Egyptian r n km.t
Spoken in:	Ancient Egypt
Language extinction:	evolved into Demotic by 600 BC, into Coptic by AD 200, and was extinct (not spoken as a day-to-day language) by the 17th century. It survives as the liturgical language of the Christian Coptic Church.
Language family:	Afro-Asiatic  Egyptian
Writing system:	hieroglyphs, cursive hieroglyphs, hieratic, demotic and Coptic (later, occasionally Arabic script in government translations)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	egy
ISO 639-3:	either: egy – Egyptian language cop – Coptic language
Ebers Papyrus detailing treatment of asthma.   The pyramids are the most recognizable symbols of the civilization of ancient Egypt. ... An extinct language is a language which no longer has any native speakers, in contrast to a dead language, which is is a language which has stopped changing in grammar, vocabulary, and the complete meaning of a sentence. ... Demotic (from δημοτικά dimotika popular) refers to both the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Delta, as well as the stage of the Egyptian language following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic. ... The Coptic language is a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian language which was once written in Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family (Languages of Africa) with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic). ... Writing systems of the world today. ... It has been suggested that Hieroglyph (French Wiki article) be merged into this article or section. ... A section of the Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs. ... Development of hieratic script from hieroglyphs; after Champollion. ... Demotic script on a replica of the Rosetta stone. ... The Coptic alphabet is an alphabet used for writing the Coptic language. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing the Arabic language, which is the language of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... The Coptic language is a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian language which was once written in Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Ebers medical papyrus giving the treatment of cancer. ...

Egyptian is an Afro-Asiatic language most closely related to Berber, Semitic, and Beja.^[1] The language survived until the 5th century AD in the form of Demotic and until the late 17th century AD in the form of Coptic. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3200 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. The national language of modern day Egypt is Egyptian Arabic, which gradually replaced Coptic Egyptian as the language of daily life in the centuries after the Muslim conquest of Egypt. Coptic is still used as a liturgical language by the Coptic Church, and reportedly has a handful of native speakers today.^[2][3] The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family (Languages of Africa) with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic). ... The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... Beja (also called Bedawi, Bedauye, To Bedawie) is an Afro-Asiatic language of the southern coast of the Red Sea, spoken by about two million nomads in parts of Egypt, Sudan, and Eritrea. ... Demotic script on a replica of the Rosetta stone. ... The Coptic language is a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian language which was once written in Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts. ... A national language is a language (or language variant, i. ... Egyptian Arabic (Marī مصري) is part of the Arabic macrolanguage of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... The Coptic language is a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian language which was once written in Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts. ... Combatants Byzantine Empire Muslim Arabs (Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates) At the commencement of the Muslim conquest of Egypt, Egypt was part of the Byzantine Empire with its capital in Constantinople. ... A liturgy is the customary public worship of a religious group, according to their particular traditions. ... Christ - Coptic Art Coptic Orthodox Christianity is the indigenous form of Christianity that, according to tradition, the apostle Mark established in Egypt in the middle of the 1st century AD (approximately AD 60). ...

Periodization

Scholars group the Egyptian language into 6 major chronological divisions:

• Archaic Egyptian (before 2600 BC)
• Old Egyptian (2600 BC – 2000 BC)
• Middle Egyptian (2000 BC – 1300 BC)
• Late Egyptian (1300 BC – 700 BC)
• Demotic (7th century BC – 5th century AD)
• Coptic (4th century AD – 17th century AD)

Egyptian writing in the form of label and signs has been dated to 3200 BC. These early texts are generally lumped together under the term "Archaic Egyptian." Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Old Egyptian is one diachronic part of Egyptian language and Egyptians spoke it from 2600 BC to 2000 BC (after Archaic Egyptian and before Middle Egyptian). ... Middle Egyptian is the typical form of the Egyptian spoken from 2000 BC to 1300 BC (after Old Egyptian and before Late Egyptian). ... Old Egyptian is one diachronic part of Egyptian language and Egyptians spoke it from 1300 BC to 700 BC (after Middle Egyptian and before Demotic Egyptian). ... Demotic script on a replica of the Rosetta stone. ... The Coptic language is a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian language which was once written in Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts. ...

In 1999, Archaeology Magazine reported that the earliest Egyptian Glyphs date back to 3400 BC which "...challenge the commonly held belief that early logographs, pictographic symbols representing a specific place, object, or quantity, first evolved into more complex phonetic symbols in Mesopotamia." Archaeology is a bimonthly mainstream magazine about archaeology, published by the Archaeological Institute of America; the editors estimate that less than one-half of one percent of their readers are professional archaeologists. ...

Old Egyptian was spoken for some 500 years from 2600 BC onwards. Middle Egyptian was spoken from about 2000 BC for a further 700 years when Late Egyptian made its appearance; Middle Egyptian did, however, survive until the first few centuries AD as a written language, similar to the use of Latin during the Middle Ages and that of Classical Arabic today. Demotic Egyptian first appears about 650 BC and survived as a spoken language until fifth century AD. Coptic Egyptian appeared in the fourth century AD and survived as a living language until the sixteenth century AD, when European scholars traveled to Egypt to learn it from native speakers during the Renaissance. It probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that. The Bohairic dialect of Coptic is still used by the Egyptian Christian Churches. For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Demotic script on a replica of the Rosetta stone. ... The Coptic language is a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian language which was once written in Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts. ... This article is about the European Renaissance of the 14th-17th centuries. ...

3rd-century Coptic inscription.

Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using hieroglyphs and hieratic. Demotic was written using a script derived from hieratic; its appearance is vaguely similar to modern Arabic script and is also written from right to left (although the two are not related). Coptic is written using the Coptic alphabet, a modified form of the Greek alphabet with a number of symbols borrowed from Demotic for sounds that did not occur in Ancient Greek. Photograph and editing by Imran. ... Photograph and editing by Imran. ... A section of the Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs. ... Development of hieratic script from hieroglyphs; after Champollion. ... The Coptic alphabet is an alphabet used for writing the Coptic language. ... This page contains special characters. ... Beginning of Homers Odyssey The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage of the Greek language[1] as it existed during the Archaic (9th–6th centuries BC) and Classical (5th–4th centuries BC) periods in Ancient Greece. ...

Arabic became the language of Egypt's political administration soon after the Arab conquest in the seventh century, and gradually replaced Coptic as the language spoken by the populace. Today, Coptic survives as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Coptic Catholic Church. Map of the Middle East. ... A sacred language is a language, frequently a dead language, that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life. ... Christ - Coptic Art Coptic Orthodox Christianity is the indigenous form of Christianity that, according to tradition, the apostle Mark established in Egypt in the middle of the 1st century AD (approximately AD 60). ... The Coptic Catholic Church is an Alexandrian Rite church sui juris particular Church in full communion with the Pope of Rome. ...

Structure of the language

Egyptian is a fairly typical Afro-Asiatic language. At the heart of Egyptian vocabulary is a root of three consonants. Sometimes there were only two, for example /raʕ/ "sun" (where the [ʕ] represents a voiced pharyngeal fricative); others, such as /nfr/, which means "beautiful"; and some could be as large as five /sḫdḫd/ "be upside-down". Vowels and other consonants were then added to this root in order to derive words, in the same way as Arabic, Hebrew, and other Afro-Asiatic languages do today. However, it is not known what these vowels would have been, since like many other Afro-Asiatic languages, Egyptian does not write vowels; hence "ankh" could represent either "life", "to live" or "living". In transcription, <a>, <i>, and <u> all represent consonants; for example, the name Tutankhamen (1341 BC – 1323 BC) was written in Egyptian twt-ʕnḫ-ỉmn. Experts have assigned generic sounds to these values as a matter of convenience; however, this artificial pronunciation has often been mistaken for actual pronunciation. In the terminology used to discuss the grammar of the Semitic and some other Afro-Asiatic languages, a triliteral (Arabic: جذر ثلاثي, ǧaḏr thalathi) is a root containing a sequence of three consonants (so also known as a triconsonantal root). ... The voiced pharyngeal approximant/fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... Transcription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed form, of a spoken language source, such as the proceedings of a court hearing. ...

Phonologically, Egyptian contrasted bilabial, labiodental, alveolar, palatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal consonants, in a distribution rather similar to that of Arabic. Phonology (Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ... Arabic redirects here. ...

Middle Egyptian's basic word order is Verb Subject Object; the equivalent to "the man opens the door", would be a sentence corresponding to "opens the man the door" (wn s ˁ3) Linguistic typology is the typology that classifies languages by their features. ... Verb Subject Object—commonly used in its abbreviated form VSO—is a term in linguistic typology. ...

Regarding morphology, Egyptian uses the so-called status constructus construction to combine two or more nouns, similar to Semitic and Berber languages. The early stages of Egyptian possessed no articles, no words for "the" or "a"; later forms used the words p3, t3 and n3 for this purpose. Like other Afro-Asiatic languages, Egyptian uses two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine, similarly to Arabic and Tamasheq. It also uses three grammatical numbers, contrasting singular, dual, and plural forms. For other uses, see Morphology. ... The status constructus or construct state is a noun form occurring in Afro-Asiatic languages. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... Arabic redirects here. ... Tuareg or Tamasheq/Tamajaq/Tamahaq is a Berber language or family of closely related languages spoken by the Tuareg, in parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso (with a few speakers, the Kinnin, even in Chad[1].) They are quite mutually comprehensible, and are commonly regarded as a...

Egyptian writing

Main article: Writing in Ancient Egypt

Most surviving texts in the Egyptian language are primarily written on stone in the hieroglyphic script. However, in antiquity, the majority of texts were written on perishable papyrus in hieratic and (later) demotic, which are now lost. There was also a form of cursive hieroglyphic script used for religious documents on papyrus, such as the Book of the Dead in the Ramesside Period; this script was simpler to write than the hieroglyphs in stone inscriptions, but was not as cursive as hieratic, lacking the wide use of ligatures. Additionally, there was a variety of stone-cut hieratic known as lapidary hieratic. In the language's final stage of development, the Coptic alphabet replaced the older writing system. The native name for Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is sẖ3 n mdw nṯr or "writing of the words of god." Hieroglyphs are employed in two ways in Egyptian texts: as ideograms that represent the idea depicted by the pictures; and more commonly as phonograms denoting their phonetic value. The writing systems of ancient Egypt include: Egyptian hieroglyphs Cursive hieroglphs Hieratic Demotic the Coptic alphabet Other texts discovered in Egypt and dating to the period before Islam include those written in: the Greek alphabet the Latin alphabet the Cuneiform script the Old Persian cuneiform script Tifinagh the South Arabian... A section of the Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs. ... A section of the Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs. ... For other uses, see Papyrus (disambiguation). ... Development of hieratic script from hieroglyphs; after Champollion. ... Demotic (from δημοτικά dimotika popular) refers to both the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Delta, as well as the stage of the Egyptian language following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic. ... A section of the Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs. ... This article is about the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. ... The Ramesside Period encompasses the Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties of Ancient Egypt. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Ligature (typography). ... A lapidary (the word means concerned with stones) is an artisan who practices the craft of working, forming and finishing stone, mineral, gemstones, and other suitably durable materials (amber, shell, jet, pearl, copal, coral, horn and bone, glass and other synthetics) into functional and/or decorative, even wearable, items (e. ... The Coptic alphabet is an alphabet used for writing the Coptic language. ... A Chinese character. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound or voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ...

Phonology

Further information: Transliteration of ancient Egyptian

While the consonantal phonology of the Egyptian language may be reconstructed, its exact phonetics are unknown, and there are varying opinions on how to classify the individual phonemes. A peculiarity shared with the Semitic languages is the existence of an "emphatic series" in addition to a voiced vs. voiceless opposition. In the field of Egyptology, transliteration is the process of converting (or mapping) texts written in the Egyptian language to alphabetic symbols representing uniliteral hieroglyphs or their hieratic and demotic counterparts. ... Phonology (Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound or voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... Emphatic consonant is a term widely used in Semitic linguistics to describe one of a series of obstruent consonants which originally contrasted with series of both voiced and voiceless obstruents. ...

Since vowels were not written natively, reconstructions of the Egyptian vowel system are much more uncertain, relying on the evidence of Coptic and Greek transcriptions of Egyptian names.

Because Egyptian is also recorded over full two millennia, the Archaic and Late stages being separated by the amount of time that separates Old Latin from modern Italian, it must be assumed that significant phonetic changes would have occurred over that time. For the Old Latin Bible used before the Vulgate, see Vetus Latina. ...

The vocalization of Egyptian is partially known, largely on the basis of reconstruction from Coptic, in which the vowels are written. Recordings of Egyptian words in other languages provide an additional source of evidence. Scribal errors provide evidence of changes in pronunciation over time. 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.

Plosives

Egyptian g may represent two phonemes (g¹ and g²) ^[4], both continuing Afro-Asiatic /g/.

Palatal /c/ ṯ (emphatic /c'/ ḏ) continue Afro-Asiatic /q/ and /k/ (merged with t and d in Demotic)

Fricatives

labials		alveolars				velars		pharyngeals		glottals
	f		s (ś)		š		ẖ		ḥ		h
			z				ḫ (x)		ˁ		(3, ȝ)

s and z were collapsed in the Middle Kingdom. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

ˁ may have been /d/ in the Old Kingdom, evolving into a pharyngeal in the Middle Kingdom. It is called "Egyptian Ayin" after the Semitic pharyngeal fricative. The pharynx is the part of the digestive system of many animals immediately behind the mouth and in front of the esophagus. ... or Ayin is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic (in abjadi order). ...

The nature of ḫ vs. ẖ is controversial, possibly a voiced vs. voiceless opposition.

3, often identified as "Egyptian Aleph" (a glottal stop), or alternatively a remnant of an r or l phoneme. is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician , Syriac , Hebrew Aleph , and Arabic . Aleph originally represented the glottal stop (IPA ), usually transliterated as , a symbol based on the Greek spiritus lenis , for example in the transliteration of the... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

ı͗, probably an Aleph sound [ʔ]. is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician , Syriac , Hebrew Aleph , and Arabic . Aleph originally represented the glottal stop (IPA ), usually transliterated as , a symbol based on the Greek spiritus lenis , for example in the transliteration of the...

y (ı͗ı͗) [j]

w, either of [w] and [u]

Nasals

m

n

Liquids

r

l, in writing expressed as n, r, j, nr or 3^[5] or often as the lion-shaped biliteral rw.

Traditional alef (3) may also have been a alveolar approximant /ɹ/. The alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. ...

Egyptological pronunciation

As a convention, Egyptologists make use of an "Egyptological pronunciation" in which the consonants are given fixed values and vowels are inserted in accordance with essentially arbitrary rules. Two distinct different consonants, Egyptian alef and the Egyptian ayin, are both often pronounced as [a]. The yodh pronounced as [i], and similarly, w as [u]. Between the other consonants, [e] is then inserted. Thus, for example, the Egyptian king whose name is most accurately transliterated as Rˁ-ms-sw is transcribed as "Ramesses", meaning "Ra has Fashioned (lit. "Borne") Him". For other uses, see Ra (disambiguation). ...

Change into Coptic

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ...

Grammar

Like most other Afro-Asiatic languages, Old and Middle Egyptian have a Verb–Subject–Object word order. This does not hold true for Late Egyptian, Demotic, and Coptic. Old Egyptian is one diachronic part of Egyptian language and Egyptians spoke it from 2600 BC to 2000 BC (after Archaic Egyptian and before Middle Egyptian). ... Middle Egyptian is the typical form of the Egyptian spoken from 2000 BC to 1300 BC (after Old Egyptian and before Late Egyptian). ... Verb Subject Object—commonly used in its abbreviated form VSO—is a term in linguistic typology. ... Old Egyptian is one diachronic part of Egyptian language and Egyptians spoke it from 1300 BC to 700 BC (after Middle Egyptian and before Demotic Egyptian). ... Demotic (from δημοτικά dimotika popular) refers to both the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Delta, as well as the stage of the Egyptian language following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic. ... The Coptic language is a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian language which was once written in Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts. ...

Nouns

Egyptian nouns can be either masculine or feminine (indicated as with other Afro-Asiatic languages by adding a -t), and singular, plural (-w / -wt), or dual (-wy / -ty). In linguistics, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ...

Articles (both definite and indefinite) did not develop until Late Egyptian, but are used widely thereafter. The redirects here. ... Old Egyptian is one diachronic part of Egyptian language and Egyptians spoke it from 1300 BC to 700 BC (after Middle Egyptian and before Demotic Egyptian). ...

Pronouns

Egyptian has three different types of personal pronouns: suffix, enclitic (called "dependent" by Egyptologists) and independent pronouns. It also has a number of verbal endings added to the infinitive to form the stative, which are regarded by some linguists^[6] as a "fourth" set of personal pronouns. They bear close resemblance to their Semitic and Berber counterparts. The three main sets of personal pronouns are as follows: Personal pronouns are pronouns that refer to objects of a sentence, usually (but not always), people or animals. ... In linguistics, a clitic is an element that has some of the properties of an independent word and some more typical of a bound morpheme. ... A stative verb is one which asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property (possibly in relation to its other arguments). ... The Semitic languages are the northeastern subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic languages, and the only family of this group spoken in Asia. ... Afro-Asiatic - Berber The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ...

It also has demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these and those), in masculine, feminine, and common plural:

Finally there are interrogative pronouns (what, who, etc.)

Verbs

The verbal morphology of Egyptian can be divided into finite and non-finite forms. Finite verbs convey person, tense/aspect, mood, and voice. Each is indicated by a set of affixal morphemes attached to the verb — the basic conjugation is sḏm.f 'he hears'. The non-finite forms occur without a subject and they are the infinitive, the participles and the negative infinitive, which Gardiner calls "negatival complement". There are two main tenses/aspects in Egyptian: past and temporally unmarked imperfective and aorist forms. The latter are determined from their syntactic context. For other uses, see Point of view (literature). ... The aktionsart or lexical aspect of a verb is a part of the way in which that verb it is structured in relation to time. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood (or mode), which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc. ... Look up affix in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. ... In linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a calque of Greek μετοχη partaking) is a non-finite verb form that can be used in compound tenses or voices, or as a modifier. ... The past tense is a verb tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past. ... The imperfective aspect, sometimes known as the continuous or progressive aspect, is a grammatical aspect. ... Aorist (from Greek αοριστός without horizon, unbounded) a verb tense used in some Indo-European languages, such as Classical Greek, to denote action, or in the indicative mood, past action, without further implication. ... For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ...

Adjectives

Adjectives agree in gender and number with their nouns, for example: s nfr "(the) good man" and st nfrt "(the) good woman". In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjectives subject), giving more information about what the noun or pronoun refers to. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ...

Attributive adjectives used in phrases fall after the noun they are modifying, such as in "(the) great god" (nṯr ˁ3). However, when used independently as a predicate in an adjectival phrase, such "(the) god (is) great" (ˁ3 nṯr) [lit., "great (is the) god"), the adjective precedes the noun. In traditional grammar, a predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence (the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies). ... An adjectival phrase (AP) is a phrase with an adjective (e. ...

Prepositions

Egyptian prepositions come before the noun.

Adverbs

Adverbs are words such as "here" or "where?". In Egyptian, they come at the end of a sentence e.g. zỉ.n nṯr ỉm "the god went there", "there" (ỉm) is the adverb.

Some common Egyptian Adverbs:

Modern-day resources

Interest in the ancient Egyptian language continues. For example, it is still taught in several universities. Many resources are in French or German, in addition to English so it can be useful to know one of these languages though not a requirement. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

For the film Stargate, Egyptologist Stuart Tyson Smith was commissioned to develop a constructed language to simulate the tongue of ancient Egyptians living alone on another planet for millennia. He also created the Egyptian dialogue for The Mummy (1999 film). In the French comedy Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre, a similar attempt was apparently made (source in French). Egyptian taunts and responses are also heard while playing the Egyptian campaign of Age of Mythology Stargate is a science fiction/action film released in 1994, directed by Roland Emmerich and written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, with a soundtrack by David Arnold. ... Noted Egyptologist Dr. Stuart Tyson Smith is perhaps best know for his reconstruction of the ancient Egyptian language for the films Stargate and The Mummy. ... A constructed or artificial language — known colloquially as a conlang — is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been devised by an individual or group, instead of having naturally evolved as part of a culture. ... The Mummy is a 1999 American adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, with Arnold Vosloo in the title role as the reanimated mummy. ... Age of Mythology (commonly abbreviated as AoM), is a popular mythology-based, real-time strategy computer game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios. ...

While Egyptian culture is one of the influences of Western civilization, few words of Egyptian origin are found in English. Even those associated with ancient Egypt were usually transmitted in Greek forms. Some examples of Egyptian words that have survived into English include ebony (Egyptian ḥbny, via Greek and then Latin), ivory (Egyptian abw / abu, literally 'ivory; elephant'), phoenix (Egyptian bnw, literally 'heron'; transmitted through Greek), Pharaoh (Egyptian pr-ˁʒ, literally "great house"; transmitted through Hebrew), as well as the proper names Phineas (Egyptian, pʒ-nḥsy, literally "The black one," used as a generic term for Nubian foreigners) and Susan (Egyptian, sšn, literally "lotus flower"; probably transmitted first from Egyptian into Hebrew Shoshanah). For alternative meanings for The West in the United States, see the U.S. West and American West. ...

Notes

1. ^ Loprieno 1996.
2. ^ The language may have survived in isolated pockets in Upper Egypt into the 19th century according to James Edward Quibell, When did Coptic become extinct? in: Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, 39 (1901), p. 87).
3. ^ Daily Star Egypt. 23 January 2007
4. ^ Wolfgang Schenkel: Glottalisierte Verschlußlaute, glottaler Verschlußlaut und ein pharyngaler Reibelaut im Koptischen, Rückschlüsse aus den ägyptisch-koptischen Lehnwörtern und Ortsnamen im Ägyptisch-Arabischen. In: Lingua Aegyptia 10, 2002. S. 1-57 ISSN 0942-5659. S. 31 ff.
5. ^ another interpretation is suggested by Christopher Ehret: Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary. University of California Publications in Linguistics 126, California, Berkeley 1996. ISBN 0520097998
6. ^ Loprieno 1995, p. 65

Literature

Overviews

• Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-521-44384-9 (hbk) ISBN 0-521-44849-2 (pbk)

Grammars

• Allen, James P., Middle Egyptian - An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, first edition, Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-65312-6 (hbk) ISBN 0-521-77483-7 (pbk)
• Collier, Mark, and Manley, Bill, How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs : A Step-by-Step Guide to Teach Yourself, British Museum Press (ISBN 0-7141-1910-5) and University of California Press (ISBN 0-520-21597-4), both in 1998.
• Gardiner, Sir Alan H., Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, Griffith Institute, Oxford, 3rd ed. 1957. ISBN 0-900416-35-1
• Hoch, James E., Middle Egyptian Grammar, Benben Publications, Mississauga, 1997. ISBN 0-920168-12-4

James P. Allen is a prolific and famous Egyptologist who has published such books as Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs and The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series). ... Events of 2008: (EMILY) Me Lesley and MIley are going to China! This article is about the year. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner (March 29, 1879 Eltham - December 19, 1963 Oxford) was one of the premier British Egyptologists of the early and mid-Twentieth century. ... Year 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1957 Gregorian calendar). ... For the band, see 1997 (band). ...

Dictionaries

• Faulkner, Raymond O., A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Griffith Institute, Oxford, 1962. ISBN 0-900416-32-7 (hardback)
• Lesko, Leonard H., A Dictionary of Late Egyptian, 4 Vols., B.C. Scribe Publications, Berkeley, 1982. ISBN 0-930548-03-5 (hbk), ISBN 0-930548-04-3 (pbk).
• Shennum, David, English-Egyptian Index of Faulkner's Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Undena Publications, 1977. ISBN 0-89003-054-5

Dr Raymond Oliver Faulkner, FSA, (26 December 1894 —- 3 March 1982) was an English Egyptologist and philologist of the ancient Egyptian language. ... Year 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) book is bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth or heavy paper) and a stitched spine. ... Leonard H. Lesko was the Chairman of the Department of Egyptology at Brown University and held the Charles Edwin Wilbour Professorship. ... Berkeley is a city on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in Northern California, in the United States. ... Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ... Also: 1977 (album) by Ash. ...

Online dictionaries

• Online Translator - Translates English words, sentences, and phrases into ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic
• The Beinlich Wordlist, an online searchable dictionary of ancient Egyptian words (translations are in German)
• Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae, an online service available from October 2004 which is associated with various German Egyptological projects, including the monumental Altägyptisches Wörterbuch of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, Berlin, Germany).

Important Note: the old grammars & dictionaries of E. A. Wallis Budge have long been considered obsolete by Egyptologists, even though these books are still available for purchase. Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... E. A. Wallis Budge in his office at the British Museum around the turn of the century. ...

More book information is available at Glyphs and Grammars

See also

• Coptic language
• Demotic
• Egyptian hieroglyphs
• Egyptian languages
• Egyptian numerals
• Hieratic
• Egyptian Arabic
• Transliteration of ancient Egyptian

The Coptic language is a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian language which was once written in Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts. ... Demotic script on a replica of the Rosetta stone. ... A section of the Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs. ... The language of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and their modern descendant, the Coptic language is classifed under this category. ... The system of Egyptian numerals was a numeral system used in ancient Egypt. ... Development of hieratic script from hieroglyphs; after Champollion. ... Egyptian Arabic (Marī مصري) is part of the Arabic macrolanguage of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... In the field of Egyptology, transliteration is the process of converting (or mapping) texts written in the Egyptian language to alphabetic symbols representing uniliteral hieroglyphs or their hieratic and demotic counterparts. ...

External links

• Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae: Dictionary of the Egyptian language
• The Pronunciation of Ancient Egyptian by Kelley L. Ross
• Ancient Egyptian Language Discussion List
• Site offering online courses in the Egyptian Language

v • d • e Ancient Egypt Architecture · Art · Burial customs · Chronology · Cuisine · Dynasties · Geography · History · Mathematics · Medicine · Religion · Pharaohs · People · Race · Language · Sites · Technology · Writing The pyramids are the most recognizable symbols of the civilization of ancient Egypt. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 532 pixelsFull resolution (4372 × 2906 pixel, file size: 4. ... The well preserved temple of Horus at Edfu is an exemplar of Egyptian architecture The Nile valley has been the site of one of the most influential civilizations which developed a vast array of diverse structures encompassing ancient Egyptian architecture. ... Ancient Egyptian art refers to the style of painting, sculpture, crafts and architecture developed by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from c. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... An Egyptian couple harvesting from a painting in the tomb from the early Ramessid period. ... This page lists articles on dynasties of Ancient Egypt. ... Archaeological evidence indicates that a distinct culture was developing in the Nile valley from before 5000 BC. What is now called the Pharaonic Period is dated from around 3100 BC, when Egypt became a unified state, until its survival as an independent state ceased in 332 BC, with its conquest... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... For other uses, see Pharaoh (disambiguation). ... The following is a list of Ancient Egyptian people. ... From left: Libyan, Nubian, Syrian, and Egyptian. ... Map of Ancient Egypt List of Ancient Egyptian sites, throughout all of Egypt and Nubia Sites are listed with their classical name whenever possible, else their modern name and last if no other available their ancient name. ... The characteristics of Ancient Egyptian technology are indicated by a set of artifacts and customs that lasted for thousands of years. ... The writing systems of ancient Egypt include: Egyptian hieroglyphs Cursive hieroglphs Hieratic Demotic the Coptic alphabet Other texts discovered in Egypt and dating to the period before Islam include those written in: the Greek alphabet the Latin alphabet the Cuneiform script the Old Persian cuneiform script Tifinagh the South Arabian... Egyptology · Egyptologists · Egyptian Museum · Ancient Egypt portal The Great Sphinx of Giza against Khafres Pyramid at the Giza pyramid complex. ... Egyptologist is the designation given to an archaeologist or historian who specialises in Egyptology, the scientific study of Ancient Egypt and its antiquities. ... Main entrance of the Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to the most extensive collection of pharaonic antiquities in the world. ...

v • d • e Afro-Asiatic-speaking nations   Berber      Algeria  Egypt The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family (Languages of Africa) with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic). ... The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Algeria. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Egypt. ...  Libya  Mali Image File history File links Flag_of_Libya. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Mali. ...  Mauritania  Morocco Image File history File links Flag_of_Mauritania. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Morocco. ...  Niger  Tunisia Image File history File links Flag_of_Niger. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Tunisia. ... v • d • e Chadic      Cameroon  Central African Republic  Chad The Chadic languages are a language family spoken across northern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic and Cameroon, belonging to the Afro-Asiatic phylum. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Cameroon. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_Central_African_Republic. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Chad. ...  Niger  Nigeria Image File history File links Flag_of_Niger. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Nigeria. ... v • d • e Cushitic     Cushitic  Djibouti  Eritrea The Cushitic languages are a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic languages, named after the Biblical figure Cush by analogy with Semitic. ... The Cushitic languages are a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic languages, named after the Biblical figure Cush by analogy with Semitic. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Djibouti. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Eritrea. ...  Ethiopia  Kenya Image File history File links Flag_of_Ethiopia. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Kenya. ...  Somalia Image File history File links Flag_of_Somalia. ... Beja  Egypt  Eritrea Beja (also called Bedawi, Bedauye, To Bedawie) is an Afro-Asiatic language of the southern coast of the Red Sea, spoken by about two million nomads in parts of Egypt, Sudan, and Eritrea. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Egypt. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Eritrea. ...  Sudan Image File history File links Flag_of_Sudan. ... v • d • e Egyptian     Egypt v • d • e Omotic  Ethiopia v • d • e Semitic     Arabic / Maltese  Algeria  Bahrain  Egypt  Iraq  Israel  Jordan The language of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and their modern descendant, the Coptic language is classifed under this category. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Egypt. ... The Omotic languages are Afro-Asiatic languages spoken in northeast Africa. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Ethiopia. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... Arabic redirects here. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Algeria. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Bahrain. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Egypt. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Iraq. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Israel. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Jordan. ...  Kuwait  Lebanon  Libya  Malta  Mauritania  Morocco Image File history File links Flag_of_Kuwait. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Lebanon. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Libya. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Malta. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Mauritania. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Morocco. ...  Oman  PNA  Qatar  Saudi Arabia  Sudan1 Image File history File links Flag_of_Oman. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Palestine. ... This article is about the Palestinian territories as a geopolitical phenomenon. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Qatar. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Saudi_Arabia. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Sudan. ...  Syria  Tunisia  UAE  W. Sahara  Yemen Image File history File links Flag_of_Syria. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Tunisia. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_United_Arab_Emirates. ... UAE redirects here. ... Western Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الغربية; transliterated: ; Spanish: Sahara Occidental) is a territory of northwestern Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria in the northeast, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean on the west. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Yemen. ... Northwest Semitic2  Iraq  Israel  Syria The Northwest Semitic languages form a medium-level division of the Semitic language family. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Iraq. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Israel. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Syria. ... South Semitic  Eritrea  Ethiopia  Oman  Yemen South Semitic is one of the three macro-classifications in Semitic linguistics, the other two being North Semitic (e. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Eritrea. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Ethiopia. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Oman. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Yemen. ... 1 excluding Southern Sudan.    2 Aramaic and Hebrew.