The Use of Language in Egypt 

Most often when people refer to the Ancient Egyptians, they think of grand, complex hieroglyphs and the Rosetta Stone- the real one, not the computer program. In reality, there is much more to the language of the Ancient Egyptians than just hieroglyphs but they are what intrigues most people about the language of the Ancient Egyptians for good reasons. They have a unique composition, and the Egyptians were not confined to hand-held means of writing such as we are today. Egyptian writing uses hieroglyphics to hold complex meanings. And, hieroglyphs became the basis for all following Egyptian writing or language. Today, we know more about the Egyptians than many other cultures for the very reason that their language and writing was so developed; it unlocked many secrets and helped answer many questions about the Egyptians and their ways of life.

History

Ancient Egyptian is a dead language. It is a part of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Other languages in this family include Arabic, Hebrew, and some North African languages. Hieroglyphic writing appeared suddenly, unlike other languages such as Cuneiform for Latin. The use of Egyptian language extends from around 3000 BC till the 11^th century AD. (Allen 2001.pp 1-12) It is difficult to know the exact time-line of the development of the Egyptian language because of the vast length it was used. The Egyptian language is broken up into phases, beginning with Old Egyptian, and continuing with Middle, Late, Demotic, and Coptic. Old Egyptian is dated from 2600 BC to about 2100 BC and is the oldest form of Egyptian language. Middle Egyptian is the period in which the basis for all following hieroglyphic language was developed. Late Egyptian replaced Middle Egyptian after 1600 BC, followed by Demotic which first appeared in 650 BC and survived all the way until the end of the 5^th century AD. The last phase of the Egyptian language is the Coptic. Close to Demotic, the last known speakers of Coptic date back to the 11^th century AD. (Allen 2001)

Above is a map showing the sections of Egypt; the pink is Lower Egypt, the Purple is Middle Egypt, and the yellow is Upper Egypt.

Hieroglyphics

Hieroglyphics were the basic writing system of the Egyptians. These hieroglyphics had a very unique composition. There are hundreds of glyphs representing different sounds, words, or numbers (See image above). They are read up and down, and consist of pictorial script, as well as phonograms (sign-words for concepts that cannot be conveyed by a picture), ideograms (pictures of actual objects) and rebuses (messages spelled out in pictures that actually represent sounds). Meaning Sacred Carving, (Ray 1986) hieroglyphs were also meant to be carved into buildings and stone, not written, so what we are left with is many magnificent examples of this carved language.  (Foster)

 Beginning as pictographs, or simple drawings of common objects, the Egyptian writing began to develop. They used common objects to identify meanings in their writing because it would be easily recognizable to someone who was illiterate. By doing this, the use of these pictographs became widespread and continued to develop. Phonograms and ideograms began to be used. Phonograms are are a lot like the use of letters in the English language: made up letters or symbols that convey sound-meanings. Pronunciation of these sounds, however, do not resemble that of our language. Ideograms, on the other hand, are simple and direct. They are images that represent a real object that existed in the world, making it easy for people to recognize and understand. (David 1999) Finally, determinatives are glyphs that can be added to the end of a word to clarify the meaning with the lack of vowels. These were used, for example, to depict abstract ideas that could not otherwise be assigned an image with an obvious phonetic meaning.

Hieroglyphics are dual purpose. Some hieroglyphs depict images that have phonetic meaning, and this meaning can or can not have to do with the depiction itself. Some images in hieroglyphs represent single letters, but some also represent multiple consonants. The Egyptians also only wrote in consonants, no vowels. Some glyphs can stand for full words, called determinatives. Most often, these are used to clarity the meaning of a glyph due to the lack of vowels.

 

 

 

 

Hieroglyphics offer a unique quality to the Egyptian language in that, unlike in many other languages, the written language does not line up perfectly with the spoken language. That is it say, that understanding Egyptian as a written language forces us to rely not only on the actual words written but the way in which these words are put together; context is very important. They may represent the speech of those depicted, or they can tell us historical information. There are many ways to both read and write hieroglyphic writing; there is even a cursive form (Loprieno 1996. pp 9-22) When we read hieroglyphics, the signs also usually face the direction of the person they are written about.

A very good example of these uses of hieroglyphics is found on the famous Narmer's Palette. It is easy to decipher simply by making assumptions based on the images. Originally used as a make-up palette, it depicts the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt under the rule of King Narmer. Without having any prior knowledge of Egyptian hieroglyphics and only knowing that these images represent words, we can look at it and make a general assumption of what is happening. For example, we can see a very large figure, in fact the largest, image is probably King Narmer himself. He holds in his hand a weapon, showing his intentions to strike the man below him. This palette is a perfect example of the duality of hieroglyphs and how they can help to not only depict a scene, but the pictures themselves can be written language.

King Narmer's Palette

 

 

Deciphering the Written Word

 

Decipherment of hieroglyphic writing has provided scholars with valuable information regarding religious and secular practices. (Ray 1986) Lucky for us, the Egyptians thought of language as precious and divine, and thus education was very important to them. Writing was thought to be a way to communicate with the Gods. Scribes, for example, held high social rank solely for this ability to read and write. Eventually hieroglyphics were used often, even being carved into stone tombs and monuments of important leaders. The written language was notably important to the Egyptians and their architecture and culture reflected that.

In it's final stages, known as the Coptic stage, the Egyptian language was influenced by the Copts, or Christians who lived in Egypt. They combined ancient Egyptian dialects with Greek characters which allowed people to write the full pronunciation of the language with the addition of vowels. Eventually, this led to the use of the ancient Egyptian languages to become replaced by the use of the Greek language around 300 BC. (Ray 1986) Christianity and the Greek language eventually ended the use of hieroglyphs and the Egyptian language. The language became dead, and along with it those who were able to decipher the complex and intriguing language and writing.

After some time, the New World became very interested in understanding the life and culture of these strange Egyptians., but no scholar was able to answer any questions about this mysterious language and, thus, the Egyptian culture had a shadow cast on it for some time. Many scholars, such as Athanasius Kircher (Loprieno 1996) attempted to understand the Egyptian's use of hieroglyphs. He developed many theories on the language, but these theories were never able to be proved due to the lack of definite archaeological evidence there was supporting these theories.

The Rosette Stone

 

 

Only when the Rosetta Stone was discovered by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 AD, scholars were finally able to shed some light on the language and writing of the Egyptians. Carved in 196 BC, it was created to hold a decree of Kink Ptolemy V. The Rosetta Stone is a large, black basalt stone which was carved with the same thing in three languages, Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Demotic. This discovery finally allowed us to understand the massive stone carvings and tombs all around Egypt, including Champollion's discovery that hieroglyphics included phonograms, ideograms, and the Coptic language. (Loprieno 1996. pp. 9)

 

 

A large example of the vast use of hieroglyphs in the ancient Egyptian works is the Temple of Ramses III. Reliefs and inscriptions tell the of the life and victories of Ramses III on the walls of the entire temple.

 

 

Today, we find hieroglyphic writing on the walls of temples and tombs, in coffins and sarcophagi, and in many stelae.  There is still much to learn about this language, both written and especially spoken. The complex grammar and pictures entice us to understand their history. The ancient Egyptian language is still a mysterious and intriguing one. We continue to decipher the stories and history left behind by the Ancient Egyptians on these tombs and temples, hoping to understand all we can about them.

 

 

 

Citations:

 

Allen, J.P. (2001) Middle Egyptian: an introduction to the language and culture of hieroglyphs. New York: Cambridge University Press.

David, A.R. (1999) Handbook to life in ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press.

 

Foster, J.L. Ancient Egyptian Literature: An Anthology.

Loprieno, A. (1996) Ancient Egyptian literature: history and forms. Leiden: E.J. Brill

 

Ray, J.D. (1986) World Archaeology (pp..307-216)