Deciphering Hieroglyphic. The Ptolemaic Decrees.

Part 5/5 of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endsc...

1. Egyptian Language and Writing

LANGUAGE

1.1 Family

Egyptian is the ancient and original language of Egypt. It belongs to the language family known as Afroasiatic or Hamito-Semitic, and is related to both of that family’s branches: North African (or Hamitic) languages such as Berber and Hausa; and Asiatic (or Semitic) languages such as Arabic, Ethiopic, and Hebrew. Within Afroasiatic, Egyptian is unique, with no close relative of its own. It has features that are common to both branches; where it differs, it is often closer to the African side of the family.

1.2 History

Egyptian first appeared in writing shortly before 3200 BC and remained in active use until the eleventh century AD. This lifespan of more than four thousand years makes it the longest continually attested language in the world. Beginning with the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, Arabic gradually replaced Egyptian as the dominant language in Egypt. Today, the language of Egypt is Arabic. Egyptian is a dead language, like Latin, which can only be studied in writing, though it is still spoken in the rituals of the Coptic (Egyptian Christian) Church.

Throughout its long lifetime, Egyptian underwent tremendous changes. Scholars classify its history into five major phases:

1) Old Egyptian is the name given to the oldest known phase of the language.Although Egyptian writing is first attested before 3000 BC, these early inscriptions consist only of names and labels. Old Egyptian proper is dated from approximately 2600 BC, when the first connected texts appeared, until about 2100 BC.

2) Middle Egyptian, sometimes called Classical Egyptian, is closely related to Old Egyptian. It appeared around 2100 BC and survived as a spoken language for some five hundred years, but it remained the standard hieroglyphic language for the rest of ancient Egyptian history. Middle Egyptian is the phase of the language discussed in this book.

3) Late Egyptian began to replace Middle Egyptian as the spoken language after 1600 BC, and it remained in use until about 600 BC. Though descended from Old and Middle Egyptian, Late Egyptian differed substantially from the earlier phases, particularly in grammar.Traces of Late Egyptian can be found in texts earlier than 1600 BC, but it did not appear as a full written language until after 1300 BC.

4) Demotic developed out of Late Egyptian. It first appeared around 650 BC and survived until the fifth century AD.

5) Coptic is the name given to the final phase of Egyptian, which is closely related to Demotic. It appeared at the end of the first century AD and was spoken for nearly a thousand years thereafter.The last known texts written by native speakers of Coptic date to the eleventh century AD.

1.5 Hieroglyphic spelling

Each hieroglyph is a picture of a thing that existed in the world or imagination of the ancient Egyptians: for instance, the ground plan of a simple house ( ), a human mouth ( ), or a pair of legs in motion ( ). These could be used to write the words that they depicted, or related words: for example, “house”; “come.”When a hieroglyph is used in this manner, it is called an ideogram (“idea writing”).We still use ideograms, even in English:“I ♥ my dog.”

Ideographic writing is simple and direct, but it is pretty much limited to things that can be pictured. All languages, however, also contain many words for things that cannot be conveyed by a simple picture. Successful writing systems must find a way to express those ideas as well. Most written languages do so by a system of signs that represent not things but the sounds of the language. This allows their writers to “spell out” words. A sign used in this way is called a phonogram (“sound writing”). English writing uses phonograms almost exclusively: each letter in our alphabet is a symbol that represents a sound rather than an object of the real world.

The idea that symbols could be used to represent the sounds of a language rather than objects is one of the most important, and ancient, of all human discoveries. It is often called “the rebus principle.”A rebus is a message spelled out in pictures that represent sounds rather than the things they are pictures of: for example, the pictures of an eye ( ), a bee ( ), and a leaf ( ) can be put together as the English rebus , meaning “I believe” (“eye-bee-leaf ”)—which has nothing to do with eyes, bees, or leaves. The hieroglyphic system used this principle too. Many Egyptian hieroglyphs could be used not only as ideograms, but also as phonograms. For example, the signs for “house” ( ) and “mouth” ( ) were also used as phonograms in the word “ascend,” which has nothing to do with houses or mouths.

In Middle Egyptian, words spelled with phonograms usually have an ideogram added at the end.This extra sign, called a determinative, has two functions: it shows that the signs preceding it are to be read as phonograms rather than ideograms, and it indicates the general idea of the word. Thus, the word meaning “ascend” is usually written : the “walking legs” sign indicates that this is a word having to do with motion.

To summarize: the individual pictures of the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system are used in three different ways:

1) as ideograms, to represent the things they actually depict: for example, “house” and “mouth.”

2) as phonograms, to represent the sounds that “spell out” individual words: for example, “ascend.” Used in this way, the hieroglyphs stand for sounds rather than for pictures of things.

3) as determinatives, to show that the signs preceding are meant as phonograms, and to
indicate the general idea of the word: for example, the “walking legs” in “ascend.”

All hieroglyphs have the potential to be used in each of these ways. In practice, however, their use was generally more restricted. Some occur mostly as ideograms or determinatives, others almost exclusively as phonograms. The “house” sign ( ) is one of the few hieroglyphs that was regularly used in all three functions: as an ideogram, meaning “house”; as a phonogram, with the value pr; and as a determinative, after words denoting buildings.

Since Champollion’s time, Egyptologists have continually refined our knowledge of ancient Egyptian writing, words, and grammar. Except for the most obscure words, hieroglyphic texts can be read today almost as easily as those of any other known language.

The Saite Period ended brutally, with the conquest of Egypt by a Persian army in 525 BC. For the first time in its dynastic history, Egypt was governed not as an independent country but as the province of a foreign empire. During the next two hundred years, known as the Late Period (Dynasties 27–30, 525–332 BC), Egypt tottered between Persian rule (Dynasty 27) and brief periods when native pharaohs managed to regain control (Dynasties 28–30). In 343 BC the Persians conquered Egypt for the final time, ending the reign of Nectanebo II, the last native Egyptian to rule his country until the Egyptian revolution in AD 1952.

When Alexander the Great destroyed the Persian Empire in 332 BC, he gained control of Egypt as well. After Alexander’s death in 323 BC, the rule of Egypt passed to one of his generals, named Ptolemy. Though they were of Macedonian origin, Ptolemy and his descendants governed Egypt as pharaohs. The country prospered during the three hundred years of their reign, known as the Ptolemaic Period (323–30 BC), with a strong central government and an ongoing program of rebuilding and renewing the older monuments.

Ptolemaic rule ended in 30 BC, when the coalition of Marc Antony and the Ptolemaic ruler Cleopatra VII was defeated by Octavian, the future Caesar Augustus. Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire. Although its ancient customs continued under Roman rule for the next four hundred years, Egypt gradually lost its old identity, first to Christianity and then, in AD 641, to Islam. The Roman conquest of 30 BC is generally considered as the end of ancient Egyptian civilization.

Excellent euroCentric, nonAfroAsiatic THOUGHT?

-----"ideograms, (even in English:¡°I ¢¾ my dog.¡±)

---MEAN -----nothing to SOCIETIES that do not ¢¾ OR care for dogs"

MOST of HUMAN history is anti ¢¾ of dogs

Egyptian and Jewish HISTORY---2000+ years ago or 2013---- is anti ¢¾ of dogs

Robert,

Are you saying that ideograms are not the precursors of alphabets?

The paradigm for acrophonic alphabets is the Phoenician alphabet, in which the letter A, representing the sound [ʔ], is thought to have derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph representing an ox, and is called "ox", ʾalp, which starts with the glottal stop sound the letter represents. The Latin alphabet is descended from the Phoenician, and the stylized head of an ox can still be seen if the letter A is turned upside-down: ∀. The second letter of the Phoenician alphabet is bet (which means "house" and looks a bit like a shelter) representing the sound [b], and from ālep-bēt we have the word "alphabet" - another case where the beginning of a thing gives the name to the whole, which was in fact common practice in the ancient Near East.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrophony

As far as can be determined, Middle Egyptian had twenty-five consonants. Each consonant could be represented in hieroglyphic by a single sign; such signs are called uniliteral (“one-letter”) hieroglyphs. In effect, these uniliteral hieroglyphs constituted an Egyptian “alphabet,” but they were never used as such by the Egyptians, only in combination with other hieroglyphs.

Uniliteral signs

The table below shows the uniliteral hieroglyphs of Middle Egyptian, along with their transliteration in the European system and the names by which Egyptologists commonly refer to them.The table is arranged in the order used in dictionaries of ancient Egyptian.To be able to use the dictionaries (including the one in the back of this book), you will need to memorize this order.

vulture
aleph (“ALL-if ”)

reed-leaf
j or i or yod (“yode”)

double reed-leaf
y

arm
ayin (“EYE-in”)

quail-chick
w

foot
b

stool
p

horned viper
f

owl
m

water
n

mouth
r

enclosure
h

rope
dotted h

unknown object
third h

belly and udder
fourth h

doorbolt
z or first s

bolt of cloth
s or second s

pool
shin

hill
q or dotted k

basket
k

jar-stand
g

bread-loaf
t

hobble
second t

hand
d

cobra
second d

These signs are among the most common of all Egyptian hieroglyphs; every text contains some of them, and most words were written with one or more of them—some words, only with them. Your first exercise should be to study this table until you can reproduce it and can give the transliteration of each sign from memory.

PDF is a wonderful tool. If you need the link to the book Robert, I can post it again.

MIDDLE EGYPTIAN
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE OF HIEROGLYPHS
JAMES P. ALLEN
SECOND EDITION, REVISED

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo

Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521517966

© James P. Allen 2010

Middle Egyptian introduces the reader to the writing system of ancient Egypt and the language of hieroglyphic texts. It contains twenty-six lessons, exercises (with answers), a list of hieroglyphic signs, and a dictionary. It also includes a series of twenty-five essays on the most important aspects of ancient Egyptian history, society, religion and literature. The combination of grammar lessons and cultural essays allows users to not only read hieroglyphic texts but also to understand them, providing readers with the foundation to understand texts on monuments and to read great works of ancient Egyptian literature in the original text. This second edition contains revised exercises and essays, providing an up to date account of current research and discoveries. New illustrations enhance discussions and examples. These additions combine with the previous edition to create a complete grammatical description of the classical language of ancient Egypt for specialists in linguistics and other fields.

The Vulture hieroglyph (aleph):

A kind of l, or perhaps r. This sound began to disappear from the spoken language during the Middle Kingdom. Most words simply lost the consonant, but in some cases, it was replaced by y or by a “glottal stop” (the catch in the throat at the beginning of the two vowels of “uh-oh”).

Phoenician, alf, means ox, and represents this same "glottal stop".

steve,

this is BIA site, for African American Families----smashing oldeStereotypes.......

i, have the MOST times have written to YOU, that you are the scholar of BIA.....

i, have great respect for someone that READS things......and you are a READER emeritus...

in my opinion --- though

but on this paganPharoahnic stuff----i, believe your scholarship ENFORCES the euroCentric superiority concept.......stereotypicallyWRONG............a misconception

we have had back and forth on this paganPharoahnic stuff ESPECIALLY since you join with the selfProfessed former blogKing on this STUFF.......

but you and anyONE that is a reader and comprehender knows that when you state from your Cambridge University ,The Edinburgh Building, Dr. James P. Allen STUFF---i CRINGE

you CANNOT find or CANNOT comprehend the Misrian(egyptian) VERSION of the 'ideoGRAMS'/writing of ancient pagan PEOPLE in THEIR ancestry, HIstory, Scholarship and Science...

no jew, misrian, muslim, copticChristian or ANYONE associated in THEIR own LAND makes your above references(as if they are fact?)

for instance the MOST obvious FALSEHOOD

1. you write---The Vulture hieroglyph (aleph):
A kind of l, or perhaps r. This sound began to disappear from the spoken language during the Middle Kingdom. Most words simply lost the consonant, but in some cases, it was replaced by y or by a “glottal stop”

EVERYONE in the "MIDDLE KINGDOM" area knows that this is ALEF--- the FIRST letter of Hebrew and Arabic LANGUAGES --- the dominant LANGUAGE for 5000 YEARS in the "MIDDLE KINGDOM"

this Alef is the PRECURSOR to the PRONUNCIATION of Illaah or Allaah----and it NEVER as you and Dr.Allen reference DISAPPEARED.........how simpleMinded.......

but my concern here is that this noKNOWLEDGE or solely benefitting europeSuperiority is not BIA benefit........

that this noKnowledge of paganPharoahnism----- is another of the things African Americans should SMASH for the BENEFIT of GROWTH for the Family of Adaam(as)----GROWTH away from euroCentrism to AfroCENTRISM.............

Robert,

I love to study language. but it takes some time. I'm in something of a quandary, since I would like to study Spanish and Japanese as well as Egyptian. I will certainly keep your information in mind. In my Greek classes there was the professor and at most 4 or 5 students. I talked to my professor and the department has now eliminated Greek and Latin from the foreign languages program. Egyptian I will have to learn on my own.

And the advantage to reading the grammar is there are many translation examples from society in general, not just from pharaoh.

My garden is inside, but I do have a mulch pile out back I'm going to work on soon. It's so shaded, no chance of a garden. But I will find some plants that do well in the shade.

If you are referring to the Bible Irma, the earliest Latin translation were made from Greek, and possibly Aramaic. When Jerome created the Latin Vulgate, he also translated from Hebrew.

Okay, maybe you meant the Rosetta Stone. In that case, Greek was the official language after Alexander's conquest, and Demotic the Egyptian language of the time. So those two were used so everyone could understand, if they knew only one or the other (just like I live in CA and still don't understand Spanish, shame on me). Hieroglyphic was added because it was still the sacred writing of Egypt.

BOY, DO IHAVE A LOT OF CATCHING UP TO DO...3 OBLSTILCE AND 4 DEVILS.LOL...

I SHALL BE RIGHT BACK AFTER DINNER AND FINISHING MY WORK OUT SIDE IN THE GARDEN,IN A SHORT WHILE AS I NEED TO GIVE THIS MY FULL ATTENTIONS (SMILE)

I FOUND IT SO INTERESTING IT WAS INTWO TOTALY DIFFERENT LANGUAGES...HAVE TEHY FOUND OUT WHY THIS WAS SO, STEVE. (SMILE)

(MISQUTOES RAN ME IN AND IT WAS 77 DEGREES HERE YESTERDAY AND 80 TODAy...so i will have t ofind a medium to go out before toohot and misqutoe time.lol!!!...

AND, LATIN WAS REQUIRED LEARNING IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS UNTIL AROUND THE LATE 50S. (SMILE)

THANKS STEVE.(SMILE)