Name Theophile Obenga | ||
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Similar Cheikh Anta Diop, Joseph Ki Zerbo, Léopold Sédar Senghor | ||
Prof emeritus the ophile obenga on the african origin of so called greek education and philosophy
Théophile Obenga (born 1936) is an Egyptologist originally from Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa, who is professor emeritus in the Africana Studies Center at San Francisco State University. He is a politically active proponent of Pan-Africanism. In 2009 he publicly promoted Denis Sassou Nguesso as presidential candidate for the Republic of the Congo.
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Dr th ophile obenga and atomist philosophy in ancient egypt
Background
Obenga was born in 1936 in Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa (today in the Republic of the Congo).
He holds a PhD in Humanities from the University of Paris Sorbonne, France. His academic background include studies in Philosophy (in Bordeaux), Comparative historical linguistics, Prehistoric archeology (at College de France, Paris), Education sciences and Egyptology (in Geneva). His former lecturers include prominent scholars such as Émile Benveniste in Linguistics, Jean Leclant and Charles Maystre in Egyptology, Rodolphe Kasser in Coptic Language, Lionel Balout in Human Paleontology. He contributed as part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) program, to the writing of the General History of Africa and the Scientific and Cultural History of Humanity. He was, until the end of 1991, Director General of the Centre International des Civilisations Bantu (CICIBA) in Libreville, Gabon. He is the Director and Chief Editor of the journal Ankh.
From 28 January to 3 February 1974, at Cairo, Egypt, Obenga accompanied Cheikh Anta Diop as Africa's representatives to the UNESCO symposium on "The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script".
Linguistic theories
Obenga has advocated a number of ideas such as a "Negro-Egyptian" language family (négro-égyptien), which includes all languages of Africa, an approach that he shares with Cheikh Anta Diop. Obenga takes issue with the term Afro-Asiatic and states that the term is only a scientific invention and that the Egyptian language was never reconstructed following the methods of comparative historical linguistics, the very aim of which is to link genetically the languages concerned.
This idea has been criticised by some scholars as politically motivated pseudolinguistics. Other works by Obenga have been criticized as based on a confusion of race, cultural identity and political agenda.