Old Egyptian language

Formerly spoken in

Afro-Asiatic egyptian Ancient Egyptian

Egy ( Egyptian language )

As Egyptian language is referred to in the narrower sense, the development stage of the Egyptian, which is narrated (2707-2216 BC) as well as individual later texts such as the Coffin Texts and inscriptions of the late time in the inscriptions of the Old Kingdom. Apart from the only fragmentary early Egyptian, the language of Thinitenzeit, called together with the language of the Pyramid Texts as " archaic ancient Egyptian ", it is the oldest recorded language level of the Egyptian and the oldest surviving Afro-Asiatic language at all.

Grammar

The Egyptian differs in grammar only slightly from the later Middle Egyptian, from which it was replaced in the First Intermediate Period. Important differences are the dual forms of the verbs and pronouns that were lost in Middle Egyptian, its own set of absolute personal pronouns, which only rarely appear in Middle Egyptian and is replaced by a new one, the emergence of constructions with auxiliary verbs such as ˁ H ˁ, a single negation n, which is partially replaced by nn in middle Egyptian, sound changes, the exact date but can be set only in part, and - in the field of writing - the unification of the " orthography " in middle Egyptian.

But It should be stressed that many of these developments were already in the Old Kingdom, so that the Egyptian itself has differences. The largest differences are there between the very archaic written pyramid texts, although deriving only from the fifth and sixth dynasties, but apparently reflect a very early stage of the Ancient Egyptian and the modern secular texts such as biographies and individual letters, important differences are the flexion of the copula in the nominal rate and the total absence of pseudo verbal constructions with prepositions ( jnk HR SDM "I hear ", literally "I 'm listening " ) in the Pyramid Texts. In phonetic terms, the sound changes from H to š would be ( as in the reasonable Otto Rössler, but not generally accepted reconstruction) to name and from k to t, which appear not yet complete in the Pyramid Texts.

Corpus

The text body of the Ancient Egyptian contains besides the already mentioned pyramid texts and the numerous biographies on graves walls (4th dynasty ) some letters (from the 5th Dynasty ), legal texts, an archive of Elephantine ( 6th dynasty ), shouts and speeches on representations of the daily life, grave inscriptions with requests for preservation of the grave as well since the Early Dynastic period countless lists of offerings, etc. in addition, some royal inscriptions come from the late period, which are written in the language of the Old Kingdom.

A recent addition of received, very important source of over 2000 letters and documents dating to the 6th Dynasty and were written on clay tablets. They found themselves in the oasis town of Ayn Asil in Dakhla where apparently papyrus was scarce and expensive.

Scientific Exploration

Exploring the Ancient Egyptian began relatively late to the late 19th century with the publication of the Pyramid Texts by Gaston Maspero ( 1882-1894 ) and Kurt Sethe ( 1908-1910; Besides volumes 1922) and the profane inscriptions of the Old Kingdom, also by Kurt Sethe (certificates from the Old Kingdom, 1908). Especially Kurt Sethe opened up the language of the Pyramid Texts, including in his work on the Egyptian verb As a result, the Egyptian was explored together with the Middle Egyptian, its own grammar put Elmar Edel 1955-1964 with its monumental ancient Egyptian grammar (see bibliography below) before. In the syntaxe by Hans J. Polotskys Études de copte ( 1944) and further work initiated discussion on the Egyptian verbal syntax ( standard theory) was a renewed preoccupation with the ancient Egyptian verb imperative, see the studies by Doret (1986 ) to the profane inscriptions and Allen (1984 ) to the Pyramid Texts. However, to date the existence of the ancient Egyptian form is not fully understood, as James P. Allen 1984 could prove the existence of a previously held for a present synthetic futuristic shape in 2005 pointed Wolfgang leg after that the Egyptian Tempus sḏm.n = f two syntactically contains separate tenses, and it is not excluded that in the future new fundamental knowledge is gained to the Egyptian verbal system.

Font

The Egyptian language had its own font.

Text example

WD- nswt (s) ... hr (. w) = f - HWJ King command ( to ) ... Harkhuf

ḏd.n = k r = k tn mḏ3.t wnt jn.n = k dng You said in this thy letter that thou dwarf

Jb3.w NTR m t3 God of dances from the country

3ḫ.tj.w mj.t ( j) dng jn.n - NTR htm (. W) Horizon tables, a peer, such as the dwarf, whom the God Siegler

B3- wr- DD (. W ) m Pwn.t m rk Jzzj. Has brought Ba - who - djed from Punt in the time of Isesi.

Mj r = k r m ḫdj.t HNW HR ˁ. w Come immediately downstream of the residence

H3 ˁ jnn = k pn dng Take off ( by boat ), you shall these dwarf,

M- ˁ = k = k m jnn t3- 3ḫ.tjw whom thou hast brought out of the land of Horizon tables,

ˁ NH WD3 snb r bring alive, safe and sound with you, for

Jb3.w NTR r SHMH jb r s [n ] h3h3 God dances to cheer about

Jb n (. j) nswt - bj.t ( j) Nfr - k3 -R ˁ ˁ NH DT the heart of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt Neferkare, may he live forever.

Language family Dakhla Oasis Autobiography of Harkhuf Land of Punt Alan Gardiner Gardiner's sign list Adolf Erman Hermann Grapow Georg Steindorff

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