Middle Egyptian language

Middle Egyptian r3 n (.j) km.t
Spoken in	formerly Egypt
speaker	(extinct)
Linguistic classification	Afro-Asian Egyptian Middle Egyptian
Language codes
ISO 639 -1	-
ISO 639 -2	egy (Egyptian language)
ISO 639-3	egy (Egyptian language)

Stele from Semna with Middle Egyptian inscription ( 12th Dynasty )

The Middle Egyptian language was the language of Ancient Egypt during the so-called Middle Kingdom (21st to 18th centuries BC) until the Second Intermediate Period (17th to 16th centuries BC) and was used in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries . Dynasty increasingly replaced by New Egyptian in the colloquial language , after the first early New Egyptian developments can be noticed at the beginning of the second interim period. It forms a development stage of the Egyptian language forms and followed the ancient Egyptian , from which it differs only slightly.

The Middle Egyptian language remained in use as a classical literary and inscription language until the 4th century AD. For a long time, modern research into Egyptian also focused on Middle Egyptian. Central Egyptian inscriptions on monuments or in graves were written with Egyptian hieroglyphs , for papyri and ostraka, however, the hieratic script , an italic of hieroglyphics, was used.

Research history and didactics

Adolf Erman (1854–1937)

Research into Middle Egyptian began with the deciphering of the hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion from 1822, but as an Egyptian language level it was only later differentiated from Old and New Egyptian. The so-called Berlin School , founded by Adolf Erman (1854–1937) , which increasingly placed the emphasis on research into Central Egyptian, made significant progress in understanding Egyptian . In 1894 Erman presented the first modern grammar (4th edition: 1928) of Middle Egyptian, which was far surpassed by the monumental Egyptian Grammar (1st edition 1927) by his student Alan H. Gardiner (1879–1963). At the same time, through the publication of the Dictionary of the Egyptian Language (1927–1961) , the Berlin School made significant progress in developing the Egyptian vocabulary.

Around the middle of the 20th century, research into Middle Egyptian grammar was largely considered complete and the language of scientific texts and the coffin texts, which are closely related to ancient Egyptian, turned to. The “ standard theory ” developed by Hans Jacob Polotsky (1905–1991) from 1944 onwards, however, rekindled the discussion about syntax (see below). And research in other areas also continued to move. In 2005 , Wolfgang Schenkel tried to prove that the Central Egyptian past tense sḏm.n = f consists of two syntactically distinguishable forms.

Uncertainties, especially in the field of verb morphology, are essentially due to the fact that the classical Egyptian written forms do not reproduce vowels: many verb tempora are only marked by their vowel structure, which only has a limited effect on the consonant stock, but otherwise are not consonantic or only through marks a weak final consonant that is only sporadically written.

Middle Egyptian is taught at universities as part of the subject of Egyptology , whereby it is particularly important in Germany compared to other, more archaeological sub-areas of Egyptology. Because of the relatively easy-to-learn hieroglyphic writing in Middle Egyptian texts and the classical rank that Middle Egyptian already had in antiquity, it is usually the first language level that Egyptology students get to know.

Linguistic position

Middle Egyptian is a stage of development of Egyptian, one of the six primary branches of the Afro-Asian language family widespread in North Africa and the Near East . Like the previous Ancient Egyptian, with which it forms “Older Egyptian”, it is an inflectional and fusional or strongly inflected language. The differences to ancient Egyptian are relatively minor and are more noticeable on the orthographic level, for example in the different use of determinants . In the area of ​​grammar, the decline or even loss of some pronominal and verbal forms can be observed in Middle Egyptian, and at the same time the emergence of analytical new formations that characterize stylistic forms close to the vernacular. The negation nn is also an important innovation in Central Egypt. Much more serious are the developments that separate Middle Egyptian from New Egyptian. The tendency towards the formation of analytical forms became stronger, which led to a complete reorganization of the verbal system: The complex aspect-tense system of the older Egyptian was greatly reduced, at the same time a multitude of new analytical formations developed.

According to the system

Consonants

Middle Egyptian has about 26 consonantic phonemes (in the order usual in Egyptology):

3

j

y

ˁ

w

b

p

f

m

n

r

l

H

H

H

H

z

s

š

q

k

G

t

ṯ

d

ḏ

The sound value of most Middle Kingdom phonemes is relatively certain, but there is considerable disagreement about d , ḏ, and 3 . According to traditional reconstruction, d and ḏ represent the voiced counterparts of t and ṯ , respectively ; According to a reconstruction, particularly represented by the Semitist Otto Rössler , which is recognized today by a substantial part of Egyptology, these are rather " emphatic " consonants formed by glottalization . 3 is traditionally considered [⁠ ʔ ⁠] viewed; foreign due to Egyptian transcriptions name from the Middle Kingdom, it is now, however, like r-rather a sound held, perhaps [⁠ ʀ ⁠] .

j , y and w had probably halbvokalischen character, with graphical j for [⁠ ʔ ⁠] could stand. The phoneme l has no unambiguous hieroglyphic representation, but due to the Coptic and graphic variation between 3 , n and r , its existence is widely recognized. z and s were in the Middle Kingdom already [⁠ s ⁠] collapsed, although they were still partially differentiated in historicizing overrides. During the phonetic value of H foreign paraphrases by name as [⁠ x ⁠] can be determined is the phonetic value of h uncertain. Overall, with certain uncertainties and without 3 , the following picture emerges:

	bilabial		labiodental		alveolar		postalveolar		palatal		velar		uvular		pharyngal		glottal
	stl.	sth.	stl.	sth.	stl.	sth. or emphatic	stl.	sth.	stl.	sth.	stl.	sth.	stl.	sth.	stl.	sth.	stl.	sth.
Plosives	p	b			t	d					k	G	q				j
Nasals		m				n
Vibrants					r
Fricatives			f		s / z		š		H (?)		H				H	ˁ
Approximants and Lateral Approximants		w				l				j, y

Added t ( [⁠ tʃ ⁠] ) and d ([ t'ʃ ] or [⁠ dʒ ⁠] ), which partly since the Middle Egyptian with t or d coincided.

Vowels

Since the Egyptian hieroglyphs generally do not reproduce vowels, considerable difficulties also arise when reconstructing the vocalization. The main source for the vowels of Middle Egyptian is the Coptic , whose script reliably reproduces vowels. A second essential source are the paraphrases of Egyptian names and words in Akkadian and Greek, and occasionally in Meroitic , which began in the New Kingdom . These not only provide vocalizations of individual words or before and after vowels that have disappeared in Coptic, but also show at the same time which sound shifts have changed the vocal system since the New Kingdom. By combining the Coptic vowels and the tradition in foreign scripts, the vowel system during the New Kingdom can be partially reconstructed. The combination of the consonant skeleton , which has been handed down hieroglyphically, with the vowels reconstructed in this way results in a reconstructed state, which is referred to as the original Coptic (also in the following), Paleocoptic or Protocoptic .

The original Coptic has the three vowel phonemes * / a /, * / i / and * / u /. * / i / and * / u / partly coincided with * / e / after the New Kingdom, so that in the Urkoptischen it is often no longer possible to decide between * / i / and * / u /. All vowels have two variants in original Coptic, which are conventionally interpreted as long versus short opposition; However, according to the classical reconstruction, this distinction in the original Coptic is not meaningful, since it results from the syllable structure. The word accent of the original Coptic is on one of the last two syllables (two- syllable law ), but it is assumed that the word accent could also be on the third last syllable in an earlier stage.

morphology

Morphological processes

The base of the Central Egyptian morphology as well as the lexicon is the best of three, rarely two or four consonants existing root . The stem formation takes place in different ways that are characteristic of the morphology of the older Egyptian.

• Overlay with vowel "scheme"

A characteristic of the Afro-Asian languages ​​is the superposition of the consonantic root, which contains the lexical information, with a vowel pattern that is specific to the form, which is used to create forms. Since the Egyptian hieroglyphs and their daughter systems did not denote vowels, this process is very difficult to trace in detail in the pre-Coptic period. However, it is assumed that traces of vocalization can be found indirectly in the consonant inventory, especially in the case of roots whose last consonant is duplicated or weak ( i.e. j or w , i.e. semivocalic).

• Reduplication ("Gemination")

An important morphological process is the reduplication , wrongly called gemination in Egyptological terminology , especially of the last strong stem consonant. This process is used for both word and form formation.

• Affixes

As in practically all inflected languages, affixes also play a very important role in older Egyptian . In Egyptian two groups can be distinguished here: the frequently occurring and easily recognizable affixing of j and w , a process that occurs frequently in both word and form formation. Various other consonantic affixes are more difficult to prove, the most common of which is the prefix s -, which is used to form causative and factual verbs. With the exception of gender and number endings as well as the "tense" formation, these affixes can only be found in word formation.

The following overview of derivations from the root prj , in which all the morphological possibilities of Middle Egyptian described here occur, provides an impression of the various possibilities of root morphology in Egyptian :

	occupied	reconstructed	meaning	description
Derivation
	pr.jwt	* p˘rjḗw˘t	Scion	Various deverbal nouns
	pr.jw	* pắrj˘w	growth
	pr.wt	* p˘rā́w˘t	Time to sprout, winter
	pr.t	* p˘rŭ́t	fruit
	npr.t	* nĕ́pr˘t	grain
Flexion	pr.j	* pī́r˘j	going out	Active participle (perfect)
	pr.t	* pī́r˘t	Going out	infinitive
	prj.w	* pắrj˘w	he went out	Pseudoparticiple
	prr = f	* parā́r˘f	he comes out	(a present form of suffix conjugation)
	prj = f	* parjắf	let him come out	Subjunctive

Nominal and pronominal morphology

Nouns

The Middle Egyptian noun belongs to one of the two genera masculine and feminine and can form the numbers singular , dual and plural . The feminine is characterized by the suffix t , jt or wt and the dual by tj , while in the masculine the singular is usually unmarked and the dual has the ending wj . The ending w is conventionally used as a plural identifier , although this probably corresponds to the actual stock of forms only for some of the nouns:

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	sn "brother"	sn.t "sister"
dual	sn.wj "the two brothers"	sn.tj "the two sisters"
Plural	sn.w "brothers"	sn. (w) t "sisters"

As in the Semitic and Berber languages , nouns have different statuses depending on their position, including the status constructus , which, however, have little effect on the consonant inventory. Despite various attempts, it has not yet been possible to detect case endings in Egyptian. Even items not exist in the real Middle Egyptian (yet).

Adjectives

Egyptian has very few primary adjectives . All other adjectives are either participles of attribute verbs or derived from nouns and prepositions (so-called nisben ):

• nfr "be good"> nfr "good"
• nṯr "God"> nṯr.j "divine"

With regard to their inflection, adjectives behave like nouns and congruent in attributive use with their reference word: nṯr.t nfr.t “a good goddess”.

Personal pronouns

Middle Egyptian distinguishes three series of personal pronouns (shown here without certain ancient special forms):

		Absolutely	Enclitic	Suffused
Singular	1.	jnk	wj	= j
	2. m.	ntk	ṯw	= k
	2. f.	ntṯ	ṯn	= ṯ
	3. m.	ntf	sw	= f
	3. f.	nts	sj	= s
	3.		st "it"; tw "man"	= tw "man"
Plural	1.	jnn / ntn	n	= n
	2.	ntṯn	ṯn	= ṯn
	3.	ntsn	sn	= sn

The absolute personal pronouns serve in particular as a topic before verbal and non-verbal sentences: jnk sḏm = j “I hear”. In contrast to them, enclitic personal pronouns can never be at the beginning of a sentence, but otherwise fulfill different syntactic functions, for example as the subject of the adjectival sentence ( nfr wj “I am good”) and as an object in the verbal sentence: jw h3b = f wj “he sends me”. Suffix pronouns, which are found in very similar functions in Semitic, Berber, Cushitic and Chadian, are suffixed to their reference word and merge with this to form a unit, which has certain phonological consequences (the status pronominalis ). They are mainly used as possessive pronouns behind nouns ( pr = f "his house"), as the subject of suffix conjugation ( sḏm = f "he hears") and as the subject and object of infinitives ( jr.t = f "his making", mr. t = f "to love him").

Verbal morphology

Suffix conjugation

shape

The suffix conjugation occupies a central position in the Egyptian verbal paradigm . It is characterized by the fact that the pronominal subject is suffixed as a suffix pronoun directly on the tense / aspect / mode stems: sḏm = f “he hears” ( = separates the stem from the suffix pronoun); the nominal subject is also behind the verb: sḏm nṯr “the God hears”.

Different such tense / aspect / mode stems can be distinguished by different vocalizations and affixes; However, since the vowels are not taken into account in the hieroglyphs and the hieroglyphic spellings show inconsistencies even with regard to the consonants, their exact number is uncertain, but usually about 10 active and passive tenses and two exclusively passive tenses / aspects are assumed. In addition to the present sm = f "he hears", the most important position is taken by the perfect sḏm.n = f "he heard"; there are also several futuristic, perfect and subjunctive forms. The forms sḏm.jn = f “and then he heard”, sḏm.k3 = f and sḏm.ḫr = f , a form sḏm.t = f , which is uncertain in its basic meaning, as well as the relative forms ( sḏm = f “the one he hears ”, Sḏm.t = f “ the one he hears ”) occupy a special position.

The syntactic and semantic function of the various forms of the paradigm is also controversial. Two basic trends can be distinguished here.

Traditional approach

According to the approach, which is based on the tradition of the Berlin School and codified in essential standard works such as Alan H. Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar , the various forms of suffix conjugation differ only in semantic or pragmatic terms, and are therefore to be viewed as different tenses, aspects and / or modes. Of particular importance in the argument is a form that is formed in certain verbal classes by reduplication (wrongly called gemination): m33 = f “he sees”, jrr nṯr “who makes God”. It was interpreted either as "emphatic" - especially Adolf Erman - or as "imperfect". The latter interpretation resulted in an analogy in particular with the relative forms and the participles, in which the distinction between perfective vs. For a long time, it has been considered secure:

	Suffix conjugation	Relative forms	Participles
perfective	jr = f "he does (e)"	jr.w = f "the one he made"	jr.w "having done"
imperfectively	jrr = f "he does"	jrr = f "the one he makes"	jrr.w " doing "

However, certain problems arise here due to the insight that the “perfect” sḏm = f comprises several formally similar and therefore difficult to distinguish forms, which is why more recent theories have to do without this analogy.

"Standard Theory"

Main article: Standard theory

Hans Jacob Polotsky first developed a completely new approach to understanding suffix conjugation in his Études de syntaxe copte (1944). Starting from Coptic, he hypothesized that the form of suffix conjugation that is formed in certain classes by reduplicating the last stem consonant is a syntactically nominal one that occurs especially when followed by a focused adverbial . An important example from Middle Egyptian is the following passage from the coffin texts :

jw = j	sṯ = j	jw	b3 = j	sṯ = f
introductory particle = i	copulate = i	introductory particles	Ba = my	copulate = he
"I'm copulating."		"My ba copulates."

sṯṯ	b3 = j	m	rmṯ.w	so.jw	Jw-Nsrsr	sṯṯ = j	ḏs = j	m	nṯr.wt
copulate	Ba = my	With	People	located in	Flame Island	copulate = i	self = me	With	Goddesses
"That my ba copulates is with the people on the island of flames."						"That I copulate myself is with goddesses."

While the first two sentences show the “normal” form of the verb sṯj “copulate”, the next sentences, which each have a focused adverbial (“with people” or “with goddesses”), use the “geminating” form. According to Polotsky, the last two sentences are therefore to be analyzed as adverbial sentences with the subject “That I / my Ba copulate / copulate” and the following adverbials as a predicate. In the course of time Polotsky realized that "normal" forms, which are behind "geminating" forms, can be explained as adverbials. Polotsky had thus developed his transposition theory, which has been known as the “standard theory” since the 1980s , according to which forms of suffix conjugation not only occur in a verbal function, but can also be transposed into an adverbial or nominal function. A model presented by Friedrich Junge in his habilitation thesis (1976), according to which Middle Egyptian verbal forms can only occur in nominal and adverbial function, so that Middle Egyptian consequently has no verbal clauses, represented an increase in this theory .

Since around 1990 the standard theory has been viewed more critically again, in particular "real" verb clauses are increasingly being accepted again.

Other verbal forms

"Pseudoparticiple" / tripod

Main article: pseudoparticiple

The second finite type of verbal form in addition to the suffix conjugation is a type of conjugation that goes back to the Proto-Afro-Asian and is called pseudoparticiple , tripod or (only in English) Old Perfective . In contrast to suffix conjugation, it has its own set of personal endings (separated by the structural symbol " . "):

	Singular	Plural
1.	sḏm.kw	sḏm.wjn
2.	sḏm.tj	sḏm.twnj
3. m.	sḏm.w	sḏm.w
3. f.	sḏm.tj	sḏm.tj , sḏm.w

The pseudoparticiple occurs predominantly to express states, but it can also express dynamic actions both in the active (mostly with intransitive verbs) and in the passive (with transitive verbs). From a syntactic point of view, the use of the pseudoparticiple is severely restricted: for example, it cannot be negated, almost only appear in embedded sentences, and it has no nominal subject. Most often it appears in temporal adverbial clauses expressing a state:

jr.n = j	hrw	ḫmt.w	wˁ.kw
spent = i	Days	three	to be alone
"I spent three days being alone."

A dynamic use in active and passive occurs predominantly in autobiographical passages, compare ḫnt.kw “I drove upstream”, h3b.kw “I was sent”.

A special use can be found in wishing phrases, especially in the extremely common formula ˁnḫ.w wḏ3.w snb.w "May he live, be safe and sound."

Infinite forms

Middle Egyptian has several infinite verb forms, in particular several participles and an infinitive . As in the Semitic and Berber languages, these forms are largely formed by different vocalization patterns:

verb	msj	"Give birth"
infinitive	* miss	"Giving birth"
Passive participle (perfect)	* jamasjéw (first New Egyptian)	"born"
Active participle (perfect)	* másij	"Who gave birth"

syntax

Verbal clauses

Sentences whose predicate is a form of suffix conjugation are called verb clauses . They have the following word order, although of course not all positions are mandatory:

Introductory particle - predicate - pronominal subject (suffix pronoun) - pronominal object (indirect) - pronominal object (direct) - nominal subject - nominal object (direct) - nominal object (indirect) - other extensions

As a rule, verb clauses, if they are not embedded, must be introduced by particles or various auxiliary verbs . The introduction with the word jw is very common .

Example:

main clause					Adverbial clause	Relative clause
jw	wp.n	n = j	b3 = j	r3 = f	wšb = f	ḏd.t = j
introductory particles	"Opened"	to = me	Ba = my	Mouth = to be	answer = he	what had said (relative form) = I
	predicate	pronominal object	nominal subject	nominal object	Predicate = pronominal subject	Predicate = pronominal subject
"Then my ba opened its mouth to answer what I said."

In certain texts, other auxiliary verbs appear as an introduction, for example stehen, actually "to stand":

ˁḥˁ.n	ḏd.n	z3	nswt	Ḥr.w-ḏd = f
auxiliary verb	said	son	king	Hardjedef
"Then the prince said Hardjedef"

Non-verbal sentences

In all phases of Egyptian noun, adjectival and adverbial expressions can also form a predicate. Depending on the type of predicate, different types of sentences can be distinguished. Sentences without a verbal predicate are not determined with regard to tense and mode; this requires the conversion into verbal clauses using the auxiliary verbs jw and wnn .

Noun sentence

Sentences with nouns as a predicate can in certain cases consist of a simple juxtaposition of subject and predicate: Ḏdj rn = f “Djedi is his name.” Mostly, however, a copula pw , originally a demonstrative pronoun that can be flexed according to number and gender, has been used since the Old Kingdom but an immutable particle, inserted:

sḫ.tj	pw	nj	sḫ.t-ḥm3.t
Farmer	copula	from	Wadi Natrun
"This is a farmer from Wadi Natrun."

bw.t = j	pw	ḥs
Abhorrence = mine	copula	Feces
"My disgust is feces."

Adjectival sentence

Sentences with an adjective as a predicate always have the sentence position predicate - subject:

nfr	mtn = j
Well	Way = my
"My way is good."

Adverbial clause

Sentences with an adverbial, i.e. either an adverb or a prepositional phrase, as a predicate have the position subject - predicate:

ẖr.t = k	m	pr = k
Possession = yours	in	House = your
"Your possessions are in your house."

A special application of the adverbial clause is the so-called pseudo - verbal clause . Its predicate consists either of a pseudoparticiple or a prepositional phrase in the form of preposition + infinitive; the sentence consequently has a similar meaning to real verbal clauses. While pseudo-verbal clauses still played a minor role in ancient Egyptian, their importance has steadily increased since the Middle Kingdom. In constructions with a preposition + infinitive, the prepositions ḥr “auf” and m “in” have a presentical meaning , r “zu” have a futuristic meaning:

jw = f	r	mˁr
Particle = he	to	be happy (infinitive)
"He will be happy."

Relative constructions

Depending on the type of external reference word and its syntactic position in the relative phrase, relative constructions have different forms. If the reference word is definitive , a relative pronoun (affirmative nt.j (m.), Nt.t (f.), Nt.jw (pl.); Negative jw.tj ) or an attributive participle can be used:

ẖntj = f	nt.j	m	ḥw.t-no
his ointment vessel	Which	in	temple
"His statue that is in the temple"

Unmarked relative clauses can be used for indefinite reference words:

zj	wnm.n = f	k3.w nw nh.t
a man	ate = he	Sycamore fruits
"(Some) a man who ate the fruits of the sycamore"

If the reference word is not the subject of the embedded verb, the so-called relative forms , attributive verbal forms, can be used, which are inflected according to tense / aspect / mode as well as gender and number of the reference word; her subject is marked as in other forms of suffix conjugation (see above):

ḫ3s.t nb.t	rwj.tn = j	r = s
any country (feminine)	advance.Femininum.Perfekt = I.	against = es (feminine)
"Every country I advanced against"

negation

The negation of one of the most complex areas of the Egyptian syntax. The two basic negative adverbs are n and nn , both meaning "not". Both can negate verbal clauses by placing them in front of the predicate. It is striking that the temporal meaning of the suffix-conjugated verb form differs significantly from the affirmative use. After its discoverer, the British Egyptologist Battiscombe Gunn (1883–1950), this asymmetry is called Gunn's rule :

affirmative	negative
sḏm = f "he hears, heard, will hear"	n sḏm = f "he didn't hear"
	nn sḏm = f "he will not hear"
sḏm.n = f "he heard"	n sḏm.n = f "he does not hear"

n and nn are sometimes also used to negate non-verbal sentences:

nn	wj	m-ḥr-jb = sn
Not	I	in the middle = theirs
"I wasn't in their midst."

A specialty of Egyptian are the negative verbs jmj and tm . Instead of the negated verb itself, the negative verb is conjugated; the meaningful verb takes an unchangeable form, the so-called negative complement :

m	h3.w	ḥr = j
do not (imperative of jmj )	falling down (negative complement)	on = me
"Don't fall down on me."

Finally, Middle Egyptian also has a negative relative pronoun jw.tj "which not", e.g. B. jw.tj sḏm = f "one who does not hear".

literature

Grammars and Introductions

Sorted chronologically

• Daniel A. Werning: Digital introduction to the hieroglyphic-Egyptian writing and language . Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 2018-…, PID: http://hdl.handle.net/21.11101/0000-0007-C9C9-4 (digital grammar online).
• Claudia Maderna-Sieben: Middle Egyptian grammar for beginners. A detailed compendium for teaching. Lit Verlag, Münster 2016, ISBN 978-3-643-13187-4 .
• Daniel A. Werning: Introduction to the hieroglyphic-Egyptian script and language. Propaedeutic with drawing and vocabulary lessons , exercises and exercise tips , 3rd verb. Edition, Berlin 2015, doi : 10.20386 / HUB-42129 (Open Access)
• James P. Allen : Middle Egyptian. An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2010.
• Boyo Ockinga: Basic Egyptian grammar. Outline of Middle Egyptian grammar. 2nd, revised edition, revised by Hellmut Brunner . von Zabern, Mainz 2005, ISBN 3-8053-3600-4 .
• Wolfgang Schenkel : Tübingen introduction to the classical Egyptian language and writing. Schenkel, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-938529-00-8 .
• Erhart Graefe , Jochem Kahl : Middle Egyptian grammar for beginners. 6th, improved and partially changed edition. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-447-04469-1 (brief introduction).
• Michel Malaise, Jean Winand: Grammaire raisonnée de l'égyptien classique , Aegyptiaca Leodiensia 6, Center informatique de philosophie et lettres, Liège 1999.
• Karl Jansen-Winkeln: Late Middle Egyptian grammar of the texts of the 3rd Intermediate Period (= Egypt and Old Testament. Vol. 34). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1996, ISBN 3-447-03800-4 .
• Alan Gardiner : Egyptian Grammar. Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs. 3rd edition, revised. Oxford University Press, London 1957, (monumental grammar of Middle Egyptian up to the 18th Dynasty).

Grammar Studies

• Éric Doret: The narrative verbal system of Old and Middle Egyptian (= Cahiers d'orientalisme. Vol. 12, ZDB -ID 778653-0 ). Cramer, Geneva 1986.
• Jürgen Osing: The nominal formation of Egyptian. 2 volumes. von Zabern, Mainz 1976, ISBN 3-8053-0031-X (also: Berlin, Free University, habilitation paper, 1973/74).

Dictionaries

• Adolf Erman , Hermann Grapow : Dictionary of the Egyptian language. Volume I – V: Dictionary Egyptian - German ; Volume VI: German - Egyptian dictionary ; Volume VII: Declining Dictionary ; Volume VIII – X: Directory of vouchers . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1926–1963.

• Hannig-Lexika: Large concise dictionary Egyptian - German. (2800-950 BC). The language of the pharaohs.
  • Volume 1: Rainer Hannig : Large concise dictionary of Egyptian and German (= cultural history of the ancient world . Vol. 64) 5th, unchanged edition, Marburg edition. von Zabern, Mainz 2009, ISBN 978-3-8053-1771-9 ;
  • Volume 2: Rainer Hannig, Petra Vomberg: Vocabulary of the Pharaohs in subject groups. Culture handbook of Egypt (= cultural history of the ancient world. Vol. 72). 2nd Edition. von Zabern, Darmstadt et al. 2012, ISBN 978-3-8053-4473-9 ;
  • Volume 3: Rainer Hannig: Large concise dictionary German - Egyptian (= cultural history of the ancient world. Volume 86). von Zabern, Mainz 2000, ISBN 3-8053-2609-2 ;
  • Volume 5: Rainer Hannig: Egyptian dictionary. 2: Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period (= cultural history of the ancient world. Vol. 112). 2 volumes. von Zabern, Mainz 2006, ISBN 3-8053-3690-X .

References and comments

1. ↑ The code refers to Egyptian as a whole, not just to Middle Egyptian.
2. ↑ first explicitly formulated by William F. Edgerton: Stress, Vowel Quantity and Syllable Division in Egyptian. In: Journal of Near Eastern Studies Vol. 6, No. 1, 1947, pp. 1-17.
3. ↑ Essentially based on the data from Osing: The formation of nominal numbers in Egyptian. 1976. The hieroglyphic consonant inventory is partially supplemented according to the requirements of the original Coptic.
4. ^ Graefe, Kahl: Middle Egyptian grammar for beginners. 2001, pp. 18-19.
5. ↑ Neither of the two forms can be found in texts from the Middle Kingdom, compare: Joachim F. Quack : The first person plural of the independent personal pronoun in Middle Egyptian. In: Lingua Aegyptia . Vol. 10, 2002, ISSN  0942-5659 , pp. 335-337.

Web links

• Ancient Egyptian Language List (AEL) (English) ( Memento of 8 April 2015, Internet Archive ) to, discussion list Egyptian-Learning
• Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae (text database and dictionary)
• Older Egyptian in the Wiki Glossing Ancient Languages (Recommendations for the interlinear morphemic glossing of Middle Egyptian texts)

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on October 17, 2007 .