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𓆣‌𓂋𓎡

Names
Egyptian names have served an important role in reconstructing the vowel system of the pre-Coptic Egyptian language. Many Late Egyptian names are recorded in syllabic cuneiform texts from Amarna, Boğazköy, and Ras Shamra.

Several Egyptian names occur in the Hebrew Bible, including Phinehas (פִּינְחָס‎ pīnĕḥās), from pꜣ-nḥsj (“the Nubian”) and Potipherah (פּוֹטִי פֶרַע‎ pōṭī p̄eraʿ), from pꜣ-dj-pꜣ-rꜥ (“He who was given by Ra).

Dialects
DEF.SG.M-man DEF.PL-man

{‘the man’} {‘the men’}

DEF.SG.F-field DEF.PL-field

{‘the field’} {‘the fields’} Some nouns have inflected plural forms inherited from earlier stages of the language. These may be optionally used after a plural determiner:

or

DEF.SG.M-brother.SG DEF.PL-brother.SG {} DEF.PL-brother.PL

{‘the brother’} {‘the brothers’} {} {‘the brothers’}

or

DEF.SG.F-woman.SG DEF.PL-woman.SG {} DEF.PL-woman.PL

{‘the woman’} {‘the women’} {} {‘the women’}


 * a. Postposed demonstrative → preposed demonstrative /

rmṯ pn → pꜣj rmt → {{{coptic|ⲡⲉⲓ̈-ⲣⲱⲙⲉ}} (pei̯-rōme)}

man this {} this man {} this-man

‘this man’
 * b. Preposed demonstrative → prefixed definite article /

{{{transl|egy-x-middle|pꜣ}} rmṯ} → {{{transl|egy-x-late|pꜣ}} rmt} → { (p-rōme)}

{‘this man’} {} {‘the man’} {} {‘the man’}
 * c. Numeral ‘one’ → prefixed indefinite article

ḥfꜣ.w wꜥ → wꜥ (n) ḥfꜣ.w → {{{coptic|ⲟⲩ-ϩⲟϥ}} (ou-hof)}

snake one {} one (of) snake {} INDF.SG-snake
 * d. Suffixed possessive pronoun → prefixed possessive pronoun (following the article)

rn-k → pꜣj-k rn → {{{coptic|ⲡⲉ-ⲕ-ⲣⲁⲛ}} (pe-k-ran)}

name-2SG.M {} DEF.M-2SG.M name {} DEF.M-2SG.M-name

‘your name’
 * e. Postverbal subject construction → preverbal TAM construction

sḏm-n-f → jr-f sdm → {{{coptic|ⲁ-ϥ-ⲥⲱⲧⲙ̄}} (a-f-sōtəm)}

hear-PRF-3SG.M {} do-3SG.M hear {} PRET-3SG.M-hear

‘he heard’



A graffito from the temple of Seti I at Abydos:

Late Demotic non-literary texts are nearly indistinguishable from Coptic in terms of grammar and in their use of Greek loan words. Consider the following excerpt from 2nd century Narmouthis, which can be rendered into Coptic as a perfectly well-formed sentence:

From Narmouthis:

The conjugation base expresses tense, aspect, modality, voice. It is a proclitic auxiliary verb (Egedi) which forms an accentual unit with a following... Coptic is a highly analytic language which expresses syntactic relationships through the use of particles, prepositions, and word order.

Bohairic
Bohairic (B) is a dialect of Coptic that was spoken in Lower Egypt. Originally, it was only a local dialect of the western Delta and had little literary significance. However, during the 8th and 9th centuries, it gradually replaced Sahidic as the dominant Coptic dialect and became the official liturgical language of the Coptic Church. As a result, Bohairic is the only dialect that survived after the decline of Coptic as a spoken language.

Fayyumic
Fayyumic (F) is a dialect of Coptic that was spoken in the Faiyum oasis. It includes a number of varieties, including early Fayyumic (F4) and classical Fayyumic (F5), which is considered the chief representative of the dialect due to the fact that it constitutes the majority of the available material. Fayyumic is also closely related to Mesokemic and two minor dialects (W and V), which together form the “Middle Coptic” group. Early Fayyumic texts are fragmentary and date from the early centuries of the common era, while classical Fayyumic texts date from the 6th to the 8th/9th centuries. There is also a somewhat archaic version of Fayyumic known as F7, which is known from a single manuscript dating from the early centuries of the common era (P. Hamb. Bil. 1).

The Fayyumic dialect is marked by a phenomenon known as lambdacism, which involves the replacement of ⟨ⲣ⟩ // with ⟨ⲗ⟩ // in certain words.

Akhmimic
Akhmimic (A) was a dialect spoken in Upper Egypt, particularly in the Thebaid region between Aswan and Akhmim. It was used alongside Sahidic in the 4th and 5th centuries, but Sahidic’s prestige led to Akhmimic being replaced as a literary written norm by the 5th century. Despite this, Akhmimic continued to be spoken and can be found in nonliterary texts from Thebes dating from the 7th and 8th centuries. The Akhmimic texts that have survived are all highly standardized literary translations from Greek or Sahidic.

Test space
The earliest transcriptions of Egyptian words date from c. 1360–1200 BC and are found in Akkadian, Hittite, and Hurrian texts from the Amarna, Boğazköy, and Ras Shamra cuneiform archives. Following the Bronze Age collapse there is an interruption in the record of cuneiform transcriptions of Egyptian words until the Neo-Assyrian period.

Hurrian transcriptions indicate an ō vowel corresponding to ⲏ /e/ in Coptic Lⲙⲏⲉ.


 * in-si-ib-ia ni-ib ta-a-wa mwa-aš-mu-a-ri-a ša-te-ep-na-ri-a
 * nswt-bj.tj nb tꜣ.wj wsr-mꜣꜥ.t-rꜥ stp.n-rꜥ
 * King of Upper and Lower Egypt, lord of the two lands, Usermaatre chosen of Ra.

𓇳𓄊𓁦𓇳𓍉𓈖 (wsr-mꜣꜥ.t-rꜥ stp.n-rꜥ) = (wa-aš-mu-a-ri-a ša₂-te-ep-na-ri-a)

𓇳𓄊𓁦𓇳  𓍉 𓈖   (wsr-mꜣꜥ.t-rꜥ stp.n-rꜥ) =  (wa-aš-mu-a-ri-a ša₂-te-ep-na-ri-a)

Egyptian ṯ and ḏ were equated with the Semitic affricates s *[t͡sʰ] and ṣ *[t͡s’] in loanwords and transcriptions from the 1st and 2nd millennium BC. Semitic z * was borrowed into Egyptian as ḏ, as in ḏt ("olive", ϫⲟⲉⲓⲧ) from Semitic *zayt-. Egyptian ḏ was in turn borrowed into the Semitic languages as ṣ, as in Hebrew (ṣōʿan) and Arabic صان (ṣān) from Egyptian ḏꜥn.t ("Tanis", ϫⲁⲁⲛⲉ).

Egyptian scribes used both ṯ and ḏ to transcribe the Hittite affricate z *[t͡s], as in ṯwṯs and qḏwdn for Hittite Zuwanzaš and Kizzuwatna.


 * Egy. ṯ → Sem. s
 * Egy. ḏ → Sem. ṣ


 * Sem. s → Egy. ṯ
 * Sem. ṣ → Egy. ḏ
 * Sem. z → Egy. ḏ

The Egyptian stops formed two distinct series according to their manner of articulation: p t ṯ k and d ḏ g q. The nature of the distinction is debated.

The distinction is preserved only in Bohairic Coptic before a stressed vowel, where the reflexes of p t ṯ k appear as aspirated // and those of d ḏ g q as tenuis  //.

Semitic ʾil- and baʿalat- were transcribed in Egyptian as jꜣ and bꜥꜣt

Phonology
Sahidic:

Bohairic:

Akhmimic:

Possession of definite nouns is expressed with a series of possessive articles which are prefixed to the noun. These articles agree with the person, number, and gender of the possessor and the number and gender of the possessed noun. The forms of the possessive article vary by dialect.

Consonants
During the mid-to-late 1st millennium BC, the Egyptian pharyngeal consonants /ħ ʕ/ began to merge with the glottals /h ʔ/. Certain Old Coptic texts maintained a graphic distinction between glottal ⟨⟩ h and pharyngeal ⟨⟩ ḥ until around the 2nd century AD. The merger is complete in all the standard Coptic literary dialects, which have glottal ⟨⟩ h throughout. Similar shifts involving loss of the pharyngeal place of articulation occurred in many Cushitic and Ethio-Semitic languages, notably Amharic.

The Coptic consonants may be divided into two primary classes: obstruents and sonorants.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! ! Front ! Central ! Back ! Close ! Close-mid ! Open-mid ! Open
 * + Coptic vowels
 * rowspan="2" | ⟨⟩, ⟨⟩
 * rowspan="2" | ⟨⟩, ⟨⟩
 * colspan="3" | ⟨⟩
 * }

The two primary classes of Egyptian consonants throughout the language's history are obstruents (stops, affricates and fricatives) and sonorants (approximants, nasals, and semivowels). Egyptian’s obstruents are uniformly voiceless, whereas its sonorants are always voiced. Note that the Egyptian consonants transcribed by the Latin voiced letters ⟨d ḏ g⟩ were not voiced but rather tenuis (unaspirated), while those transcribed by the voiceless letters ⟨p t ṯ k⟩ were aspirated (similar to the pinyin romanization of Mandarin). A transition between the two classes can be observed to have occurred with the consonant b, which began as an obstruent and underwent voicing at an early period. By the Coptic period, the reflex /v/ ⟨⟩ had joined the class of sonorants. The Coptic sonorants /v l m n r j w/ ⟨     ⟩ are distinguished by their ability to occupy the syllable nucleus as syllabic consonants.

Like the related Semitic and Cushitic language families, Egyptian possessed pharyngeal consonants. Based on restrictions on the co-occurrence of consonants within Egyptian roots, Afro-Asiatic scholar Otto Rössler hypothesized that the pharyngeal consonant ꜥ derived from an earlier dental //. Rössler’s theory is not universally accepted, and doubts have been expressed over the typological plausibility of such a change and the methodological validity of postulating sound changes on the basis of root compatibilities without comparative corroboration.

The following tables present the consonant phonemes of the Egyptian language over the course of its history. The reconstructed phonetic value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, alongside its Egyptological transliteration or Coptic spelling in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩.

A distinction between s and z is maintained only in Old Egyptian. Already by the Middle Egyptian period both signs are used interchangeably for //. The original value of z is unknown, but speculative proposals include the voiceless alveolar affricate [t͡s] and the voiceless dental fricative [θ]. Regarding the velars, there is a lack of consensus among Egyptologists over the feature that originally distinguished q and ẖ from g and ḫ. There is some evidence that q and ẖ may have been labialized /kʷ xʷ/ in Middle Egyptian, with Coptic reflexes demonstrating that q could trigger labial assimilation of a preceding nasal:


 * ḥnq.t “beer” → Bϩⲉⲙⲕⲓ (hemki)
 * snq “to suck” → Sⲥⲱⲙⲕ (sōmk)
 * ꜥnq “to swallow” → ABLSⲱⲙⲕ (ōmk)

In the transition from Middle to Late Egyptian, the earlier distinction between k, g, and ḫ on the one hand and phonologically marked q and ẖ on the other is replaced by a contrast between plain and palatalized velars. This palatalization process splits k, g and ḫ into palatalized and plain variants, while q and ẖ lose their secondary articulation and generally shift to plain /k x/. Scribes during the Ramesside Period began using a ligature in order to represent the new Late Egyptian phoneme /xʲ/, which was later adapted into the Demotic sign h̭.

The most salient innovation of the Coptic phoneme inventory is the loss of the pharyngeal consonants /ħ ʕ/. Late Demotic spellings indicate that /ʕ/ was lost in the, while /ħ/ merged into /h/ by the. /xʲ/ was preserved as such only in the minor Coptic dialects P and I, where it is written and  respectively. In the remaining dialects it was fronted to /ʃ/ ⟨⟩, with the exception of Akhmimic, where it was depalatalized to /x/ ⟨⟩.

Phonology
The most important source of information about Demotic phonology is Coptic. The consonant inventory of Demotic can be reconstructed on the basis of evidence from the Coptic dialects. Demotic orthography is relatively opaque. The Demotic “alphabetical” signs are mostly inherited from the hieroglyphic script, and due to historical sound changes they do not always map neatly onto Demotic phonemes. However, 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.

The Demotic consonants can be divided into two primary classes: obstruents (stops, affricates and fricatives) and sonorants (approximants, nasals, and semivowels). Voice is not a contrastive feature; all obstruents are voiceless and all sonorants are voiced. Stops may be either aspirated or tenuis (unaspirated), although there is evidence that aspirates merged with their tenuis counterparts in certain environments.

The following table presents the consonants of Demotic Egyptian. The reconstructed value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, followed by a transliteration of the corresponding Demotic “alphabetical” sign(s) in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩.

Ahiram Sarcophagus

 * ʾrn·zpʿl·ʾtbʿl·bn·ʾḥrm·mlkgbl·lʾḥrm·ʾbh·kšth·bʿlm·
 * ʾarānu zū paʿala ʾittubaʿlu bin ʾaḥīramu milk gubla li ʾaḥīrami ʾabīhū ka šatihū bi ʿālami
 * [This is] the coffin which was made by Ithobaal son of Ahiram, king of Byblos, for Ahiram, his father, as his final resting place.
 * wʾl·mlk·bmlkm·wskn·bs[k]nm·wtmʾ·mḥnt·ʿly·
 * wa ʾillū milku bi milakīma wa sākinu bi sākinīma wa tāmiʾ maḥnūti ʿalaya
 * And if a king among kings, or a governor among governors, or a commander of armies should come upon
 * gbl·wygl·ʾrn·zn·tḥtsp·ḥṭr·mšpṭh·thtpk·
 * gubla wa yiglē ʾarāna zīna tiḥtasip ḥuṭr mišpaṭihū tihtapik
 * Byblos and uncover this coffin, may his royal sceptre be stripped away, may his royal throne
 * ksʾ·mlkh·wnḥt·tbrḥ·ʿl·gbl·whʾ·ymḥ·sprh·[ . . . ]
 * kissiʾ mulkihū wa nūḥatu tibraḥ ʿalē gubla wa hūʾa yamḥē siprahū [ . . . ]
 * be overturned, may peace pass over Byblos, and may his name be effaced [ . . . ]

Egyptian: 𓅡  𓎡 𓈖     𓂋 𓈖 𓆑     (bꜣk-n-rn.f)

𓈖𓌡:𓂝*𓏤2𓏭:𓂋1𓏤𓄹:𓏭

Coptic
B F F4 F5 F7 M S P L L4 L5 L6 A

Total: 20 consonant phonemes Total: 7 vowel phonemes

Total: 6 vowel phonemes Evidence of deaffrication by the 13th century: */tʃarbanter/ = charpantier ‘carpenter,’  */tʃamel/ = chamel ‘camel.’ See le Page Renouf’s “A Coptic Transcription of an Arabic Text” and Sobhy's "Fragments of an Arabic MS. in Coptic script.": $ط$ $ط$ $ق$ ‎$ح$ $ظ$ $ء$ $ح$ $ع$ $ء$ $ك$. = عَظِيم. = عَلَيْه. Total: 16 consonant phonemes Total: 10 vowel phonemes

Total: 16 consonant phonemes Total: 7 vowel phonemes Total: 16 consonant phonemes

Total: 12 vowel phonemes

As a general rule, double vowels are written as single at the end of a word. In some Sahidic manuscripts, an underlying word-final double vowel may be written fully when followed by an enclitic element such as the copula or the preterit particle :
 * ‘one’ → ‘it is one’
 * ‘heaven’ → ‘it is from heaven’
 * ‘truth’ → ‘it is true’,  ‘they are true’
 * ‘do’ (stative) → ‘you were’
 * ‘die’ → ‘we would die’

An exceptional case is the final vowel of the verb ‘conceive’, which is always written doubled.

Total: 18 consonant phonemes Total: 12 vowel phonemes Total: 16 consonant phonemes Total: 11 vowel phonemes

Total: 17 consonant phonemes Total: 11 vowel phonemes Total: 25 consonant phonemes Total: 12 vowel phonemes