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232 Arabic is still vigorously suppressed in and by Israel. Whereas some Egyptians were able to defend themselves in court using their native language under Greek and Roman rule, this was not at all possible for Blacks in white-ruled South Africa, which was, at least formally, the most oppressive apartheid society with regard to language. 8.1. Atticism and the ‘Obsession with Language’ Ptolemaic Egypt...remained throughout its history a land of two cultures which did coexist but, for the most part, did not coalesce or blend. . . . We discern the manifestations of the two discrete cultures in every aspect of their coexistence. . . . It would be difficult...to exaggerate the significance of the fact that, except for some local designations of places, measures, and so on, no native Egyptian word made its way into Greek usage in the thousand years that Greek endured as the language of Ptolemaic, Roman and Byzantine Egypt. 544 In fact, none of the words that we commonly use today to describe ancient Egypt are Egyptian themselves, e.g. pyramid, sphinx, pharaoh, Egypt, hieroglyph. (Some of these Greek words, however, have Egyptian etymologies which by far predate Alexander’s conquest. It is, however, unlikely that Greeks in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt were ever aware of this.) Even the Gods and all of the cities were given Greek names, most of which accompany them to this day. The Egyptian kings of antiquity are also still known, ever since the sway of the Greek apartheid system, by their Greek names, e.g. Cheops, Mykerinos, etc. This kind of cultural dispossession is common with colonialism – the fact that the largest lake in the continent of Africa is still named after a long dead white woman who never even went there speaks volumes to that effect – but it is even more intensive in apartheid. Although Kenya’s largest lake is still called Victoria, its main cities all have indigenous names. South Africa’s main cities, on the other hand, all (still) have white names. Cultural dispossession was later repeated to roughly the same large extent in South Africa and Israel as in Egypt, one difference being that Egyptian, the language of the entire indigenous majority, was eventually wiped out under Greek (and to a lesser extent, Latin 545 ) domination. The Persian occupiers of Egypt, prior to the Greeks, did not use their own language, but Aramaic, the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean region at that time, as the language of administration in Egypt. They did this although Persian, an Indo-Iranian language, is very different from Aramaic, which is a Semitic language. And being a Semitic language, Aramaic is also an Afro-Asiatic language, which means it is much more closely related to ancient Egyptian than to Persian, the mother language of the invaders. 546 Apparently, an invading power needs at least a sizeable civilian element if it is to impose its language on an indigenous majority, and especially if it is to achieve the demise of an indigenous majority’s language, unless of course the difference in military resources is large enough and a physically genocidal policy is implemented successfully, as was frequently the 544 Lewis, N. 1986: 154f 545 The Romans were apparently not quite as ethnocentric as the Greeks. For instance, many Greek works of literature were translated into Latin, and many Romans learned Greek. This was not reciprocated to any comparable degree by the Greeks. Werner 1992: 11. Similarly, the British in South Africa were in general not quite as ethnocentric as were the descendants of the Dutch, the Afrikaners. Due to over a hundred years of British colonial rule, as well as the British pioneering efforts in industrialization, which left the overwhelmingly agricultural Afrikaners behind them in terms of economic development, the British in South Africa were also generally richer than the Afrikaners were. But there were significant exceptions to this general pattern. For instance, from the 1820s onwards, British settlers and soldiers were in the process of subjugating the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape, and some Afrikaners, who were conscripted by the British colonial administration from the 1830s onwards to do some of the conquerors’ dirty work, apparently even ‘showed some fellow feeling towards the African chiefdoms.’ Keegan 1996: 35 546 Thompson, D. J.: Literacy and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt, 1994: 74

233 case in the Americas during the last half-millennium. In other words: a colonialist power – though not neocolonialism – apparently needs to develop into apartheid (or further into physical genocide) if it is to achieve linguistic genocide. The ancient Egyptian language only lived on during and after the Graeco-Roman period with another name and in a vastly different form as Coptic, which is massively influenced by Greek and by the new Greek-inspired system of writing. At least one quarter of the Coptic vocabulary is Greek in origin. 547 It is no longer being used in the vernacular today, and the lingual blame for that should not only be given to Arabic, which has largely replaced Coptic during the last millennium, but to Greek and Latin, as well. As we have seen, only a negligible amount of Egyptian words ever made it in the opposite direction, into the Greek and Latin languages of the dominant ethnic minority. In comparison, Khoisan languages, with some very limited exceptions, were annihilated in South Africa, whereas the Bantu languages of the majority persevered and survived, though not without also being massively influenced by the white languages. 548 The Whites in South Africa presently seem to have progressed further than the Europeans in Egypt in acculturation by starting to use certain African words such as ubuntu, sangoma or impimpi. 549 Yet, it should not be forgotten that apartheid is now formally absent from South African politics. Therefore, this linguistic comparison with Greek-speaking Egypt is, strictly speaking, already an anachronism. (In the final analysis, however, one should not underestimate economic, social and cultural apartheid, which are still considerable factors in today’s South African society. 550 ) The increasing use of cryptography in hieroglyphic texts during the Persian occupation – which, unlike the Greek one, was colonial in style and not accompanied by massive immigration of settlers – culminated from the beginning of Greek rule to the point where all hieroglyphic texts started containing cryptographic elements. Only priests, and no lay people, are likely to have mastered hieroglyphs by this time. The total number of symbols in the Egyptian hieroglyphic system increased tenfold after the conquest by Alexander! Soon, it was only used and understood by a small number of Egyptian priests. The normal Egyptians then started using the cursive Demotic system and, increasingly, Greek writing. The priests had probably realized first that the entire Egyptian culture was under an implicit, but appalling threat of extermination. They may also have wanted to keep the foreigners ignorant about this possible tool of resistance. Finally, they were able to distance themselves from the other Egyptians, in relation to whom they possessed considerable privileges. Of course the priests were also able to justify their own privileged standing by showing normal Egyptians how patriotically resistant they really were by ‘openly’ criticizing the Greeks. The dimension of resistance seems to have been the dominant motivation for the increasing use of cryptography, although the two other factors may also have been influential. The temples of the Graeco-Roman period are in fact covered with cryptic anti-Greek and anti-Roman propaganda, which the Greeks and Romans at the time seem to have either completely misunderstood or not understood at all. 551 547 Manning: Review of Hoffmann, Friedhelm: Ägypten - Kultur und Lebenswelt in griechisch-römischer Zeit: Eine Darstellung nach den demotischen Quellen, 2001 548 Lester 1996: 10, 20ff 549 Zulu for humanism or ‘humanness’, healer/diviner and traitor, respectively, see Glossary in Krog: Country of My Skull, 1998: 282-286. This book is a personal and honest, post-modernist attempt at laying ghosts to rest by an Afrikaner journalist who covered events surrounding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for an extended period of time. The word, ubuntu, is even left untranslated in the English version of South Africa’s post-apartheid Constitution. 550 See, for instance, Thomasson: Racial Tension Still Divides Small Town South Africa, 1998; Lovell: South Africa Reverts to Racially-Divided Politics, 2000; Lovell: South African Local Poll Reveals Widening Racial Divide, 2000. 551 See Assmann 1996: 456ff; Assmann 2000: 76.

233<br />

case in the Americas during the last half-millennium. In other words: a colonialist power –<br />

though not neocolonialism – apparently needs to develop into apartheid (or further into<br />

physical genocide) if it is to achieve linguistic genocide.<br />

The ancient Egyptian language only lived on during and after the Graeco-Roman<br />

period with another name and in a vastly different form as Coptic, which is massively<br />

influenced by Greek and by the new Greek-inspired system of writing. At least one quarter of<br />

the Coptic vocabulary is Greek in origin. 547 It is no longer being used in the vernacular today,<br />

and the lingual blame for that should not only be given to Arabic, which has largely replaced<br />

Coptic during the last millennium, but to Greek and Latin, as well.<br />

As we have seen, only a negligible amount of Egyptian words ever made it in the<br />

opposite direction, into the Greek and Latin languages of the dominant ethnic minority. In<br />

comparison, Khoisan languages, with some very limited exceptions, were annihilated in South<br />

Africa, whereas the Bantu languages of the majority persevered and survived, though not<br />

without also being massively influenced by the white languages. 548<br />

The Whites in South Africa presently seem to have progressed further than the<br />

Europeans in Egypt in acculturation by starting to use certain African words such as ubuntu,<br />

sangoma or impimpi. 549 Yet, it should not be forgotten that apartheid is now formally absent<br />

from South African politics. Therefore, this linguistic comparison with Greek-speaking Egypt<br />

is, strictly speaking, already an anachronism. (In the final analysis, however, one should not<br />

underestimate economic, social and cultural apartheid, which are still considerable factors in<br />

today’s South African society. 550 )<br />

The increasing use of cryptography in hieroglyphic texts during the Persian occupation<br />

– which, unlike the Greek one, was colonial in style and not accompanied by massive<br />

immigration of settlers – culminated from the beginning of Greek rule to the point where all<br />

hieroglyphic texts started containing cryptographic elements. Only priests, and no lay people,<br />

are likely to have mastered hieroglyphs by this time.<br />

The total number of symbols in the Egyptian hieroglyphic system increased tenfold<br />

after the conquest by Alexander! Soon, it was only used and understood by a small number of<br />

Egyptian priests. The normal Egyptians then started using the cursive Demotic system and,<br />

increasingly, Greek writing. The priests had probably realized first that the entire Egyptian<br />

culture was under an implicit, but appalling threat of extermination. They may also have<br />

wanted to keep the foreigners ignorant about this possible tool of resistance. Finally, they<br />

were able to distance themselves from the other Egyptians, in relation to whom they possessed<br />

considerable privileges. Of course the priests were also able to justify their own privileged<br />

standing by showing normal Egyptians how patriotically resistant they really were by ‘openly’<br />

criticizing the Greeks. The dimension of resistance seems to have been the dominant<br />

motivation for the increasing use of cryptography, although the two other factors may also<br />

have been influential. The temples of the Graeco-Roman period are in fact covered with<br />

cryptic anti-Greek and anti-Roman propaganda, which the Greeks and Romans at the time<br />

seem to have either completely misunderstood or not understood at all. 551<br />

547 Manning: Review of Hoffmann, Friedhelm: Ägypten - Kultur und Lebenswelt in griechisch-römischer Zeit:<br />

Eine Darstellung nach den demotischen Quellen, 2001<br />

548 Lester 1996: 10, 20ff<br />

549 Zulu for humanism or ‘humanness’, healer/diviner and traitor, respectively, see Glossary in Krog: Country of<br />

My Skull, 1998: 282-286. This book is a personal and honest, post-modernist attempt at laying ghosts to rest by<br />

an Afrikaner journalist who covered events surrounding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for an<br />

extended period of time. The word, ubuntu, is even left untranslated in the English version of South Africa’s<br />

post-apartheid Constitution.<br />

550 See, for instance, Thomasson: Racial Tension Still Divides Small Town South Africa, 1998; Lovell: South<br />

Africa Reverts to Racially-Divided Politics, 2000; Lovell: South African Local Poll Reveals Widening Racial<br />

Divide, 2000.<br />

551 See Assmann 1996: 456ff; Assmann 2000: 76.

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