Moro Naba Palace

Moab Language Found in Burkina Faso
Linking the Moab to North West Africa
By: Cozmo Ali El
Published 9:06 pm PST  04-29-2014

In relationship to the statements made by Noble Drew Ali regarding the "Moabites from the land of Moab," relocating to northwest Africa, there has resulted much dispute as to it's validity. Moreover, It has been claimed that Moors were in fact Arab Muslims and not native to Africa. Upon researching this angle of history, I have come across some interesting information that may shed light on Ali's "controversial" statement.

There exist in the North western part of Africa a people and a language that lends credibility to the migration of Moabites to that region. The place is Burkina Faso as well as Togo and perhaps as far as Modern Day Lybia.

I speak of the language Moba or and the Gurma people of northwest Africa
According to ethnology Moba is also known as Moab.
"Moba-A language of Togo

"Alternate Names
Ben, Moa, Moab, Moare

Language Use
Vigorous. Home, neighborhood, market, work, church. All ages. Positive attitudes.
Language Development
Literacy rate in L1: 1%–30%. More interest in learning to read French than Moba.

Language Maps
Burkina Faso
Togo

Classification
Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Volta-Congo, North, Gur, Central, Northern, Oti-Volta, Gurma, Moba

Location
Northwest Savanes Region, Tandjoare prefecture, into Tone and Oti prefectures, mainly Dapaong and Bombouaka towns.
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web-based publication that contains statistics for 7,105 languages and dialects in the 17th edition, released in 2013.

 

 Burkina Faso

"Linguistic Affiliation. French, the language of the former colonizing power, is the official language. It is used in schools, the army, the media, and by people who attend school if they are not from the same ethnic group. Since many people do not go to school, they have little or no knowledge of the French language. Widespread vernacular languages include Mooré in the center of the country and Dyula in the west; a few other languages are also used in radio programs and on television news. Among more than sixty languages spoken in Burkina Faso, thirty-eight belong to the Gur or Voltaic language family, including Mooré, Bwamu, Dagara, and Lobiri. The Mande language family includes twelve languages, such as Bisa, Sane, Dyula, and Bobo. Other language families include only one or two languages; the most important of these is Fulfulde spoken by the cattle rearing Fulbe people. Many Burkinabè grow up speaking several national languages as well as French."

Read more: http://www.everyculture.com/Bo-Co/Burkina-Faso.html#ixzz30JopLBjG

The Gurma people living mainly in Burkina Faso, Togo, benin and Niger. Gurma are also known as Gourmantche'. Gourmantche' bears striking phonetic similarity to Garamante of Ancient Fazzan or Fezzania.

"The earliest occupation documented in Volume 2 consists of small bands of hunter-gatherers exploiting quartzite deposits to make Acheulean handaxes from c. 400,000 BP. There is substantial evidence for the Middle Paleolithic until c. 70,000 BP when an arid phase set in, resulting in the drying up of a large lake in the 3-10 km-wide by 150 km-long Wadi al-Ajal. At that time the Fazzan was abandoned and re-occupation did not take place until c. 10,000 BP, when mobile hunter-gatherers returned. Growing aridity led to the initiation of pastoralism and agriculture perhaps as early as 8,000 BP. During the last 5,000 years, rainfall has been negligible, and therefore agricultural production increasingly depended on the ability to acquire water from underground sources. This was most notably achieved by the use of foggaras, subterranean tunnels which tap aquifers and lead water to cultivated plots. A minimum of 617 of these foggaras are known in the Fazzan. They provided for the basis for substantial human occupation, with population numbers possibly in the tens of thousands at their peak in the first three centuries CE (Daniels estimated 120,000 Garamantian tombs could be found along the Wadi al-Ajal). The majority of the population lived in towns and villages, though they were stereotyped as transhumant pastoralists by Greek and Roman authors. Garamantian civilization declined from c. 400 CE. The Fazzan existed outside Islamic control until the 11th or 12th century, but new trans-Saharan trade routes developed through Morocco and Algeria, and the influence of the Garamantes on the development of the desert diminished. (Bryn Mawr Classical Review) 2010.02.79 David. J. Mattingly (ed.), The Archaeology of Fazzan. Volume 2. Site Gazetteer, Pottery and Other Survey Finds. Society for Libyan Studies Monograph 7.   London:  The Society for Libyan Studies and Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahariya Department of Antiquities, 2007.  Pp. xxix, 522, figs. 760, tables 37.  ISBN 9781900971054. Reviewed by David L. Stone, Florida State University)

Fazzan is Libya’s vast south-west desert province, its boundaries variously defined over time to cover an era of 550,000–640,000 km2. However, this kingdom may have been more extensive in ancient times.

"Herodotus wrote of the Garamantes’ four-horse chariots, which are pictured in rock carvings and paintings at many nearby sites. He also described their agricultural practice of strewing earth upon the salt plain before sowing their crops, noting correctly the high natron (bicarbonate of soda) content of the Fezzan soils. More fancifully, he also wrote that the Garamates bred cattle with horns so large that the animals were obliged to walk backward as they grazed, dragging their horns behind them like plows." "Lybia's Forgotten Desert," Written by Louis Werner, Saudi Aramco Arab and islamic Cultures and Connections

There are many commonalities between the Garamante and the Moabites.

"For archeologists, the dating and sequencing of human habitation in Garama is still far from clear. The old city had three mosques which are now, like the rest of the city, in ruins. Under two of them have been found cut-stone foundations with some indication that they had been temples to the Phoenician goddess Tanit, who in another guise was worshiped at Meroë in the Sudan—perhaps under the distant influence of the Garamantes." IBID

Tanit, a femenin-moon force or "moon goddess" is equivalent to Ashtar of the Moabites alternate spelling of Attar (god), an Ethiopian Aksumite of Amexumite diety.

"It was the Garamante Manding speaking tribe who took Amon worship to Greece. In Appollonius Rhodius iv.1310, we discover that the goddess Athene was born beside Lake Tritonis in Libya. Plato, identified Athene of Athens with the Libyan god Neith. Athene was worshipped by the Manding and other Western Saharans including the Linear A people of Minoan Crete. Athene is always associated with the god Amon. Moreover the Manding concept of N'ama as a dynamic spirit among the other Mande tribes point to an earlier worship of Amon, before the Mande accepted Islam. The Bambara call their ancestral god Gnia or Nia, this has affinity to the Greek term for the Libyan god called Neith." The Proto- Saharans by Clyde A. Winters
Read more: http://www.everyculture.com/Bo-Co/Burkina-Faso.html#ixzz30JopLBjG


Neith (Deity) of the Garamante

Neith was a goddess of war but her name also may be interpreted as meaning water. In time, this led to her being considered as the personification of the primordial waters of creation. She is identified as a great mother goddess in this role as a creator.
Neith as the mother of Ra, she was sometimes described as the "Great Cow who gave birth to Ra".
When she was identified as a water goddess, she was also viewed as the mother of Sobek, the crocodile. It was this association with water, i.e. the Nile, that led to her sometimes being considered the wife of Khnum, and associated with the source of the River Nile. She was associated with the Nile Perch.
An interior wall of the temple at Esna records an account of creation in which Neith brings forth from the primeval waters of the Nun the first land ex nihilo. All that she conceived in her heart comes into being including the thirty gods. Having no known husband she has been described as "Virgin Mother Goddess."

Chemosh (deiy) of the Moabites

Chemosh was a god associated with the Semitic mother-goddess Ashtar, whose name he bears. (Moabite Stone, line 17; compare Barton, "Semitic Origins," iv.)
Chemosh was the national deity of the Moabites whose name most likely meant "destroyer," "subduer," or "fish god." While he is most readily associated with the Moabites, according to Judges 11:24 he seems to have been the national deity of the Ammonites as well.

Chom

"It is interesting to note that in the Linear A inscriptions we find mention of the goddess Nia= Neith. Moreover, some South Indian worship Amma = Amon. The priest of this cult are called Chom or Khonrini, the Greeks called them Gymnosophists. This Chom, of the Dravidians has affinity to Khon, the leading Kushite god. "The Proto Saharan Religions,' Clyde A. winters

Or perhaps Ammon and Chom is none other than the Moabite Chemosh.

The Moore' Language
In relationship to the word Moor, it is interesting to note that the term Moor existed in the region far be fore the use of moor in reference to Arabs Persians and Muslims in general i.e., "16c.-17c. used indiscriminately of Muslims (Persians, Arabs, etc.) but especially those in India.) Online Etymological Dictionary

The Mossi language (known in the language as Mòoré; also Mooré, Moré, Moshi, Moore or More) is one of two official regional languages of Burkina Faso and refer to their ruler as Moro or Mogho Naba.

"OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Every Friday at dawn, a crowd gathers outside a dilapidated palace here in Burkina Faso's capital to attend a ritual faithfully repeated for centuries.The ceremony involves traditional chiefs bearing the title of "Ministers," a lavishly-bedecked stallion and a mighty monarch called the Mogho Naba, or emperor of the Mossi tribe…. The emperor, revered as "the Rising Sun" by the Mossi people, is assisted by a court made up of Naba (chiefs, in the More language). They include the Gouaga Naba, head of the imperial infantry, and the Kamsogho Naba, the chief eunuch in charge of the harem. (Emperor of the Mossi Tribe : In Burkina Faso, Mogho Naba Lives On February 05, 1989 |JEAN-LOUP FIEVET | Reuters)
 

                                                                      Mossi Chiefs   

                                           Before Africa was colonized the Mossi people
                                                    lived in the Moro/Mogho kingdom