the
earliest roots of Egyptian civilization, when the gods and not men ruled
Egypt, began among the autochthons of Igbo land, but did not end there.
Latter-day migrant Igbo priest-kings continued to exert influences in
Pharaohnic Egyptian civilization.[16]
Sumerian
language is classified among Semitic languages. In The Gram Code of African Adam, Dr. Acholonu asserted that there
were not any signd that Semites had a language or a culture of their own, for
every aspect of their language and culture was borrowed from the Hamites. Two
full-length books and one thousand pages of hard core research information
later, this idea it is ever more convincing.
In fact, there are more than enough clues indicating that the word
‘Semitic’ is a misnomer, and that Semites were a branch of the Hamitic stock,
whose origins began precisely in the West Africa rain forest region of
Nigeria. As in ancient Egyptian, some of the names of the earliest gods of
Sumer were derived from Igbo language. Some of these gods, according to
Sumerian cuneiform records lived on earth before the creation of human
beings. One such god was called ZU. His name means in the language
of the gods: ‘He Who Knows’. The word Zu has an equivalent in sound and
meaning in Igbo, namely Izu, which means ‘Wise and
Knowledgeable’. Another
Sumerian god with an Igbo name was the Stone God Ullikimmi, for his name
means in Igbo ‘Stone Cable’ – Illi nkume. Also an early Storm
god of Sumer, who fought a protracted war with the stone god was called Kummiya.
In Igbo this name translates as Nkume Iyi. Nkume Iyi is the pebble
used by rainmakers to make rain. Iyi implies ‘Rain’ and ‘Storm’.
Sitchin[17]
noted that Ulli Kummi means ‘He who contends with Kummi’, which in Igbo
would translate into Olu Kummi ‘He who fights Kummi’.
It is obvious that these gods were Igbo-speaking, leading us to conclude that
Egyptian and Sumerian mythological origins are traceable to one and the same
place - Igbo land. A
Babylonian tablet in the British Museum (No. 74329)[18]
catalogued as containing an otherwise unknown myth, but narrating aspects of
the story of Cain’s lineage, (the tablets call him Ka’in), says Cain’s
descendants are called Amakandu – meaning ‘People Who in
Sorrow Roam’. After the death of Kain, his family buried him in a place
called Nudun, which means ‘Excavated Resting Place’ (Biblical ‘Nud’),
also called Dunnu. The last settlement of this group of people was called
Shupat,
meaning ‘Judgment’. All these vernacular Sumerian words are Igbo words. In
Igbo (Owerri dialect), Ama ka nduu means ‘To roam is
better than to settle’. Igbo equivalent of Nudun (‘Excavated
Resting Place’) is Onu Nduu, and has the exact same
meaning with Nudun. Onu means in Igbo ‘mouth/excavated
hole’, while nduu means ‘to rest/to sit’ in Owerri dialect. The Igbo
equivalent of Sumerian Shupat (‘Judgment’) is Ishi
ikpe, which also implies ‘Judgment’. There is a clan in Anambra State
in Igbo land called Dunukofia. The name means ‘To
settle is better than to roam’.
Sumerian texts say that the first
city built by the gods on earth was called Eridu. There they placed the
members of Adam’s family. Adam’s
great grandson was named Yared, meaning ‘He of Eridu’,
‘person from Eridu’. Its Igbo equivalent, with the same meaning, is Oye
Eridu. The father of Yared was Enosh/Enu-Esh. His name meant
‘Master of humankind’, for the first people were called Esh, Adam too was
called Esh in vernacular Hebrew. In Sumerian this sacred word Esh
means ‘Righteous Shepherd’. All Sumerian kings bore the title Esh. Equally in Igbo land Esh/Eshi/Nshi is a
sacred word implying divine origins of the first people, who indeed were
wielders of supernatural powers. Igbo
people from the area occupied by the autochthons (Orlu and Okigwe) begin time
reckoning with ‘Kamgbe Eshi’ – ‘From the time of the Eshi’. The term ‘Oha-eshi’
refers to the generality of the people descended from the autochthons. These
would tend to suggest that the Hebrew Esh (‘first people’), Igbo Esh
(‘First People’) and Sumerian Esh (Sumerian kings who bear the
“ESH” title do so in other to legitimize their reign through association with
the autochthons of Igbo land) all have the same root. In fact Sumerians
called themselves ‘Black-headed people’ to distinguish themselves from the
Egyptians, who were called ‘Black-footed People”. King Assurbanipal was said
to have claimed to posses the secrets of writing “from the days before the
Flood”.[19] Sumerian
word ommia means ‘expert’. Igbo omaya means ‘the one
who knows it well’. Sumerian town of
Kish, according to Sumerian records, was where the gods first
handed down kingship to men. Igbo Ki ishi means ’The First’ (Orlu
dialect). Actually the anglicized spelling ‘Orlu’ is derived from a word
pronounced Ele. The people of Orlu town in Orlu local government believe that
they are descendants of an ancestor known as Okwara Ugwu-Ele – ‘Heir of the Hill of Ele’; Ugwuele being the
very place of habitation of the Homo Erectus autochthons. Sumerian
word Tug means dress. Igbo tuiga means ‘dress up’ (Orlu
Dialect). Like the Igbo Sumerians also wore wrappers for total wrap-round
cover-up, which were called Tug-tu-she, which in Igbo (Orlu
Dialect) would be pronounced tuiga tushie ‘cover-all dressing’.
Dr. Acholonu demonstrated in They Lived
Before Adam that Sumerian customs, religious practices and traditional
ways of life as described by Wallis Budge[20]
was the same in most details with those of ancient Nigerians. Hebrew
word hyssop (‘to cleanse’) derived from Sumerian
word zupu (‘to clean’). Both go back to the Igbo word
hisapu and sapu – ‘to clean off’ or ‘wash
clean’ (Orlu Dialect). In They Lived
Before Adam Dr. Acholonu listed several Akkadian, Canaanite and Hebrew
words along with Sumerian ones which derive from Igbo, with several place
names in Hebrew – including names of rivers and mountains. These all fall
under the Semitic group of languages, leading us to conclude that Semitic
languages are of Igbo extraction and that Igbo is the mother of Semitic.
Cosmic words like Greek cosmos and Gaia are both derived
from Canaanite qsm and gweye respectively. These two
words have the same meanings in Canaanite and in Igbo, respectively:
Canaanite qsm and Igbo kwasama (Owerri dialect) both mean
‘to arrange outwards’; Canaanite gweye and Igbo ngwo
iyi both mean ‘ravine of water’. Greek Gaia, derived from gweye,
is the name of the ancient planet which according to Sumerian prehistoric
sources existed several millions of years ago, and was the mother planet of
all the planets in the solar system! And Igbo goes so far back! If
Igbo language goes this far back, is there any wonder why it was the language
in which the creator gods uttered the words that brought creation into being
in Eden. For in the Torah the vernacular Hebrew words
which describe the words uttered by God during creation in Eden were Igbo
words. This leads us to the conclusion that the Jews were migrants from Igbo
land. These words from Eden[21]
include: Hebrew amar
(‘commanded’), Igbo hamara
‘commanded’ Hebrew hayah
(‘Let there be…’); Igbo haa ya
(‘Let it be…/let there be’) Hebrew hayah
uwr (‘Let there be Light’), Igbo haa
ya owuru (‘Let it be allowed to be’) Hebrew
towb (‘it is good’), Igbo Otu obu
‘It is as it should be’) Hebrew
Hayawu
(name of the creating deity), Igbo Anyanwu (‘Sun’). This links up
with the Igbo word Ora (Sun) being the name of the
Igbo god known among the Egyptians as Ra (Sun). Our research shows that
this name was first borne by the Hidden god Amun (Amana) before it was
usurped by the son of Enki. This would suggest that it was this God lodged
inside the bowels of the earth that carried out the act of creation described
in Genesis. Our findings equally
suggest that the hidden God was the same being known as El (Ele among the
Igbo and Ela among the Yoruba). The greater number of the Igbo words in the Genesis story belong to the
Orlu/Okigwe dialectal language family, so too the words in the Sumerian
group. This suggests that Sumerians were mostly of the autochthonous Igbo
group, the Pre-Adamic group, and descendants of the Homo Erectus migrations.
The Egypt group of Igbo words however derive mostly from Anambra dialects of
latter-day Igbo land, which agrees with the Igbo/Benin/Yoruba mythology of a
Post-Deluge civilization founded on a raised plateau land by a god-man called
Eri, whose history and characteristics agree with those of Thoth as recorded
in his book The Emerald Tablet of
Thoth the Atlantean.[22]
Thoth’s work demonstrates a post-deluge migration from Atlantis to Nigeria,
which agrees with Egyptian mythological records of the coming of Osiris and
Isis to Egypt from a sinking planet – a story taken up by Plato in Timaeus and Critias and narrated in
greater detail in the Emerald Tablet of
Thoth the Atlantean. Considering
that Abraham’s origins were in Sumer (Ur of the Chaldees is another name for
Sumer), it is tempting to believe that Sumer, and not Shem, might have been
the actual origin of the word ‘Semitic’. Sumer was a place unknown, however.
Its origin stems from copies of “Olden Texts” assembled in the Nineveh
library of Assurbanipal, many of which list kings who call themselves “king
of Akkad and king of Sumer”.[23]
This led to early researchers on these texts opting to call the people “Sumerians”
and their land “Sumer”. The texts actually speak of “Shumerian” and not
Sumerian, while the Biblical Genesis says that Babylon, Akkad
and Erech were in the land of Shin’ar. These terms are examined in A Pre-Deluge West African
Civilization,” and it may be concluded that the origins of the Sumerian
civilization lies in a land destroyed by the Flood, which later took root in
West Africa only to be destroyed again, causing its inhabitants to disperse
all over the world, some to Egypt and to Arabian lands, where they founded
new cities with the same old names of their lost cities. This much is clear
from the following text by Assurbanipal king of Nineveh: “The god of scribes has bestowed on
me the gift of the knowledge of his art I have been initiated into the
secrets of writing I can even read the intricate
tablets of Shumerian I understand the enigmatic words in
the stone carvings from the days before the Flood…”[24] The
god of scribes is Thoth, who is also known among the gods of Sumer (though by
a different name). In Igbo Nri mythology, he is known as Eri. In Igbo land as
in Sumer, writing was a secret and sacred art of the gods, which only the
initiates were allowed to indulge in. The clan of scribes of Igbo land was
called Ar/Aro. They are also the
guardians of the Mouth of the labyrinthine Cave where God/Chukwu/Ukpabi (a
local version of the Supreme Being and of Egypt’s Hidden God Amun) dwells
unseen. Characteristically this Cave is called Obini-ukpabi, which
translates into ‘Tomb Palace of God’ or ‘Underground Dwelling of God’ – a
sure reference to the Egyptian Duat home of Amun, which Thoth
calls Amenti (‘Halls for Listening’- Igbo exact equivalent is Amanti).
Our analyses of some of their writings on cloth (nkara) shows that the
step-pyramid, the crocodile, the serpent, the three-hills (horizon), the sun,
the moon and several other symbols and totems of Egyptian gods are regular
features.[25]
Apart from that, the Ar/Aro possess their own local and very ancient version
of the Ark of Tutankhamun with the exact same shape.[26]
The name of the secret society of initiates of the god of writing to which
the Ar/Aro belong is called Ekpe. Their headquarter happens to
be the monoliths[27]
circle of inscribed stones in Alok (Enoch?), Cross River State, Nigeria,
which as far as the natives can tell were made by Stone Age People – dwarfs
who were of the “First Age Grade of humans” to inhabit the earth (Homo
Erectus). Do all these not agree uncannily with Assurbanipal’s claim about a
“god of scribes”, an “initiation into the secrets of writing”
and about “enigmatic words in the stone carvings from the days before the Flood…”? As if these were not
enough, Shin’ar the Biblical name of Shumer actually
translates into Igbo as Eshi na Ar (‘People of the Sun and
Scribes of the Gods’), while Shumer translates into Igbo as Eshi
Umu Eri (Sun People, Children of Thoth). Since the word Ar literally
means ‘Serpent’s comb’ Shen’ar also means ‘People of the
Sun and the Serpent’. Thus the full meaning of Osiris’ Egyptian name Asa-ar
is ‘Seven Serpents’ or ‘Serpent with the Seven Combs’. Like
the Igbo, Sumerians also have a river deity called Urashi. One of its
names resh-eni means in Sumerian -‘where the waters have their
source’. Igbo equivalent orashi enu also means
‘Source-waters’. The Sumerian word Babel means ‘Gate to El’s House’.
The Igbo equivalent is Baa be Ele, ‘Entrance to Ele’s
House’. Ele is the most ancient god of the Igbo autochthons. From Biblical
sources it is known that the Babel incident that brought about the separation
of languages from the one original mother tongue happened at Babel. The fact
that in Sumer and in Igbo land, El was associated with the heights[28]
and also in Hebrew, shows a common origin of both the god and the peoples
that worship it. The ancient base of El in Igbo land, according to mythology
was the same place where the Homo erectus habitation was found by
archaeologists, namely Ugwu-Ele. Ugwu-ele means ‘Hill/Heights of
Ele’! The Biblical term Beth-el means ‘House of El’ or
‘Lord’s House’, for El was the God whom the Jews called ‘Lord’. Its Igbo
original was Be-Ele/Obi Ele ‘House of El’. Since
El/Ele was also a hidden God for the Jews, it seems that he was the same as
the Egyptian god Ammun. All these converging pieces of evidence suggest that
the Tower of Babel incident most likely took place in West Africa. A Recent
book by Jewish historian, Jonathan Cook, When
and How Was the Jewish People Invented, 2011, supports the thesis that
the Jews were never a people of Palestine, and that their claim to a
Palestine origin was a fabrication of Biblical scholars. Evidence that Dr.
Acholonu amassed in The Lost Testament,
shows that the Jews were a Nigerian tribe of scribes of the Igbo God Ele and
an off-shoot of the Eri/Aro tribe of scribes, initiates and professional
priests. The Sumerian
term Amurru (‘Westerners’)[29]
is derived from Igbo Umu oru (‘People of the West’).
West here implies West of the River Niger, for the Igbo distinguish between Oru and Igbo (Oru
na Igbo) with ‘oru’ implying ‘those who live West
of the Niger River, i.e. the Benin and the Yoruba’, and ‘Igbo’ implying those
who live east of the Niger, i.e. the core Igbo and the Delta Igbo. From this
term is also derived the etymology of the word Hebrew, whose literal
meaning in Aramaic and in Igbo (Igbo Oru) is ‘Those who live on
the Western Side of the River’! Igbo Oru actually means: ‘The Igbo
Who Live West of the Niger’. This implies that originally the peoples of the
Eastern and Western Niger were at least of the same political entity, before
the rivalries of their gods separated them ideologically. All these
linguistic piles of evidence are powerful testimonies that Sumerians and
Hebrews, Benins and Yorubas were originally speaking an Igbo mother language,
still spoken in Igbo land to this day, but not among the other nation states
that were originally part of the mother-entity. They also suggest that the
origins of civilization lie in ancient Nigeria in the area of the River
Niger. One can venture further and adduce from the foregoing that the Great
Benin Empire of Old and the Oyo/Owo empires of Yoruba land, of which nothing
remains in present times, were perhaps offshoots of the original Pre-Deluge
Sumerian civilization of ancient Nigerians. As
described in Zecharia Sitchin’s book When
Time Began, by 2,000 BC the land of Ur, otherwise called Sumer was beset
by a military disaster such that “Sumer itself lay prostrate and desolate,
the remnants of its people spread in all directions: Sumerian doctors and
astronomers, architects and sculptors, cutters of seals and scribes became
teachers in other lands”… “For the first time there appears in Mesopotamian
inscriptions the term Munnabtutu, literally meaning
‘fugitives from a destruction’” – what would today be called ‘displaced
persons” or “stateless refugees”. The Igbo original of this term is Umunna
obi ntitu, which literally means ‘Kindred from a Crushed Homestead’
or ‘Citizens of a Destroyed City’. In
They
Lived Before Adam, Dr. Acholonu provided evidence that what destroyed
the Prehistoric civilizations of West Africa was the war between the god
Marduk, known in Egypt as Ra and the Supreme God of the autochthons, the
Hidden God, El. In The Lost Testament,
Dr. Acholonu provided initial evidence that Marduk/Ra was either backing or
was himself the Yoruba God Oduduwa, the Nigerian equivalent of Egypt’s Seth,
while El/Atum was the power behind Oduduwa’s rival brother, Obatala, the
Nigerian equivalent of Osiris. In When
Time Began, foremost oriental scholar of Sumerian cuneiform records,
Zecharia Sitchen, provided added evidence from Sumerian records that indeed Marduk
was the god behind the Western Nigerians (the Benin and the Yoruba
monarchies). While
the Amurru (Umuoru) ‘Westerners’, followers of
Marduk and Nabu [his son] poured into Mesopotamia and provided the rulers
that made up the first dynasty of Marduk’s Babylon, other tribes and
nations-to-be engaged in massive population movements that forever changed
the Near-East, Asia [Eshi] and
Europe. They brought about the emergence of Assyria to Babylon’s north, the
Hittite kingdom to the northwest, the Hurrian Mitanni to the west, the
Indo-Aryan kingdoms that spread from the Caucasus on Babylon’s north-east,
and those of the desert peoples to the south and of the ‘Sealand people’ to
the southeast…They migrated to the Indus Valley to repopulate and reinvigorate
it. The Vedic tales of gods and heroes that [Aryans, later] brought with them
were the Sumerian myths retold. The notions of Time and its measurement and
cycles were of Sumerian origin mingled into the Aryan migrations. [They
brought] mysteriously abrupt changes… in China without any gradual
development…[and] transformed (China from a nation of] primitive villages to
one of walled cities whose rulers possessed bronze weapons [the Igbo, Benin
and Yoruba have been masters in bronze casting for as long as living memory
goes][30]
and chariots and the knowledge of writing. The cause, all agree was the
arrival of migrants from the west [western hemisphere; West Africa],
the same civilizing influences of Sumer… the migrations in the aftermath of
the fall of Sumer. [In China] writing was
introduced together with kingship by the Shang dynasty [of little people,
whose ancestors were probably the Igbo-speaking Nshi dwarfs who
authored the monoliths of Nigeria].[31]
Brackets mine. In
The Gram Code of African Adam,
Catherine Acholonu pointed out that two Original Sumerian (proto-cuneiform)
letters inscribed on the monoliths of Ikom, leading us to conclude that those
who inscribed the monoliths were the founders of the Sumerian civilization,
namely the dwarfs/autochthons who taught their sacred writings to the
initiate scribes of ancient Nigeria. Igbo infusion into Chinese civilization
can be seen in Chinese language which is monosyllabic and in their early
writing whose letters were pictographic as in Igbo Ukwu bronze and pottery
inscriptions. The Chinese I-ching divination system of
trigrams has mathematical links with Igbo Afa divination system[32],
and as listed in They Lived Before Adam, several Chinese monosyllabic words
have same sounds and meanings with similar Igbo words. Sitchin records that
consequent on the destruction original base of the Sumerian civilization,
“throughout the steppes of Central Asia and all the way from India to China
and Japan, the religious beliefs spoke of gods of Heaven and Earth and of a
place [in the west] called Sumeru … at the navel of the earth - .”[33]
Chinese mythology calls this western land of the migrant gods and god-men Hsi
wang mu, which in Igbo reads Eshi nwa mmuo (‘Immortal
Eshi/godmen’). According
to Professor E. E. Okafor, the Dean of Archaeology at the University of
Nigeria, new dating of samples of slag and bloom from ancient industrial
furnaces in Lejja, Nsukka in Igbo land sent to UK for dating by the
Archaeology Department at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, recently
returned with a shocking date of 4,000 B.C.!
By 4,000 B.C. Sumerian civilization in the Middle East, which is
supposedly older than Egyptian civilization, was in its infancy, while Igbo
people were making metal in industrial furnaces and piling up masses of slag
and bloom that question to this very day the generally accepted notions of
the origin of civilization. INDIA / HINDU WORDS OF IGBO ORIGIN Evidence
of an Igbo-speaking nation of migrant peoples who laid the foundation of
Indian civilization also abounds in the Indian lexicon. Manu (‘First Man’) Igbo - mmanu (human); Kash (Kwash) – First People, god-men (Igbo: Akwanshi – ‘First People/god-men’);
Kush, the name of the Biblical son of Khem/Ham was the clan name of all
Indians (Hindu Kush), but also of all Nubians. Egypt was named Khemet after
its founding father, Khem\Ham the post-Deluge settler of the African
continent, whose name means ‘Black’. Sindh (the largest and longest river in India and main source of life,
agriculture, trade and sheer survival, from which originated the
words India, Hindu) appears to have derived its name
from the Igbo word Isi ndu ‘Source of Life’
(pronounced Isi ndhu in Orlu/Okigwe dialects). An
ancient pyramid complex in Kashi, the holiest city of India, had the name Bindhu
Madhu, which translates into Igbo as Obi Ndhu Mmadu (Orlu
dialect) ‘Mankind’s Sacred Dwelling Place of Immortality’. Kashi
was India’s ‘City of Light’, the Igbo equivalent of this word is Oku
Eshi – ‘Place of gods of Light’). Sanskrit
Kr
means ‘to create/to make’, it is derived from Igbo kere (‘created’); Sanskrit
Dev
(‘god/divine’) is derived from Igbo Ide Afa/Ava (‘Demi god of
Afa’), pronounced Ava in some core Anambra
dialects); Sanskrit
Om/Aum
is said to be the first word intoned by god to bring about created life. Its
Biblical equivalent is ‘I Am’. Its Igbo equivalent is Oom (‘I am/I am it/It
is I’); Igbo Aum/Awu m equally means ‘I am’. Both are derived from
Orlu/Okigwe dialect of the autochthons, indicating that Sanskrit, the so
called Oldest language of humanity is equally owes some of its vocabulary to
Igbo. Indra is the name of the solar deity of India. His name appears to
have derived from Afa word Ndu Ora (‘Life of the Sun’) or
perhaps it is a collective name for solar deities – Ndi Ora – ‘People of
the Sun’. The
India ancient city of Kashmiri is waterlogged most of the year. Its name
appears to have Igbo connotations for miri means ‘water’ in Igbo and
would tend to suggest a name such as ‘Kushite Water People’. INTERNATIONAL WORDS (INDO-EUROPEAN)
THAT DERIVE FROM AFA CULT LANGUAGE OF THE ANCIENT
IGBO PRIESTS Most
European languages, including English, belong to the Indo-European family of
languages. Common historical experiences have brought about borrowing across
several European borders, such that most international words are found in
almost all European languages. A few words are selected as examples, though
there are many more of such words with Igbo roots across several European
languages, both Eastern and Western Europe:[34] Eve (Ava
– ‘Living Soul/God as Mother, Creative Force’) Nature (Nne
Atu Ora – Mother of the Living Word of the Sun God) Adam (Adaa m – ‘I have fallen’) Order (Ora
dere – cosmically established/god ordained) Life (Ele
ife – ‘Light of Ele’) Love (Ele
ovu/ofu – ‘Divine unity/oneness’) Oracle (Ora
okala – ‘Divination’) Caesar (Ichie
Eze Ora – ‘Most High Sun King’) Faith (Ifu
etu –‘to focus on divine order’) Chief (ichie
efu – ‘Non-initiate community head’) King (ikenga
– ‘anchor of manly force/power’) Queen (akwu
nne – ‘nest of mother essence’) Equal/equilibrium (akwu ele – ‘divine balance’) Mind (Omi
ndu- ‘Depth of spirit’) Human (oha
mmuo ana – ‘community of earth-dwelling spirits’) Meet (etymologically derived from Old English moot – ‘gathering of elders’ - Igbo ime otu–‘gathering of elders’) Choir (Igbo Ukwe
Ora ‘Group of singers’) Cock (Igbo Okuko
‘cock’) Animal
(Igbo anumanu ‘animal’) Say (Igbo saa
‘to say’) Marine (Igbo miri ‘water’), etc, etc. From
the foregoing, one can assume that it is possible to follow through with the
demonstration of the origin of languages, peoples, cultures and civilizations
right into the actual dialects of Igbo that birthed these civilizations. It
is also possible to demonstrate which of these world civilizations belonged
with the Proto-Kwa, and which ones belonged to the Post-Kwa dispersals. An
originally IGBO-SPEAKING Proto-Kwa civilization - a Pre-Deluge, mother-pot
civilization based in ancient Nigeria, peopled by the ancestors of today’s
Igbo, Yoruba, Benin and related tribes, birthed great global civilizations
like Egypt, Sumer Hindu-Cush, China, the Hebrew phenomenon and beyond. In The Lost Testament, Dr.
Acholonu is able to demonstrate that the Pharaohnic Egyptian civilization was
a product of the same culture that birthed Yoruba/Benin/Anambra-Igbo
phenomenon, and that it was post-Deluge; whereas the civilization that gave
birth to it was Pre-Delude. From this study, it is possible to see early
signs of a Pre-Deluge Sumerian civilization that was an offshoot of the
Adamic phenomenon of human development. Ancient
Nigerian languages, Igbo in particular, hold much information as to who did
what where and when in the birthing and sustaining of global civilizations,
much of which will become clearer in further research. New archaeological research has dated the
Deluge before 11,000 BC and many new research works on the origins of
Egyptian civilization are coming up with dates close to 11,000 BC. Dr. Atkinson’s
work also comes closer to this date as the date of the dispersal of early
agriculture. Our research on Igbo Ukwu’s lost civilization anchors its
hay-days around 10,000 BC. All these call for serious research by Igbo
scholars and serious governmental support for cultural, linguistic and historical
research development and continuing education. Acholonu Catherine, et. al. The Gram Code of African Adam –
Reconstructing 450,000 Years of Africa’s Lost Civilizations, 2005 Acholonu, Catherine et.al.; They Lived Before Adam: Pre-historic
Origins of the Igbo, The Never Been Ruled (2009) Acholonu, Catherine et.al.; The Lost Testament of the
Ancestors of Adam: Unearthing Heliopolis/Igbo Ukwu – The Celestial City of
the Gods of Egypt and
Dravidian India (2010). Acholonu Catherine; “Igbo –
A Former Global Lingua Franca and The Mother of Semitic Languages”, 2011 ISA
Conference, Howard University, Washington DC. Acholonu, Catherine; “Igbo
The Origin of Languages and Civilizations”, 2010 World Igbo Congress,
Philadelphia, USA Acholonu Catherine;
“Presenting The Lost Testament of the
Ancestors of Adam”, Public Lecture at the Institute of African Studies,
UNN, Nsukka, December, 2010 Anozie, F.N.; “Archaeology
of Igboland: The Early Prehistory” in G.E.K. Ofomata, A Survey of the Igbo Nation, AFP, 2002 Atkinson, Quentin; “Phonemic
Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from
Africa”, Science, 15 April
2011: p. 346-349. Budge, Wallis; Babylonian Life and History, Barnes
and Nobles Books, 1925 Cook, Jonathan; When and How Was the Jewish People
Invented, 2011 Doreal, ed.; The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean,
published online. Ellis Ralph; Eden in Egypt, 2004 Ellis, Ralph; Tempest and Exodus, 2000 Falola, Toyin ed.; Igbo History and Society: The Essays of
Adiele Afigbo, Africa World Press, NY, 2005. Legner, E. F. 1970-2017. Discoveries in
Natural History and Exploration.
Univ. of Calif. website (http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/) Martin Bernal, Black Athena 1, 1987 Onwuejeogwu, Angulu; An Igbo Civilization and Nri Hegemony,
1981 Ruhlen, Merritt; The Origin of Language: Tracing the
Evolution of the Mother-Tongue, 1994. Sitchin, Zecharia; The Twelfth Planet, Avon Books, 1978 Sitchin, Zecharia, The Wars of Gods and Men, Avon Books,
1985 Temple, Robert; The Sirius Mystery, 1987 Wade,
Nicholas; “Phonetic Clues Hint Language is Africa-Born”, New York Times, April 14th 2011 |
[1] Quentin D. Atkinson, University of Auckland, New Zealand:
“Phonemic
Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from
Africa”, (Science, 15 April
2011: p. 346-349).
[2] See Acholonu, et. al., The Lost Testament of the Ancestors of Adam
(2010)
[3] See F.N. Anozie: “Archaeology of Igboland: The
Early Prehistory” in G.E.K. Ofomata, A
Survey of the Igbo Nation, AFP, 2002;
Toyin Falola ed., Igbo History and
Society: The Essays of Adiele Afigbo, Africa World Press, NY, 2005. Igbo
land is not the only place of Homo Erectus habitation in the world, but its
proximity to the Chad-Nigeria basin where a team of French paleontologists
discovered in 2002 some 7 million
years-old fossil remains of Australopithecus - the direct ancestor of Homo
Erectus – makes it the most likely place of earliest Homo Erectus habitation.
Also the Nsukka team of archaeologists actually removed several tipper loads of
Early and Middle Stone Age
implements from the site and concluded that it was an international industry of
Homo Erectus Stone implements.
[4] See The
Lost Testament of the Ancestors of Adam; also new discoveries on Egyptian
pyramid texts and Sumerian records that reveal more clues of an Igbo/Nigerian
origin of Sumerian, Egyptian and Hebrew civilizations will soon be available on
www.carcafriculture.org.
[5] See New
York Times article by Nicholas Wade above.
[6] In our other articles on the subject, we
have demonstrated Igbo origins of several languages from at least four continents
of the globe.
[7]
Merritt Ruhlen, The Origin of Language: Tracing the
Evolution of the Mother-Tongue, 1994
[8] Acholonu et. al. They Lived Before Adam, 2009
[9] See They
Lived Before Adam and The Lost
Testament for details. See also “Igbo – A Former Global Lingua Franca and
The Mother of Semitic Languages”, 2011 ISA Conference, Howard University,
Washington DC.
[10] Zecharia Sitchin, The Wars of Gods and Men, Avon Books, 1985, p. 38
[11]
Kwa is the
language family to which Igbo, Benin, Ashanti, Yoruba and a number of other
Niger-Congo languages belong. We have argued in The Lost Testament that Igbo has shown itself to be the Proto-Kwa
language. Evidence continues to demonstrate that Igbo is not a child of the Niger-Congo, but its mother. Chadian
migration of Australopithecus to Igboland may account for Igbo being humanity’s
oldest mother-tongue and for its being related to Chadic. See the work of
French Professor of Paleontology, Michel Brunet on excavations
of fossil remains of Australopithecus (direct ancestor of Homo Erectus) in the
Chad-Nigeria Basin.
[12] According to Robert Temple, The Sirius Mystery, 1987
[13] See They
Lived Before Adam for the etymology of the word Christ.
[14] Black Athena 1
[15] See the works of Angulu Onwujeogwu and
Adiele Afigbo.
[16]
This point is demonstrated in The Lost Testament.
[17] The Twelfth Planet. 1978
[18] Sitchin ibid., p. 112
[19] Sitchin, The Twelfth Planet, p. 22
[20] Wallis Budge, Babylonian Life and History, 1925
[21] Ralph Ellis, Eden in Egypt, p.33-35
[22] Edited by Doreal, published online.
[23] Zecharia Sitchin, The Twelfth Planet, p.22
[24] Zecharia Sitchin, The Twelfth Planet, p.22
[25] See The Lost Testament for details.
[26] See The Lost Testament for details. Ralph Ellis analysis of this ark in Tempest and Exodus, shows that it has the same features as the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant.
[27]
Our study of the 350 (so far found)
inscribed monoliths located in Ikom, Cross River State, Nigeria, as they
pertain to Enoch, is recorded in Acholonu, The
Gram Code of African Adam, 2005. Enoch wrote 365 books! Some texts identify Enoch as Thoth. We found
several of Thoth’s symbols on the monoliths! For the study of the symbols as
they pertain to Thoth, see Acholonu, The
Lost Testament.
[28]
This was also
reflected in the Bible where El was called Elu Yah – ‘He of the Heights’; Igbo word Elu means ‘Height’ and Oye
Elu means in Igbo ‘He of the Heights’.
[29] Sitchin, When Time Began, 1993, p. 370
[30] When
I presented a public lecture on The Lost
Testament, at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in December, 2010, the Dean
of Archaeology at the university, Prof E.E. Okafor, announced that samples from
and ancient furnace in Nsukka, Igbo land sent to UK for dating, had just been
returned with a date of 4,000 BC! By 4,000 B.C. Sumerian civilization, which is
supposedly older than that of Egypt, was in its infancy. See E.E. Okafor,
“Lejja Bloombank Revisited”, Nigeria
Heritage: Journal of the NCMM,
Vol. 7, 1998
[31] P.
360-71
[32] This we studied in They Lived Before Adam.
[33] P. 373.
[34] See examples in They Lived Before Adam and The Lost Testament.