Digging tswana

I.M. LETEANE | Friday June 22, 2012 00:00

Finally, and most astonishingly, is how I am able to unearth the very building blocks of language and show that Bantu languages (and Sotho-Tswana no less) share much the same etymologies with so-called Indo-European languages.

The roots of all this go so deep that they evoke a mysterious time when, worldwide legend consistently swears, flesh-and-blood 'gods' walked the Earth. Some called them 'angels', others 'demons', but the plethora of tales about them, when properly interpreted, has, like the tail of the scorpion, emerged unexpectedly from the rear to sting us into new awareness, rousing us from our ancient slumber.

So how am I able to do all this? The answer is simple. Firstly, one needs some understanding of not only Sumerian, Akkadian and Sanskrit languages, but their 'legends' and 'myths'. Then (perhaps most surprising of all) one needs to understand Bantu languages, and especially - even more surprising - Sotho-Tswana.

For whatever historical reasons - and I traced some of these in my Language of the Gods series of articles - they retained best the diction of ancient Egypt from where, I have consistently explained, an ancient and forced migration displaced us southward.

As such, Sotho-Tswana has kept the term 'Ba-Loi', originally meaning 'Shining Ones', a term little-understood by Western mythologist but which they correctly associate with certain powerful and mysterious beings called 'Akhus' (now Makgoa in Tswana).

What connects 'Loi' to 'shining'? The term 'baloi' (Eloi in Hebrew) is premised on 'Illu', the Sumerian name for 'gods'. Now 'fire': mo-illu (mo'llo/ mo-l'illu) in most Bantu languages, one would be quite obtuse not see the ancient connection with 'illumination' - an Indo-European word. This multi-layered term contrasted not only to the pale skin of the 'gods', but their 'enlightenment' as well. As such, the term gradually corrupted to 'wizards' (or 'witches') because such 'gods', we have shown, wielded advanced technology with which they bedazzled and mystified everyone else. And they made sure that they kept it that way. Now we all unwittingly worship their ancient leaders as the Almighty God Himself - a very sad state of affairs indeed.

Let us now see what became of the ravishing, volatile, Indo-Sumerian goddess-queen Inanna/ Ishtar when a warrant of arrest was issued for her, not only for intruding into the 'sacred' region of E.DIN and even conquering Egypt (another god's territory) - but for also declaring herself AN.AT: '[Queen Whose Domain] Spreads ('ata' is 'multiply' or 'spread out' in Sotho-Tswana) to Heaven (AN)'. This was in direct challenge to not only Enlil (EN.L'ILLU - Sotho-Tswana: Ene-le-Illu - Lord/ Main-One of the Illu), but to AN-U, overlord of the gods as well, whose name, in Sotho-Tswana, means 'He (U) of Heaven (AN - plural: ma-ani (Heavens) - which  in Sotho now means 'over there' or 'up there')'.

People tend to think that all stories of 'gods' and 'goddesses' are 'myth', so let us briefly recap on how Inanna's exploits have impacted our actual history. Sumerian 'mythology' (as in Myths of Kur and other legends) tells us that Inanna lost her lover and 'Righteous Shepherd' Dumuzi in a tussle with Marduk/ Baal/ Ra for supremacy in the imminent Age of the Ram (Aries: 2160 BC to O AD). Disconsolate, she was offered the Aryan region of the Indus Valley as her domain. This, along with Europe, became the Third Region ('third part of the world' in Revelations). Thus, as 'Mahabharata' (Sotho-Tswana: Mma[ha] - Greatest/ Mother-of-all [here]: 'maha' in Sanskrit, 'major' in English; ba-rata: 'lovers'), i.e. as a noted lover of 'mortals', she gave India's its ancient name.

Europe's languages are also now formally labelled 'Indo-European'. Indeed, through her handsome 'mortal' lover Naram-Sin: the biblical Nimrod; the historical Namer (or Mena/Menes) who unified Upper and Lower Egypt; the Egyptian 'god' Min/ Nim who was also crowned with two feathers, it is historical fact that Naram-Sin soon called himself 'Lord of the Four Regions'. By 3113 BC, he had displaced Inanna's bitter rival Marduk in Egypt, an event celebrated by Thoth/ Quetzalcoatl, Marduk's younger brother. Why? When Marduk was exiled there after the Tower of Babylon incident he, in turn, displaced Thoth from power. But when Marduk was later allowed to return to Babylon, he selfishly clung to power in Egypt as well.

Nergal, Thoth (both Marduk's brothers) and Inanna thus conspired to topple him in Egypt. Grateful for the  unexpected 'sting' role Nergal played from his African base, Naram-Sin paid due tribute to this now-'mysterious' Scorpion King, known to have exercised authority in Egypt but whose activities, as with all 'gods', are now treated as 'legend'. Thoth's famous Mayan Calendar also happily marked Namer/Mena's conquest of Egypt.

As such, Inanna did not wait for her incarceration but instead fled to KI.GAL (Sumerian: 'Earth's Great [Region]'), where her sister Ereshkigal ruled with Nergal. 'Ne-gara' (as Africans pronounced 'Nergal'), we can be sure, gave rise not only to the ancient term 'Negroes' (ma-Ne-gara), but Niger, Nigeria and others as well. RU-AN.DA, where Kigal now is, we explained, was the feared 'Land of the Ru (Europeans)'.

When Inanna returned after years of exile, and comfortably buttressed by Nergal's Khuthean troops (Sotho-Tswana: Goo-tia: Strong Ones), it was only to make her greatest mistake, one that effectively ended her 'Sargonic' era.