The Egyptian language branch belongs to theAfroasiatic language family.[9][10] Among thetypological features of Egyptian that are typically Afroasiatic are itsfusional morphology,nonconcatenative morphology, a series ofemphatic consonants, a three-vowel system/aiu/, a nominal feminine suffix *-at, a nominal prefixm-, an adjectival suffix-ī and characteristic personal verbal affixes.[9] Of the other Afroasiatic branches, linguists have variously suggested that the Egyptian language shares its greatest affinities withBerber[11] andSemitic[10][12][13] languages, particularlyArabic[14] (which is spoken in Egypt today) andHebrew.[10] However, other scholars have argued that the Egyptian language shared closer linguistic ties with northeastern African regions.[15][16][17]
There are two theories that seek to establish the cognate sets between Egyptian and Afroasiatic, the traditional theory and theneuere Komparatistik, founded bySemiticist Otto Rössler.[18]According to theneuere Komparatistik, in Egyptian, theProto-Afroasiatic voiced consonants*/dzð/ developed intopharyngeal⟨ꜥ⟩/ʕ/: Egyptianꜥr.t 'portal', Semiticdalt 'door'. The traditional theory instead disputes the values given to those consonants by theneuere Komparatistik, instead connecting⟨ꜥ⟩ with Semitic/ʕ/ and/ɣ/.[19] Both schools agree that Afroasiatic*/l/ merged with Egyptian⟨n⟩,⟨r⟩,⟨ꜣ⟩, and⟨j⟩ in the dialect on which the written language was based, but it was preserved in other Egyptian varieties. They also agree that original*/kgḳ/ palatalise to⟨ṯ j ḏ⟩ in some environments and are preserved as⟨k g q⟩ in others.[20][21]
The Egyptian language has many biradical and perhaps monoradical roots, in contrast to the Semitic preference for triradical roots. Egyptian is probably more conservative, and Semitic likely underwent later regularizations converting roots into the triradical pattern.[22]
Although Egyptian is the oldest Afroasiatic language documented in written form, itsmorphological repertoire is very different from that of the rest of theAfroasiatic languages in general, andSemitic languages in particular. There are multiple possibilities: perhaps Egyptian had already undergone radical changes fromProto-Afroasiatic before it was recorded; or the Afroasiatic family has so far been studied with an excessively Semitocentric approach; or, as G. W. Tsereteli suggests, Afroasiatic is asprachbund, rather than a truegenetic language family.[14]
Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using both thehieroglyphic andhieratic scripts.Demotic is the name of the script derived from the hieratic beginning in the 7th century BC.
TheCoptic alphabet was derived from theGreek alphabet, with adaptations for Egyptian phonology. It was first developed in thePtolemaic period, and gradually replaced the Demotic script in about the 4th to 5th centuries of the Christian era.
Diagram showing the use of the variouslects of Egyptian by time period and linguisticregister
Seal impression from the tomb ofSeth-Peribsen, containing the oldest known complete sentence in Egyptian, c. 2690 BC
The term "Archaic Egyptian" is sometimes reserved for the earliest use of hieroglyphs, from the late fourth through the early third millennia BC. At the earliest stage, around 3300 BC,[26] hieroglyphs were not a fully developedwriting system, being at a transitional stage ofproto-writing; over the time leading up to the 27th century BC, grammatical features such asnisba formation can be seen to occur.[26][27]
Extensive texts appear from about 2600 BC.[27] An early example is theDiary of Merer. ThePyramid Texts are the largest body of literature written in this phase of the language. One of its distinguishing characteristics is the tripling ofideograms, phonograms, anddeterminatives to indicate the plural. Overall, it does not differ significantly from Middle Egyptian, the classical stage of the language, though it is based on a different dialect.
Middle Egyptian was spoken for about 700 years, beginning around 2000 BC, during theMiddle Kingdom and the subsequentSecond Intermediate Period.[12] As the classical variant of Egyptian, Middle Egyptian is the best-documented variety of the language, and has attracted the most attention by far fromEgyptology. While most Middle Egyptian is seen written on monuments by hieroglyphs, it was also written using acursive variant, and the relatedhieratic.[31]
Middle Egyptian first became available to modern scholarship with thedecipherment of hieroglyphs in the early 19th century. The first grammar of Middle Egyptian was published byAdolf Erman in 1894, surpassed in 1927 byAlan Gardiner's work. Middle Egyptian has been well-understood since then, although certain points of theverbal inflection remained open to revision until the mid-20th century, notably due to the contributions ofHans Jakob Polotsky.[32][33]
The Middle Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 14th century BC, giving rise to Late Egyptian. This transition was taking place in the later period of theEighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (known as theAmarna Period).[citation needed]
Original Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian texts were still used after the 14th century BCE. And an emulation of predominately Middle Egyptian, but also with characteristics of Old Egyptian, Late Egyptian and Demotic, called "Égyptien de tradition" or "Neo-Middle Egyptian" by scholars, was used as a literary language for new texts since the laterNew Kingdom in official and religioushieroglyphic and hieratic texts in preference to Late Egyptian or Demotic.Égyptien de tradition as a religious language survived until the Christianisation ofRoman Egypt in the 4th century.
Late Egyptian was spoken for about 650 years, beginning around 1350 BC, during theNew Kingdom of Egypt. Late Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplantMiddle Egyptian as aliterary language, and was also the language of the New Kingdom administration.[34][35]
Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to theTwentieth Dynasty of Egypt and later. Late Egyptian is represented by a large body of religious and secularliterature, comprising such examples as theStory of Wenamun, the love poems of the Chester–Beatty I papyrus, and theInstruction of Any.Instructions became a popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, which took the form of advice on proper behavior. Late Egyptian was also the language of New Kingdom administration.[36][37]
Late Egyptian is not completely distinct from Middle Egyptian, as many "classicisms" appear in historical and literary documents of this phase.[38] However, the difference between Middle and Late Egyptian is greater than the difference between Middle and Old Egyptian. Originally asynthetic language, Egyptian by the Late Egyptian phase had become ananalytic language.[39] The relationship between Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian has been described as being similar to that between Latin and Italian.[40]
Written Late Egyptian was seemingly a better representative than Middle Egyptian of the spoken language in the New Kingdom and beyond: weak consonantsꜣ, w, j, as well as the feminine ending.t were increasingly dropped, apparently because they stopped being pronounced.
The demonstrative pronounspꜣ (masc.),tꜣ (fem.), andnꜣ (pl.) were used as definite articles.
The old formsḏm.n.f (he heard) of the verb was replaced bysḏm-f which had both prospective (he shall hear) and perfective (he heard) aspects. The past tense was also formed using the auxiliary verbjr (make), as injr.f saḥa.f (he has accused him).
Adjectives as attributes of nouns are often replaced by nouns.
The Late Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 8th century BC, giving rise to Demotic.
10th century stela with Coptic inscription, in theLouvre
Demotic is a later development of the Egyptian language written in theDemotic script, following Late Egyptian and precedingCoptic, the latter of which it shares much with. In the earlier stages of Demotic, such as those texts written in the early Demotic script, it probably represented the spoken idiom of the time. However, as its use became increasingly confined to literary and religious purposes, the written language diverged more and more from the spoken form, leading to significantdiglossia between the late Demotic texts and the spoken language of the time, similar to the use of classical Middle Egyptian during the Ptolemaic Period.
Coptic is the name given to the late Egyptian vernacular when it was written in a Greek-based alphabet, the Coptic alphabet; it flourished from the time ofEarly Christianity (c. 31/33–324), but Egyptian phrases written in the Greek alphabet first appeared during theHellenistic periodc. 3rd century BC,[41] with the first known Coptic text, still pagan (Old Coptic), from the 1st century AD.
Coptic survived into the medieval period, but by the 16th century was dwindling rapidly due to the persecution of Coptic Christians under theMamluks. It probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that. Coptic survives as the liturgical language of theCoptic Orthodox Church and theCoptic Catholic Church.
Recently, some evidence of internal dialects has been found in pairs of similar words in Egyptian that, based on similarities with later dialects of Coptic, may be derived from northern and southern dialects of Egyptian.[43] Written Coptic has five major dialects, which differ mainly in graphic conventions, most notably the southern Saidic dialect, the main classical dialect, and the northernBohairic dialect, currently used in Coptic Church services.[3][4]
While the consonantal phonology of the Egyptian language may be reconstructed, the exactphonetics is unknown, and there are varying opinions on how to classify the individual phonemes. In addition, because Egyptian is recorded over a full 2,000 years, the Archaic and Late stages being separated by the amount of time that separatesOld Latin fromModern Italian, significant phonetic changes must have occurred during that lengthy time frame.[44]
Phonologically, Egyptian contrasted labial, alveolar, palatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal consonants. Egyptian also contrasted voiceless and emphatic consonants, as with other Afroasiatic languages, but exactly how the emphatic consonants were realised is unknown. Early research had assumed that the opposition in stops was one of voicing, but it is now thought to be either one oftenuis andemphatic consonants, as in many Semitic languages, or one ofaspirated andejective consonants, as in manyCushitic languages.[note 4]
Since vowels were not written until Coptic, reconstructions of the Egyptian vowel system are much more uncertain and rely mainly on evidence from Coptic and records of Egyptian words, especially proper nouns, in other languages/writing systems.[45]
The actual pronunciations reconstructed by such means are used only by a few specialists in the language. For all other purposes, the Egyptological pronunciation is used, but it often bears little resemblance to what is known of how Egyptian was pronounced.
The following consonants are reconstructed for Archaic (before 2600 BC) and Old Egyptian (2686–2181 BC), with IPA equivalents in square brackets if they differ from the usual transcription scheme:
/l/ has no independent representation in the hieroglyphic orthography, and it is frequently written as if it were/n/ or/r/.[46] That is probably because the standard for written Egyptian is based on a dialect in which/l/ had merged with other sonorants.[20] Also, the rare cases of/ʔ/ occurring are not represented. The phoneme/j/ is written as ⟨j⟩ in the initial position (⟨jt⟩ =*/ˈjaːtVj/ 'father') and immediately after a stressed vowel (⟨bjn⟩ =*/ˈbaːjin/ 'bad') and as ⟨jj⟩ word-medially immediately before a stressed vowel (⟨ḫꜥjjk⟩ =*/χaʕˈjak/ 'you will appear') and are unmarked word-finally (⟨jt⟩ =/ˈjaːtVj/ 'father').[46]
In Middle Egyptian (2055–1650 BC), a number of consonantal shifts take place. By the beginning of the Middle Kingdom period,/z/ and/s/ had merged, and the graphemes⟨s⟩ and⟨z⟩ are used interchangeably.[47] In addition,/j/ had become/ʔ/ word-initially in an unstressed syllable (⟨jwn⟩/jaˈwin/ >*/ʔaˈwin/ "colour") and after a stressed vowel (⟨ḥjpw⟩*/ˈħujpVw/ >/ˈħeʔp(Vw)/ '[the god] Apis').[48]
In Late Egyptian (1069–700 BC), the phonemesd ḏ g gradually merge with their counterpartst ṯ k (⟨dbn⟩*/ˈdiːban/ > Akkadian transcriptionti-ba-an 'dbn-weight'). Also,ṯ ḏ often become/td/, but they are retained in manylexemes;ꜣ becomes/ʔ/; and/trjw/ become/ʔ/ at the end of a stressed syllable and eventually null word-finally:⟨pḏ.t⟩*/ˈpiːɟat/ > Akkadian transcription-pi-ta 'bow'.[49]
The most important source of information about Demotic phonology is Coptic. The consonant inventory of Demotic can bereconstructed on the basis of evidence from the Coptic dialects.[50] Demotic orthography is relativelyopaque. The Demotic "alphabetical" signs are mostly inherited from the hieroglyphic script, and due to historicalsound changes they do not always map neatly onto Demoticphonemes. However, the Demotic script does feature certain orthographic innovations, such as the use of the signh̭ for /ç/,[51] which allow it to represent sounds that were not present in earlier forms of Egyptian.
The following table presents the consonants of Demotic Egyptian. The reconstructed value of a phoneme is given inIPA transcription, followed by a transliteration of the corresponding Demotic "alphabetical" sign(s) in angle brackets⟨ ⟩.
^The term Old Coptic refers to any Coptic texts produced before the standardization of the Coptic alphabet and the emergence of the major literary dialects. These texts exhibit a variety of orthographic and dialectal features and notably make use of several letters of Demotic origin which are not found in the standard Coptic script. The minor dialectsP andI are sometimes grouped under the Old Coptic umbrella, however, strictly speaking Dialect I is written with a modified version of the Sahidic alphabet which it shares with Akhmimic, rather than a genuine Old Coptic system.
More changes occur in the 1st millennium BC and the first centuries AD, leading to Coptic (1st or 3rd – c. 19th centuries AD). In Sahidicẖ ḫ ḥ had merged intoϣš (most often fromḫ) andϩ/h/ (most oftenẖ ḥ). Bohairic and Akhmimic are more conservative and have a velar fricative/x/ (ϧ in Bohairic,ⳉ in Akhmimic).[57] Pharyngeal*ꜥ had merged into glottal/ʔ/ after it had affected the quality of the surrounding vowels.[58]/ʔ/ is not indicated orthographically unless it follows a stressed vowel; then, it is marked by doubling the vowel letter (except in Bohairic): Akhmimicⳉⲟⲟⲡ/xoʔp/, Sahidic and Lycopolitanϣⲟⲟⲡšoʔp, Bohairicϣⲟⲡšoʔp 'to be' <ḫpr.w */ˈχapraw/ 'has become'.[57][note 5] The phonemeⲃ/b/ was probably pronounced as a fricative[β], becomingⲡ/p/ after a stressed vowel in syllables that had been closed in earlier Egyptian (compareⲛⲟⲩⲃ <*/ˈnaːbaw/ 'gold' andⲧⲁⲡ < */dib/ 'horn').[57] The phonemes/dgz/ occur only inGreek loanwords, with rare exceptions triggered by a nearby/n/:ⲁⲛⲍⲏⲃⲉ/ⲁⲛⲥⲏⲃⲉ <ꜥ.t n.t sbꜣ.w 'school'.[57]
Earlier*d ḏ g q are preserved as ejectivet' c' k' k' before vowels in Coptic. Although the same graphemes are used for the pulmonic stops (⟨ⲧ ϫ ⲕ⟩), the existence of the former may be inferred because the stops⟨ⲡ ⲧ ϫ ⲕ⟩/ptck/ are allophonically aspirated[pʰtʰcʰkʰ] before stressed vowels andsonorant consonants.[59] In Bohairic, the allophones are written with the special graphemes⟨ⲫ ⲑ ϭ ⲭ⟩, but other dialects did not mark aspiration: Sahidicⲡⲣⲏ, Bohairicⲫⲣⲏ 'the sun'.[59][note 6]
Thus, Bohairic does not mark aspiration for reflexes of older*d ḏ g q: Sahidic and Bohairicⲧⲁⲡ*/dib/ 'horn'.[59] Also, the definite articleⲡ is unaspirated when the next word begins with a glottal stop: Bohairicⲡ + ⲱⲡ > ⲡⲱⲡ 'the account'.[60]
Vowels are always short in unstressed syllables (⟨tpj⟩ =*/taˈpij/ 'first') and long in open stressed syllables (⟨rmṯ⟩ =*/ˈraːmac/ 'man'), but they can be either short or long in closed stressed syllables (⟨jnn⟩ =*/jaˈnan/ 'we',⟨mn⟩ =*/maːn/ 'to stay').[62]
In the LateNew Kingdom, afterRamses II, around 1200 BC,*/ˈaː/ changes to*/ˈoː/ (like theCanaanite shift),⟨ḥrw⟩ '(the god) Horus'*/ħaːra/ >*/ħoːrə/ (Akkadian transcription:-ḫuru).[49][63]*/uː/, therefore, changes to*/eː/:⟨šnj⟩ 'tree'*/ʃuːn(?)j/ >*/ʃeːnə/ (Akkadian transcription:-sini).[49]
In the Early New Kingdom, short stressed*/ˈi/ changes to*/ˈe/:⟨mnj⟩ "Menes"*/maˈnij/ >*/maˈneʔ/ (Akkadian transcription:ma-né-e).[49] Later, probably 1000–800 BC, a short stressed*/ˈu/ changes to*/ˈe/:⟨ḏꜥn.t⟩ "Tanis"*/ˈɟuʕnat/ was borrowed into Hebrew as *ṣuʕn but would become transcribed as⟨ṣe-e'-nu/ṣa-a'-nu⟩ during theNeo-Assyrian Empire.[64]
Unstressed vowels, especially after a stress, become*/ə/:⟨nfr⟩ 'good'*/ˈnaːfir/ >*/ˈnaːfə/ (Akkadian transcription-na-a-pa).[64]*/iː/ changes to*/eː/ next to/ʕ/ and/j/:⟨wꜥw⟩ 'soldier'*/wiːʕiw/ >*/weːʕə/ (earlier Akkadian transcription:ú-i-ú, later:ú-e-eḫ).[64]
However, in the presence of guttural fricatives, Sahidic and Bohairic preserve*/ˈa/, and Fayyumic renders it as⟨e⟩:
⟨ḏbꜥ⟩ 'ten thousand'*/ˈbaʕ/
Sahidic, Akhmimic and Lycopolitan⟨tba⟩
Bohairic⟨tʰba⟩
Fayyumic⟨tbe⟩
In Akhmimic and Lycopolitan,*/ˈa/ becomes/ˈo/ before etymological/ʕ,ʔ/:
⟨jtrw⟩ 'river'*/ˈjatraw/ >*/jaʔr(ə)/
Sahidic⟨eioor(e)⟩
Bohairic⟨ior⟩
Akhmimic⟨ioore, iôôre⟩
Fayyumic⟨iaal, iaar⟩
Similarly, the diphthongs*/ˈaj/,*/ˈaw/, which normally have reflexes/ˈoj/,/ˈow/ in Sahidic and are preserved in other dialects, are in Bohairic⟨ôi⟩ (in non-final position) and⟨ôou⟩ respectively:
"to me, to them"
Sahidic⟨eroi, eroou⟩
Akhmimic and Lycopolitan⟨arai, arau⟩
Fayyumic⟨elai, elau⟩
Bohairic⟨eroi, erôou⟩
Sahidic and Bohairic preserve*/ˈe/ before/ʔ/ (etymological or from lenited/trj/ or tonic-syllable coda/w/),: Sahidic and Bohairic⟨ne⟩/neʔ/ 'to you (fem.)' <*/ˈnet/ <*/ˈnic/.*/e/ may also have different reflexes beforesonorants, nearsibilants and in diphthongs.[65]
Old*/aː/ surfaces as/uː/ after nasals and occasionally other consonants:⟨nṯr⟩ 'god'*/ˈnaːcar/ >/ˈnuːte/⟨noute⟩[66]/uː/ has acquired phonemic status, as is evidenced by minimal pairs like 'to approach'⟨hôn⟩/hoːn/ <*/ˈçaːnan/ ẖnn vs. 'inside'⟨houn⟩/huːn/ <*/ˈçaːnaw/ ẖnw.[67] An etymological*/uː/ >*/eː/ often surfaces as/iː/ next to/r/ and after etymological pharyngeals:⟨hir⟩ <*/χuːr/ 'street' (Semitic loan).[67]
Most Coptic dialects have two phonemic vowels in unstressed position. Unstressed vowels generally became/ə/, written as⟨e⟩ or null (⟨i⟩ in Bohairic and Fayyumic word-finally), but pretonic unstressed /a/ occurs as a reflex of earlier unstressed*/e/ near an etymological pharyngeal, velar or sonorant ('to become many'⟨ašai⟩ < ꜥšꜣ*/ʕiˈʃiʀ/) or an unstressed*/a/. Pretonic [i] is underlyingly/əj/: Sahidic 'ibis'⟨hibôi⟩ < h(j)bj.w*/hijˈbaːj?w/.[67]
Thus, the following is the Sahidic vowel system c. AD 400:
Earlier Egyptian has the syllable structure CV(ː)(C) in which V is long in open stressed syllables and short elsewhere.[62] In addition, CVːC or CVCC can occur in word-final, stressed position.[62] However, CVːC occurs only in the infinitive of biconsonantal verbal roots, CVCC only in some plurals.[62][64]
In later Egyptian, stressed CVːC, CVCC, and CV become much more common because of the loss of final dentals and glides.[64]
Earlier Egyptian stresses one of the last two syllables. According to some scholars, that is a development from a stage in Proto-Egyptian in which the third-last syllable could be stressed, which was lost as open posttonic syllables lost their vowels:*/ˈχupiraw/ >*/ˈχupraw/ 'transformation'.[68]
As a convention, Egyptologists make use of an "Egyptological pronunciation" in English: the consonants are given fixed values, and vowels are inserted according to essentially arbitrary rules. Two of these consonants known as alef and ayin are generally pronounced as the vowel/ɑː/. Yodh is pronounced/iː/,w/uː/. Between other consonants,/ɛ/ is then inserted. Thus, for example, the Egyptian nameRamesses is most accurately transliterated asrꜥ-ms-sw ("Ra is the one who bore him") and pronounced as/rɑmɛssu/.
Intranscription,⟨a⟩,⟨i⟩, and⟨u⟩ all represent consonants. For example, the nameTutankhamun (1341–1323 BC) was written in Egyptian astwt-ꜥnḫ-jmn ("living image ofAmun"). Experts have assigned generic sounds to these values as a matter of convenience, which is an artificial pronunciation and should not be mistaken for how Egyptian was ever pronounced at any time. So althoughtwt-ꜥnḫ-ı͗mn is pronounced/tuːtənˈkɑːmən/ in modern Egyptological pronunciation, in his lifetime, it was likely to be pronounced something like *[təˈwaːtəʔˈʕaːnəχʔaˈmaːnəʔ],[69][70][71][72][73][74][excessive citations] transliterable astəwā́təʾ-ʿā́nəkh-ʾamā́nəʾ.
Most surviving texts in the Egyptian language are written on stone inhieroglyphs. The native name for Egyptian hieroglyphic writing iszẖꜣ n mdw-nṯr ("writing of the gods' words").[75]In antiquity, most texts were written on the quite perishable medium ofpapyrus though a few have survived that were written in hieratic and (later) demotic.[76] There was also a form ofcursive hieroglyphs, used for religious documents on papyrus, such as theBook of the Dead of theTwentieth Dynasty; it was simpler to write than the hieroglyphs in stone inscriptions, but it was not as cursive as hieratic and lacked the wide use ofligatures. Additionally, there was a variety of stone-cut hieratic, known as "lapidary hieratic".[77]In the language's final stage of development, theCoptic alphabet replaced the older writing system.
Hieroglyphs are employed in two ways in Egyptian texts: asideograms to represent the idea depicted by the pictures and, more commonly, asphonograms to represent theirphonetic value.
As the phonetic realization of Egyptian cannot be known with certainty, Egyptologists use a system oftransliteration to denote each sound that could be represented by a uniliteral hieroglyph.[78]
Egyptian scholar Gamal Mokhtar noted that the inventory of hieroglyphic symbols derived from "fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African", reflecting the local wildlife of North Africa, the Levant and southern Mediterranean. In "regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence [North] African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects the reality" that the geographical location of Egypt is, of course, in Africa.[79]
Egyptian is fairly typical for an Afroasiatic language in that most of its vocabulary is built around roots of three consonants, though there are sometimes only two consonants in the root:rꜥ(w) ([riːʕa], "sun"—the[ʕ] is thought to have been something like a voiced pharyngeal fricative). Larger roots are also common and can have up to five consonants:sḫdḫd ("be upside-down").
Vowels and other consonants are added to the root to derive different meanings, as Arabic, Hebrew, and other Afroasiatic languages still do. However, because vowels and sometimes glides are not written in any Egyptian script except Coptic, reconstructing the actual forms of words can be difficult. Thus, orthographicstp ("to choose"), for example, can represent thestative (whose endings can be left unexpressed), theimperfective forms or even averbal noun ("a choosing").
Egyptiannouns can be masculine or feminine (the latter is indicated, as with other Afroasiatic languages, by adding a-t) and singular or plural (-w /-wt), or dual (-wj /-tj).
Articles, both definite and indefinite, do not occur until Late Egyptian but are used widely thereafter.
Egyptian has three different types ofpersonal pronouns: suffix,enclitic (called "dependent" by Egyptologists) and independent pronouns. A number of verbal endings can also be added to theinfinitive to form the stative and are regarded by some linguists[80] as a "fourth" set of personal pronouns. They bear close resemblance to their Semitic counterparts. The three main sets of personal pronouns are as follows:
Finite verbs conveyperson,tense/aspect,mood andvoice. Each is indicated by a set ofaffixal morphemes attached to the verb: For example, the basic conjugation issḏm ("to hear") issḏm.f ("he hears").
Old Egyptian, Classical Egyptian, and Middle Egyptian haveverb-subject-object as the basicword order. For example, the equivalent of "he opens the door" would bewnsꜥꜣ ("opens he [the] door"). The so-calledconstruct state combines two or more nouns to express thegenitive, as inSemitic andBerber languages. However, that changed in the later stages of the language, including Late Egyptian, Demotic and Coptic.
The early stages of Egyptian have no articles, but the later forms usepꜣ,tꜣ andnꜣ.
As with other Afroasiatic languages, Egyptian uses two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. It also uses three grammatical numbers: singular, dual and plural. However, later Egyptian has a tendency to lose the dual as a productive form.
The Egyptian language survived through the Middle Ages and into the early modern period in the form of theCoptic language. Coptic survived past the 16th century only as an isolated vernacular and as aliturgical language for theCoptic Orthodox andCoptic Catholic Churches. Coptic also had an enduring effect onEgyptian Arabic, which replaced Coptic as the main daily language in Egypt; theCoptic substratum in Egyptian Arabic appears in certain aspects of syntax and to a lesser degree in vocabulary and phonology.
In antiquity, Egyptian exerted some influence onClassical Greek, so that a number of Egyptian loanwords into Greek survive into modern usage. Examples include:
The Hebrew Bible also contains some words, terms, and names that are thought by scholars to be Egyptian in origin. An example of this isZaphnath-Paaneah, the Egyptian name given toJoseph.
^Whence the designation Kemic for Egypto-Coptic withkm.t */kū́m˘t/ "black land, Egypt", as opposed toṭšr.t "red land, desert". Proposed bySchenkel (1990:1). Note that the namer n km.t is only attested in versions of theStory of Sinuhe and appears to have been a literary invention.
^abThe language may have survived in isolated pockets inUpper Egypt as late as the 19th century, according toQuibell, James Edward (1901). "When did Coptic become extinct?".Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde.39: 87. In the village of Pi-Solsel (Az-Zayniyyah, El Zenya or Al Zeniya north ofLuxor),passive speakers were recorded as late as the 1930s, and traces of traditional vernacular Coptic reported to exist in other places such asAbydos andDendera, seeVycichl, Werner (1936)."Pi-Solsel, ein Dorf mit koptischer Überlieferung" [Pi-Solsel, a village with Coptic tradition](PDF).Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo (in German).6:169–175.
^The namer n km.t is only attested in versions of theStory of Sinuhe and appears to have been a literary invention.
^SeePeust (1999), for a review of the history of thinking on the subject; his reconstructions of words are nonstandard.
^There is evidence of Bohairic having a phonemic glottal stop:Loprieno (1995:44).
^In other dialects, the graphemes are used only for clusters of a stop followed by/h/ and were not used for aspirates: seeLoprieno (1995:248).
^Possibly the precursor of Copticšau ("tomcat") suffixed with feminine-t, but some authorities dispute this, e.g.Huehnergard, John (2007). "Qiṭṭa: Arabic Cats".Classical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms. pp. 407–418.doi:10.1163/ej.9789004165731.i-612.89.ISBN978-90-04-16573-1..
^Grossman, Eitan; Richter, Tonio Sebastian (2015). "The Egyptian-Coptic language: its setting in space, time and culture".Egyptian-Coptic Linguistics in Typological Perspective. De Gruyter Mouton. p. 70.doi:10.1515/9783110346510.69.ISBN9783110346510.The Egyptian-Coptic language is attested in a vast corpus of written texts that almost uninterruptedly document its lifetime over more than 4,000 years, from the invention of the hieroglyphic writing system in the late 4th millennium BCE, up to the 14th century CE. Egyptian is thus likely to be the longest-attested human language known.
^Compiled and edited by Kathryn A. Bard with the editing assistance of Steven Blage Shubert.Bard, Kathryn A.; Steven Blake Shubert (1999).Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge. p. 274f. (in the sectionEgyptian language and writing).ISBN978-0-415-18589-9.
^Kupreyev, Maxim N. (2022) [copyright: 2023].Deixis in Egyptian: The Close, the Distant, and the Known. Brill. p. 3.
^Peust 1999, p. 85, After the New Kingdom, confusion between both series of stops becomes very frequent in Egyptian writing. A phonetic merger of some kind is certainly the cause of this phenomenon..
^Peust 1999, p. 102, In Roman Demotic⟨ꜥ⟩ suddenly begins to be employed in a very inconsistent manner. It is often omitted or added without etymological justification. I take this as an indication that the phoneme /ʕ/ was lost from the spoken language..
^Fecht, Gerhard (1960). "§§ 112 A. 194, 254 A. 395".Wortakzent und Silbenstruktur: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der ägyptischen Sprache. J. J. Augustin, Glückstadt–Hamburg–New York.
^Vergote, Jozef (1973–1983).Grammaire Copte. two vols.Peters, Louvain.
^Osing, J. (1976).Die Nominalbildung des Ägyptischen. Deutsches archäologisches Institut, Abteilung Kairo.
^Schenkel, W. (1983).Zur Rekonstruktion deverbalen Nominalbildung des Ägyptischen. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz. pp. 212, 214, 247.
Allen, James P. (2000).Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-65312-1.
Allen, James P. (2014).Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, Third Edition. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-1-107-66328-2.
Christidēs, Anastasios-Phoivos; Arapopoulou, Maria; Chritē, Maria (2007).A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-83307-3.
Haspelmath, Martin (2001).Language Typology and Language Universals: An International Handbook. Walter de Gruyter.ISBN3-11-017154-6.
Bard, Kathryn A. (1999).Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge.ISBN0-415-18589-0.
Callender, John B. (1975).Middle Egyptian. Undena Publications.ISBN978-0-89003-006-6.
Allen, James P.,The Ancient Egyptian Language: An Historical Study, Cambridge University Press, 2013.ISBN978-1-107-03246-0 (hardback),ISBN978-1-107-66467-8 (paperback).
Loprieno, Antonio,Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 1995.ISBN0-521-44384-9 (hardback),ISBN0-521-44849-2 (paperback).
Allen, James P.,Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, first edition, Cambridge University Press, 1999.ISBN0-521-65312-6 (hardback)ISBN0-521-77483-7 (paperback).
J. Cerny, S. Israelit-Groll, C. Eyre,A Late Egyptian Grammar, 4th, updated edition – Biblical Institute; Rome, 1984
Collier, Mark, and Manley, Bill,How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-by-Step Guide to Teach Yourself, British Museum Press (ISBN0-7141-1910-5) and University of California Press (ISBN0-520-21597-4), both 1998.
Hoch, James E.,Middle Egyptian Grammar, Benben Publications, Mississauga, 1997.ISBN0-920168-12-4.
Junge, Friedrich,Late Egyptian Grammar: An Introduction, Griffith Institute, Oxford, 2005.ISBN0-900416-858
Selden, Daniel L.,Hieroglyphic Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Literature of the Middle Kingdom, University of California Press, 2013.ISBN978-0-520-27546-1 (hardback).
Important Note: The old grammars and dictionaries ofE. A. Wallis Budge have long been considered obsolete by Egyptologists, even though these books are still available for purchase.
More book information is available at Glyphs and Grammars.
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