Demotic font
The demotic script ( Greek according to Herodotus : δημοτιχά or δημοτιϰός 'popular'; ISO 15924 : egyd) is a script derived from the hieratic , which dates from around 650 BC. Was used in ancient Egypt until 450 AD and is written from right to left. It was mainly used as italics for the demotic language , although it was also possible that the demotic script was used for texts from other epochs.
Epochs of demotic writing
- Early Demotic script: 650 BC BC to 320 BC BC (independent Egyptian era)
- Middle-demotic writing: 320 BC Until 30 BC BC ( Ptolemaic era)
- Late demotic writing: 30 BC BC to 450 AD ( Roman era)
Demotic font
Herodotus coined the term “demotic writing” as a popular form in addition to hieratic and hieroglyphic writing , while Porphyrios , on the other hand, speaks of “ epistolographic writing”, which is an exact translation of the Egyptian word for demotic . The font is difficult to read because it contains many similar characters and ligatures . The initial form also changed quickly and individually.
The system is similar to the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. There are phonograms (single and multiple consonant characters), whereby - unlike the hieroglyphs - some of the single consonant characters have special forms at the beginning of the word. In contrast to the hieroglyphs, some of the phonograms in the demotic can also stand for vowels , especially when writing foreign words . The consonant w is also used to write u and o and the consonant j is also used to write i . There are also determinants and word characters, many of which are the result of the fusion of original character sequences in older Egyptian scripts.
The number of distinct character forms has not yet been precisely determined, but is at most a few hundred; many of the character forms are ambiguous because they go back to different hieroglyphic models. In Roman times the use of alphabetic characters became even more extensive, which reduced the inventory of characters.
Even under the Romans, the demotic disappeared as a script in the administration, where now Greek predominated. Demotic was used almost exclusively in the private and religious areas. On the coins minted in Alexandria up to Diocletian's coin reform , the demotic sign L appears for year , which is then combined with Greek letters for the year. The coin (bronze tetradrachm) from the time of Diocletian with the Greek numeral “ Ϛ ” for 6 shown in the file next to this text was minted in the sixth year of Diocletian's reign.
With the Christianization of Egypt in the 3rd and 4th centuries, the relatively complicated demotic script was replaced by a new, much simpler alphabetic script, the Coptic script . This is derived from the Greek alphabet and has been expanded to include a few characters of demotic origin in order to be able to designate typical Egyptian sounds.
The demotic script died out and was completely forgotten until it was learned to decipher again in the 19th century.
literature
- Friedhelm Hoffmann , Joachim Friedrich Quack : Anthology of demotic literature (= introductions and source texts on Egyptology. Volume 4). LIT, Berlin / Münster 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-0762-7 .
- Janet H. Johnson: Thus Wrote 'Onchsheshonqy. An Introductory Grammar of Demotic (= Studies in ancient Oriental Civilization. Volume 45). 3rd edition, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago IL 2000, ISBN 0-918986-76-1 ( oi.uchicago.edu ).
