A follow-up edition on the grammar of the 20th and 21st Dynasty of Egypt. In it considerations of meaning and grammar cannot be kept separate because it is a dead language in which the written script does not indicate vowels. The first stage was to understand the meaning of the written records.
Friedrich Junge's pioneering introduction to the grammar of Late Egyptian, the language of the New Kingdom, fills a longstanding gap in teaching works for Ancient Egyptian. The English translation of the second German edition makes the work available to a wide audience.
This grammar provides a comprehensive overview of Middle Egyptian and illustrates its grammatical features with extensive examples from various sources. Exercises at the end of each chapter, along with a sign list and a hieroglyphic word list, provide the reader with the means to apply and practice the content, enabling this book to be used as both a grammar reference and a textbook. The book’s structure and detailed outline facilitate its use as a reference, making it easy to find information on any particular grammatical feature. At the same time, the extensive content of the forty chapters provides a suitable basis for self-guided study and enables the student to read and understand Egyptian inscriptions and literary texts in hieroglyphic transliteration. Recent developments in the understanding of Egyptian are exemplified in numerous quotations from Egyptian texts, and exercises at the end of each chapter provide further opportunity for considering the grammatical phenomena discussed in the chapter, allowing for both practice and review. For reasons of convenience, the vocabulary necessary for the exercises, along with the words used in the examples, are arranged into a word list at the end of the book. Similar and alternative grammatical constructions are compared, and in addition to the “classical” language of the Middle Kingdom, the book considers both Old Egyptian and Late Egyptian influences. As a hybrid reference and textbook, this volume introduces the reader to the grammatical features of Middle Egyptian and illustrates the means of expression used in ancient Egyptian.
Middle Egyptian introduces the reader to the writing system of ancient Egypt and the language of hieroglyphic texts. It contains twenty-six lessons, exercises (with answers), a list of hieroglyphic signs, and a dictionary. It also includes a series of twenty-six essays on the most important aspects of ancient Egyptian history, society, religion, literature, and language. Grammar lessons and cultural essays allows users not only to read hieroglyphic texts but also to understand them, providing the foundation for understanding texts on monuments and reading great works of ancient Egyptian literature. This third edition is revised and reorganized, particularly in its approach to the verbal system, based on recent advances in understanding the language. Illustrations enhance the discussions, and an index of references has been added. These changes and additions provide a complete and up-to-date grammatical description of the classical language of ancient Egypt for specialists in linguistics and other fields.
The language of Ancient Egypt has been the object of careful investigation since its decipherment in the nineteenth century, but this is the first accessible account that uses the insight of modern linguistics. Antonio Loprieno discusses the hieroglyphic system and its cursive varieties, and the phonology, morphology and syntax of Ancient Egyptian, as well as looking at its genetic ties with other languages of the Near East. This book will be indispensable for both linguists and Egyptologists.