◈ The Oromo-Egyptian Connection: Evidence from semiotic, linguistic and mythological concepts pertaining to hieroglyphic communication - By Dereje Tadesse Birbirsa (PhD)
Publication: www.academia.edu
Document Type: Article
Publication Date: 2010
Abstract
The socio-cultural origin of hieroglyphics and writing systems has never adequately been explained. This is mainly due to ‘argument from silence', i.e., a faith that elevates a single perspective and silences others. This paper breaks with the metaphysical presentation of ‘Egyptian' hieroglyphics. It adopts Oromo perspective with social-semiotic framework to analyses the hieroglyphics in its Ancient Black African context. Linguistic and epigraphic data pertaining to mythology are collected from secondary sources especially Horapollo (1840). The analysis and findings show Oromo-Kush concepts/lexemes of mythology correspond to the mythological, semantic, phonological and lexical values ascribed by Egyptians to the hieroglyphs. Results, thus, confirm that Oromo shows rich explanatory power in explaining the genesis and evolution of hieroglyphics, semiosis and language.
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Dereje Tadesse Birbirsa (PhD), Haramaya University, College of Social Sciences & Humanities