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.

During a time called the Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt, people used a form of this language called "Middle Egyptian." 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 is part of the Afroasiatic language family. It has special sounds, a simple vowel system, and unique word endings and beginnings. Some experts think Egyptian is most like Berber and Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, spoken today. Others think it was closer to languages from northeastern Africa.

There are two main ideas about how Egyptian words connect to other Afroasiatic languages. One idea, from 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 short word roots, shorter than typical Afroasiatic roots. This might mean it changed less over time than Semitic languages. Even though Egyptian is the oldest written Afroasiatic language, its word structure looks 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 think about the Afroasiatic family in a new way.

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.

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.

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 proof that Egyptian had different dialects as early as the 3rd millennium BC. But because hieroglyphics were very careful and formal, we don’t see these differences in writing until later when the Coptic alphabet was used.

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

We also found 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. The southern Saidic dialect was the most important, and the northern Bohairic dialect is used today in Coptic Church services.

Phonology

Further information: Transliteration of ancient Egyptian

The Egyptian language had many sounds, but we do not know exactly how they sounded. Over time, the sounds changed because Egyptian was spoken for more than 2,000 years.

Egyptian had many kinds of consonants, made with the lips, teeth, palate, and throat. Some consonants could be spoken in different ways, but we are not sure 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 texts in the Egyptian language were written on stone with picture symbols called hieroglyphs. These symbols were called the "writing of the gods' words" by ancient people. Some texts were written on papyrus in simpler styles called hieratic and demotic.

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

Many hieroglyphic symbols came from animals and plants found in Africa, showing that the writing system came from the African region where Egypt is located.

Morphology

Egyptian is a language that makes its words from roots of three consonants, sometimes with only two. For example, the word for "sun" is made this way. Vowels and other sounds are added to these roots to create new meanings, like in other languages such as Arabic. But because Egyptian writing did not always show vowels, knowing the exact sounds can be hard.

Egyptian nouns can be male or female and can be single, many, or two. Later forms of the language also used articles, like "the" and "a". The language had three kinds 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 change prepositions and adjectives.

Syntax

Old Egyptian, Classical Egyptian, and Middle Egyptian followed a special pattern in their sentences: verb-subject-object. For example, "he opens the door" would look different in these languages.

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

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

Legacy

Further information: Coptic language § Influence on other languages

The ancient Egyptian language lived on as the Coptic language. Today, people mainly use Coptic in special church services in the Coptic Orthodox and Coptic Catholic Churches. It also helped shape how we speak Egyptian Arabic today.

Ancient Egyptian affected other languages too. Some English words come from it, like:

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

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