Egyptian language

The Egyptian language, also called ancient Egyptian, was a special way of talking used long ago in Egypt. It belongs to a big group of languages called the Afro-Asiatic language family. People first started writing this language using pictures called hieroglyphic script over 5,000 years ago, making it one of the oldest written languages we know.

During a time called the Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt, people used a form of this language called "Middle Egyptian." Even after many years passed, this old way of talking stayed important for writing books and important documents.

Later, the way people spoke changed and became something called Demotic. After Egypt became part of the Roman period, the language changed again into different forms known as Coptic dialects, which were written with letters from the Greek alphabet. Today, a type of this old language called Bohairic Coptic is still used in special church services by the Coptic Orthodox and Coptic Catholic churches, even though most people in Egypt now speak Arabic.

Classification

The Egyptian language belongs to the Afroasiatic language family. It has special features like certain sounds, a simple vowel system, and special word endings and beginnings. Some experts think Egyptian is most similar to Berber and Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, which are spoken today. Others believe it was closer to languages from northeastern Africa.

There are two main ideas about how Egyptian words relate to other Afroasiatic languages. One idea, started by a scholar named Otto Rössler, says some sounds changed in a special way. The other idea disagrees with some of these changes but agrees on others. Both ideas agree that some sounds merged together in Egyptian.

Egyptian has many word roots that are shorter than typical Afroasiatic roots, which might mean it changed less over time compared to Semitic languages. Even though Egyptian is the oldest written Afroasiatic language, its word structure looks quite different from other languages in the family. This difference might mean Egyptian changed a lot before it was written down, or that we need to look at the Afroasiatic family from a different angle.

History

The Egyptian language, also called ancient Egyptian, is part of a big language family called Afro-Asiatic. It was spoken in Egypt and is one of the oldest written languages known. People first started writing it with special pictures called hieroglyphs around 5,000 years ago. For a very long time, it stayed as the main language of Egypt.

The language changed over time into different forms. The main forms were:

• Archaic Egyptian (before around 2600 BC), from very early times
• Old Egyptian (around 2600 to 2000 BC), used in the Old Kingdom
• Middle Egyptian (around 2000 to 1350 BC), used in the Middle Kingdom and later as a literary language
• Late Egyptian (around 1350 to 700 BC), used in the New Kingdom
• Demotic Egyptian (around 700 BC to 400 AD), used in later times
• Coptic (after around 200 AD), used when Christianity spread and is still used in some religious writings today

People wrote Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian with hieroglyphs and a simpler writing style called hieratic. Demotic writing came from hieratic. The Coptic alphabet mixed Egyptian sounds with the Greek alphabet.

Old Egyptian

"Archaic Egyptian" is a name for the very first use of hieroglyphs, from around 3300 BC. At first, these writings were not fully developed. By around 2600 BC, we see more complete writings, like the Diary of Merer and the Pyramid Texts. One special feature of Old Egyptian is that it often repeats symbols three times to show groups or plurals.

Middle Egyptian

Middle Egyptian was used for about 700 years, starting around 2000 BC, during the Middle Kingdom. It is the best-known form of the Egyptian language and was studied a lot by scientists who study ancient Egypt. We learned about it mostly through writings on monuments and other places. Middle Egyptian was also written in a faster style called hieratic.

Middle Egyptian stopped being the main spoken language around the 14th century BC, but it kept being used in writings for a long time after that.

Egyptien de tradition

Main article: Egyptien de tradition

Even after Middle Egyptian was not spoken anymore, people still used writings that looked like it, mixed with parts of older and newer styles. Scholars call this "Égyptien de tradition". This style was used in important and religious writings until Christianity spread in Egypt.

Late Egyptian

Late Egyptian was used from around 1350 BC, during the New Kingdom. It was the language of government and also used in many stories and poems. Late Egyptian was different from Middle Egyptian in several ways, like dropping some sounds and changing how verbs worked.

Demotic

Main article: Demotic Egyptian language

Demotic is a later form of Egyptian written in a special script. It started as the everyday language but later was mostly used for writings and religion.

Coptic

Main article: Coptic language

Coptic is the name for the later Egyptian language written with a mix of Egyptian and Greek letters. It started around the time Christianity began and is still used today in some religious services.

Dialects

There is some proof that Egyptian had different dialects as early as the 3rd millennium BC. However, because hieroglyphics are very careful and formal, and most Egyptian writing was done in a special, fancy way rather than everyday speech, we don't see these differences in writing until later when the Coptic alphabet was used. Even so, we know these differences existed before the Coptic time.

In an old letter from about 1200 BC, a writer made a joke saying his friend's writing was hard to understand, like talking between someone from the Delta area and someone from Elephantine.

We have also found some clues in pairs of similar words in Egyptian that might have come from northern and southern dialects. Later, the written Coptic language had five main dialects, with the southern Saidic dialect being the most important classical one, and the northern Bohairic dialect used today in Coptic Church services.

Phonology

Further information: Transliteration of ancient Egyptian

The Egyptian language had a complex sound system, but we do not know exactly how it sounded. Over time, the sounds changed a lot because Egyptian was spoken for more than 2,000 years.

Egyptian had many kinds of consonants, including sounds made with the lips, teeth, palate, and throat. Some consonants could be spoken in different ways, but we are not sure exactly how. Vowels were not written down until later, so we mostly guess how they sounded based on later languages.

Today, experts use a special way to say Egyptian words, but this is not how people actually said them long ago. It is just a way for scholars to talk about the language.

Writing systems

Most surviving texts in the Egyptian language are written on stone using special picture symbols called hieroglyphs. These symbols were known to ancient people as the "writing of the gods' words." Although many texts were written on paper-like material called papyrus, some were written in simpler styles called hieratic and demotic.

Hieroglyphs were used in two main ways: to show ideas through pictures or to stand for sounds. Because we do not know exactly how the ancient Egyptian sounds were pronounced, experts use a special way of writing the sounds called transliteration.

An Egyptian scholar pointed out that many hieroglyphic symbols come from animals and plants found in Africa, showing that the writing system likely came from the African region where Egypt is located.

Morphology

Egyptian is a language that builds its words from roots of three consonants, sometimes with only two. For example, the word for "sun" is built this way. Vowels and other sounds are added to these roots to create different meanings, similar to how other languages like Arabic work. However, because Egyptian writing did not always show vowels, understanding the exact sounds can be tricky.

Egyptian nouns can be male or female and can be singular, plural, or dual. Later forms of the language also used articles, like "the" and "a". The language had three types of personal pronouns and verbs that showed who was doing the action and when it happened. Adjectives matched the gender and number of the nouns they described. Prepositions were used to show relationships between words, and adverbs could appear at the end of sentences or modify prepositions and adjectives.

Syntax

Old Egyptian, Classical Egyptian, and Middle Egyptian follow a specific pattern in their sentences: verb-subject-object. For example, what we might say as "he opens the door" would be expressed differently in these languages.

Later forms of the language, such as Late Egyptian, Demotic, and Coptic, changed some of these patterns. Early Egyptian did not have words like "the" or "a," but later versions introduced special words for these ideas.

Like other languages in the Afroasiatic family, Egyptian had masculine and feminine genders and ways to talk about one item, two items, or many items. Over time, the way to talk about two items became less common.

Legacy

Further information: Coptic language § Influence on other languages

The ancient Egyptian language continued into later times as the Coptic language. Today, Coptic is mostly used in special church services by the Coptic Orthodox and Coptic Catholic Churches. It also influenced the way people speak in modern Egyptian Arabic.

Ancient Egyptian had an effect on other languages too. Some words in English that come from ancient Egyptian include:

• ebony
• ivory
• natron
• lily
• ibis
• oasis
• barge
• possibly cat
• pharaoh

The name "Egypt" has roots in ancient Egyptian words too.