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Egyptian Language Report
2010
© Caroline Seawright
© Caroline Seawright
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2010
Egyptian Language Report
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Egyptian Language Report
2010
© Caroline Seawright
Egyptian is an extinct Afroasiatic language which was spoken in pharaonic Egypt. The
endangered Coptic language is considered to be the final phase of ancient Egyptian. Phonemic,
syllabic and morphosyntactic changes divided the language into various phases including early
Egyptian, late Egyptian and Coptic. Despite these historical changes and the omission of vowels
from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, there is enough information available to show that it was an
accusative, fusional, Verb-Subject-Object language. It had a prepositional construction and used
nouns, verbs and adjectives, but not articles. Although its pronunciation has been lost, scholars
have used Coptic as the basis for reconstructing the ancient tongue. Thanks to the work of
Egyptologists and linguists around the world, this fascinating language can be appreciated today.
According to the Ethnologue website (2009), Egyptian is an ancient language with no living
mother-tongue speakers. The Linguist List website (2010) confirms that it is an extinct language
of the Afroasiatic family, belonging to the subgroup Egyptian. Allen (2010, p. 1) argues that it
belonged the Afroasiatic (Hamito-Semitic) family, with links to both north African (Hamitic)
language like Berber and Hausa, and Asiatic (Semitic) languages like Arabic, Ethiopic and
Hebrew. Where the north African and Asiatic language connections differ, Egyptian tends to
have closer links to the African languages. The important languages of the near east, bar
Sumerian and Hittite, belong to the Afroasiatic family.
The Egyptian language did not remain static throughout history. As Allen (2010, p. 1) argues, the
language went through a number of major phases, linked to major political and religious
changes. Old Egyptian was spoken during the Old Kingdom, from roughly 2600 BC until 2100
BC. The First Intermediate Period, where Egyptian rule was split between the north and the
south, came between the Old and Middle Kingdom. Middle Egyptian emerged around 2100 BC,
and survived as a spoken language for about five hundred years. The Second Intermediate
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Period followed the Middle Kingdom. This was a time when the Hyksos ruled Egypt; the
resumption of Egyptian rule marks the start of the New Kingdom. Late Egyptian became the
spoken language during this period, around 1600 BC, and remained in use until about 600 BC
when Egypt entered the Third Intermediate Period and the country was split by Egyptian rule in
the north and Nubian rule in the south. The Late Period followed, and the Demotic phase of the
Egyptian language first appeared around 650 BC, and survived as a language into the Late Period
and on into the Greco-Roman period. At the end of the first century AD, the final phase of
Egyptian - Coptic - appeared. It was a living language for nearly a thousand years before it
became endangered. It is now almost extinct. These extensive changes were made during the
period in which Egyptian was a living, spoken language.
© LookLex Ltd. website 2008
As ancient Egyptian is an extinct language, it has no speakers. However, according to Egypt’s
Daily Star, there are two families who speak a colloquial dialect of Coptic in everyday
communication with each other (Mayton, 2005). Fishman recalls how, when he was in Egypt, he
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spent time with “a Coptic gentleman who was one of a small group that was speaking Coptic to
their children.” (2007, p. 167). The few speakers of Coptic in Egypt are bilingual as they live in a
country of Arabic speakers. The official languages of Egypt are Standard Arabic and Egyptian
Spoken Arabic (Ethnologue website 2009), so the members of the families who speak Coptic
would therefore be bilingual outside of the home out of necessity; the Coptic community in
Egypt speak Arabic (Khanam 2005, p. 169). “The Copts consider themselves to be the true
descendents of the pharaohs” (van Doorn-Harder 1995, p. 27). While many Copts still know
some liturgical phrases, but the Coptic language itself is no longer the spoken language of the
community (Brenzinger 2007, p. 130).
© Coptic Cairo website
© TravelPod website 2010
Phonology
The ancient Egyptian writing system rarely recorded semivocalic phonemes and vowels and so,
as Loprieno notes, the “reconstruction of the phonological inventory and of the phonetic values
in any period of the history of Egyptian is bound to remain hypothetical” (1995, p. 28). He
argues that the phonemes of the language (/x/) cannot represent all spoken realisations (his
suggested realisations are marked as [x]) and so it is problematic to attempt minimal pairing of
this language (1995, p. 30). Egyptologists and linguists have recreated Egyptian consonantal and
vocalic phonemes at various points throughout its history.
Egyptian phonemes at the beginning of the Old Kingdom:
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Consonants
Bilabial /
Labiodental
2010
Dental
Palatalalveolar
Palatal
© Caroline Seawright
Velar
Uvular
Pharyngeal
Glottal
Stops
Voiceless
Voiced
𓊪
p /p/
[p(h)]
𓏏 t /t/
𓍿 t /c/ 𓎡 k /k/
[t(h)]
[c(h)]
[k(h)]
𓃀 b /b/
𓂧 d /d/
𓆓 d /ɟ/
𓎽 g /g/
𓆑 f /f/
𓋴 s /s/ 𓊌 š /ʃ/
[s ]
[t’]
[c’]
𓈎 q /q/
/ʔ/**
[q(h)]
[k’]
Fricatives
Voiceless
𓐍 ḫ /χ/ 𓎛 ḥ /ħ/
𓉔 h /h/
𓂝 ʿ /ʕ/
[s’]
𓅓 m /m/ 𓈖 n /n/
𓂋 r /r/
Trills
𓄿 Ꜣ /R/
[r]
𓃭/l/*
Laterals
Glides
𓄡 h /ç/
𓊃 z /z/
Voiced
Nasals
j
𓇋 j /j/
𓅱 w /w/
(After Allen 2010, p. 14 and Loprieno 1995, p. 33)
* Borbola notes the hieroglyph 𓃭 was /ru/ during the Middle Kingdom, but by the time of the Ptolemys, it had come to
represent /l/ (2009, p. 136)
** Loprieno suggests that /ʔ/ represented both the result of the evolution of /R/ to /ʔ/, and of /j/ to /ʔ/ between two vowels
in post-tonic position and before an unstressed vowel in initial position (1995, p. 33)
Vowels
Short
Long
Front
/i/
/i:/
Central
/a/
/a:/
Back
/u/
/u:/
(After Loprieno 1995, p. 35)
Minor changes to the consonants had occurred by the end of the New Kingdom. This included
neutralisation of velar and dental voiced and voiceless phonemes; production of palatal
phonemes at frontal parts of the oral cavity and acquired dental realisations; dentals /t/ and /r/
and glides /j/ and /w/ leniated to /ʔ/ at the end of stressed syllables or to /ø/ at the end of
words; and the uvular trill /R/ became a glottal stop /ʔ/ which merged with the glottal of the
former /j/ glide (Loprieno 1995, p. 38).
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However, by the later period of the New Kingdom, the vowels had completely shifted:
Vowels
Short
Long
Front
/e/
/i:/
Central
/ə/
/e:/
Back
/a/
/o:/
(After Loprieno 1995, p. 39)
By the Coptic phase, both the place and manner of articulation had changed for many
consonants:
Consonants
Bilabial /
Labiodental
Palatalalveolar
Dental
Palatal
Velar
Pharyn-geal
Glottal
Stops
Palatalised
Voiceless
ϭ /kj/
Π /p/ [p(h)]
ⲧ /t/ [t(h)]
ϫ /c/ [c(h)]
ⲕ /k/ [k(h)]
ⲧ /d/ [t’]
ϫ /ɟ/ [c’]
ⲕ /g/ [k’]
Ejective
[Voiced]
ϐ /b/ [β]
ⲇ /d/ [d]
ϥ /f/
ⲥ /s/
/ʔ/
ⲅ /g/ [g]
Fricatives
Voiceless
[Voiced]
Nasals
ⲝ /z/
ⲙ /m/
ⲣ/r/
Laterals
ⲁ /l/
(ⲟ)ⲩ /w/
(ⲉ)ⲓ /j/
(After Loprieno 1995, p. 40)
Coptic vowels from around 400 BC show another major vocalic shift:
Vowels
Unstressed
Stressed
Short
Long
<(ⲉ)Ι> /i:/
Front
<ⲉ>, <Ø> /e/
<ⲉ>, <Ø> /ə/
Central
<Η> /e:/
<ⲁ> /a/
<ⲁ> /a/
ϩ /h/
/ʕ/
ⲛ /n/
Trills
Glides
/x/
ϣ /ʃ/
<Ω> /o:/
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<ⲟ> /o/
Back
<ⲟⲩ> /u:/
(After Loprieno 1995, p. 46)
There were also key syllabic shifts as the language changed through time (Loprieno 1995, pp. 3749).
The syllable structure at the beginning of the Old Kingdom:
Syllabic structure
Pretonic
Tonic
Posttonic
Open
$CV$
$’CV:$
($CV#) *
Closed
$CVC$
$’CVC$
$CVC#
Doubly-closed
($’CVCC#) *
Long
$’CV:C#
(After Loprieno 1995, p. 37)
* Loprieno notes the open posttonic and doubly-closed tonic syllables included in parenthesis are used only in certain
circumstances. These include the endings of specific verbs or personal pronouns and certain plural forms of bisyllabic nouns
(1995, p. 37)
The syllable structure at the end of the New Kingdom:
Syllabic structure
Pretonic
Tonic
Posttonic
Open
$CV$
$’CV:$
$CV#
Closed
$CVC$
$’CVC$
Doubly-closed
$’CVCC#
Long
$’CV:C#
$CVC#
(After Loprieno 1995, p. 40)
Due to morphological changes over time, the syllable structure of the Coptic prosodic system is
very different from the pharaonic prosodic system. This included the deletion of final dentals
and semivocalic glides (Loprieno 1995, p. 39) and the reduction of short vowels to schwa
(Loprieno 1995, p. 48). Coptic thus shows an expansion in both pretonic and tonic open, closed,
doubly-closed and long syllables from earlier Egyptian.
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The syllable structure of Coptic:
Syllabic structure
Open
Closed
Pretonic
Tonic
Posttonic
$CV$
$’CV:$
$CV#
#CCV$
#’CCV:$
$CVC$
$’CVC$
#CCVC$
#’CCVC$
Doubly-closed
$CVC#
$’CVCC#
#’CCVCC$
Long
$’CV:C#
#’CCV:C#
(After Loprieno 1995, p. 49)
Morphosyntax
Not only has the phonology and syllabic structure been ascertained, but the typology and
morphology of the language has also been determined by scholars. Ancient Egyptian was a
prepositional (National Security Agency 1981, p. 6), fusional language “with a diachronic
tendency to … move toward the polysynthetic type which characterizes Coptic, its more recent
phase” (Loprieno 1995, p. 51). Word classes and grammar are well known to Egyptologists.
Egyptian used the major word classes of nouns, verbs and adjectives. One interesting feature of
the language is that it used no articles. A noun could be translated in various ways, depending on
the context of the sentence in which it is used (Gardiner 1988, p. 29):
𓂋𓈖
rn
name
‘Name’, ‘A name’, ‘The name’
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Like English nouns, Egyptian nouns were created through roots and additions, and could be
modified by gender and number. The root itself could be a noun, or the noun could be made of
the root plus one or more prefixes or suffixes. “Most Egyptian roots consist of two or three
consonants, but some have as many as five,” (Allen 2010, p. 35). Nouns were defined or
undefined with possessive pronouns and demonstratives. Unlike English, the Egyptian number
system had three types (singular, plural and dual). Nouns had only two genders (masculine and
feminine) as opposed to English which has three (including the neutral). The masculine gender
had no special ending (-ø) on the noun, but the feminine gender was suffixed with
𓏏 -t (*-at)
(Allen 2010, p. 35 and Callender 1975, p. 14):
In the examples below, the root is ntr:
𓊹𓀭
𓊹𓂋𓏏𓁐
ntr-ø
‘god’
ntrt
‘goddess’
One common noun,
𓐍𓏏𓏜 ḫt ‘thing’, was feminine when it referred to an actual item, and
meant ‘thing, property’. It became masculine when it alluded to anything non-specific and meant
‘something, anything’ (Allen 2010, p. 38 and Gardiner 1988, p. 69).
Egyptian nouns are distinguished by the singular, plural and dual number:
Singular
Dual
Plural
Masculine
-ø
-wj (*-way) 𓅱𓏭
-w (*-aw) 𓅱
Feminine
-t (*-at) 𓏏
-tj (*-tay) 𓏏𓏭
-wt (*-awt) 𓅱𓏏
(After Allen 2010, pp. 39-40, Callender 1975, p. 14 and Gardiner 1988, p. 58)
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𓊹𓊹
𓊹𓂋𓏏𓏭𓅆𓅆
𓊹𓀭𓏪
𓊹𓏏𓏪
ntrwj
‘two gods’
ntrtj
‘two goddesses’
ntrw
‘gods’
ntrwt
‘goddesses’
The Egyptian language had various pronouns, including personal, suffix, enclitic and stressed
pronouns. The suffix pronouns were the most common of all; “They are always part of the word
they are added to, and could not stand by themselves as separate words,” (Allen 2010, p. 50).
Enclitic pronouns were used as the object of transitive verbal phrases, the subject of adjectival
sentences and the object of initial particles in both types of sentences (Loprieno 1995, p. 64).
Stressed pronouns “function as the subject … of a nominal sentence in the first and second
person … [and] as a focalized subject of a cleft sentence” (Loprieno 1995, p. 64).
Number
Singular
Dual
Person
Suffix
Enclitic/proclitic
-wj
twj- *
-kw
tw- *
-tm
tn- *
-sw
sw- *
-sj /-st
st-*
1
‘my’
.j
2 Masc.
‘your’ (m.)
.k
2 Fem.
‘your’ (f.)
.t
3 Masc.
‘his’
.f
3 Fem.
‘her’
.s
1
‘our (two)’
.nj
2
‘your (two)’
.tnj
-tnj
3
‘their (two)’
.snj
-snj
1
0
Stressed
jnk
twt
ntk ^
tmt
ntt ^
swt
ntf ^
stt
nts ^
ntsnj
Egyptian Language Report
Plural
2010
1
‘our’
.n
2
‘your’
.tn
3
‘their’
© Caroline Seawright
-n
twn- *
-tn
twtn- *
.sn
-sn /-st
ἰnn
nttn
ntsn
.w *
st- *
ntw *
(After Allen 2010, p. 61, Callender 1975, p. 16, Gardiner 1988, p. 39, 45, 53 and Loprieno 1995,
p. 67)
* Later Egyptian version of the pronoun
^ Middle Kingdom version of the stressed pronoun
Verbs were either transitive or intransitive and specified the relationship between the action
indicated and the agent performing the action (Allen 2010, p. 151). Features included tense,
mood, aspect and voice (Allen 2010, pp. 153-154). Although Gardiner states that tense, aspect
and mood were not clearly expressed (1988, p. 36), Loprieno suggests that both tense and aspect
were indicated through the sdm.f form (1995, p. 80):
Past perfect
sdm-n.f
‘he has heard’
Past perfective 3rd person absolute
sdm.f
‘he heard’
Past perfective 1st person stative
sdm.f
‘I heard’
Past perfective relative
*sdm-t.f
‘until he hears’
Past contingent
sdm-jn.f
‘he then heard’
Non-past aorist initial
sdm.f/jrr.f
‘he hears!’
Non-past aorist non-initial
sdm.f/jrj.f
‘that he may hear’
Non-past imperfect
jw.f ḥr/m sdm
‘and he hears’
Non-past prospective
jw.f r sdm
‘he will hear’
Non-past contingent
sdm.ḫr.f
‘he must hear’
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Egyptian has both active and passive voice, but the passive voice had an extended meaning
which does not have an equivalent in English (Gardiner 1988, p. 293):
𓋴𓏇𓇋𓅱𓏜𓈖𓋴𓈖𓏪
smjw
n.sn
report-PlM
to.Pl3
‘(Those) reported to them’
Irregular verbs also existed in Egyptian. Most were irregular only in one form of the verb, but
two particular verbs were rather unusual: rdj ‘give, put, cause’ and jwj, jj ‘come, return’. According
to Allen, “dj is used in some verb forms and rdj in others – but some forms can use either base
stem” (2010, p. 159):
Base stems:
𓏙,𓂞
dj
𓂋𓏙 , 𓂋𓂞
rdj
Geminated stem:
𓏙𓏙 , 𓂞𓂞
dd
In Old Egyptian jwj and jj were two different verbs, but by Middle Egyptian they were treated as
different forms of the one verb (Allen 2010, p. 159):
Base stems:
𓂻𓅱
𓇍 , 𓇍𓇋𓂻
jw
j, jj
Geminated stem:
𓂻𓅱
rarely
jw
𓂻𓅱𓅱
jww
Adjectives were also used in Egyptian. They could be used to modify the noun and had to be put
in a specific order (Allen 2010, p. 62). They could be comparative (ntr nmḫ r ntr nb ‘a god
beneficent with respect to every god’), superlative (wr n wrw ‘the great one of great ones’) or
indicate possession (nb ʿꜢw ‘owner of donkeys’). One interesting aspect of Egyptian adjectives is
that they could be used as a noun in a sentence (Allen 2010, p. 62). Like nouns, adjectives could
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also be used in adjectival sentences. One common example is a phrase in which the adjective is
the first noun of a direct or indirect genitive (Allen 2010, p. 63):
𓄤𓁷
nfr
hr
good face
‘Good of face’
Being a Verb-Subject-Object language, the typical ancient Egyptian verb phrase occurred as
verb, subject, object and adverb or adverbial phrase (Gardiner 1988, p. 34):
𓅱𓃀𓈖𓇳𓂋𓂝𓇳𓅓𓊪𓏏𓇯
wbn
rʿ
m
pt
rise
sun
in
sky
‘The sun rises in the sky’
As Egyptian did not have an expressed copula, there are a number of cases in which there were
no proper verbs in a sentence at all (Gardiner 1988, p. 34):
𓂋𓂝𓇳𓅓𓊪𓏏𓇯
rʿ
m
pt
in
sky
sun
‘The sun is in the sky’
The Egyptians used noun phrases which were created by apposition, connection and possession
(Allen 2010, p. 42). In Egyptian, apposition, connection and possession were indicated in
different ways. Apposition usually consists of a proper noun and a regular noun next to one
another:
𓅬𓏤𓀀𓎡𓎛𓁷𓂋𓅆
zꜢ.k
ḥrw
son.Sg2M
Horus
‘Your son, Horus’
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Despite having had no word for ‘and’, the Egyptians occasionally used other connective words,
including ḥnʿ ‘together with’ and ḥr ‘upon’. The norm, however, was simply one noun following
another (Allen 2010, p. 42).
𓏏𓎛𓈎𓏏𓏊
𓄂𓏏𓏭𓄣𓎛𓈖𓂝𓄥𓄿𓏜
𓆓𓂝𓊡𓁷𓏤𓎛𓀗𓇌𓏏𓈗
t
ḥnqt
bread beer
‘Bread and beer’
ḥꜢtj
dʿ
ḥr
ḥi:t
storm upon rain
‘Storm and rain’
zmꜢ
heart together with lungs
‘The heart and the lungs’
ḥnʿ
Disjunction was also usually expressed by putting one noun after the other, although the phrase
r-pw ‘whichever’ was occasionally used after the second noun (2010, p. 42):
𓊃𓀀𓏤𓊃𓏏𓁐𓂋𓏤𓊪𓅱
z
zt
man woman
‘A man or a woman’
r-pw
whichever
Possession was a little more complex. There were direct genitive and indirect genitive ways of
expressing ownership. In the direct genitive, the possessor noun is always after the possessee
noun (Allen 2010, p. 42):
𓅬𓏤𓀀𓊃𓀀𓏤
zꜢ
zj
son
man
‘A man’s son/Son of a man’
Thus in Egyptian the relationships between nouns in noun phrases were based on apposition,
connection and possession. “[T]he nouns and their contexts almost always rule out but one
relationship – which is presumably why Egyptian[s] usually did not feel the need to add
additional words” (Allen 2010, p. 43).
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Although a sentence did not always use verb, it still contained both a subject and a predicate;
Ancient Egyptian, therefore, had adjectival sentences. These follow the predicate-subject pattern
(Allen 2010, p. 70):
𓄤𓆑𓂋𓈞𓏏𓁐𓏏𓈖
nfr
ḫjmt
beautiful
woman
‘This woman is beautiful’
tn
this
The question of the syntactic type of language has been argued by scholars. There has been
some suggestion that there may be traces of ergativity in the early language, but the common
consensus today is that Egyptian is accusative language (Loprieno 2010, pers. comm. 4th Oct),
although “there is no firm evidence it ever had case” (Allen 2010, pers. comm. 4 th Oct). As
Egyptian is an extinct language, this contributes to the difficulty in determining its syntactic type.
Conclusion
Egyptian is a language that has changed greatly from its beginning in the dynastic period through
to the Coptic used in Coptic Christian church services today. Most of the language has been lost,
frustrating both Egyptologists and linguists alike, although the basics of the language such as
syllable structure, prosody, morphological typology, word classes and syntax are understood.
This enjoyable study has assisted with my own personal understanding of the language,
especially in relation to pronoun affixes and my ability to detect them within the hieroglyphic
script. However, it is a language of the distant past for which translation has been given a higher
priority than linguistic study, leaving many questions unanswered. Yet this attitude is beginning
to change. Much linguistic information has been pieced together by academics such as James
Allen of Brown University and Antonio Loprieno of the University of Basel, giving both myself
and others the opportunity to understand the fascinating language of ancient Egypt.
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References
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