More on the Egyptian Language
Language
Egyptian is
in the Afro-Asiatic (Hamito-Semitic) Family.
So it is (distantly) related to the Semitic
languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian, etc.).
Egyptian constitutes its own branch of the Afro-Asiatic family
of languages.
Coptic is a later form of Egyptian.
Coptic was spoken from about the 2nd to the 17th centuries
(written until the 14th).
In fact, Coptic is still used today in religious ceremonies
by Coptic Christians (Arabic speaking Monophysite Christians of Egypt).
Vowels in Egyptian probably shifted with grammatical inflection, which
led to writing systems that did not indicate vowels.
Writings
First appears in the end of the predynastic times: 3100-3000 BC.
(Slightly later than Sumerian writing).
First continuous texts from c. 2650 in the old kingdom.
Before Coptic, all writings were consonantal: nothing in the writing
indicates the vowels. The vowels have to be guessed based
on later Coptic forms and non-Egyptian contemporaries.
Egyptians thought writing was the invention of Thoth, god
of learning and writing.
Hieroglyphic
Hieroglyphics had a cursive form used, instead of hieratic, on papyrus
for things like the book of the dead or coffin texts. Last known AD 394.
About 6000 in the course of time, but many of these are not common
and arose in the late period (after about 600 BC). Only 700 in the middle kingdom,
but much fewer are common.
From the Greek hierogluphiká meaning "sacred carvings".
Often written in vertical columns, but horizontal lines occur. Right to left
is most common, but left to right when appropriate to the composition.
The direction is consistent with how the characters are facing: if the
characters face right the characters are read from right to left.
Three types of characters (i) logogram which signified a whole word,
(ii) phonogram which signified a consonant or consonant cluster, and (iii)
determinatives which aided in interpreting the meaning of the word.
There were many logograms. The phonograms were borrowed from the
logograms and had the phonetic value of the consonants in the word
represented by the logogram (not just the initial consonant: rebus principle).
Determinatives were placed at the end of the word.
For example, the sign for mouth looks like a mouth.
But this character could be as a phonogram. Since the word for mouth
has only the consonant r, the character represented r.
26 phonograms had values of one consonant. 80 common phonograms
had value equal to a cluster of two consonants. About 70
phonograms
had value equal to a cluster of three consonants.
There are a large number of determinatives which occur at
the ends of words.
Hieratic
Hieratic. Cursive hieroglyphics. Always right to left.
Seems to developed early alongside the more formal Hieroglyphs.
Well attested in the Old Kingdom. Lasted until at least the first century AD.
Uses ligatures. There are a variety of styles one of which developed
into demotic.
Name comes from greek because after dem. only priests used it.
Columns were common at first read from top to bottom, and
the columns read from right to left.
Later horizontal lines (always right to left).
Demotic
Replaced hieratic around 600 BC except in religious writings.
Demotic evolved from hieratic in Lower Egypt.
Spread to all of Egypt in the 26th dynasty.
Horizontal: right to left.
Was gradually replaced by Greek and Coptic.
The last known example of demotic dates to about 450 AD.
Unlike hieratic, demotic was used in inscriptions as well as
for papyrus.
Coptic
Coptic is essentially the Greek alphabet with six or seven signs added
for sounds not found in Greek (sh, f, h, j, g??, ti).
These signs come from Demotic. The script is truly alphabetic
and goes from left to right.
The term Coptic comes from Copt, which comes from Arabic
Gubti, which comes from Greek Aiguptios.
It was well established in the 4th century. Perhaps
started out as magic texts where exact pronunciation was
important. It was spread by Christians in Egypt.
It continued to be used until at least the 14th century.
It is still used in the Coptic Christian church
(that is, the Arabic speaking Monophysite Christians of Egypt.).
Rosetta Stone
Black basalt. 762 kg. 1.18 meters high. 77 cm wide. 3 cm thick.
Dates from 196 BC. Honors paid to Ptolomy V Epiphanes
by the temples of Egypt. Napoleon's armies found it
in 1799 and took it to Alexandria. After Napoleon's defeat,
the British gained possession of it in 1801. It was taken
to England in 1802, and it has been in the British Museum
since 1802.
Decipherment
Coptic was able to be read before the Rosetta stone, but the
older forms of writing were not.
Many people contributed, or tried to contribute, to the decipherment
of Egyptian writings, but two names stand out.
Thomas Young (1773-1829), an Englishman, is famous for
his work in physics. He
describing light as a wave, in contradiction to Newton.
He began working on the Rosetta stone in 1814, and
in 1818 he published his findings as a supplement to
the fourth edition of the Encyclopedia Brttannica.
Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), a Frenchman,
started before 1822. He was fluent in Coptic before
he deciphered the earlier writings. He published his
initial findings in 1824 Précis du système hiéroglyphique.
Rosetta Stone
There is evidence that the Canaanite alphabet
was formed by taking certain hieroglyphics, but giving
them the phonetic value of the first consonant of the
Semitic word corresponding to the character.
Thus Hieroglyphics were the source of our alphabet.
Sources
W. V. Davies, Egyptian Hieroglyphs (Reading the Past, Vol. 6),
University of California and British Museum (1988).
Robert K. Ritner, Egyptian Writing, in Peter T. Daniels and
William Bright,
The World's Writing Systems,
Oxford University Press (1996).
Encyclopaedia Britannica