Was the Kingdom of Kush Cushitic, nilotic or both?

[Khaem]

Personally I think it was Both Cushitic peoples, Cushites who language shifted to nilo saharan like nubians, and just pure nilotes who were all involved in ancient Kush.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kush

This is the empire at its greatest extent when it ruled Egypt for about a hundred years before being kicked out by the Assyrians.

 

[celidheere]

pretty sure it was both

 

[nicki minaj]

Oh nah lmao the Kingdom of Kush has no relation to Cushitic-speakers , it's only associated with Nubia(ns). Geographically speaking we are blocked off from them (or at least the East African ones).

Curse the British and Germans man

 

[Khaem]

Oh nah lmao the Kingdom of Kush has no relation to Cushitic-speakers , it's only associated with Nubia(ns). Geographically speaking we are blocked off from them (or at least the East African ones).

Curse the British and Germans man

Sudan has north Cushitic speakers like beja. Nubians are thought to be cushites who language shifted to nilo saharan or possibly a mix between the two. We east cushites (somali, oromo & afar) have no relation to the Kingdom of Kush since we long migrated out of Sudan and settled the horn by then. But the northern cushites were still there and still are in the form of beja and some other groups.

 

[nicki minaj]

Sudan has north Cushitic speakers like beja. Nubians are thought to be cushites who language shifted to nilo saharan or possibly a mix between the two. We east cushites (somali, oromo & afar) have no relation to the Kingdom of Kush since we long migrated out of Sudan and settled the horn by then. But the northern cushites were still there and still are in the form of beja and some other groups.

Yeah I'm aware of Beja, hence why I put in parenthesis "or at least the East African ones.". Isn't Beja being in the Cushitic family highly debated on, especially their relation with other Cushitic sub groups?

About the Nubian thing, I don't think there's any actual evidence supporting the claim that Nubians once spoke a Cushitic language. They are totallyyyyyy different people from us. I think they should be labeled as Eastern Sudanic family or the Nubian sub division and that's it.

 

[Khaem]

Yeah I'm aware of Beja, hence why I put in parenthesis "or at least the East African ones.". Isn't Beja being in the Cushitic family highly debated on, especially their relation with other Cushitic sub groups?

About the Nubian thing, I don't think there's any actual evidence supporting the claim that Nubians once spoke a Cushitic language. They are totallyyyyyy different people from us. I think they should be labeled as Eastern Sudanic family or the Nubian sub division and that's it.

There's no debate about beja being in the Cushitic family though? It sounds very Cushitic. It's just there's not other north cushite language left other than beja.
Same with Iraqw in Tanzania who are the last south Cushitic tribe. The only cushites that are prospering are the east cushites who are Somalis and Oromo. Everyone else is being absorbed either by arabs or bantus.

We probably don't share that much in common with them as Horners.

This is one theory on the wiki

 

[Bari🐍]

I have a theory Cushitic speakers come from Mongolia. I'll expand on that one day.

 

[Kisra]

Yeah I'm aware of Beja, hence why I put in parenthesis "or at least the East African ones.". Isn't Beja being in the Cushitic family highly debated on, especially their relation with other Cushitic sub groups?

About the Nubian thing, I don't think there's any actual evidence supporting the claim that Nubians once spoke a Cushitic language. They are totallyyyyyy different people from us. I think they should be labeled as Eastern Sudanic family or the Nubian sub division and that's it.

Nubians are not totally different people. They decend from the same proto-Cushitic population that somalis decend from.

Also whether the language is Nilo-Saharan or whether the Nilo-Saharan language family even exists is still up for debate.

'In his book The Languages of Africa (1963), Joseph Greenberg named the group and argued it was a genetic family. It contains the languages which are not included in the Niger–Congo, Afroasiatic or Khoisan groups. Although some linguists have referred to the phylum as "Greenberg's wastebasket", into which he placed all the otherwise unaffiliated non-click languages of Africa,'

 

[Kisra]

Is there any actual genetic evidence to say that there was a significant nilote presence in Kush?
The only 'evidence' I've seen is depictions by Egyptians which obviously isn't reliable.
Remember this is how African Americans were portrayed in the 20th century

Google Image Result for https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/85/Entartete_musik_poster.jpg

Features and dark skin are always exaggerated when creating anti-black propaganda. So what's to say that the Egyptians didn't do the same to their enemy down south in an effort to 'other' them.
Egyptians also portrayed themselves as brown so it might have been to differentiate themselves from their Cushitic southern neighbours.

The Kushites were also agricultural whilst nilote are pastoalists. Why would the nilotic descendants of Kush turn to pastoralism when they were agriculturalists at first. This is even more apparent in the fact that nilotic tribes like the Dinka are said to originate in aljazeera and then went southwards. That area being some of the best agricultural land Sudan has.

Currently, I'm unconvinced of the notion that nilote existed in significant numbers in Kush. I'm open to change my mind though if someone brings genetic evidence or some other evidence.

 

[mohammdov]

They were Nilo-Sahara. You can see that in the way the Egyptians depicted them

 

[Khaem]

They were Nilo-Sahara. You can see that in the way the Egyptians depicted them View attachment 285414

Did you not read what the previous user said about this. Also, Cushitic speakers have always had a huge presence in the region since that's where Cushitic speakers originated.

You wouldn't say the libyans and Levantines are white people judging by the Egyptian art. Levantines and libyans look identical to Egyptians yet they are depicted differently so that the Egyptians could differentiate themselves from those outside their borders

 

[Cognitive]

Major players of Nubian civilizations as we know them (the sendentary city-builders and aristocrats) were a "Cushitic-like race", with "Horneroid" morphology.
This is not mumbo jumbo, but rather hard facts based on dental, cranial, and genetic data.
Also, Egyptians tend to exaggerate the physical features of certain populations (e.g. look at how they drew Minoans).

 

[Cognitive]

Some data on Nubian anthropological affinities.

[ Barry J. Kemp] Ancient Egypt Anatomy Of A Civili(b Ok.org) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

ancient egypt

archive.org

Gebel Ramlah: Final Neolithic Cemeteries from the Western Desert of Egypt

Gebel Ramlah: Final Neolithic Cemeteries from the Western Desert of Egypt

www.academia.edu

 

[Step a side]

Is the question based on linguistic or genetics?

 

[Nilotic]

I believe that it was an empire that included Nilotes, as soldiers at least; the ethnic group responsible for its creation (the now extinct Kasu) were similar to the Nubians.

 

[Cognitive]

Off-topic but Minoans were butchered here.
The remaining wall paintings of EGs made them look like Soloman Islanders.

Golden hair? Check
Dark skin? Check.
Thick lips? ALSO CHECK

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oRigiNal gReeKs WA sOloMoN IsLanDErs aNd SHIET

 

[Cognitive]

I believe that it was an empire that included Nilotes, as soldiers at least; the ethnic group responsible for its creation (the now extinct Kasu) were similar to the Nubians.

I think nilotes were pastoralists who lived nearby (like how Mongols and Jurchens lived alongside my ancestors). They would interact with the sedentary population via trade, small-scale war, or intermarriage. Others were taken as infantrymen alongside Bejas, probably. While some would be "converted" and absorbed, especially during the certain southern-shift of Nubian political centers (e.g. Meroitic period, A-Group to C-Group transition...etc etc).
Have you read similar materials discussing the subject in a "racial" sense? I have not found it so far. Doesn't have to be the politically accurate modern iterations. Old-school colonial bullshit will suffice.

 

[Nilotic]

I think nilotes were pastoralists who lived nearby (like how Mongols and Jurchens lived alongside my ancestors).

We now have evidence that Kush had considerable influence and that this influence extended as far South as the White Nile -- further South than where the ancestors of the Dinka resided at that point, in the Gezira.

Other than the Kasu of Kush, everybody in that region seems to have been nomadic; the ancestors of the Nubians (Nubae) were also described as nomads of the Western Desert.

The remaining parts towards the south are occupied by Troglodytae, Blemmyes, Nubae, and Megabari, Ethiopians above Syene. These are nomads.(Strabo, Geography 17.1.53.)

On the left of the course of the Nile live Nubae in Libya, a populous nation. They begin from Meroe, and extend as far as the bends (of the river). They are not subject to the Ethiopians, but live independently, being distributed into several sovereignties.(Strabo, Geography 17.1.2.)

Generally, it seems the Nubian tribes settled between the kingdom of Meroe in the South and Egypt in the North. The Nubians were perceived as "piratical" maurading tribes disrupting the trade between Egypt and the lucrative Sub-Saharan world represented by the kingdoms of Meroe and Aksum. ( The Encyclopaedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, John Anthony)

The Egyptians even describe Kush enlisting the help of Punt, Wawat and the Medjaw in their assault on Egypt, so it's clear that Kush exercised a great deal of power and influence in the Nile Valley.

Listen you, who are alive upon earth . . . Kush came . . . aroused along his length, he having stirred up the tribes of Wawat . . . the land of Punt and the Medjaw.

Have you read similar materials discussing the subject in a "racial" sense? I have not found it so far. Doesn't have to be the politically accurate modern iterations. Old-school colonial bullshit will suffice.

All I can find is a distinction in the skin-tones of people living near Egypt and those in Kush

It was a market place to which the Ethiopians bring all the products of their country; and the Egyptians in their turn take them all away and bring to the same spot their own wares of equal value, so bartering what they have got for what they have not. Now the inhabitants of the marches (Nubian/Egyptians border) are not yet fully black but are half-breeds in matter of color, for they are partly not so black as the Ethiopians, yet partly more so than the Egyptians.” Flavius Philostratus: c.170 to c.247,

 

[Khaem]

All I can find is a distinction in the skin-tones of people living near Egypt and those in Kush

Sounds about east african to me.

I do think that nilotes did have an influence or impact on kush, during it's hey day it had a big influence on a large part of North Eastern Africa.


Imagine what more we can find out if we managed to decipher the language. We found out so much about Egypt simply through getting their language.
We found out Ethiopia was the first Christian nation and when and who converted the country by simply finding a rock with some information.

 

[Step a side]

Once again are we on about genetics or linguistics?