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The first records of the Egyptian language date back to 4200 BC. BC The Egyptian language belongs to the Afro-Asiatic group of languages and is related to the Hamitic (North African) and Semitic (Arabic and Hebrew) groups of languages. The language survived as part of the Coptic language, which is used as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church, and as the native language of many Egyptian Copts and the diaspora. Thus, the Egyptian language is the oldest of the fixed languages known to modern man.

Development of the Egyptian language

No language can exist without changes for several thousand years. The reasons for these changes may be borrowings, attempts to simplify the language, etc. The Egyptian language was no exception. Scientists distinguish 5 periods of the formation of the Egyptian language:

ancient egyptian

Language of the period I-VIII Dynasties, approximately 4200-2240 BC. This includes the language of the pyramid texts. Basically, the surviving documents of this period are of an official nature: these are grave inscriptions with biographical texts, funerary rules. Ancient Egyptian, with minor changes, passes into Middle Egyptian.

Middle Egyptian

Possibly a local dialect of the IX-XI Dynasties 2240-1990 BC, which was later contaminated by new folk elements. In its later form, it survived in literary monuments until the time of the Greco-Roman Empire, while its earlier form survived as a religious language.

Late Egyptian

The vernacular of the XVIII-XXIV Dynasties period, circa 1573-715 BC, is prominently represented in business documents and letters, as well as in histories and other literary works, and to some extent in official inscriptions. early XIX Dynasties. However, there are several texts that do not mix the vernacular with classical Middle Egyptian expressions.

Demotic

This term is widely used in relation to the book language and the language of handwritten documents. Demotic is known from the XXV Dynasty to the time of the Roman Empire (715 BC to 470 AD). Here, too, ancient classical expressions are intertwined with later vernacular elements.

Coptic

The ancient Egyptian language, in its latest revision, has been recorded in Coptic manuscripts since the end of the first millennium AD: it has such a name because it was spoken by the Copts, the Christian descendants of the ancient Egyptians. After the Arab conquest in 641 AD, Coptic was gradually supplanted by Arabic and almost ceased to exist as a spoken language in the 16th century. In the Greek alphabet, Coptic is represented by seven special letters derived from hieroglyphs. In the last century, more and more attention has been paid to the Coptic language.

ancient egyptian language

Egyptian is a typical Afro-Asiatic language. The basis of Egyptian word formation is the root of three consonants. Sometimes there are only two letters, as for example in the word "rA" (sun); sometimes the number of consonants reaches five, for example "sxdxd" (upside down). Vowels and other consonants are added to this root to form words. However, it is not known what these vowels were, since the Egyptians, like other Afro-Asiatic languages, did not write vowels: for example, the word "ankh" can mean "live", "life", "residential". The transcription sounds /a/ , /i/ and /u/ denote consonants: for example, the name Tutankhamun is written in Egyptian as follows /twt "nkh ymn/ (an apostrophe denotes a vocal pause).

The usual word order in Egyptian is: predicate-subject-object: for example, in Russian we would say "a man opens the door", an Egyptian would say "a man opens the door". In the early stages of development, there were no articles in Egyptian; in later forms /pA/, /tA/ and /nA/ can be found as articles. Egyptian has two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine, as in French and Irish; three grammatical numbers, as in Afro-Asiatic languages: singular, dual and plural. For example, in the sentence "the apple is red", the adjective "red" plays the role of the nominal part of the predicate. The Egyptian phonological system consists of bilabial, labio-dental, alveolar, palatal, velar, pharyngeal, and glottal consonants. This system is very similar to the phonological system of the Arabic language.

Ancient Egyptian writing

The ancient Egyptians invented writing to record their spoken language about 60 centuries ago. It seems that it was first used when writing a calendar. The system was that each word was assigned a symbol called a hieroglyph. Most people are referring to hieroglyphs when they talk about Egyptian writing. A hieroglyph is a picture/image of a specific object. Hieroglyphs can be used in three different ways: to designate the subject they symbolize; to denote a concept associated with the subject they symbolize; or to denote the sound of the word they symbolize. For example, the hieroglyph of the word "sun" can mean the sun itself, light and heat (because the sun is a luminary and exudes heat), or as the sound "sun". In the later stages of the development of the language (Middle and Late Egyptian), hieroglyphs were used to represent sounds. In the Demotic and Coptic languages, hieroglyphs completely cease to be used. This is because the use of hieroglyphs could lead to the formation of gigantic dictionaries. Therefore, the Egyptians took a different path: they took a few hieroglyphs and began to use them to denote sounds. The sound meaning of hieroglyphs depended on how the word they depicted sounded. Thus, the hieroglyph for the word "mouth" was pronounced "ro" and became the sound "r" in the new system. Approximately 130 hieroglyphs served to designate sounds. Some denoted one sound, others two, and some even three sounds. Many hieroglyphs were added to indicate the idea or manifestation of the meaning of the word. These were ideograms and due to them the number of hieroglyphs increased to 4000. This letter, called hieroglyphic, was beautifully written and colorful in design. It was used for inscriptions on Egyptian monuments, as well as in papyri texts.

According to the records, hieroglyphic writing underwent significant changes during the Ancient Egyptian period. In the Middle Egyptian period, hieroglyphics stabilized and hieroglyphs remained unchanged until they disappeared. Hieroglyphics were widely used in all forms of written texts throughout the Ancient and Middle Egyptian era. However, hieroglyphics were reserved only for important religious texts during the Demotic era and are therefore very rare during the Coptic period. The latest hieroglyphic inscription was found at Philae and dates back to 394 AD. It contains the names of the Roman Emperors Diocletian (295) and Trojan Decius (249-251). As mentioned above, most of the hieroglyphs are not used to designate an object. what type of word is being used. Hieroglyphs can be written as follows:

Horizontally, left to right
Horizontally, right to left
Vertical, top to bottom
Vertical from bottom to top

Italic characters are usually written in columns, from top to bottom or horizontally, from bottom to top. In later surviving examples, cursive hieroglyphs are written horizontally from right to left; and vertical hieroglyphs are read from top to bottom. It is very easy to determine in which direction the hieroglyphs are read, even if you do not understand their meaning. Hieroglyphs with a pronounced beginning and end (for example, a human character) are usually:

towards the beginning of the sentence
facing the same direction as the image of a person or a large object. For example, if the picture shows a seated person facing to the right, then all hieroglyphs with a certain beginning and end will also face to the right. Real hieroglyphs will always be read from right to left, because their images almost always face the beginning of a sentence. Hieroglyphs that do not comply with this rule are called inverse.

In order to simplify reading, or because of the aesthetic sense of the Egyptians, hieroglyphs are grouped according to a special principle. For example, two or more narrow and small hieroglyphs (depending on the direction in which they are written) will be written in one block with each other. Sometimes a large and wide character can be depicted in a reduced form and written next to another narrow and small one. And finally, there is no standard punctuation in hieroglyphics. There are no punctuation marks at all in religious texts, while later texts of the ancient Egyptian language are provided with periods between complete thoughts. In parallel with the development of hieroglyphic writing, another script arose. It was a simplification of the complex and intricate hieroglyphic writing. It was developed by the priests to record temple inscriptions and then began to be used by government officials who were trained by priests to record state events. Due to the priestly origin of this letter, the name hieretic was attached to it. It uses the same symbols, only in a simplified form. There is no indication that this letter contained as many ideograms as the hieroglyphic.

With the development of the state, the use of such a clumsy way of writing became simply impossible. Therefore, in the 5th century BC. a new handwritten script was developed, which was much simpler and included 10 percent of the previously used hieroglyphs. This font is referred to as demotic. Cursive and relatively ugly letters were offset by the compactness of this font. Many surviving manuscripts are written in this script, but there is not a single inscription on the temple walls that would be written in this script.

Deciphering the ancient Egyptian language

Until recently, the deciphering of hieroglyphs has been difficult due to attempts to attribute emotional meaning to hieroglyphs instead of what they actually have. For example, people believed that the hieroglyph for the word "son" was depicted as a goose because their sons loved geese more than any other animal. It turns out that this hieroglyph was chosen because only the word "goose" had the same sound as the word "son". Another difficulty was the lack of additional materials. Athanasius Kircher, a student of Coptic, developed the idea that the last stage of the development of the Egyptian language could be related to the early stages of its development. But he was unable to prove this idea because he was not able to translate or transliterate hieroglyphs. However, in 1799, with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, scientists finally received samples of hieroglyphic, demotic, and ancient Greek writing. And they were sure that these inscriptions on the Stone were translations of the same passage of text. In hieroglyphic script, the name of the King or Pharaoh or the names of God were circled around, called a cartouche. Jean-Francois Champollion, a young French scientist, showed how the name Cleopatra could be written in hieroglyphs. Moreover, using his deep knowledge of the Coptic language, he suggested that some hieroglyphs symbolizing everyday objects might sound the same as in Coptic. Applying this discovery to other well-known hieroglyphic records confirmed Champollion's theory, and linguists could now distinguish nouns, verbs, prepositions, and other parts of speech from the language.

Modern Resources

Interest in the ancient Egyptian language continues to grow. For example, it is still being studied at Oxford University in London and elsewhere. Most studies are written in French, Italian and German, but there are very few in English language. In the movie Stargate, a linguist was tasked with developing a language that would be similar to the language of the ancient Egyptians, who lived on another planet for thousands of years. Egyptian culture, through Greek civilization, had a profound effect on Western culture, and there are some words of Egyptian origin in the English language. But these ancient Egyptian words were transmitted in Greek form.

Definition

Coptic is the ancient Egyptian written language of the late period. It would be more correct to use the word Coptic in relation to the cursive script than to the language itself. Although this script appeared in the 2nd century BC, it is usually mentioned from the 1st century AD as the written Egyptian language.

Origin of Coptic writing

In 313 B.C. Alexander the Great conquered Egypt. His successor was the commander-in-chief Ptolemy. Alexander's legacy had a universal culture. It was Hellenistic culture; a mixture of Greco-Hellenic culture with East Egyptian. With culture came a new language, so the educated classes began to learn Greek and encouraged their children to learn the language, because. knowledge of Greek was an advantage in economic and social relations. In writing, Greek prevailed over Demotic, the last remaining Egyptian script of the time. Greek had 24 pronounceable characters, as opposed to the 400 characters of Egyptian, of which only a small percentage were sounds, and all other characters were ideograms. It is important to note here that the Greeks borrowed their writing from the Egyptians through the Phoenicians, who traveled frequently throughout the ancient world. Engaged in trade with the Egyptians, the Phoenicians improved the Egyptian script and formed an alphabet with a much smaller number of characters, all of which were consonant and easy to pronounce. Traveling around the Mediterranean and trading with the inhabitants of the Greek islands, they gave the Greeks their version of the Egyptian writing system. The Greeks, in turn, revised the spelling and added vowel sounds. This system became the basis for a new Egyptian script: Coptic.

The Egyptian priests were at a disadvantage as a result of the introduction of the Greek language. The source of their power and income from the temples depended on the manufacture and sale of sacred amulets. Now the Egyptian inscriptions on the amulets could not be reproduced by potential buyers. And if it was not possible to use them, then naturally no one would buy them. To prevent this economic and religious crisis, the priests turned to the transliteration of amulets. This new system used Greek characters along with demotic ones to represent sounds not found in Greek. The economic success of this system contributed to its spread to other areas, such as horoscopes. The number of borrowed demotic characters was eventually reduced. The resulting font was highly standardized according to the general traditions of the ancient Egyptians.

Coptic writing in Christian Egypt

Christianity in Egypt appeared thanks to the preaching of St. Mark the Evangelist. He came to Alexandria at the beginning of the 15th century. first century AD, accompanying his uncle, St. Barnabas. After the death of St. Barnabas in Cyprus, St. Mark returned to Egypt and began to preach the Holy Gospel among the Jews. St. Mark left a Christian community in Egypt, consisting mainly of converted Hellenized Jews. But at that time in Alexandria, Christianity was eclipsed by a powerful Jewish community. After the Jewish uprising in the first half of the 2nd century AD and the subsequent extermination of the Jews in Alexandria, Christianity in Egypt was revealed to the world.

But along with the flourishing of Christianity, various heresies began to appear. In the middle of the 2nd century AD. two Gnostic teachers appear, Basilides and Valentinus. The latter earned a bad reputation because of the claims to the Roman episcopal see. These teachers facilitated the arrival of Pantanus, a missionary who spread the Orthodox teaching and attacked the Gnostic heresy. Upon his arrival in Alexandria, he discovered a powerful Orthodox community there, which was the result of the gospel preaching of St. Mark and his followers. Since he was a famous Christian teacher, he was entrusted with the Christian School of Alexandria. It was a rather small school in which those who wanted to serve God and the establishment of Christianity were trained. Shortly after his arrival, around 189, St. Demetrius, the first bishop of Egyptian origin, became Patriarch of Alexandria. Friendship between Pantanus, a missionary, and St. Demetrius, who was the Patriarch of the vast and mostly non-Christian Egypt, was truly blessed. As a result, a missionary movement began to convert Egyptian peasants. The Alexandrian school trained missionaries and directed their activities.

But here the missionaries faced one significant problem: how to bring the sermon to the Egyptians. The fact is that the missionaries could read Greek, but did not know the Demotic script. The Egyptians also could not read, but they understood the Egyptian language, i.e. demotic language. In order for the Holy Gospel to be preached equally accurately by different missionaries, it was necessary to write it down. But in such a way that the missionaries could read it and the Egyptians understand it. So the missionaries translated the Scriptures into Egyptian, but wrote it down in Greek letters they could understand. But unlike the pagan priests, the missionaries did not use a single demotic letter. In the end, this shortcoming was taken into account, and 6 or 7 demotic letters were added to the new system, which were preserved in the Sahid and Bohair dialects. Some letters of the Cyrillic alphabet may be of Coptic origin.

Dialects

We now see two independent ways of writing the Egyptian language in the new script. Each method is unique in its motives, approach and audience. As a result of the spread of the population along the Nile River, many different dialects arise. A characteristic feature of each dialect is the use of different vowels when pronouncing the same words, as well as the peculiarity of vocabulary. From the very beginning, the pagans tried to develop a single written language in a neutral dialect, Sahid. They succeeded in their efforts and nearly succeeded in destroying the influence of local dialects on their version of Coptic. On the other hand, the Christians put the benefit of the people above the development of their language and imprinted all local dialects in writing. Eventually most of the dialects fell into disuse, while the unified Sahid became more widespread.

All dialects were largely geographically dependent. They were distributed throughout the vast valley of the Nile River. Based on literary sources, we know of such dialects as the Akhmim and Lycopolitan (Asyutic) dialects of Upper Egypt, the Middle Egyptian and Fayum of Middle Egypt, and the Bohair dialect of the Nile Delta. Along with them, there was the Sahid dialect, which from an early time became a single dialect, which was used throughout Egypt and eventually acquired literary influence with the appearance of the works of St. Shenoud the Archimandrite. There are also many minor dialects or sub-dialects.

Today, Bohair is the only surviving dialect of the Coptic language. First of all, it was preserved thanks to the strong monastic communities of Wadi Natrun (Scytis), who used it widely. Then, with the move of the Patriarch from Alexandria to Cairo in the 11th century, Bohair, the local dialect, became the official dialect of the church, replacing Sahid.

Golden Age of Coptic

From the end of the second century AD, with the spread of Christianity, until the most severe persecution of Diocletian at the beginning of the fourth century, Coptic was the main mediating language between the Greeks and the Egyptians. After a wave of persecution, the life of the monasteries revived with renewed vigor. For the Copts, this was the only way to show their great love for God, which had previously been expressed in the voluntary sacrifice of all earthly treasures. These monastic communities were numerous and mostly consisted of Egyptians. In this situation, an urgent need arose for the abbots of the monasteries to write rules for their communities in the Egyptian language. In addition, the Egyptian Church Fathers, who usually wrote in Greek, addressed some of their writings to Egyptian Copt monks.

So, from such teachers of monasticism as St. Anthony, St. Pakhomiy, and Rev. Macarius and their great disciples writing for monks, and Church Fathers: St. Athanasius, St. Fiophilus, and St. Cyril, who addressed the flock in Coptic, and the golden age of the Coptic language begins.

It reaches its highest flowering under the holy Archbishop Shenod. Saint Shenoda (348 to 466 AD) made Coptic from a language of instruction into a rich literary language, which could be used not only by monastics, clerics and laity, but also by government officials. His bright charismatic personality, knowledge of Greek and rhetoric, new non-standard thinking, all this served to improve the content and style of the Coptic language and led him to an unprecedented literary take-off. Coptic scholars are still amazed by his unsurpassed works, studying and publishing them.

This literary tradition was continued, though to a lesser extent, by the writings of his pupil, Saint Beze, in the second half of the fifth century. But his works, almost all of them are addressed to the numerous brethren of white monasteries. Later, in the sixth-seventh centuries, such Fathers wrote a lot in Coptic: Rufin Sootep, Constantine Asiatic, Pisencius Kift.

Coptic of the early Arabic period (7th to 10th c. AD)

In the middle of the seventh century, Egypt falls under Arab rule. The Arabs tried to force the Copts to learn Arabic, which had become necessary to work in government positions. Such a policy slowly but surely reduced the number of lay people who read Coptic, who for the most part belonged to just such a class of civil servants, or to their families. In other words, knowledge of Arabic provided a stable job that could be inherited and children. This cooled the desire to raise children on Coptic literature. It was at this difficult time, realizing these irreversible changes, that Bishop Severiy Al-Ashmunen found it necessary to write his History of the Patriarchate in Arabic.

But the language of worship even at that time continued to be strictly preserved. In fact, a huge number of hagiographies were compiled at the beginning of this period. Coptic continued to be used in the Church alongside Greek, the second most important language of worship. Unfortunately, a rather small number of liturgical texts from this period have been preserved. The reason for this: poor maintenance, poor storage conditions during the period of decline, and the parchment on which they were written failed these tests.

In the same period, some Arabic borrowings also penetrate into Coptic. But this does not concern the Church at all, there are no signs of the use of Arabic there. No Coptic-Arabic manuscripts or literary sources to support this. Coptic is still the spoken language of the villagers and the clergy.

Coptic versus Arabic (11th to 14th centuries AD)

From the beginning of the 11th century, warm relations between the rulers of Egypt and the Church changed dramatically with the beginning of the reign of Hakem-bi-Amr-Allah. His cruel sentiments were poured out on Christians, with waves of repression and persecution, the closure of churches for up to two years and the prohibition of their language. But by the grace of God, this difficult stage of history was not the last for the Coptic language, although it predetermined its future extinction.

At the same time, Europe is waging crusades against Muslim rule in the Middle East in order to preserve Christendom. This, in turn, provoked a new wave of persecution and oppression of the Copts. For Muslims, the cross-banner of the crusaders was associated with the Copts, and in this similarity they saw a huge threat and danger. Of course, in reality, there could be no question of any alliance, since the crusaders considered the Copts to be heretics and treated them even worse than the Muslims themselves. As early as the 12th century, Patriarch Gabriel ibn Turek tried to explain to the Muslim world that the Copts had nothing to do with their enemies,

Subsequently, this will predetermine the flowering of Christian Arabic literature. In the later period, the Arabic language will appear in liturgical books, and will not only take the place of Greek in bilingual texts, but will also penetrate into purely Coptic ones. Even Arabic liturgical texts will appear, from which we can conclude that Arabic has become actively used in the Church from a language of only translation. Only psalms and prayers remained primordially Coptic in worship. And the only exclusively Coptic literary text of the end of this period is the suffering of St. John Fanidiot, written in Coptic in order to keep a secret from Muslims and as another attempt to revive the language. Another evidence of the progressive neglect of Coptic as a reading language is the numerous lexicographical works of this time. Grammar of Makadimat and studies of Salalem. An equally striking example is Arabic texts written in Coptic letters, common among monastics who are not yet versed in Arabic script. Eventually, the writing of Coptic texts in Arabic letters became commonplace, as we see to this day.

So, in this period of decline of the literary Coptic language, only the Church is the last stronghold of restraint. Therefore, the weakening of the Church naturally and irreversibly led to the oblivion of the language. The persecution and preaching of Islam reduced the number of Christians. Perhaps the Coptic language served as a cultural barrier between the Copts and Arab Muslim culture. But now, Arabic has spread so much that it has overcome this barrier and blurred the border between the two worlds.

Decline of spoken Coptic (before 17th century AD)

After the 14th century, the Church declined both spiritually and numerically. The dominion of the Ottoman Empire over Egypt in the early 16th century only exacerbates this destruction. The production of Coptic manuscripts is slowly fading away. This is an indication that Coptic books have ceased to be used as often as they used to be in the Church, and the need for their further production has ceased. The tradition of using Coptic in church services was still preserved, but only as a tribute to tradition.

Ultimately, the French traveler Vansleb, seeing an old man speaking Coptic, stated that the language would die along with this old man. It may not be possible to fully agree with this statement, but the fact is that Arabic has become the main, if not the only, spoken language that has replaced Coptic.

Coptic revival in the 19th century

But the Lord, in His mercy, did not allow final oblivion. And shed a bright light of life in the darkness of hopelessness. This light was Saint Cyril IV, Patriarch of Alexandria at the beginning of the second half of the 19th century. St. Cyril began an active restoration of the Church with the training of clergy and the younger generation. For what absolutely necessary measure there was a Coptic revival. So the study of the Coptic language was accepted in all the schools he built along with the curricula of the new generation.

Saint Cyril did not remain long on the throne of Saint Mark. In fact, this is a very short episode in the history of the Church. His death played into the hands of the opponents of his reforms. But he laid such a solid foundation for transformation that they continued even after his death. In the next part of the century, an active revival of the Coptic language continued. The Greeks contributed greatly to this process of standardizing Coptic pronunciation. In Greek, many original Coptic sounds have been preserved, which he absorbed over the years of past close communication. Although the Greek language has undergone some changes due to 150 years of Turkish (Ottoman) rule. Therefore, with no living role models, the new pronunciation, adopted through Greek, did not sound like the Egyptian it should have been.

Despite the difficulties, educated people spread the language among the masses. They published preserved manuscripts that were previously only in handwritten form. They revived the tradition of using Coptic in worship. Grammar research has resulted in versatile and accessible dictionaries. And the authorities of theological schools supported these undertakings in every possible way.

Coptic in the 20th century

Coptic continued to take root and grow both within the Church and among the theologically educated groups that existed in the early 20th century. The Coptic schools founded by Saint Cyril and modeled after him continued their many-sided work among Coptic society. The theological schools continued the 19th century tradition of reviving the language. Yet the officially adopted system of pronunciation was an obstacle to the spread of the language among the masses. With the onset of the 1952 revolution, the Arabs became more influential in Egypt, which led to the formation of new classes among the Copts. Called to support the Church by participating in church life, people of this class brought with them the spirit of Muslim edification, the custom of preaching, which again gave a place to the Arabic language in worship. Unfortunately, although unintentionally, the good intentions and love for the traditions of the Church of these people again led to the extinction of the linguistic revival. And if this process is not reasonably stopped, then the Coptic Church will probably lose its uniqueness in the future.

Most films, some newspapers and magazines are published in Egyptian. It can be said that all entertainment media in Egypt operate in the Egyptian dialect.

Upper Egyptian dialect, he is "saeidi". This dialect is spoken in Upper Egypt (in the southern part of the country, along the Nile) by about 19 million people.

These two dialects have become very distant from each other over the centuries. Their carriers do not always understand each other. Usually understand phrases only in in general terms. Not only words are different here, but also some sounds and grammar.

To what extent do Egyptians and other Arabs understand each other?

They understand only in general. Different dialects of Arabic have slightly different grammar and word composition. This is what the MSA is for - so that the Arab nations have a common language and understand each other.

Do Egyptians speak English well?

Fine. Recall that until 1952 Egypt was under British control. Ever since then, one of the signs of an educated Egyptian has been fluency in English. buy english at without fail are taught at school.

Many English words have already entered the Egyptian Arabic dialect. All road signs are now in Arabic and English. Some media work in two languages at once. The main inscriptions on banknotes are duplicated in English.

There are three universities in Egypt where teaching is conducted only in English: British University of Egypt, American University of Egypt, Future University of Egypt.

Do Egyptians know Russian well?

If an Egyptian works as a hotel or tour guide with Russian tourists, then naturally he knows well.

Merchants, waiters, taxi drivers in resort areas know more or less - a stock of 200-300 words and expressions. This is quite enough to explain to tourists about all pressing matters. However, if the case is not in favor of the Egyptian, then he usually forgets all foreign languages very quickly. This is the specific behavior of the Egyptians in the resort areas, however, not only the Egyptians.

Outside the resort areas, don't expect to meet anyone who speaks Russian.

At the time of this article's publication, charter flights to and are still closed. However, the Egyptians in the resorts do not forget the Russian language. Russian tourists still appear here - they arrive on regular flights to Cairo. And the majority of Ukrainians and Belarusians speak Russian with the Egyptians.

Is it convenient to use translators on smartphones?

You can use it, but it's of little use. No translator can translate directly between Russian and Egyptian Arabic. Usually this is done according to the “Russian English Arabic” scheme, and often complete rubbish is obtained.

Successfully manages to translate only individual words and phrases and only the text (without voicing). For example, you need to explain to the taxi driver what you need to go to the airport. Then you can use the translator on your smartphone and show the taxi driver the word "airport" on the screen.

And do not forget that most translators work only when the Internet is on.

In contact with

A separate branch of the Afroasian language family, within which, according to some scientists, it is closest to the Semitic, according to others, in particular, I. M. Dyakonov, to the Chadian languages.

One of the oldest languages in the world studied modern science, served by one of the first writings of mankind - monuments are known from the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. and by the 5th century AD. e.

The last phase of the Egyptian language - the Coptic language, has been dying out since the 17th century, now has the status of "under threat" (as the language of worship in the Coptic Orthodox Church is used to this day).

The scientific discipline that studies the Egyptian language is linguistic Egyptology.

Language history

Periodization table of the Egyptian language.

Language stages		The main time of using the language			The most famous monuments	Notes
and the epochs that separate them		according to ist. periods	by dynasty	by dates	The most famous monuments	Notes
Old Egyptian early		Predynastic period Early kingdom	00 0 I II III	OK. XXXIII-XXVI centuries. BC e.	various palettes: Narmera, "Hunting", "Cosmetic"	The language reconstructed from the finds of archaic Greek writing on palettes, labels, etc. (in fact, they are not texts, but rebuses).
Old Egyptian classical		old kingdom 1 transition period	IV V VI VII VIII IX X	OK. XXVI-XX centuries BC e.	Palermo Stone, Pyramid Texts, biographies of the nobles Mechen, Uni and Horhufa	Often researchers limit this language VIII dyn., since texts IX, X dyn. few, and their language primitive form (eg sacrificial formulas).
fall of the old kingdom		old kingdom 1 transition period	IV V VI VII VIII IX X	OK. XXVI-XX centuries BC e.
Middle Egyptian classical		middle kingdom 2 transition period beginning of the new kingdom	XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII	OK. XX-XIV centuries BC e.		Existed in the period of XIX, XX dyn., but more used for inscriptions (eg on temples)
			XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII	OK. XX-XIV centuries BC e.
	Amarna period	new kingdom beginning of the 3rd transitional period	XVIII XIX XX	OK. XIII-XI centuries BC e.		Also found in texts and later: in the period XXI, XXII and even XXX dyn.
	New Egyptian language
	reign of the Ramessides
Middle Egyptian late		3 transition period Late period	XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXIII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI	X-IV centuries BC e.
		3 transition period Late period	XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXIII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI	X-IV centuries BC e.
	Demotic	3 transition period Late period	XXV XXVI XXIII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI Ptolemies Rome. and Byzantium. prefects/dioceses	8th century BC e. - V c. n. e.
Ptolemaic		Hellenistic Egypt Roman Egypt Byzantine Egypt	Ptolemies Rome. and visan. prefects/dioceses	4th century BC e. - V c. n. e.	rosetta stone
distribution Christianity		Roman Egypt Byzantine Egypt Arabic Egypt	Ptolemies Rome. and visan. prefects/dioceses rulers of the Arab dynasties	3rd-17th centuries		In this language in the Coptic Orthodox Church services are ongoing.
Coptic
distribution Islam

There are classical grammars of the first half of the 20th century. (A. Erman, G. Lefebvre, A. Gardiner) and there are new ones that appeared at the end of the 20th century. (J. Allen (USA), J. Borhouts (Netherlands), W. Schenkel (Germany) and others) grammars, the differences between which are based mainly on the explanation of the verb system.

Linguistic characteristic

Phonetics and phonology

photo: Aoineko , Public Domain

Throughout the history of the development of the Egyptian language, there have been processes of stunning voiced, reduction of final guttural, etc. To transmit Egyptian consonants, there is a transliteration based on the Latin alphabet. Due to the lack of vowels, the Egyptian words have a "conditional reading" that does not reflect how the words were pronounced by native speakers.

Morphology

Udimu, GNU 1.2

Verbs could be transitive and intransitive, active and passive. Later, forms of descriptive conjugation formed with the help of auxiliary verbs acquire great importance. Of the moods, only the imperative can be distinguished. In the early period, the verb did not have the category of time, the verb forms expressed one-time-multiple-time, instantaneous-duration, action-state. Later, one or another temporal meaning is assigned to some forms. Prepositions could be simple and complex, formed from a combination of a simple preposition and another part of speech. The particles could be proclitic and enclitic. They gave different shades of meaning to both verbs and whole sentences.

The root of the word and its structure

The root of the Egyptian word consisted only of consonants. In the vast majority of words it is triconsonant. The Berlin Dictionary contains about 16,000 words. Graphically, a word could only consist of a root, a root and a suffix, a prefix and a root (rarely), and also a doubled root. Emotional qualities and shades of thinking are described by the manner of their manifestation and are expressed in complex words consisting of two or more roots (“generosity” - “stretching out a hand”). Borrowings in the Egyptian language from other languages begin from the end of the 17th century BC. e. during the period of the Hyksos invasion and continued during the Egyptian conquests in Asia. Borrowings from the Egyptian language, mainly in onomastics and toponymy, are found in Akkadian, Hebrew, Arabic and Greek. Through the latter, some words also entered Russian. The first etymological dictionary of the Egyptian language is currently being created.

Syntax

In the Egyptian language, in the vast majority of cases, a two-part sentence was used - that is, containing a predicate / subject pair. For the classical Middle Egyptian language, the basic word order in a verb sentence was VSO (Verb, subject, object) - predicate, subject, object. The order could be broken, for example, when an indirect addition appeared. Cases of emphasis are known, in which the basic order could also be violated.

Imran, GNU 1.2

There are various schemes for classifying the Egyptian sentence by predicate, the difference between which is based on the assignment of one or another type to a higher group (nominal / non-nominal, verbal / non-verbal, etc.), however, all researchers distinguish the following types (this scheme was adopted by A. Kh. Gardiner in his Egyptian Grammar, and also in J.P. Allen's grammar):

A sentence with a nominal predicate. Basic order: 1) subject, 2) predicate. But in many cases, the reverse order was also used, so often only the context provides the opportunity to establish the order of the members of the sentence. Sentences with a subject - a demonstrative pronoun were widespread.
A sentence with an adjective predicate. Basic order: 1) predicate, 2) subject. The exception was sentences with an independent pronoun as the subject. It was also possible to use a demonstrative pronoun.
A sentence with an adverbial predicate. Basic order: 1) subject, 2) predicate. Was the most common type of offer. Constructions with auxiliary verbs were often used jw,wn, which in some cases can be considered as predicates.
A sentence with a verbal predicate. With the basic word order described above.

When the sentence was changed according to the purpose of the utterance, the word order, in general, did not change. So, any declarative sentence could be changed to an interrogative one with the help of a special particle that came first in the sentence.

Complex sentences. With rare exceptions, the subordinate clause follows the main clause. The connection between sentences was usually carried out by a simple adjunction, but the use of prepositions and special relative particles is possible. Both two-term and one-member compound sentences were common. The subordinate clause can be the subject, complement, definition or circumstance with the main.

Direct and indirect speech. Direct speech could be introduced by the special expression "he said" and similar in meaning. In dialogue, what was said followed one another, without indicating the speaker. Indirect speech was practically absent.

New Egyptian syntax has undergone significant changes. The general trend - the transition from synthetic to analytical forms, caused a restructuring of the basic constructions of the sentence in relation to the Middle Egyptian. In a very small number of cases, New Egyptian designs are closer to Old Egyptian.

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Helpful information

Egyptian language
Arab. لغة مصرية
English Egyptian language

About the title

The use of the term "ancient Egyptian" is incorrect, since there is no modern Egyptian language (cf. Greek and ancient Greek), and the current population of Egypt uses the Egyptian dialect of Arabic. The only meaning that the term "Ancient Egyptian" can carry is the language of the Old/Old Kingdom (see Old Egyptian Early and Old Egyptian).

Most of the dates in the article are given according to the authoritative work on Egyptian chronology, which was compiled by about twenty authors edited by E. Hornung, R. Krauss and D. Warburton - "The Chronology of Ancient Egypt" (Hornung E., Krauss R. and Warburton D. A. Ancient Egyptian Chronology - Leiden-Boston-Köln: Brill, 2006. - pp. 490-495. - 517 pp. - ISBN 9004113851).

Classification

Belongs to the Afroasian language family.

History of study

The scientific study of the Egyptian language begins in the second quarter of the 19th century, after F. Champollion managed to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics in 1822.

The language in Egypt has changed over thousands of years of history. The first mention of written sources - hieroglyphs, dates back to about 3400 BC. It is believed that it arose after the invention of the Sumerian language in Mesopotamia.

The last official document was written in the language of Ancient Egypt in 394 AD. The change of the language group to Coptic occurred after the coming to power in the state of the Roman Empire and Christianity. The temples and chapels built by the decree of the pharaohs were empty, and the Egyptian hieroglyphs were also forgotten. Today, the Coptic language is used in the conduct of services by the clergy of the Christian church.

What is the official language in Egypt?

After the arrival of the Muslim army in Egypt (the conquest began in 639 AD), the Arabic language came to the country. Currently, the name of the country sounds like the Arab Republic of Egypt. The official state language is Arabic. The local population speaks the Egyptian dialect of Arabic, which is somewhat different from the classical (fusha). News is broadcast on fusha, newspapers are printed. The pronunciation of the inhabitants of the southern and northern parts of Egypt is significantly different. The purest is the Egyptian dialect, which is spoken in the capital, Cairo.

Books in Arabic (Egyptian dialect)

"Kalimni Arabi"

The textbook consists of seven levels. Audio materials read by native speakers of the dialect and a printed manual are presented. Offers dialogues, grammar exercises.

Download tutorial "Kalimni Arabi" (7 levels)

"That's what they say in Cairo"

The modern course of the Egyptian dialect of the Arabic language. Contains tutorial in PDF form with recordings by native speakers (20 lessons). The publication was prepared by the Department of Near Eastern Languages, ed. V.E. Posukhov.

Download the textbook "So they say in Cairo"

Pimsleur Course

Language lessons in recordings from native speakers. Cairo variant of the Egyptian dialect. Consists of 30 lessons.

Download the textbook "Pimsleur Course"

“Kullu Tammam. Introduction to the Egyptian Dialect"

Prepared by the American University in Cairo under the supervision of Manfred Wöinich and Rabha Heinen Nasr. The book is accompanied by audio recordings with dialogues, reading rules, a dictionary.

Download the textbook "Kullu Tammam"

drevniy-egypet.ru

Egyptian language. Society - Guide to Egypt

Language history

Periodization table of the Egyptian language.

Stages of the languageMain time of language useMost famous monumentsNotesand delimiting their eras according to the East. periodsby dynastiesby dates

Old EgyptianEarly		Predynastic PeriodEarly Kingdom	00 0 I II III	OK. XXXIII-XXVI centuries. BC e.	various palettes: Narmera, "Hunter", "Cosmetic"	A language reconstructed based on the finds of archaic writing on palettes, labels, etc. (in fact, they are not texts, but rebuses).
Old Egyptianclassic		Old Kingdom 1 transitional period	IV V VI VII VIII IX X	OK. XXVI-XX centuries BC e.	Palermo stone, Pyramid Texts, biographies of the nobles Mechen, Uni and Horhuf	Often researchers limit this language to VIIIdin., since the texts of IX, X dyn. few, and their language is in a primitive form (for example, sacrificial formulas).
fall of the old kingdom
Middle Egyptianclassic		Middle Kingdom 2nd Intermediate PeriodBeginning of the New Kingdom	XI XII XIII XIV XV XVIXVII XVIII	OK. XX-XIV centuries BC e.		It also existed in the period of the XIX, XX din., but was more used for inscriptions (for example, on temples)

Amarna period	New Kingdombeginning of the 3rd transitional period	XVIII XIX XX	OK. XIII-XI centuries BC e.		It is also found in texts and later: in the periodXXI, XXII and even XXX dyn.
New Egyptian language
reign of the Ramessides
Middle EgyptianLate			XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVIXXIII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI	X-IV centuries BC e.

Demotic	3 transition periodLate period	XXV XXVI XXIII XXVIIIXXIX XXX XXXI Ptolemy. and Byzantium. prefects/dioceses	8th century BC e. - V c. n. e.
Ptolemaic		Hellenistic EgyptRoman EgyptByzantine Egypt	Ptolemy. and visan. prefects/dioceses	4th century BC e. - V c. n. e.	rosetta stone
distribution Christianity		Roman EgyptByzantine EgyptArab Egypt	Ptolemy. and visan. prefects/diocesesrulers of Arab dynasties	3rd-17th centuries		In this language, services are held in the Coptic Orthodox Church to the present.
Coptic
distribution Islam

Linguistic characteristic

Phonetics and phonology

Ebers papyrus with a description of the treatment of asthma from the National Library of Medicine photo: Aoineko, Public Domain

Morphology

Seal from the tomb of Set Peribsen, with the oldest complete sentence in Egyptian Udimu, GNU 1.2

The root of the word and its structure

Syntax

Coptic inscription, 3rd c. Imran, GNU 1.2

A sentence with a nominal predicate. Basic order: 1) subject, 2) predicate. But in many cases, the reverse order was also used, so often only the context provides the opportunity to establish the order of the members of the sentence. Sentences with a subject - a demonstrative pronoun were widespread.
A sentence with an adjective predicate. Basic order: 1) predicate, 2) subject. The exception was sentences with an independent pronoun as the subject. It was also possible to use a demonstrative pronoun.
A sentence with an adverbial predicate. Basic order: 1) subject, 2) predicate. Was the most common type of offer. Constructions with auxiliary verbs jw, wn were often used, which in some cases can be considered as predicates.
A sentence with a verbal predicate. With the basic word order described above.

Complex sentences. With rare exceptions, the subordinate clause follows the main clause. The connection between sentences was usually carried out by a simple adjunction, but the use of prepositions and special relative particles is possible. Both two-term and one-member compound sentences were common. The subordinate clause can be the subject, complement, definition or circumstance with the main.

Direct and indirect speech. Direct speech could be introduced by the special expression "he said" and similar in meaning. In dialogue, what was said followed one another, without indicating the speaker. Indirect speech was practically absent.

egypt-en.touristgems.com

Egyptian language Wikipedia

self-name Countries Total number of speakers Status ClassificationCategory Writing Language codesGOST 7.75–97 ISO 639-1 ISO 639-2 ISO 639-3 ISO 639-5 Linguasphere IETF Glottolog


r3 n(.j) Km.t
Pre- and Dynastic, Ptolemaic, Roman, Byzantine and Arabic Egypt
reached several hundred thousand
endangered
African languages
Afroasian macrofamily Egyptian family (Old Egyptian Early, Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian, New Egyptian, Middle Egyptian Late, Demotic, Ptolemaic, Coptic)

dre 187
-
egy
egy
egx
11-AAA-a
egy
egyp1246
See also: Project:Linguistics

The Egyptian language is now a dead language of the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt. A separate branch of the Afroasian language family, within which, according to some scientists, it is closest to the Semitic, and according to others, in particular, I. M. Dyakonov, to the Chadic languages.

One of the oldest languages of the world, studied by modern science, was served by one of the first written languages of mankind - monuments are known from the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. and by the 5th century AD. e. The last phase of the Egyptian language is Coptic, which died out by the 17th century and is now used only as a language of worship in the Coptic Orthodox Church, with feeble attempts to revive it as a mother tongue.

The scientific discipline that studies the Egyptian language is linguistic Egyptology.

About the title[ | code]

The use of the term "Ancient Egyptian" is incorrect, since there is no modern Egyptian language (cf. Greek and Ancient Greek), and the current population of Egypt uses the Egyptian dialect of Arabic. The only meaning that the term "ancient Egyptian language" can carry is the language of the Old Kingdom (see Old Egyptian early and Old Egyptian languages). Most of the dates in the article are given according to an authoritative work on Egyptian chronology, in the compilation of which Oko

ru-wiki.ru

Ancient Egyptian Language

The Egyptian language (less precisely - the ancient Egyptian language) is the language of the ancient Egyptians, the indigenous population of the Nile Valley from modern Aswan in the south to the Mediterranean coast in the north. The Egyptian language is a separate branch of the Afroasian language family (within this family, it is closest to the Semitic languages). It is one of the oldest written languages in the world. The earliest written monuments date back to the end of the 4th millennium BC. e., the latest - to the 5th century AD. e. Writing - based on hieroglyphics. The scientific study of the Egyptian language begins in the second quarter of the 19th century, after F. Champollion finally managed to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822.

A direct descendant of the Egyptian language is the Coptic language (the cult language of Egyptian Christians, which ceased to be spoken around the 18th century).

periodization

Until recently, it was customary in science to divide the Egyptian language into five successive periods:

Old Egyptian language (XXVII-XXII centuries BC),
Middle Egyptian (classical) language (XXII-XVI centuries BC),
New Egyptian language (XVI-VIII centuries BC),
Demotic language (VIII century BC - V century AD),
Coptic language (III-XVIII centuries).

However, even in it one can see that the Coptic language existed for some time together with Demotic. Therefore, as a result of many years of research into Egyptian texts, a more complex periodization was proposed, reflecting the existence of different linguistic norms at the same time. In accordance with it, the Egyptian language can be divided into two large stages:

the Egyptian language of the ancient stage (XXVII-XIV centuries BC), which includes Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian, and
the Egyptian language of the new stage (XIV century BC - V century), which includes New Egyptian, Late Egyptian-Demotic and Coptic.

At the same time, in what we call the Egyptian language, there could be different grammatical and speech norms, that is, one can speak of internal multilingualism. "Classical" literary language, used since the XXIII century. BC e. before the Christian era, is the Middle Egyptian language. Currently, there are so-called "classical" (A. Erman, G. Lefevre, A. Gardiner), "standard" (H. Ya. Polotsky) and "modern", it is also "not so standard" (J. Allen ( USA), J. Borhouts (Netherlands), W. Schenkel (Germany) and others) grammars, the differences between which are based mainly on the explanation of the verb system.

Since vowel sounds were not reflected in writing, our information about them is more than scarce. Acoustic and articulatory characteristics of consonants are made on the basis of Coptic data, as well as a comparison of the Egyptian language with other languages. The Egyptian language had 23 consonants, each of which was designated by a special one, the so-called. "alphabetic" sign. Throughout the history of the development of the Egyptian language, there have been processes of stunning voiced, reduction of final guttural, etc. To transmit Egyptian consonants, there is a transliteration based on the Latin alphabet. Due to the lack of vowels, the Egyptian words have a "conditional reading" that does not reflect how the words were pronounced by native speakers.

The root of the Egyptian word consisted only of consonants. In the vast majority of words it is triconsonant. The Berlin Dictionary contains about 16,000 words. Graphically, a word could only consist of a root, a root and a suffix, a prefix and a root (rarely), and a doubled root. Emotional qualities and shades of thinking are described by the manner of their manifestation and are expressed in complex words consisting of two or more roots (“generosity” - “stretching out a hand”). Borrowings in the Egyptian language from other languages begin at the end of the 17th century. BC e. during the period of the Hyksos invasion and continued during the Egyptian conquests in Asia. Borrowings from the Egyptian language, mainly in onomastics and toponymy, are found in Akkadian, Hebrew, Arabic and Greek. Through the latter, some words also entered Russian. The first etymological dictionary of the Egyptian language is currently being created.

In the Egyptian language, the following parts of speech can be distinguished: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numerals, adverbs, verbs, prepositions, particles and interjections. Names were masculine and feminine, singular, dual and plural. There is no case declension, relations between names were expressed by prepositional groups. Personal pronouns, depending on the use, are represented by three categories (suffixal, dependent and independent). From the demonstrative pronouns later came the definite article. The verb has conjugated (perfect, stative, relative form, etc.) and non-conjugated forms (participle, infinitive). Verbs could be transitive and intransitive, active and passive. Later, forms of descriptive conjugation formed with the help of auxiliary verbs acquire great importance. Of the moods, only the imperative can be distinguished. In the early period, the verb did not have the category of time, the verb forms expressed one-time-multiple-time, instantaneous-duration, action-state. Later, one or another temporal meaning is assigned to some forms. Prepositions could be simple and complex, formed from a combination of a simple preposition and another part of speech. The particles could be proclitic and enclitic. They gave different shades of meaning to both verbs and whole sentences.

The Egyptian language had two types of combinations of names: direct genitive (without a linking word) and indirect (using a special adjective). Later, the direct genitive was practically supplanted by the indirect genitive. Depending on the expression of the predicate in the Egyptian language, there could be three types of sentences: verbal, false verbal (the predicate is a preposition with an infinitive) and non-verbal, the latter, in turn, are divided into nominal (predicate-noun), adjectival (predicate-adjective), adverbial (predicate -adverb). Each type of sentence had its own rather strict word order. Sentences could be simple and complex, the latter distinguishing between main, auxiliary and subordinate clauses. The role of conjunctions in complex sentences was partly played by prepositions.

Notes

Literature

General works

Basic grammars

Old Egyptian language:
- Edel A. Altägyptische Grammatik, Bd. I-II. Roma, 1955-1964.

Middle Egyptian:
- Gardiner A.H. Egyptian Grammar. Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs. Oxford, 1957.
- Petrovsky N.S. Egyptian language. L. 1958.
- Graefe E. Mittelägyptische Grammatik für Anfänger. 5th ed. Wiesbaden, 1997.
- Allen J.P. Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. Cambridge, 1999.
- Malaise M., Winand J. Grammaire raisonnée de l "égyptien classique. Liege, 1999.

New Egyptian language:
- Korostovtsev M. Grammaire du neoegyptien. Moscow, 1973.
- Černy J., Groll S.I. A Late Egyptian Grammar. 4th ed. Rome, 1993.
- Junge F. Einführung in die Grammatik des Neuägyptischen. Wiesbaden, 1999.

Demotic language:
- Lexa F. Grammaire demo. Vol. I-VII. Prague, 1947-51.
- Johnson J.H. - Thus Wrote "Onchsheshonqy. An Introductory Grammar of Demotic. 2nd ed. Chicago, 1991.

Dictionaries

Are common
According to the individual stages of language development
- Kahl, J.; Bretschneider, M.; Kneissler, B. Frühägyptisches Wörterbuch. bd. 1-3 (from ȝ to ḥ, edition in progress). Wiesbaden, 2002-2004.
- Hannig, R. Ägyptisches Wörterbuch I: Altes Reich und Erste Zwischenzeit. Mainz am Rhein, 2003 (Hannig-Lexica, 4).
- Faulkner, R. O. A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Oxford, 1962.
- Hannig, R. Ägyptisches Wörterbuch II: Mittleres Reich und Zweite Zwischenzeit. Mainz am Rhein, 2006 (Hannig-Lexica, 5).
- Lesko, L. H., Lesko, B. S. A Dictionary of Late Egyptian. 2nd ed. Vol. I-II. Providence, 2002-2004.
- Johnson, J. H. The Demotic Dictionary. Chicago, 2001.

Readers

Sethe K. Ägyptische Lesestücke. Leipzig, 1924.
Lurie I.M. Reader of Egyptian hieratic texts. L., 1947.
Mathieu M.E. Anthology of Egyptian hieroglyphic texts. L., 1948.

Miscellaneous

Additional materials on the web

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

dic.academic.ru

Studies conducted by anthropologists have proven that the beginning of the ancient Egyptian people, which arose over 10,000 BC, was laid by the tribes of East, North and North-West Africa, who came to the fertile Nile Valley in search of fertile lands, which, with the creation of the people, gradually formed and ancient Egyptian language.

The Egyptian language has come a long way of development: first it was the Old Egyptian language, then Middle Egyptian (classical), Late Egyptian, Demotic and finally Coptic.

By the way

there is a theory, which is not supported by all Egyptologists, according to which the ancient Egyptian people basically have Asian or Semitic roots. Despite the fact that this hypothesis is not convincing, nevertheless, the Egyptian language is included in the Afroasian (or Semitic-Hamitic) language family, which also included related languages - Cushitic, Semitic and Berber (this explains the presence in the Egyptian language of words characteristic of these related languages).

The Egyptian language went through a rather long path of development: at first (until the 23rd century BC) it was the Old Egyptian language, then Middle Egyptian, also called now classical (until the 15th century BC), late Egyptian (or New Egyptian, which existed until the 7th century BC), demotic (from the 8th BC to the 5th century AD) and, finally, Coptic, which existed not only until the 18th century. AD, but still used by Egyptian Christians.

By the way

some linguists do not fully agree with such periodization, in connection with which they propose their division of the Egyptian language into the language of the ancient stage (this is the Old and Middle Egyptian language, which is classical), as well as the language of the new stage, including New Egyptian, Late Egyptian-Demotic, as well as Coptic.

What can be said about the structure of the ancient Egyptian language? His phonetic system included 23 consonants, indicated in writing by special icons, as well as vowels, the number and features of which are unknown due to the fact that they were not displayed in writing. As for the lexical richness of the Egyptian language, today scientists are working on the first etymological dictionary, thanks to which it will be possible to learn more about the meaning of over 20 thousand ancient Egyptian words. Already now we can say that this language was distinguished by amazing brilliance, liveliness and imagery (this is evidenced by numerous synonyms).

This is interesting:

although the ancient Egyptian language is among the dead languages (it “died” in the 5th century AD), nevertheless, before its “death”, it managed to allow some of its words to penetrate into modern languages. These are words such as ebonite, Egypt, papyrus, oasis, Libya, chemistry, basalt, as well as the names of Onufry, Pahom, Pafnuty and even the female name Susanna, perceived as native Russian.

Of particular interest is the morphological composition of the language, which included nouns (they had two genders - masculine and feminine, singular, dual and plural, and also had no cases), adjectives, verbs (they had an imperative mood, conjugated and non-conjugated forms, possessed transitivity and voice), pronouns (personal were divided into dependent, independent and suffixal, there were also demonstrative pronouns), adverbs, numerals, prepositions (simple and complex, often playing the role of unions), interjections, as well as particles (proclitic and enclitic, able to give different shades of meaning not only to individual verbs, but also to entire sentences).

By the way

at the dawn of the development of the ancient Egyptian language, the verb did not have time: there were special forms for expressing various temporary states - instantaneous and duration, one-time and multiple, etc., which subsequently acquired a temporary meaning.

As for the syntactic structure of the ancient Egyptian language, one can definitely say about it that the word order in sentences (both simple and complex) was in a clear and strict dependence on the type of the sentence itself - verbal, false-verbal and non-verbal.

sitekid.ru

Ancient Egyptian language - Russian Historical Library

Egypt is not Africa or Asia; it is an oasis, partly conquered by the Nile from the desert, partly built into the sea. Directly adjacent to Africa and Asia, lying near the islands of the Greek world, this country was inhabited by a mixed race. The historical Egyptians were close both to the Semites of Asia and to the Hamites of Libya and Sudan; at the end of the history of classical Egypt, the European stream joined the Nile Valley. The kinship of the Hamites and Semites in science is recognized, the Egyptian language is considered Hamitic and occupies a special place in this group, it also reveals kinship with Semitic languages; convinced of this a large number of common or former common roots, suffixes, grammatical forms, three-letter roots and their meanings based solely on consonants; as in the Semitic languages, vowels in Egyptian served to form derived words from roots and for morphology. Despite our poor knowledge of Egyptian vocalism and the significant changes in consonants, we can still recognize various phenomena of phonetics and morphology, both in common with the Semitic languages, and of native, Hamitic origin.

The history of the Egyptian language, in view of its origin and unusually long existence, should be especially instructive. At present, it cannot yet be written - we still know the language itself too poorly, especially its vocabulary. Until now, we still have to guess the meaning of many words, until now, almost every new text gives us words that have not been encountered before. The material collected by Brugsch in his published in 1867-1882. seven-volume hieroglyphic-demotic dictionary, now it turns out to be both insufficient in view of the many newly found and published texts, and of little use, since it does not at all correspond to the state of science and often sins in a methodological sense. At the Paris Congress of Orientalists in 1896, Ehrman presented the program of the "Thesaurus linguae Aegyptiacae" conceived by the Berlin school of Egyptologists, which should embrace the entire stock of Egyptian literature and give, as exhaustively as possible, citations for each Egyptian word. This enterprise, designed for decades and for a large number of participants, attracted to the study of a rich material of inscriptions and papyri scattered in museums, and by February 1914 57,884 quotations were used, giving 1,228,700 alphabetic cards; the manuscript of the future dictionary was completed almost to the end of the eighth letter and contains 5,387 words, which is approximately one third of the entire lexical material. Work on it gave Erman the opportunity to make a number of observations on the structure and fate of the Egyptian language during its centuries-old life; these observations, reported in several articles, established first of all that “the Egyptian language is very rich; as rich as can be the language of a cultured people who, in the course of their long life, have repeatedly experienced literary development. For the first time it was around 3000 BC. e. - the time of the Pyramid Texts, which provide the main material from which it is necessary to proceed in matters of vocabulary and spelling. Around the year 2000, during the era of the XII dynasty, classical secular literature flourished, which had a great influence on subsequent eras and introduced many new words and meanings into the language. A significant increase in lexical material is also observed in the next period of Egyptian culture - the so-called New Kingdom (from the 16th century), when the spoken language, already "New Egyptian", gets the right to be literary and introduces many words from everyday life, as well as borrowed from foreign languages. languages. These new, previously neglected elements forced the scribes to develop for themselves a special, so-called "syllabic", i.e., e. quite phonetic, spelling. Thus, the Egyptian vocabulary did not remain unified and immobile - it grew and changed. For example, out of 106 roots starting with the letter “vav”, 59 are found already in the ancient period; The Middle Kingdom added 25, the New - 18 more; among these increments there are very important and common words. Finally, 4 new verbs were found only in the texts of the Greco-Roman era, when numerous and long inscriptions on the walls of late temples were compiled in a dead language in which words from different periods were mixed and which was assimilated only through special classes, as in daily and even literary use was already even more distant from antiquity the language of demotic writing. The material of the latter, unfortunately, is used by Erman to a limited extent, but his observations on the decline of the vocabulary, on how much of the ancient wealth was retained in the language of Egyptian Christians, in Coptic, are extremely interesting. Of the 33 words that begin with the combination "koth" and "aleph" in Coptic, only four can be found, of the 35 that begin with "shin" and "alef" - only seven; for 87 words from h to hn we can count only 10 Coptic; of these 106 roots, only 35 are found in “vav” in Coptic. This attitude will change somewhat in favor of the Coptic language if the Coptic dictionary, hitherto known only from the Bible and church literature, is replenished from papyri, but no matter how much variety is added item names Everyday life, in general, the picture will remain the same: the language has become pitifully impoverished, and often only one derivative has been retained from whole roots. The explanation for this is simple: Christians translated the Bible not into the speech of the pagan educated classes, but into the dialect of the common people. Therefore, the tradition of 3,000 years of education perished, and the language had to begin its life again.”

To these conclusions, which are important for the history of language and drawn from observations of the vocabulary made in the laboratory itself, we will briefly add those that have long been common property and to which grammar leads. The ancient Egyptian language, which was literary in the era of the Old Kingdom, and then retained as an artificial official and sacred language until the last times of Egyptian pagan culture, is very close to Semitic (especially in conjugation, in possessive suffixes). In the era of the Middle Kingdom, the literary language is still quite close to the ancient grammatically, but in the New Kingdom, the language of secular works, and partly of inscriptions, already reveals such features that, to a certain extent, resemble those seen in the Romance languages in relation to Latin. Language becomes analytical. The feminine ending (t) disappears, some, especially final, letters (especially r) are weakened or completely disappear, new ones appear instead of the previous suffixes and the so-called status of pronominalis names, new formations for possessive pronouns; conjugation becomes descriptive, and complex forms with auxiliary verbs push aside simpler ones, definite and indefinite members, the first formed from the demonstrative pronoun, the second from the numeral "one", come into full rights. Undoubtedly, there were changes in phonetics, but for us they are mostly hidden, firstly, by the lack of vocalization, and then by the archaism of spelling. Works of secular elegant and business literature of the New Kingdom were written in this language. It is unlikely that the ancient Egyptian language at that time could be understood without prior school study. In the Ethiopian and Sais epochs, a new cursive script, the so-called demotic, appears for ordinary purposes, and the texts written in it reveal new grammatical features that move the language even further away from its prototype. This language is still very little developed, since an extremely italic type, consisting of half ligatures and abbreviations, is very difficult. At present, only two scholars - Spiegelberg and Griffis - have acquired sufficient experience in reading and knowledge of Demotic texts, and their work can be considered reliable. Demotic literature is not taken into consideration by the Berlin Egyptologists in their future vocabulary, and this will constitute a significant gap in the history of the language. Meanwhile, this literature was extremely rich and has come down to us already due to its late origin, in a better and more complete form. Here, in addition to many business documents of diverse content and often of enormous size, we have a significant number of works of fine literature and poetry; there is also something approaching our concept of political literature. Finally, the conversion of Egypt to Christianity created the last period in the history of its language and literature. The name of the Coptic (from the Arabic distortion of the name of the Egyptians "qubt", means the language of the Egyptian Christians, who rejected the pagan hieroglyphic writing and adopted the Greek alphabet with addition to it for the missing sounds, native letters derived from demotic signs. Probably, in grammatical terms, this language differed little from the Demotic - in it only fragments were preserved from the ancient Egyptian forms, while it is much closer to the New Egyptian. For Egyptologists, in addition to the interest of the literature written in it, this language is of particular importance due to the fact that it has vocalization and makes it possible establish, even approximately, the position and nature of the vowels in the ancient Egyptian words and certain grammatical forms preserved in Coptic. In ancient Egypt, dialectical differences were so noticeable that in the era of the New Kingdom, an inhabitant of the Cataract region could hardly understand the speech of an inhabitant of the Delta. In addition to the grammatical features of this grandson of the ancient language, it is also distinguished by the fact that it reflected a significant influence of the Greek language. The age-old influence of Hellenism and the influence of the Greek Bible, the Church Fathers and Christian worship, which for a long time was performed in Greek and still retains many Greek elements, also affected here. The influence of Greek syntax is noticeable, as for Greek words, Coptic texts are filled with them to an even greater extent than New Egyptian texts are Semitic; they were used quite arbitrarily without any sequence and for the most part even without need. To a much lesser extent, the Coptic language was subjected to the influence of the Arabic language after the Muslim conquest, but was not able to withstand competition with it and gradually fell into oblivion. Back in the 16th century. there are texts written on it; they are for the most part caused by church needs and already reveal artificiality and illiteracy; in the 17th century the language finally died out and was retained only in church services, little understood by the clergy themselves. From these last centuries we have only a few artificial writings by Coptic literati and patriots who wished to flaunt learning. At the end of the XIX century. such a literate was the professor of the Coptic patriarchal school (something like a theological academy) Claudius Labib-Bey. He even tried to revive the spoken Coptic language, propagating it among his students and even in families. It is unlikely that his good undertakings will defeat the inexorable law of nature and resurrect the language of a great nation that died four centuries ago, the most ancient cultural language of mankind, which is currently reminded of on the banks of the Nile, apart from churches, only two signboards in Cairo: over the Coptic patriarchal school and over printing house of Labib himself, this last refuge of Egyptian writing.

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ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE | Encyclopedia Around the World

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN, the language spoken by the ancient Egyptians who inhabited the Nile Valley north of the first of the Nile rapids. Forms one of the branches of the Afroasian languages, called Egyptian. It has a number of similarities in phonetics and morphology with the Semitic branch of the Afroasian family, in connection with which, at one time, some authors attributed it to the Semitic; another point of view, quite popular at the time, was to recognize it as an intermediate link between the Semitic, Berber-Libyan and Kushite branches; Both of these interpretations have now been rejected.

The oldest documents in the ancient Egyptian language known to us date back to the reign of the 1st dynasty and date from the end of the 4th - the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Almost all stone monuments of this period are covered with hieroglyphic verbal and syllabic scripts, in which features of pictographic writing have been preserved. In business documentation since ancient times, a special kind of hieroglyphic shorthand has been used; after the period of the 5th dynasty (about 2500 BC), to which the oldest records on papyrus belong, this cursive writing began to be called hieratic writing. After the 7th c. BC. on the basis of hieratic writing, a supercursive form was formed - demotic writing, which remained in use until the end of the 5th century. AD The monumental (pictorial) form of Egyptian writing was rarely used after the advent of hieratics.

In the history of the ancient Egyptian language, it is customary to distinguish several periods. The oldest, called the Old Egyptian language, dates back to the 32nd-22nd centuries. BC.; it is represented in the hymns and spells found in the pyramids recorded in accordance with their phonetic sound; for centuries these texts were transmitted orally. The next period in the history of the ancient Egyptian language is the Middle Egyptian language, which remained the literary language of Egypt from the 22nd to the 14th century. BC.; for some purposes it continued to be used during Roman rule. After about 1350 BC. Middle Egyptian gives way to Late Egyptian (or New Egyptian) in both literary texts and official documents. Late Egyptian remained in use until it was around the 7th century. BC. did not replace the demotic Egyptian - the language of demotic texts. Approximately in the 2nd century. AD the Greek alphabet began to be used to record ancient Egyptian texts, and from that time on, the ancient Egyptian language began to be called Coptic. The last known record in hieratic writing dates from the 3rd century BC. AD; demotic - 5th c. AD; from that moment on, the ancient Egyptian language is considered to be dead.

During the Middle Ages, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were forgotten, but with the development of science, numerous efforts began to be made to decipher them. All these attempts, based mainly on the treatise of Horapollo (c. 5th century AD), were unsuccessful. In 1799, the Rosetta Stone was discovered containing inscriptions from the 3rd century BC. BC. in Greek, Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic and Demotic. This inscription became a solid basis for deciphering, which was immediately started and in 1822 brought to completion by the French scientist JF Champollion. Since then, Egyptologists have consistently worked to reconstruct ancient Egyptian grammar and vocabulary, with the result that most ancient Egyptian documents from all periods are translatable.