{"history":[],"article":{"id":"d0eb690a-2f8e-45c1-b158-8ac3e21f56b9","title":"Egyptian language","slug":"egyptian-language","content":":::summary\n![Egyptian](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/G.///Ebers///%28ed.%29%2C///Papyros///Ebers%2C///1875///Wellcome///L0016592.jpg)\n**Name:** Egyptian \n**Imagecaption:** [Ebers Papyrus](https://bliptext.com/articles/ebers-papyrus) detailing treatment of [asthma](https://bliptext.com/articles/asthma) (written in [hieratic](https://bliptext.com/articles/hieratic)) \n**Region:** Originally, throughout [Ancient Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-egypt) and parts of [Nubia](https://bliptext.com/articles/nubia) (especially during the times of the [Nubia](https://bliptext.com/articles/nubia)n kingdoms) \n**Ethnicity:** [Ancient Egyptians](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-egypt) \n**Era:** Late fourth millennium BC – 19th century AD (with the extinction of [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language)); still used as the [liturgical language](https://bliptext.com/articles/liturgical-language) of the [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) Orthodox and [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) Catholic Churches \n**Familycolor:** Afro-Asiatic \n**Dia 1:** Upper? \n**Dia 2:** Lower? \n**Dia 3:** [Coptic dialects](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) \n**Script:** [Hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs), [cursive hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/cursive-hieroglyphs), [Hieratic](https://bliptext.com/articles/hieratic), [Demotic](https://bliptext.com/articles/demotic-egyptian) and [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-alphabet) (later, occasionally, [Arabic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/arabic-script) in government translations and [Latin script](https://bliptext.com/articles/latin-alphabet) in scholars' transliterations and several hieroglyphic dictionaries ) \n**Iso 2:** egy \n**Iso 3:** egy \n**Iso 3comment:** (also [cop](https://bliptext.com/articles/cop) for [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language)) \n**Lingua:** 11-AAA-a \n**Iso 2comment:** (also for [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language)) \n**Glotto:** egyp1246 \n**Glottorefname:** Egyptian (Ancient) \n:::\n\n# \nThe **Egyptian language**, or **Ancient Egyptian** (\"speech of Egypt\") is an [extinct branch](https://bliptext.com/articles/extinct-language) of the [Afro-Asiatic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/afroasiatic-languages) that was spoken in [ancient Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-egypt).\nIt is known today from a large [corpus](https://bliptext.com/articles/text-corpus) of surviving texts, which were made accessible to the modern world following the [decipherment of the ancient Egyptian scripts](https://bliptext.com/articles/decipherment-of-ancient-egyptian-scripts) in the early 19th century.\nEgyptian is one of the [earliest known written languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/list-of-languages-by-first-written-accounts), first recorded in the [hieroglyphic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs) in the late [4th millennium BC](https://bliptext.com/articles/4th-millennium-bc).\nIt is also the longest-attested human language, with a written record spanning over 4,000 years.\nIts [classical](https://bliptext.com/articles/classical-language) form, known as \"[Middle Egyptian](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-egyptian),\" served as the [vernacular](https://bliptext.com/articles/vernacular) of the [Middle Kingdom of Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-kingdom-of-egypt) and remained the literary language of Egypt until the [Roman period](https://bliptext.com/articles/egypt-roman-province).\nBy the time of [classical antiquity](https://bliptext.com/articles/classical-antiquity), the spoken language had evolved into [Demotic](https://bliptext.com/articles/demotic-egyptian-language), and by the [Roman era](https://bliptext.com/articles/roman-egypt), diversified into various [Coptic dialects](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language).\nThese were eventually supplanted by [Arabic](https://bliptext.com/articles/arabic) after the [Muslim conquest of Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/muslim-conquest-of-egypt), although Bohairic Coptic remains in use as the [liturgical language](https://bliptext.com/articles/liturgical-language) of the [Coptic Church](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-orthodox-church).\n\n# Classification\nThe Egyptian language branch belongs to the [Afroasiatic language family](https://bliptext.com/articles/afroasiatic-languages).\nAmong the [typological](https://bliptext.com/articles/typology-linguistics) features of Egyptian that are typically Afroasiatic are its [fusional](https://bliptext.com/articles/fusional-language) morphology, [nonconcatenative morphology](https://bliptext.com/articles/nonconcatenative-morphology), a series of [emphatic consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/emphatic-consonant), a three-vowel system, a nominal feminine suffix *-at, a nominal prefix m-, an adjectival suffix -ī and characteristic personal verbal affixes.\nOf the other Afroasiatic branches, linguists have variously suggested that the Egyptian language shares its greatest affinities with [Berber](https://bliptext.com/articles/berber-languages) and [Semitic](https://bliptext.com/articles/semitic-languages) languages, particularly [Arabic](https://bliptext.com/articles/arabic) (which is spoken in Egypt today) and [Hebrew](https://bliptext.com/articles/hebrew-language).\nHowever, other scholars have argued that the Egyptian language shared closer linguistic ties with northeastern African regions.\nThere are two theories that seek to establish the cognate sets between Egyptian and Afroasiatic, the traditional theory and the [neuere Komparatistik](https://bliptext.com/articles/neuere-komparatistik), founded by [Semiticist](https://bliptext.com/articles/semiticist) Otto Rössler.\nAccording to the neuere Komparatistik, in Egyptian, the [Proto-Afroasiatic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-afroasiatic-language) voiced consonants developed into [pharyngeal](https://bliptext.com/articles/pharyngeal-consonant) ⟨ꜥ⟩ : Egyptian ꜥr.t 'portal', Semitic dalt 'door'.\nThe traditional theory instead disputes the values given to those consonants by the neuere Komparatistik, instead connecting ⟨ꜥ⟩ with Semitic and.\nBoth schools agree that Afroasiatic merged with Egyptian ⟨n⟩, ⟨r⟩, ⟨ꜣ⟩, and ⟨j⟩ in the dialect on which the written language was based, but it was preserved in other Egyptian varieties.\nThey also agree that original palatalise to ⟨ṯ j ḏ⟩ in some environments and are preserved as ⟨k g q⟩ in others.\nThe Egyptian language has many biradical and perhaps monoradical roots, in contrast to the Semitic preference for triradical roots.\nEgyptian is probably more conservative, and Semitic likely underwent later regularizations converting roots into the triradical pattern.\nAlthough Egyptian is the oldest [Afroasiatic](https://bliptext.com/articles/afroasiatic) language documented in written form, its [morphological](https://bliptext.com/articles/morphology-linguistics) repertoire is very different from that of the rest of the [Afroasiatic](https://bliptext.com/articles/afroasiatic) languages in general, and [Semitic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/semitic-languages) in particular.\nThere are multiple possibilities: perhaps Egyptian had already undergone radical changes from [Proto-Afroasiatic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-afroasiatic) before it was recorded; or the Afroasiatic family has so far been studied with an excessively Semitocentric approach; or, as G. W. Tsereteli suggests, Afroasiatic is a [sprachbund](https://bliptext.com/articles/sprachbund), rather than a true [genetic](https://bliptext.com/articles/genetic-relationship-linguistics) language family.\n\n# History\nThe Egyptian language can be grouped thus:\nThe Egyptian language is conventionally grouped into six major [chronological](https://bliptext.com/articles/chronological) divisions:\nOld, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using both the [hieroglyphic](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs) and [hieratic](https://bliptext.com/articles/hieratic) scripts.\n[Demotic](https://bliptext.com/articles/demotic-script) is the name of the script derived from the hieratic beginning in the 7th century BC.\nThe [Coptic alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-alphabet) was derived from the [Greek alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/greek-alphabet), with adaptations for Egyptian phonology.\nIt was first developed in the [Ptolemaic period](https://bliptext.com/articles/ptolemaic-period), and gradually replaced the Demotic script in about the 4th to 5th centuries of the Christian era.\n# [Diagram showing the use of the various lects of Egyptian by time period and linguistic register. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Egyptian///lects.svg]\n\n## Old Egyptian\nThe term \"Archaic Egyptian\" is sometimes reserved for the earliest use of hieroglyphs, from the late fourth through the early third millennia BC. At the earliest stage, around 3300 BC, hieroglyphs were not a fully developed [writing system](https://bliptext.com/articles/writing-system), being at a transitional stage of [proto-writing](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-writing); over the time leading up to the 27th century BC, grammatical features such as [nisba](https://bliptext.com/articles/nisba-suffix) formation can be seen to occur.\nOld Egyptian is dated from the oldest known complete sentence, including a [finite verb](https://bliptext.com/articles/finite-verb), which has been found.\nDiscovered in the tomb of [Seth-Peribsen](https://bliptext.com/articles/seth-peribsen) (dated c. 2690 BC), the seal impression reads:\nExtensive texts appear from about 2600 BC. An early example is the [Diary of Merer](https://bliptext.com/articles/diary-of-merer).\nThe [Pyramid Texts](https://bliptext.com/articles/pyramid-texts) are the largest body of literature written in this phase of the language.\nOne of its distinguishing characteristics is the tripling of [ideograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/ideogram), phonograms, and [determinatives](https://bliptext.com/articles/determinative) to indicate the plural.\nOverall, it does not differ significantly from Middle Egyptian, the classical stage of the language, though it is based on a different dialect.\nIn the period of the 3rd dynasty (c. 2650), many of the principles of hieroglyphic writing were regularized.\nFrom that time on, until the script was supplanted by an early version of Coptic (about the third and fourth centuries), the system remained virtually unchanged.\nEven the number of signs used remained constant at about 700 for more than 2,000 years.\n# [Seal impression from the tomb of Seth-Peribsen, containing the oldest known complete sentence in Egyptian | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Peribsen2.JPG]\n\n## Middle Egyptian\nMiddle Egyptian was spoken for about 700 years, beginning around 2000 BC, during the [Middle Kingdom](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-kingdom-of-egypt) and the subsequent [Second Intermediate Period](https://bliptext.com/articles/second-intermediate-period-of-egypt).\nAs the classical variant of Egyptian, Middle Egyptian is the best-documented variety of the language, and has attracted the most attention by far from [Egyptology](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptology).\nWhile most Middle Egyptian is seen written on monuments by hieroglyphs, it was also written using a [cursive variant](https://bliptext.com/articles/cursive-hieroglyphs), and the related [hieratic](https://bliptext.com/articles/hieratic).\nMiddle Egyptian first became available to modern scholarship with the [decipherment of hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/decipherment-of-egyptian-hieroglyphs) in the early 19th century.\nThe first grammar of Middle Egyptian was published by [Adolf Erman](https://bliptext.com/articles/adolf-erman) in 1894, surpassed in 1927 by [Alan Gardiner](https://bliptext.com/articles/alan-gardiner)'s work.\nMiddle Egyptian has been well-understood since then, although certain points of the [verbal](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-verb) inflection remained open to revision until the mid-20th century, notably due to the contributions of [Hans Jakob Polotsky](https://bliptext.com/articles/hans-jakob-polotsky).\nThe Middle Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 14th century BC, giving rise to Late Egyptian.\nThis transition was taking place in the later period of the [Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/eighteenth-dynasty-of-egypt) (known as the [Amarna Period](https://bliptext.com/articles/amarna-period)).\n\n### Egyptien de tradition\nOriginal Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian texts were still used after the 14th century BCE.\nAnd an emulation of predominately Middle Egyptian, but also with characteristics of Old Egyptian, Late Egyptian and Demotic, called \"Égyptien de tradition\" or \"Neo-Middle Egyptian\" by scholars, was used as a literary language for new texts since the later [New Kingdom](https://bliptext.com/articles/new-kingdom-of-egypt) in official and religious [hieroglyphic](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs) and hieratic texts in preference to Late Egyptian or Demotic.\nÉgyptien de tradition as a religious language survived until the Christianisation of [Roman Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/roman-egypt) in the 4th century.\n\n## Late Egyptian\nLate Egyptian was spoken for about 650 years, beginning around 1350 BC, during the [New Kingdom of Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/new-kingdom-of-egypt).\nLate Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplant [Middle Egyptian](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-egyptian-language) as a [literary language](https://bliptext.com/articles/literary-language), and was also the language of the New Kingdom administration.\nTexts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the [Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/twentieth-dynasty-of-egypt) and later.\nLate Egyptian is represented by a large body of religious and secular [literature](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-egyptian-literature), comprising such examples as the [Story of Wenamun](https://bliptext.com/articles/story-of-wenamun), the love poems of the Chester–Beatty I papyrus, and the [Instruction of Any](https://bliptext.com/articles/instruction-of-any).\n[Instructions](https://bliptext.com/articles/sebayt) became a popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, which took the form of advice on proper behavior.\nLate Egyptian was also the language of New Kingdom administration.\nLate Egyptian is not completely distinct from Middle Egyptian, as many \"classicisms\" appear in historical and literary documents of this phase.\nHowever, the difference between Middle and Late Egyptian is greater than the difference between Middle and Old Egyptian.\nOriginally a [synthetic language](https://bliptext.com/articles/synthetic-language), Egyptian by the Late Egyptian phase had become an [analytic language](https://bliptext.com/articles/analytic-language).\nThe relationship between Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian has been described as being similar to that between Latin and Italian.\nThe Late Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 8th century BC, giving rise to Demotic.\n\n## Demotic\nDemotic is a later development of the Egyptian language written in the [Demotic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/demotic-egyptian), following Late Egyptian and preceding [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language), the latter of which it shares much with.\nIn the earlier stages of Demotic, such as those texts written in the early Demotic script, it probably represented the spoken idiom of the time.\nHowever, as its use became increasingly confined to literary and religious purposes, the written language diverged more and more from the spoken form, leading to significant [diglossia](https://bliptext.com/articles/diglossia) between the late Demotic texts and the spoken language of the time, similar to the use of classical Middle Egyptian during the Ptolemaic Period.\n# [10th century stela with Coptic inscription, in the Louvre | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Funerary///stele///Thousei///Louvre///E27220.jpg]\n\n## Coptic\n[Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) is the name given to the late Egyptian vernacular when it was written in a Greek-based alphabet, the [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) alphabet; it flourished from the time of [Early Christianity (c. 31/33–324)](https://bliptext.com/articles/early-christianity), but Egyptian phrases written in the Greek alphabet first appeared during the [Hellenistic period](https://bliptext.com/articles/hellenistic-period) c. 3rd century BC, with the first known [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) text, still pagan (Old [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language)), from the 1st century AD.\nCoptic survived into the medieval period, but by the 16th century was dwindling rapidly due to the persecution of Coptic Christians under the [Mamluks](https://bliptext.com/articles/mamluk-sultanate-cairo).\nIt probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that.\nCoptic survives as the liturgical language of the [Coptic Orthodox Church](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-orthodox-church) and the [Coptic Catholic Church](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-catholic-church).\n\n# Dialects\nMost hieroglyphic Egyptian texts are written in a literary [prestige register](https://bliptext.com/articles/prestige-sociolinguistics) rather than the [vernacular](https://bliptext.com/articles/vernacular) [speech variety](https://bliptext.com/articles/variety-linguistics) of their author.\nAs a result, dialectical differences are not apparent in written Egyptian until the adoption of the [Coptic alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-alphabet).\nNevertheless, it is clear that these differences existed before the Coptic period.\nIn one [Late Egyptian letter](https://bliptext.com/articles/papyrus-anastasi-i) (dated c. 1200 BC), a scribe jokes that his colleague's writing is incoherent like \"the speech of a [Delta](https://bliptext.com/articles/bohairic) man with a man of [Elephantine](https://bliptext.com/articles/akhmimic).\"\nRecently, some evidence of internal dialects has been found in pairs of similar words in Egyptian that, based on similarities with later dialects of Coptic, may be derived from northern and southern dialects of Egyptian.\nWritten Coptic has five major dialects, which differ mainly in graphic conventions, most notably the southern Saidic dialect, the main classical dialect, and the northern Bohairic dialect, currently used in Coptic Church services.\n\n# Writing systems\nMost surviving texts in the Egyptian language are written on stone in [hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs).\nThe native name for Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is zẖꜣ n mdw-nṯr (\"writing of the gods' words\").\nIn antiquity, most texts were written on the quite perishable medium of [papyrus](https://bliptext.com/articles/papyrus) though a few have survived that were written in hieratic and (later) demotic.\nThere was also a form of [cursive hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/cursive-hieroglyphs), used for religious documents on papyrus, such as the [Book of the Dead](https://bliptext.com/articles/book-of-the-dead) of the [Twentieth Dynasty](https://bliptext.com/articles/twentieth-dynasty-of-egypt); it was simpler to write than the hieroglyphs in stone inscriptions, but it was not as cursive as hieratic and lacked the wide use of [ligatures](https://bliptext.com/articles/typographic-ligature).\nAdditionally, there was a variety of stone-cut hieratic, known as \"lapidary hieratic\".\nIn the language's final stage of development, the [Coptic alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-alphabet) replaced the older writing system.\nHieroglyphs are employed in two ways in Egyptian texts: as [ideograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/ideogram) to represent the idea depicted by the pictures and, more commonly, as [phonograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonogram-linguistics) to represent their [phonetic](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonetics) value.\nAs the phonetic realization of Egyptian cannot be known with certainty, Egyptologists use a system of [transliteration](https://bliptext.com/articles/transliteration-of-ancient-egyptian) to denote each sound that could be represented by a uniliteral hieroglyph.\nEgyptian scholar Gamal Mokhtar noted that the inventory of hieroglyphic symbols derived from \"fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African\", reflecting the local wildlife of North Africa, the Levant and southern Mediterranean.\nIn \"regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence [North] African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects the reality\" that the geographical location of Egypt is, of course, in Africa.\n\n# Phonology\nWhile the consonantal phonology of the Egyptian language may be reconstructed, the exact [phonetics](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonetics) is unknown, and there are varying opinions on how to classify the individual phonemes.\nIn addition, because Egyptian is recorded over a full 2,000 years, the Archaic and Late stages being separated by the amount of time that separates [Old Latin](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-latin) from [Modern Italian](https://bliptext.com/articles/italian-language), significant phonetic changes must have occurred during that lengthy time frame.\nPhonologically, Egyptian contrasted labial, alveolar, palatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal consonants.\nEgyptian also contrasted voiceless and emphatic consonants, as with other Afroasiatic languages, but exactly how the emphatic consonants were realised is unknown.\nEarly research had assumed that the opposition in stops was one of voicing, but it is now thought to be either one of [tenuis](https://bliptext.com/articles/tenuis-consonant) and [emphatic consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/emphatic-consonant), as in many Semitic languages, or one of [aspirated](https://bliptext.com/articles/aspirated-consonant) and [ejective consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/ejective-consonant), as in many [Cushitic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/cushitic-languages).\nSince vowels were not written until Coptic, reconstructions of the Egyptian vowel system are much more uncertain and rely mainly on evidence from Coptic and records of Egyptian words, especially proper nouns, in other languages/writing systems.\nThe actual pronunciations reconstructed by such means are used only by a few specialists in the language.\nFor all other purposes, the Egyptological pronunciation is used, but it often bears little resemblance to what is known of how Egyptian was pronounced.\n\n## Old Egyptian\n\n### Consonants\nThe following consonants are reconstructed for Archaic (before 2600 BC) and Old Egyptian (2686–2181 BC), with IPA equivalents in square brackets if they differ from the usual transcription scheme:\nhas no independent representation in the hieroglyphic orthography, and it is frequently written as if it were or.\nThat is probably because the standard for written Egyptian is based on a dialect in which had merged with other sonorants.\nAlso, the rare cases of occurring are not represented.\nThe phoneme is written as ⟨j⟩ in the initial position (⟨jt⟩ = 'father') and immediately after a stressed vowel (⟨bjn⟩ = 'bad') and as ⟨jj⟩ word-medially immediately before a stressed vowel (⟨ḫꜥjjk⟩ = 'you will appear') and are unmarked word-finally (⟨jt⟩ = 'father').\n\n## Middle Egyptian\nIn Middle Egyptian (2055–1650 BC), a number of consonantal shifts take place.\nBy the beginning of the Middle Kingdom period, and had merged, and the graphemes ⟨s⟩ and ⟨z⟩ are used interchangeably.\nIn addition, had become word-initially in an unstressed syllable (⟨jwn⟩ > \"colour\") and after a stressed vowel (⟨ḥjpw⟩ > '[the god] Apis').\n\n## Late Egyptian\nIn Late Egyptian (1069–700 BC), the phonemes d ḏ g gradually merge with their counterparts t ṯ k (⟨dbn⟩ > Akkadian transcription ti-ba-an 'dbn-weight').\nAlso, ṯ ḏ often become, but they are retained in many [lexemes](https://bliptext.com/articles/lexeme); ꜣ becomes ; and become at the end of a stressed syllable and eventually null word-finally: ⟨pḏ.t⟩ > Akkadian transcription -pi-ta 'bow'.\n\n## Demotic\n\n### Phonology\nThe most important source of information about Demotic phonology is Coptic.\nThe consonant inventory of Demotic can be [reconstructed](https://bliptext.com/articles/linguistic-reconstruction) on the basis of evidence from the Coptic dialects.\nDemotic orthography is relatively [opaque](https://bliptext.com/articles/orthographic-depth).\nThe Demotic \"alphabetical\" signs are mostly inherited from the hieroglyphic script, and due to historical [sound changes](https://bliptext.com/articles/sound-change) they do not always map neatly onto Demotic [phonemes](https://bliptext.com/articles/phoneme).\nHowever, the Demotic script does feature certain orthographic innovations, such as the use of the sign h̭ for //, which allow it to represent sounds that were not present in earlier forms of Egyptian.\nThe Demotic consonants can be divided into two primary classes: [obstruents](https://bliptext.com/articles/obstruent) ([stops](https://bliptext.com/articles/plosive), [affricates](https://bliptext.com/articles/affricate) and [fricatives](https://bliptext.com/articles/fricative)) and [sonorants](https://bliptext.com/articles/sonorant) ([approximants](https://bliptext.com/articles/approximant), [nasals](https://bliptext.com/articles/nasal-consonant), and [semivowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/semivowel)).\n[Voice](https://bliptext.com/articles/voice-phonetics) is not a contrastive feature; all obstruents are voiceless and all sonorants are voiced.\nStops may be either [aspirated](https://bliptext.com/articles/aspirated-consonant) or [tenuis](https://bliptext.com/articles/tenuis-consonant) (un[aspirated](https://bliptext.com/articles/aspirated-consonant)), although there is evidence that aspirates merged with their [tenuis](https://bliptext.com/articles/tenuis-consonant) counterparts in certain environments.\nThe following table presents the consonants of Demotic Egyptian.\nThe reconstructed value of a phoneme is given in [IPA](https://bliptext.com/articles/international-phonetic-alphabet) transcription, followed by a transliteration of the corresponding Demotic \"alphabetical\" sign(s) in angle brackets ⟨⟩.\n\n## Coptic\nMore changes occur in the 1st millennium BC and the first centuries AD, leading to Coptic (1st or 3rd – c. 19th centuries AD).\nIn Sahidic ẖ ḫ ḥ had merged into š (most often from ḫ) and (most often ẖ ḥ).\nBohairic and Akhmimic are more conservative and have a velar fricative ( in Bohairic, in Akhmimic).\nPharyngeal *ꜥ had merged into glottal after it had affected the quality of the surrounding vowels.\nis not indicated orthographically unless it follows a stressed vowel; then, it is marked by doubling the vowel letter (except in Bohairic): Akhmimic, Sahidic and Lycopolitan šoʔp, Bohairic šoʔp 'to be' < ḫpr.w * 'has become'.\nThe phoneme was probably pronounced as a fricative, becoming after a stressed vowel in syllables that had been closed in earlier Egyptian (compare < 'gold' and < * 'horn').\nThe phonemes occur only in [Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/greek-language) loanwords, with rare exceptions triggered by a nearby : < ꜥ.t n.t sbꜣ.w 'school'.\nEarlier *d ḏ g q are preserved as ejective t' c' k' k' before vowels in Coptic.\nAlthough the same graphemes are used for the pulmonic stops (⟨⟩), the existence of the former may be inferred because the stops ⟨⟩ are allophonically aspirated before stressed vowels and [sonorant](https://bliptext.com/articles/sonorant) consonants.\nIn Bohairic, the allophones are written with the special graphemes ⟨⟩, but other dialects did not mark aspiration: Sahidic, Bohairic 'the sun'.\nThus, Bohairic does not mark aspiration for reflexes of older *d ḏ g q: Sahidic and Bohairic 'horn'.\nAlso, the definite article is unaspirated when the next word begins with a glottal stop: Bohairic 'the account'.\nThe consonant system of Coptic is as follows:\n\n## Vowels\nHere is the vowel system reconstructed for earlier Egyptian:\nVowels are always short in unstressed syllables (⟨tpj⟩ = 'first') and long in open stressed syllables (⟨rmṯ⟩ = 'man'), but they can be either short or long in closed stressed syllables (⟨jnn⟩ = 'we', ⟨mn⟩ = 'to stay').\nIn the Late [New Kingdom](https://bliptext.com/articles/new-kingdom-of-egypt), after [Ramses II](https://bliptext.com/articles/ramses-ii), around 1200 BC, changes to (like the [Canaanite shift](https://bliptext.com/articles/canaanite-shift)), ⟨ḥrw⟩ '(the god) Horus' > (Akkadian transcription: -ḫuru).\n, therefore, changes to : ⟨šnj⟩ 'tree' > (Akkadian transcription: -sini).\nIn the Early New Kingdom, short stressed changes to : ⟨mnj⟩ \"[Menes](https://bliptext.com/articles/menes)\" > (Akkadian transcription: ma-né-e).\nLater, probably 1000–800 BC, a short stressed changes to : ⟨ḏꜥn.t⟩ \"[Tanis](https://bliptext.com/articles/tanis)\" was borrowed into Hebrew as *ṣuʕn but would become transcribed as ⟨ṣe-e'-nu/ṣa-a'-nu⟩ during the [Neo-Assyrian Empire](https://bliptext.com/articles/neo-assyrian-empire).\nUnstressed vowels, especially after a stress, become : ⟨nfr⟩ 'good' > (Akkadian transcription -na-a-pa).\nchanges to next to and : ⟨wꜥw⟩ 'soldier' > (earlier Akkadian transcription: ú-i-ú, later: ú-e-eḫ).\nIn Sahidic and Bohairic Coptic, Late Egyptian stressed becomes and becomes, but are unchanged in the other dialects:\nHowever, in the presence of guttural fricatives, Sahidic and Bohairic preserve, and Fayyumic renders it as ⟨e⟩:\nIn Akhmimic and Lycopolitan, becomes before etymological :\nSimilarly, the diphthongs, , which normally have reflexes , in Sahidic and are preserved in other dialects, are in Bohairic ⟨ôi⟩ (in non-final position) and ⟨ôou⟩ respectively:\nSahidic and Bohairic preserve before (etymological or from lenited or tonic-syllable coda ),: Sahidic and Bohairic ⟨ne⟩ 'to you (fem.)' < <.\nmay also have different reflexes before [sonorants](https://bliptext.com/articles/sonorant), near [sibilants](https://bliptext.com/articles/sibilant) and in diphthongs.\nOld surfaces as after nasals and occasionally other consonants: ⟨nṯr⟩ 'god' > ⟨noute⟩ has acquired phonemic status, as is evidenced by minimal pairs like 'to approach' ⟨hôn⟩ < ẖnn vs. 'inside' ⟨houn⟩ < ẖnw.\nAn etymological > often surfaces as next to and after etymological pharyngeals: ⟨hir⟩ < 'street' (Semitic loan).\nMost Coptic dialects have two phonemic vowels in unstressed position.\nUnstressed vowels generally became, written as ⟨e⟩ or null (⟨i⟩ in Bohairic and Fayyumic word-finally), but pretonic unstressed /a/ occurs as a reflex of earlier unstressed near an etymological pharyngeal, velar or sonorant ('to become many' ⟨ašai⟩ < ꜥšꜣ ) or an unstressed.\nPretonic [i] is underlyingly : Sahidic 'ibis' ⟨hibôi⟩ < h(j)bj.w.\nThus, the following is the Sahidic vowel system c. AD 400:\n\n## Phonotactics\nEarlier Egyptian has the syllable structure CV(ː)(C) in which V is long in open stressed syllables and short elsewhere.\nIn addition, CVːC or CVCC can occur in word-final, stressed position.\nHowever, CVːC occurs only in the infinitive of biconsonantal verbal roots, CVCC only in some plurals.\nIn later Egyptian, stressed CVːC, CVCC, and CV become much more common because of the loss of final dentals and glides.\n\n## Stress\nEarlier Egyptian stresses one of the last two syllables.\nAccording to some scholars, that is a development from a stage in Proto-Egyptian in which the third-last syllable could be stressed, which was lost as open posttonic syllables lost their vowels: > 'transformation'.\n\n## Egyptological pronunciation\nAs a convention, Egyptologists make use of an \"Egyptological pronunciation\" in English: the consonants are given fixed values, and vowels are inserted according to essentially arbitrary rules.\nTwo of these consonants known as alef and ayin are generally pronounced as the vowel.\nYodh is pronounced, w.\nBetween other consonants, is then inserted.\nThus, for example, the Egyptian name [Ramesses](https://bliptext.com/articles/ramesses-egyptian-name) is most accurately transliterated as (\"[Ra](https://bliptext.com/articles/ra) is the one who bore him\") and pronounced as.\nIn [transcription](https://bliptext.com/articles/transcription-linguistics), ⟨a⟩, ⟨i⟩, and ⟨u⟩ all represent consonants.\nFor example, the name [Tutankhamun](https://bliptext.com/articles/tutankhamun) (1341–1323 BC) was written in Egyptian as (\"living image of [Amun](https://bliptext.com/articles/amun)\").\nExperts have assigned generic sounds to these values as a matter of convenience, which is an artificial pronunciation and should not be mistaken for how Egyptian was ever pronounced at any time.\nSo although twt-ꜥnḫ-ı͗mn is pronounced in modern Egyptological pronunciation, in his lifetime, it was likely to be pronounced something like *, transliterable as təwā́təʾ-ʿā́nəkh-ʾamā́nəʾ.\n\n# Morphology\nEgyptian is fairly typical for an Afroasiatic language in that most of its vocabulary is built around a root of three consonants, though there are sometimes only two consonants in the root: (, \"sun\"--the is thought to have been something like a voiced pharyngeal fricative).\nLarger roots are also common and can have up to five consonants: (\"be upside-down\").\nVowels and other consonants are added to the root to derive different meanings, as Arabic, Hebrew, and other Afroasiatic languages still do.\nHowever, because vowels and sometimes glides are not written in any Egyptian script except Coptic, it can be difficult to reconstruct the actual forms of words.\nThus, orthographic (\"to choose\"), for example, can represent the [stative](https://bliptext.com/articles/stative) (whose endings can be left unexpressed), the [imperfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperfective) forms or even a [verbal noun](https://bliptext.com/articles/verbal-noun) (\"a choosing\").\n\n## Nouns\nEgyptian [nouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/noun) can be masculine or feminine (the latter is indicated, as with other Afroasiatic languages, by adding a ) and singular or plural ( / ), or dual ( / ).\n[Articles](https://bliptext.com/articles/article-grammar), both definite and indefinite, do not occur until Late Egyptian but are used widely thereafter.\n\n## Pronouns\nEgyptian has three different types of [personal pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/personal-pronoun): suffix, [enclitic](https://bliptext.com/articles/clitic) (called \"dependent\" by Egyptologists) and independent pronouns.\nThere are also a number of verbal endings added to the [infinitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/infinitive) to form the stative and are regarded by some linguists as a \"fourth\" set of personal pronouns.\nThey bear close resemblance to their Semitic counterparts.\nThe three main sets of personal pronouns are as follows:\nDemonstrative pronouns have separate masculine and feminine singular forms and common plural forms for both genders:\nFinally, interrogative pronouns bear a close resemblance to their Semitic and [Berber](https://bliptext.com/articles/berber-language) counterparts:\n\n## Verbs\nEgyptian verbs have finite and non-finite forms.\nFinite verbs convey [person](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-person), [tense](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-tense)/[aspect](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-aspect), [mood](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-mood) and [voice](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-voice).\nEach is indicated by a set of [affixal](https://bliptext.com/articles/affix) morphemes attached to the verb: For example, the basic conjugation is (\"to hear\") is sḏm.f (\"he hears\").\nNon-finite verbs occur without a subject and are the infinitive, the [participles](https://bliptext.com/articles/participle) and the negative infinitive, which [Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-grammar-being-an-introduction-to-the-study-of-hieroglyphs) calls \"negatival complement\".\nThere are two main tenses/aspects in Egyptian: [past](https://bliptext.com/articles/past-tense) and temporally-unmarked [imperfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperfective-aspect) and [aorist](https://bliptext.com/articles/aorist) forms.\nThe latter are determined from their [syntactic](https://bliptext.com/articles/syntax) context.\n\n## Adjectives\n[Adjectives](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjective) agree in [gender](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-gender) and number with the nouns they modify:\nman good.MASC\n\"[the] good man\"\nwoman good.FEM\n\"[the] good woman\"\nAttributive adjectives in phrases are after the nouns they modify: (\"[the] great god\").\nHowever, when they are used independently as a [predicate](https://bliptext.com/articles/predicate-grammar) in an [adjectival phrase](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjectival-phrase), as (\"[the] god [is] great\", lit. \"great [is the] god\"), adjectives precede the nouns they modify.\n\n## Prepositions\nEgyptian makes use of [prepositions](https://bliptext.com/articles/preposition).\n\n## Adverbs\nAdverbs, in Egyptian, are at the end of a sentence: For example:\nwent god there\n\"[the] god went there\"\nHere are some common Egyptian adverbs:\n\n# Syntax\nOld Egyptian, Classical Egyptian, and Middle Egyptian have [verb-subject-object](https://bliptext.com/articles/verb-subject-object) as the basic [word order](https://bliptext.com/articles/word-order).\nFor example, the equivalent of \"he opens the door\" would be (\"opens he [the] door\").\nThe so-called [construct state](https://bliptext.com/articles/status-constructus) combines two or more nouns to express the [genitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/genitive), as in [Semitic](https://bliptext.com/articles/semitic-languages) and [Berber languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/berber-languages).\nHowever, that changed in the later stages of the language, including Late Egyptian, Demotic and Coptic.\nThe early stages of Egyptian have no articles, but the later forms use, and.\nAs with other Afroasiatic languages, Egyptian uses two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine.\nIt also uses three grammatical numbers: singular, dual and plural.\nHowever, later Egyptian has a tendency to lose the dual as a productive form.\n\n# Legacy\nThe Egyptian language survived through the Middle Ages and into the early modern period in the form of the [Coptic language](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language).\nCoptic survived past the 16th century only as an isolated vernacular and as a [liturgical language](https://bliptext.com/articles/liturgical-language) for the [Coptic Orthodox](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-orthodox-church) and [Coptic Catholic Churches](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-catholic-church).\nCoptic also had an enduring effect on [Egyptian Arabic](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-arabic), which replaced Coptic as the main daily language in Egypt; the [Coptic substratum](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-arabic) in [Egyptian Arabic](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-arabic) appears in certain aspects of syntax and to a lesser degree in vocabulary and phonology.\nIn antiquity, Egyptian exerted some influence on [Classical Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/classical-greek), so that a number of Egyptian loanwords into Greek survive into modern usage.\nExamples include:\nThe Hebrew Bible also contains some words, terms, and names that are thought by scholars to be Egyptian in origin.\nAn example of this is [Zaphnath-Paaneah](https://bliptext.com/articles/zaphnath-paaneah), the Egyptian name given to [Joseph](https://bliptext.com/articles/joseph-genesis).\nThe etymological root of [\"Egypt\"](https://bliptext.com/articles/name-of-egypt) is the same as [Copts](https://bliptext.com/articles/copts), ultimately from the Late Egyptian name of [Memphis](https://bliptext.com/articles/memphis-egypt), Hikuptah, a continuation of Middle Egyptian (lit. \"temple of the [ka (soul)](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-egyptian-conception-of-the-soul) of [Ptah](https://bliptext.com/articles/ptah)\").\n\n# Literature\n\n## Overviews\n\n## Grammars\n\n## Dictionaries\n\n## Online dictionaries\n**Important Note:** The old grammars and dictionaries of [E. A. Wallis Budge](https://bliptext.com/articles/e-a-wallis-budge) have long been considered obsolete by Egyptologists, even though these books are still available for purchase.\nMore book information is available at Glyphs and Grammars.","current_revision":null,"created_by":"kACnuQmH5k9Nr5VNVEpVeg7XpvUmMctD","created_at":"2025-01-25T17:36:56.729Z","updated_at":"2025-01-25T17:36:56.729Z","search_vector":"'egyptian':1 'languag':2","search_content":" \n \n**Name:** Egyptian \n**Imagecaption:** [Ebers Papyrus](https://bliptext.com/articles/ebers-papyrus) detailing treatment of [asthma](https://bliptext.com/articles/asthma) (written in [hieratic](https://bliptext.com/articles/hieratic)) \n**Region:** Originally, throughout [Ancient Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-egypt) and parts of [Nubia](https://bliptext.com/articles/nubia) (especially during the times of the [Nubia](https://bliptext.com/articles/nubia)n kingdoms) \n**Ethnicity:** [Ancient Egyptians](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-egypt) \n**Era:** Late fourth millennium BC – 19th century AD (with the extinction of [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language)); still used as the [liturgical language](https://bliptext.com/articles/liturgical-language) of the [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) Orthodox and [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) Catholic Churches \n**Familycolor:** Afro-Asiatic \n**Dia 1:** Upper? \n**Dia 2:** Lower? \n**Dia 3:** [Coptic dialects](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) \n**Script:** [Hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs), [cursive hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/cursive-hieroglyphs), [Hieratic](https://bliptext.com/articles/hieratic), [Demotic](https://bliptext.com/articles/demotic-egyptian) and [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-alphabet) (later, occasionally, [Arabic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/arabic-script) in government translations and [Latin script](https://bliptext.com/articles/latin-alphabet) in scholars' transliterations and several hieroglyphic dictionaries ) \n**Iso 2:** egy \n**Iso 3:** egy \n**Iso 3comment:** (also [cop](https://bliptext.com/articles/cop) for [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language)) \n**Lingua:** 11-AAA-a \n**Iso 2comment:** (also for [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language)) \n**Glotto:** egyp1246 \n**Glottorefname:** Egyptian (Ancient) \n \n\n# \nThe **Egyptian language**, or **Ancient Egyptian** (\"speech of Egypt\") is an [extinct branch](https://bliptext.com/articles/extinct-language) of the [Afro-Asiatic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/afroasiatic-languages) that was spoken in [ancient Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-egypt).\nIt is known today from a large [corpus](https://bliptext.com/articles/text-corpus) of surviving texts, which were made accessible to the modern world following the [decipherment of the ancient Egyptian scripts](https://bliptext.com/articles/decipherment-of-ancient-egyptian-scripts) in the early 19th century.\nEgyptian is one of the [earliest known written languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/list-of-languages-by-first-written-accounts), first recorded in the [hieroglyphic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs) in the late [4th millennium BC](https://bliptext.com/articles/4th-millennium-bc).\nIt is also the longest-attested human language, with a written record spanning over 4,000 years.\nIts [classical](https://bliptext.com/articles/classical-language) form, known as \"[Middle Egyptian](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-egyptian),\" served as the [vernacular](https://bliptext.com/articles/vernacular) of the [Middle Kingdom of Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-kingdom-of-egypt) and remained the literary language of Egypt until the [Roman period](https://bliptext.com/articles/egypt-roman-province).\nBy the time of [classical antiquity](https://bliptext.com/articles/classical-antiquity), the spoken language had evolved into [Demotic](https://bliptext.com/articles/demotic-egyptian-language), and by the [Roman era](https://bliptext.com/articles/roman-egypt), diversified into various [Coptic dialects](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language).\nThese were eventually supplanted by [Arabic](https://bliptext.com/articles/arabic) after the [Muslim conquest of Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/muslim-conquest-of-egypt), although Bohairic Coptic remains in use as the [liturgical language](https://bliptext.com/articles/liturgical-language) of the [Coptic Church](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-orthodox-church).\n\n# Classification\nThe Egyptian language branch belongs to the [Afroasiatic language family](https://bliptext.com/articles/afroasiatic-languages).\nAmong the [typological](https://bliptext.com/articles/typology-linguistics) features of Egyptian that are typically Afroasiatic are its [fusional](https://bliptext.com/articles/fusional-language) morphology, [nonconcatenative morphology](https://bliptext.com/articles/nonconcatenative-morphology), a series of [emphatic consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/emphatic-consonant), a three-vowel system, a nominal feminine suffix *-at, a nominal prefix m-, an adjectival suffix -ī and characteristic personal verbal affixes.\nOf the other Afroasiatic branches, linguists have variously suggested that the Egyptian language shares its greatest affinities with [Berber](https://bliptext.com/articles/berber-languages) and [Semitic](https://bliptext.com/articles/semitic-languages) languages, particularly [Arabic](https://bliptext.com/articles/arabic) (which is spoken in Egypt today) and [Hebrew](https://bliptext.com/articles/hebrew-language).\nHowever, other scholars have argued that the Egyptian language shared closer linguistic ties with northeastern African regions.\nThere are two theories that seek to establish the cognate sets between Egyptian and Afroasiatic, the traditional theory and the [neuere Komparatistik](https://bliptext.com/articles/neuere-komparatistik), founded by [Semiticist](https://bliptext.com/articles/semiticist) Otto Rössler.\nAccording to the neuere Komparatistik, in Egyptian, the [Proto-Afroasiatic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-afroasiatic-language) voiced consonants developed into [pharyngeal](https://bliptext.com/articles/pharyngeal-consonant) ⟨ꜥ⟩ : Egyptian ꜥr.t 'portal', Semitic dalt 'door'.\nThe traditional theory instead disputes the values given to those consonants by the neuere Komparatistik, instead connecting ⟨ꜥ⟩ with Semitic and.\nBoth schools agree that Afroasiatic merged with Egyptian ⟨n⟩, ⟨r⟩, ⟨ꜣ⟩, and ⟨j⟩ in the dialect on which the written language was based, but it was preserved in other Egyptian varieties.\nThey also agree that original palatalise to ⟨ṯ j ḏ⟩ in some environments and are preserved as ⟨k g q⟩ in others.\nThe Egyptian language has many biradical and perhaps monoradical roots, in contrast to the Semitic preference for triradical roots.\nEgyptian is probably more conservative, and Semitic likely underwent later regularizations converting roots into the triradical pattern.\nAlthough Egyptian is the oldest [Afroasiatic](https://bliptext.com/articles/afroasiatic) language documented in written form, its [morphological](https://bliptext.com/articles/morphology-linguistics) repertoire is very different from that of the rest of the [Afroasiatic](https://bliptext.com/articles/afroasiatic) languages in general, and [Semitic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/semitic-languages) in particular.\nThere are multiple possibilities: perhaps Egyptian had already undergone radical changes from [Proto-Afroasiatic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-afroasiatic) before it was recorded; or the Afroasiatic family has so far been studied with an excessively Semitocentric approach; or, as G. W. Tsereteli suggests, Afroasiatic is a [sprachbund](https://bliptext.com/articles/sprachbund), rather than a true [genetic](https://bliptext.com/articles/genetic-relationship-linguistics) language family.\n\n# History\nThe Egyptian language can be grouped thus:\nThe Egyptian language is conventionally grouped into six major [chronological](https://bliptext.com/articles/chronological) divisions:\nOld, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using both the [hieroglyphic](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs) and [hieratic](https://bliptext.com/articles/hieratic) scripts.\n[Demotic](https://bliptext.com/articles/demotic-script) is the name of the script derived from the hieratic beginning in the 7th century BC.\nThe [Coptic alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-alphabet) was derived from the [Greek alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/greek-alphabet), with adaptations for Egyptian phonology.\nIt was first developed in the [Ptolemaic period](https://bliptext.com/articles/ptolemaic-period), and gradually replaced the Demotic script in about the 4th to 5th centuries of the Christian era.\n# [Diagram showing the use of the various lects of Egyptian by time period and linguistic register. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Egyptian///lects.svg]\n\n## Old Egyptian\nThe term \"Archaic Egyptian\" is sometimes reserved for the earliest use of hieroglyphs, from the late fourth through the early third millennia BC. At the earliest stage, around 3300 BC, hieroglyphs were not a fully developed [writing system](https://bliptext.com/articles/writing-system), being at a transitional stage of [proto-writing](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-writing); over the time leading up to the 27th century BC, grammatical features such as [nisba](https://bliptext.com/articles/nisba-suffix) formation can be seen to occur.\nOld Egyptian is dated from the oldest known complete sentence, including a [finite verb](https://bliptext.com/articles/finite-verb), which has been found.\nDiscovered in the tomb of [Seth-Peribsen](https://bliptext.com/articles/seth-peribsen) (dated c. 2690 BC), the seal impression reads:\nExtensive texts appear from about 2600 BC. An early example is the [Diary of Merer](https://bliptext.com/articles/diary-of-merer).\nThe [Pyramid Texts](https://bliptext.com/articles/pyramid-texts) are the largest body of literature written in this phase of the language.\nOne of its distinguishing characteristics is the tripling of [ideograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/ideogram), phonograms, and [determinatives](https://bliptext.com/articles/determinative) to indicate the plural.\nOverall, it does not differ significantly from Middle Egyptian, the classical stage of the language, though it is based on a different dialect.\nIn the period of the 3rd dynasty (c. 2650), many of the principles of hieroglyphic writing were regularized.\nFrom that time on, until the script was supplanted by an early version of Coptic (about the third and fourth centuries), the system remained virtually unchanged.\nEven the number of signs used remained constant at about 700 for more than 2,000 years.\n# [Seal impression from the tomb of Seth-Peribsen, containing the oldest known complete sentence in Egyptian | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Peribsen2.JPG]\n\n## Middle Egyptian\nMiddle Egyptian was spoken for about 700 years, beginning around 2000 BC, during the [Middle Kingdom](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-kingdom-of-egypt) and the subsequent [Second Intermediate Period](https://bliptext.com/articles/second-intermediate-period-of-egypt).\nAs the classical variant of Egyptian, Middle Egyptian is the best-documented variety of the language, and has attracted the most attention by far from [Egyptology](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptology).\nWhile most Middle Egyptian is seen written on monuments by hieroglyphs, it was also written using a [cursive variant](https://bliptext.com/articles/cursive-hieroglyphs), and the related [hieratic](https://bliptext.com/articles/hieratic).\nMiddle Egyptian first became available to modern scholarship with the [decipherment of hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/decipherment-of-egyptian-hieroglyphs) in the early 19th century.\nThe first grammar of Middle Egyptian was published by [Adolf Erman](https://bliptext.com/articles/adolf-erman) in 1894, surpassed in 1927 by [Alan Gardiner](https://bliptext.com/articles/alan-gardiner)'s work.\nMiddle Egyptian has been well-understood since then, although certain points of the [verbal](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-verb) inflection remained open to revision until the mid-20th century, notably due to the contributions of [Hans Jakob Polotsky](https://bliptext.com/articles/hans-jakob-polotsky).\nThe Middle Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 14th century BC, giving rise to Late Egyptian.\nThis transition was taking place in the later period of the [Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/eighteenth-dynasty-of-egypt) (known as the [Amarna Period](https://bliptext.com/articles/amarna-period)).\n\n### Egyptien de tradition\nOriginal Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian texts were still used after the 14th century BCE.\nAnd an emulation of predominately Middle Egyptian, but also with characteristics of Old Egyptian, Late Egyptian and Demotic, called \"Égyptien de tradition\" or \"Neo-Middle Egyptian\" by scholars, was used as a literary language for new texts since the later [New Kingdom](https://bliptext.com/articles/new-kingdom-of-egypt) in official and religious [hieroglyphic](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs) and hieratic texts in preference to Late Egyptian or Demotic.\nÉgyptien de tradition as a religious language survived until the Christianisation of [Roman Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/roman-egypt) in the 4th century.\n\n## Late Egyptian\nLate Egyptian was spoken for about 650 years, beginning around 1350 BC, during the [New Kingdom of Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/new-kingdom-of-egypt).\nLate Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplant [Middle Egyptian](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-egyptian-language) as a [literary language](https://bliptext.com/articles/literary-language), and was also the language of the New Kingdom administration.\nTexts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the [Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt](https://bliptext.com/articles/twentieth-dynasty-of-egypt) and later.\nLate Egyptian is represented by a large body of religious and secular [literature](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-egyptian-literature), comprising such examples as the [Story of Wenamun](https://bliptext.com/articles/story-of-wenamun), the love poems of the Chester–Beatty I papyrus, and the [Instruction of Any](https://bliptext.com/articles/instruction-of-any).\n[Instructions](https://bliptext.com/articles/sebayt) became a popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, which took the form of advice on proper behavior.\nLate Egyptian was also the language of New Kingdom administration.\nLate Egyptian is not completely distinct from Middle Egyptian, as many \"classicisms\" appear in historical and literary documents of this phase.\nHowever, the difference between Middle and Late Egyptian is greater than the difference between Middle and Old Egyptian.\nOriginally a [synthetic language](https://bliptext.com/articles/synthetic-language), Egyptian by the Late Egyptian phase had become an [analytic language](https://bliptext.com/articles/analytic-language).\nThe relationship between Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian has been described as being similar to that between Latin and Italian.\nThe Late Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 8th century BC, giving rise to Demotic.\n\n## Demotic\nDemotic is a later development of the Egyptian language written in the [Demotic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/demotic-egyptian), following Late Egyptian and preceding [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language), the latter of which it shares much with.\nIn the earlier stages of Demotic, such as those texts written in the early Demotic script, it probably represented the spoken idiom of the time.\nHowever, as its use became increasingly confined to literary and religious purposes, the written language diverged more and more from the spoken form, leading to significant [diglossia](https://bliptext.com/articles/diglossia) between the late Demotic texts and the spoken language of the time, similar to the use of classical Middle Egyptian during the Ptolemaic Period.\n# [10th century stela with Coptic inscription, in the Louvre | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Funerary///stele///Thousei///Louvre///E27220.jpg]\n\n## Coptic\n[Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) is the name given to the late Egyptian vernacular when it was written in a Greek-based alphabet, the [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) alphabet; it flourished from the time of [Early Christianity (c. 31/33–324)](https://bliptext.com/articles/early-christianity), but Egyptian phrases written in the Greek alphabet first appeared during the [Hellenistic period](https://bliptext.com/articles/hellenistic-period) c. 3rd century BC, with the first known [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language) text, still pagan (Old [Coptic](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language)), from the 1st century AD.\nCoptic survived into the medieval period, but by the 16th century was dwindling rapidly due to the persecution of Coptic Christians under the [Mamluks](https://bliptext.com/articles/mamluk-sultanate-cairo).\nIt probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that.\nCoptic survives as the liturgical language of the [Coptic Orthodox Church](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-orthodox-church) and the [Coptic Catholic Church](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-catholic-church).\n\n# Dialects\nMost hieroglyphic Egyptian texts are written in a literary [prestige register](https://bliptext.com/articles/prestige-sociolinguistics) rather than the [vernacular](https://bliptext.com/articles/vernacular) [speech variety](https://bliptext.com/articles/variety-linguistics) of their author.\nAs a result, dialectical differences are not apparent in written Egyptian until the adoption of the [Coptic alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-alphabet).\nNevertheless, it is clear that these differences existed before the Coptic period.\nIn one [Late Egyptian letter](https://bliptext.com/articles/papyrus-anastasi-i) (dated c. 1200 BC), a scribe jokes that his colleague's writing is incoherent like \"the speech of a [Delta](https://bliptext.com/articles/bohairic) man with a man of [Elephantine](https://bliptext.com/articles/akhmimic).\"\nRecently, some evidence of internal dialects has been found in pairs of similar words in Egyptian that, based on similarities with later dialects of Coptic, may be derived from northern and southern dialects of Egyptian.\nWritten Coptic has five major dialects, which differ mainly in graphic conventions, most notably the southern Saidic dialect, the main classical dialect, and the northern Bohairic dialect, currently used in Coptic Church services.\n\n# Writing systems\nMost surviving texts in the Egyptian language are written on stone in [hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs).\nThe native name for Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is zẖꜣ n mdw-nṯr (\"writing of the gods' words\").\nIn antiquity, most texts were written on the quite perishable medium of [papyrus](https://bliptext.com/articles/papyrus) though a few have survived that were written in hieratic and (later) demotic.\nThere was also a form of [cursive hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/cursive-hieroglyphs), used for religious documents on papyrus, such as the [Book of the Dead](https://bliptext.com/articles/book-of-the-dead) of the [Twentieth Dynasty](https://bliptext.com/articles/twentieth-dynasty-of-egypt); it was simpler to write than the hieroglyphs in stone inscriptions, but it was not as cursive as hieratic and lacked the wide use of [ligatures](https://bliptext.com/articles/typographic-ligature).\nAdditionally, there was a variety of stone-cut hieratic, known as \"lapidary hieratic\".\nIn the language's final stage of development, the [Coptic alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-alphabet) replaced the older writing system.\nHieroglyphs are employed in two ways in Egyptian texts: as [ideograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/ideogram) to represent the idea depicted by the pictures and, more commonly, as [phonograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonogram-linguistics) to represent their [phonetic](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonetics) value.\nAs the phonetic realization of Egyptian cannot be known with certainty, Egyptologists use a system of [transliteration](https://bliptext.com/articles/transliteration-of-ancient-egyptian) to denote each sound that could be represented by a uniliteral hieroglyph.\nEgyptian scholar Gamal Mokhtar noted that the inventory of hieroglyphic symbols derived from \"fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African\", reflecting the local wildlife of North Africa, the Levant and southern Mediterranean.\nIn \"regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence [North] African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects the reality\" that the geographical location of Egypt is, of course, in Africa.\n\n# Phonology\nWhile the consonantal phonology of the Egyptian language may be reconstructed, the exact [phonetics](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonetics) is unknown, and there are varying opinions on how to classify the individual phonemes.\nIn addition, because Egyptian is recorded over a full 2,000 years, the Archaic and Late stages being separated by the amount of time that separates [Old Latin](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-latin) from [Modern Italian](https://bliptext.com/articles/italian-language), significant phonetic changes must have occurred during that lengthy time frame.\nPhonologically, Egyptian contrasted labial, alveolar, palatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal consonants.\nEgyptian also contrasted voiceless and emphatic consonants, as with other Afroasiatic languages, but exactly how the emphatic consonants were realised is unknown.\nEarly research had assumed that the opposition in stops was one of voicing, but it is now thought to be either one of [tenuis](https://bliptext.com/articles/tenuis-consonant) and [emphatic consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/emphatic-consonant), as in many Semitic languages, or one of [aspirated](https://bliptext.com/articles/aspirated-consonant) and [ejective consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/ejective-consonant), as in many [Cushitic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/cushitic-languages).\nSince vowels were not written until Coptic, reconstructions of the Egyptian vowel system are much more uncertain and rely mainly on evidence from Coptic and records of Egyptian words, especially proper nouns, in other languages/writing systems.\nThe actual pronunciations reconstructed by such means are used only by a few specialists in the language.\nFor all other purposes, the Egyptological pronunciation is used, but it often bears little resemblance to what is known of how Egyptian was pronounced.\n\n## Old Egyptian\n\n### Consonants\nThe following consonants are reconstructed for Archaic (before 2600 BC) and Old Egyptian (2686–2181 BC), with IPA equivalents in square brackets if they differ from the usual transcription scheme:\nhas no independent representation in the hieroglyphic orthography, and it is frequently written as if it were or.\nThat is probably because the standard for written Egyptian is based on a dialect in which had merged with other sonorants.\nAlso, the rare cases of occurring are not represented.\nThe phoneme is written as ⟨j⟩ in the initial position (⟨jt⟩ = 'father') and immediately after a stressed vowel (⟨bjn⟩ = 'bad') and as ⟨jj⟩ word-medially immediately before a stressed vowel (⟨ḫꜥjjk⟩ = 'you will appear') and are unmarked word-finally (⟨jt⟩ = 'father').\n\n## Middle Egyptian\nIn Middle Egyptian (2055–1650 BC), a number of consonantal shifts take place.\nBy the beginning of the Middle Kingdom period, and had merged, and the graphemes ⟨s⟩ and ⟨z⟩ are used interchangeably.\nIn addition, had become word-initially in an unstressed syllable (⟨jwn⟩ > \"colour\") and after a stressed vowel (⟨ḥjpw⟩ > '[the god] Apis').\n\n## Late Egyptian\nIn Late Egyptian (1069–700 BC), the phonemes d ḏ g gradually merge with their counterparts t ṯ k (⟨dbn⟩ > Akkadian transcription ti-ba-an 'dbn-weight').\nAlso, ṯ ḏ often become, but they are retained in many [lexemes](https://bliptext.com/articles/lexeme); ꜣ becomes ; and become at the end of a stressed syllable and eventually null word-finally: ⟨pḏ.t⟩ > Akkadian transcription -pi-ta 'bow'.\n\n## Demotic\n\n### Phonology\nThe most important source of information about Demotic phonology is Coptic.\nThe consonant inventory of Demotic can be [reconstructed](https://bliptext.com/articles/linguistic-reconstruction) on the basis of evidence from the Coptic dialects.\nDemotic orthography is relatively [opaque](https://bliptext.com/articles/orthographic-depth).\nThe Demotic \"alphabetical\" signs are mostly inherited from the hieroglyphic script, and due to historical [sound changes](https://bliptext.com/articles/sound-change) they do not always map neatly onto Demotic [phonemes](https://bliptext.com/articles/phoneme).\nHowever, the Demotic script does feature certain orthographic innovations, such as the use of the sign h̭ for //, which allow it to represent sounds that were not present in earlier forms of Egyptian.\nThe Demotic consonants can be divided into two primary classes: [obstruents](https://bliptext.com/articles/obstruent) ([stops](https://bliptext.com/articles/plosive), [affricates](https://bliptext.com/articles/affricate) and [fricatives](https://bliptext.com/articles/fricative)) and [sonorants](https://bliptext.com/articles/sonorant) ([approximants](https://bliptext.com/articles/approximant), [nasals](https://bliptext.com/articles/nasal-consonant), and [semivowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/semivowel)).\n[Voice](https://bliptext.com/articles/voice-phonetics) is not a contrastive feature; all obstruents are voiceless and all sonorants are voiced.\nStops may be either [aspirated](https://bliptext.com/articles/aspirated-consonant) or [tenuis](https://bliptext.com/articles/tenuis-consonant) (un[aspirated](https://bliptext.com/articles/aspirated-consonant)), although there is evidence that aspirates merged with their [tenuis](https://bliptext.com/articles/tenuis-consonant) counterparts in certain environments.\nThe following table presents the consonants of Demotic Egyptian.\nThe reconstructed value of a phoneme is given in [IPA](https://bliptext.com/articles/international-phonetic-alphabet) transcription, followed by a transliteration of the corresponding Demotic \"alphabetical\" sign(s) in angle brackets ⟨⟩.\n\n## Coptic\nMore changes occur in the 1st millennium BC and the first centuries AD, leading to Coptic (1st or 3rd – c. 19th centuries AD).\nIn Sahidic ẖ ḫ ḥ had merged into š (most often from ḫ) and (most often ẖ ḥ).\nBohairic and Akhmimic are more conservative and have a velar fricative ( in Bohairic, in Akhmimic).\nPharyngeal *ꜥ had merged into glottal after it had affected the quality of the surrounding vowels.\nis not indicated orthographically unless it follows a stressed vowel; then, it is marked by doubling the vowel letter (except in Bohairic): Akhmimic, Sahidic and Lycopolitan šoʔp, Bohairic šoʔp 'to be' (Akkadian transcription: -ḫuru).\n, therefore, changes to : ⟨šnj⟩ 'tree' > (Akkadian transcription: -sini).\nIn the Early New Kingdom, short stressed changes to : ⟨mnj⟩ \"[Menes](https://bliptext.com/articles/menes)\" > (Akkadian transcription: ma-né-e).\nLater, probably 1000–800 BC, a short stressed changes to : ⟨ḏꜥn.t⟩ \"[Tanis](https://bliptext.com/articles/tanis)\" was borrowed into Hebrew as *ṣuʕn but would become transcribed as ⟨ṣe-e'-nu/ṣa-a'-nu⟩ during the [Neo-Assyrian Empire](https://bliptext.com/articles/neo-assyrian-empire).\nUnstressed vowels, especially after a stress, become : ⟨nfr⟩ 'good' > (Akkadian transcription -na-a-pa).\nchanges to next to and : ⟨wꜥw⟩ 'soldier' > (earlier Akkadian transcription: ú-i-ú, later: ú-e-eḫ).\nIn Sahidic and Bohairic Coptic, Late Egyptian stressed becomes and becomes, but are unchanged in the other dialects:\nHowever, in the presence of guttural fricatives, Sahidic and Bohairic preserve, and Fayyumic renders it as ⟨e⟩:\nIn Akhmimic and Lycopolitan, becomes before etymological :\nSimilarly, the diphthongs, , which normally have reflexes , in Sahidic and are preserved in other dialects, are in Bohairic ⟨ôi⟩ (in non-final position) and ⟨ôou⟩ respectively:\nSahidic and Bohairic preserve before (etymological or from lenited or tonic-syllable coda ),: Sahidic and Bohairic ⟨ne⟩ 'to you (fem.)' ⟨noute⟩ has acquired phonemic status, as is evidenced by minimal pairs like 'to approach' ⟨hôn⟩ often surfaces as next to and after etymological pharyngeals: ⟨hir⟩ 'transformation'.\n\n## Egyptological pronunciation\nAs a convention, Egyptologists make use of an \"Egyptological pronunciation\" in English: the consonants are given fixed values, and vowels are inserted according to essentially arbitrary rules.\nTwo of these consonants known as alef and ayin are generally pronounced as the vowel.\nYodh is pronounced, w.\nBetween other consonants, is then inserted.\nThus, for example, the Egyptian name [[Ra](https://bliptext.com/articles/ra)messes](https://bliptext.com/articles/ramesses-egyptian-name) is most accurately transliterated as (\"[Ra](https://bliptext.com/articles/ra) is the one who bore him\") and pronounced as.\nIn [transcription](https://bliptext.com/articles/transcription-linguistics), ⟨a⟩, ⟨i⟩, and ⟨u⟩ all represent consonants.\nFor example, the name [Tutankhamun](https://bliptext.com/articles/tutankhamun) (1341–1323 BC) was written in Egyptian as (\"living image of [Amun](https://bliptext.com/articles/amun)\").\nExperts have assigned generic sounds to these values as a matter of convenience, which is an artificial pronunciation and should not be mistaken for how Egyptian was ever pronounced at any time.\nSo although twt-ꜥnḫ-ı͗mn is pronounced in modern Egyptological pronunciation, in his lifetime, it was likely to be pronounced something like *, transliterable as təwā́təʾ-ʿā́nəkh-ʾamā́nəʾ.\n\n# Morphology\nEgyptian is fairly typical for an Afroasiatic language in that most of its vocabulary is built around a root of three consonants, though there are sometimes only two consonants in the root: (, \"sun\"--the is thought to have been something like a voiced pharyngeal fricative).\nLarger roots are also common and can have up to five consonants: (\"be upside-down\").\nVowels and other consonants are added to the root to derive different meanings, as Arabic, Hebrew, and other Afroasiatic languages still do.\nHowever, because vowels and sometimes glides are not written in any Egyptian script except Coptic, it can be difficult to reconstruct the actual forms of words.\nThus, orthographic (\"to choose\"), for example, can represent the [stative](https://bliptext.com/articles/stative) (whose endings can be left unexpressed), the [imperfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperfective) forms or even a [verbal noun](https://bliptext.com/articles/verbal-noun) (\"a choosing\").\n\n## Nouns\nEgyptian [nouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/noun) can be masculine or feminine (the latter is indicated, as with other Afroasiatic languages, by adding a ) and singular or plural ( / ), or dual ( / ).\n[Articles](https://bliptext.com/articles/article-grammar), both definite and indefinite, do not occur until Late Egyptian but are used widely thereafter.\n\n## Pronouns\nEgyptian has three different types of [personal pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/personal-pronoun): suffix, [enclitic](https://bliptext.com/articles/clitic) (called \"dependent\" by Egyptologists) and independent pronouns.\nThere are also a number of verbal endings added to the [infinitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/infinitive) to form the stative and are regarded by some linguists as a \"fourth\" set of personal pronouns.\nThey bear close resemblance to their Semitic counterparts.\nThe three main sets of personal pronouns are as follows:\nDemonstrative pronouns have separate masculine and feminine singular forms and common plural forms for both genders:\nFinally, interrogative pronouns bear a close resemblance to their Semitic and [Berber](https://bliptext.com/articles/berber-language) counterparts:\n\n## Verbs\nEgyptian verbs have finite and non-finite forms.\nFinite verbs convey [person](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-person), [tense](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-tense)/[aspect](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-aspect), [mood](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-mood) and [voice](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-voice).\nEach is indicated by a set of [affixal](https://bliptext.com/articles/affix) morphemes attached to the verb: For example, the basic conjugation is (\"to hear\") is sḏm.f (\"he hears\").\nNon-finite verbs occur without a subject and are the infinitive, the [participles](https://bliptext.com/articles/participle) and the negative infinitive, which [Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-grammar-being-an-introduction-to-the-study-of-hieroglyphs) calls \"negatival complement\".\nThere are two main tenses/aspects in Egyptian: [past](https://bliptext.com/articles/past-tense) and temporally-unmarked [imperfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperfective-aspect) and [aorist](https://bliptext.com/articles/aorist) forms.\nThe latter are determined from their [syntactic](https://bliptext.com/articles/syntax) context.\n\n## Adjectives\n[Adjectives](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjective) agree in [gender](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-gender) and number with the nouns they modify:\nman good.MASC\n\"[the] good man\"\nwoman good.FEM\n\"[the] good woman\"\nAttributive adjectives in phrases are after the nouns they modify: (\"[the] great god\").\nHowever, when they are used independently as a [predicate](https://bliptext.com/articles/predicate-grammar) in an [adjectival phrase](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjectival-phrase), as (\"[the] god [is] great\", lit. \"great [is the] god\"), adjectives precede the nouns they modify.\n\n## Prepositions\nEgyptian makes use of [prepositions](https://bliptext.com/articles/preposition).\n\n## Adverbs\nAdverbs, in Egyptian, are at the end of a sentence: For example:\nwent god there\n\"[the] god went there\"\nHere are some common Egyptian adverbs:\n\n# Syntax\nOld Egyptian, Classical Egyptian, and Middle Egyptian have [verb-subject-object](https://bliptext.com/articles/verb-subject-object) as the basic [word order](https://bliptext.com/articles/word-order).\nFor example, the equivalent of \"he opens the door\" would be (\"opens he [the] door\").\nThe so-called [construct state](https://bliptext.com/articles/status-constructus) combines two or more nouns to express the [genitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/genitive), as in [Semitic](https://bliptext.com/articles/semitic-languages) and [Berber languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/berber-languages).\nHowever, that changed in the later stages of the language, including Late Egyptian, Demotic and Coptic.\nThe early stages of Egyptian have no articles, but the later forms use, and.\nAs with other Afroasiatic languages, Egyptian uses two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine.\nIt also uses three grammatical numbers: singular, dual and plural.\nHowever, later Egyptian has a tendency to lose the dual as a productive form.\n\n# Legacy\nThe Egyptian language survived through the Middle Ages and into the early modern period in the form of the [Coptic language](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-language).\nCoptic survived past the 16th century only as an isolated vernacular and as a [liturgical language](https://bliptext.com/articles/liturgical-language) for the [Coptic Orthodox](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-orthodox-church) and [Coptic Catholic Churches](https://bliptext.com/articles/coptic-catholic-church).\nCoptic also had an enduring effect on [Egyptian Arabic](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-arabic), which replaced Coptic as the main daily language in Egypt; the [Coptic substratum](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-arabic) in [Egyptian Arabic](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-arabic) appears in certain aspects of syntax and to a lesser degree in vocabulary and phonology.\nIn antiquity, Egyptian exerted some influence on [Classical Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/classical-greek), so that a number of Egyptian loanwords into Greek survive into modern usage.\nExamples include:\nThe Hebrew Bible also contains some words, terms, and names that are thought by scholars to be Egyptian in origin.\nAn example of this is [Zaphnath-Paaneah](https://bliptext.com/articles/zaphnath-paaneah), the Egyptian name given to [Joseph](https://bliptext.com/articles/joseph-genesis).\nThe etymological root of [\"Egypt\"](https://bliptext.com/articles/name-of-egypt) is the same as [Copts](https://bliptext.com/articles/copts), ultimately from the Late Egyptian name of [Memphis](https://bliptext.com/articles/memphis-egypt), Hikuptah, a continuation of Middle Egyptian (lit. \"temple of the [ka (soul)](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-egyptian-conception-of-the-soul) of [Ptah](https://bliptext.com/articles/ptah)\").\n\n# Literature\n\n## Overviews\n\n## Grammars\n\n## Dictionaries\n\n## Online dictionaries\n**Important Note:** The old grammars and dictionaries of [E. A. Wallis Budge](https://bliptext.com/articles/e-a-wallis-budge) have long been considered obsolete by Egyptologists, even though these books are still available for purchase.\nMore book information is available at Glyphs and Grammars.","revisionCount":0},"hasMore":false,"nextCursor":null}