Egyptian language
The Egyptian (also: Egyptian Coptic or Chemish ) is the language of ancient Egypt and includes - in the broad sense - including the Coptic, the language of the Copts ( Egyptian Christians ). It is an independent branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, which includes, inter alia, also the Hebrew, Arabic and Berber languages. With around 5000 years tradition time the Egyptian is the language that is documented in writing about the world's longest period of time.
Although the Coptic, the latest development stage was handed down to modern times, but the development of the Egyptian vorkoptischen only by the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 was possible. This is a great stele on which a decree of a Ptolemaic king in two different languages , Greek and Egyptian, and in three different fonts, Greek, Demotic and Hieroglyphic was written. By comparing the texts put Jean -François Champollion, the foundations for the development of the Egyptian.
Language Historical position
The Egyptian is considered a branch of the Afro Asiatic language family and is therefore singular, as it includes only a single language as a language branch within it. Is possible, however, that the language of the resident in the Western Desert during the Old Kingdom Ḥ3.tjw - ˁ represents a separate branch of the Egyptian ( cf. belonging to the Ḥ3.tjw - ˁ personal names ḫwj.t - jtj = s " of the her father Sheltered " and ws3, the wsr.w with egyptian" the Strong " might be related ). In the morphology show up next to specially Egyptian features such as Suffixkonjuguation also clear parallels with other Afro-Asiatic languages , particularly Semitic and Berber languages. The study of lexical parallels is less certain; there are in Egyptology is no consensus on some basic issues of sound correspondences between the Egyptian and other branches of the Afro Asiatic.
Although there are several attempts the Afro-Asiatic languages to divide further, but there is no consensus with which branches of Afro Asian Egyptian is most closely related. Strikingly, the Egyptian, the Afro-Asiatic Präfixkonjugation apparently completely lost at an early stage, however, remained the tripod formed with suffixes in the form of the Egyptian Pseudopartizips and fragments are preserved in the Coptic High. In the area of nominal inflection has prevailed in the Egyptian of the many educational opportunities ursprachlichen plural ending- w, while all other educational opportunities were displaced. Only a plural by vowel changes can not be excluded. Also in the area of the sound system the Egyptian shows a number of significant changes.
In addition to Afro-Asiatic lexemes show up in the Egyptian word material similarities with other African language families, mainly the Niger - Congo languages .
History
The following are the levels of language:
Middle Egyptian was regarded throughout the ancient Egypt as a classical language, and was used for public, but especially for religious texts until the Roman period. It differs only slightly from the Ancient Egyptian and is with her in a group ( "Old Egyptian " ) summarized. As was always greater in the New Kingdom to the Amarna period, in about the 14th century BC, the gap between the Middle Egyptian and the spoken language, they began to use the Late Egyptian in letters and stories.
In addition to the Demotic and Coptic Greek also was used as a written language since the Greek colonization until the victory of Islam. The Egyptian has been displaced as a spoken language around the 11th century from the Arabian. It was locally well used until the 19th century in Upper Egypt. Today, an Arabic dialect in Egypt is spoken, the Egyptian- Arab. General written language is Modern Standard Arabic today.
A special position is occupied the Late Middle Egyptian Late Period and Ptolemaic Egyptian Greco- Roman period. With them it is applied in certain cases written languages that are not based on the corresponding spoken language, but on the Middle Egyptian Middle Kingdom. A collective term for various forms of speech of the 1st millennium BC, the late Egyptian.
Typology and language change
The long period of time and the variety of traditional documents make it possible to follow the development of the Egyptian quite detailed. Similar changes in the grammar can be found in the development of other, unrelated languages.
The Old and Middle Egyptian did not know any article. The tense system, ie the temporal classification of an action, was of minor importance and an equal basis with other aspects such as durability or repeat an action. Auxiliary verbs were rarely used. The possessive pronouns were used as ending ( Suffixpronomina ) appended to the noun.
The Late Egyptian showed many alterations over their predecessors: The preferred word order changed from the older verb-subject - object ( VSO) to SVO. Certain articles and possessive pronouns emerged. The aspects were reproduced with adverbs and the like; also a tense system of verbs was introduced, which is very similar to the German system. The diffraction of verbs made more and more use of diffracted auxiliary verb in combination with an uninflected verb, infinitive or participle similar to our, place (Cf. I thought - I thought ). Also in the lexicon, many differences were out, inter alia, by the adoption of many Semitic loan words from Late Egyptian. In contrast to the Middle Egyptian Late Egyptian remained as a written language dynamically, ie, it continued to develop and walked over to the Demotic and finally into Coptic, without being able to come to a renewed break in the development. At the same time strong phonetic changes were noticeable, so faded unstressed vowels and the ending. T of the feminine.
Font
Until the Christianization you made use of in the Scriptures of the hieroglyphs or their cursive, the hieratic. The hieratic was in string time, about 700 BC, in the everyday use of a Lower Egyptian stenography, Demotic, peeled and then used much like the hieroglyphics mainly used for religious texts. Coptic was and is written with their own, developed from the Greek alphabet font, the Coptic alphabet and is still the liturgical language in the Coptic Orthodox Church.