An Introduction to the Egyptian "ABC"

with some general comments on the ancient egyptian language and its writing system

First off a disclaimer! I am NOT an Egyptologist.
As a scholar my formal qualifications lie in the area of Ancient Western Classics with a Major in Greek and an MA written on the Platonic Philosophy of Plutarch. However I have an interest in language and its history and the Antiquity of the Mediterranean and the surrounding areas and linked cultures. Scholarship takes strange paths.
Displaced by budget cuts I had time on my hands for some research and viewing Stargate lead me to check out the Real Egypt which is just as interesting as any ficitional or para history version. I encountered several people who were confused about the difference between hieroglyphs and the other parts of the Egyptian writing system. Perhaps not surprising when most of us don't have access to university level resources and irresponsible people set up sites linking hieroglyphics to Joseph Smith. On a recent hunt for freeware downloadable images of hieroglyphics I kept hitting Mormonism pages EVEN after resetting the parameters to exclude them! Grrr!!! Hopefully I will find some images to add to this page soon!
Meanwhile serious scholars and students may find these notes of some use. If there are any real orthodox Egyptologists reading please gently correct any errors and forgive and be kind to my speculations (which will be marked by the use of subjunctives and modals) about allophones. I have studied philology and historical linguistics but I'll try to keep the specialist terms to a limit!

A Very Brief History of the Egyptian Language

Once I came across a page run by a French SG-1 fan who shall remain unnamed for his own protection. Why? 'Cos would you believe he seems to think Arabic evolved from Coptic and is spoken on Abydos. For a start anyone who's seen the movie knows its a form of Archaic Egyptian or rather a language that evolved from that that was spoken on the ficitional world of Abydos. Hopefully you may already know enough to get the jokes about knowing the vowels? More on that later!

The Egyptian language along with Hebrew and Arabic is part of a larger language family currently referred to by scholars as Afro-asiatic and formerly as Hamitic-Semitic. Other members of this family are spoken across Northern and Central Africa through to Iraq and further afield if you include the number of countries in which Arabic or Hebrew is a classical language.

The branches of Afro-asiatic follow:
First we have the Egyptian language (more on that soon), then the Berber languages of North Africa and the Chadic tongues of Central Africa (Hausa is a Chadic language). Another branch is Cushitic which includes langauges spoken in the Sudan, Ethoipia and Somalia and also NW Kenya, also Omotic, a group of languages found in southern Ethiopia. The largest and most active branch on this tree is Semitic.

There are three sub-branchlets:
Firstly the extinct East Semitic languages represented by Akkadian, an ancient literary language in Mesopotomia. Akkadian was replaced by Aramaic, a once common but now limited speech belonging to the second branch of West Semitic languages along with Hebrew, Punic (extinct) and Syriac (almost identical to Aramaic) . Finally there's the Arabic branch South Eastern Semitic.

A Recapitulation for those who prefer lists or are jotting down keywords for a subsequent search - the branches of Afroasiatic are:

Egyptian > Modern Coptic, Berber (Tuareg etc.), Chadic, Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic which has three "branchlets" :
East Semitic - the extinct Akkadian language and related Babylonian and Assyrian dialects
West Semitic - Hebrew, Phoenician, and Punic, Canaanite, Syriac, Aramaic etc
(Note that some modern Aramaic speakers refer to their Mesopotamian dialect of Aramaic as "Assyrian".)
South (Eastern) Semitic - Arabic and its dialects

Back to Egyptian!

Egyptian shows affinities with the Berber speeches and other Semitic tongues. In some cases similar words may have been borrowed from Egyptian (Hebrew) in others it's a case of the similarities all evolving from the same ancestral word. Egyptian probably split off from the other Afroasiatic languages before Proto Indoeuropean split into separate branches.

The stages of the development of Egyptian are:
Archaic (Predynastic), OLD Egyptian 3180 - 2240 bc, MIDDLE EGYPTIAN (which became the "classical" literary form of the language for later speakers and writers) 2240 - 1990 bc, LATE Egyptian, 1573 - 715 bc, DEMOTIC 715 bc to 470 ad, and finally Coptic!
Coptic, now a rare language, itself has dialects. Having developed from the common Demotic written with a short hand derived from the original system it developed itself own separate writing script, a modified form of Greek Uncial with a few extra signs added borrowed from Demotic. The dialects of Coptic are Achmimic, Fayyumic, Bohairic, and Saidic. Note that these names refer to written forms of speech.
The language represented in most hieroglyphic writings, on papyri or inscriptions, is Middle Egyptian.

The Egyptian Writing System

The system used to write down the Ancient Egyptian language uses several kinds of symbols.
First there are the uniliterals or "ABC", our major concern, a set of 24 signs representing single sounds and their allophones, then there are the biliterals (about 80) which are Hieroglyphs that represent two sounds or rather consonants, and the triliterals (about 70), three sounds.

Here's a table of the uniliterals.

I apologize for the handwritten IPA symbols I added - they scanned a bit wobbly despite my attempts to tidy up with Photoshop which I really need more practice with sigh!.

There are also determinatives, signs that mark semantic categories, groups of ideas, like gender, age, status, groups, categories, activities, human, animal, divinity, and other things. Determinatives function somewhat like classifiers in Sinotibetan. If you've studied a Chinese dialect or know one revise your notes on classifiers. If the determinative for wine - a picture of a grape vine appears, you can be sure the word it is part of has something to do with viniculture, wines, grapes, their consumption or cultivation.
Can I hear anyone muttering Get to the point! We want to learn about the Egyptian ABC! Relax the setup is almost over!

The "ABC" signs

One part of the Egyptian writing system is a set or subset of 24 symbols often referred to as the Egyptian ABC and also known as uniliterals. These represent single sounds . However it is important to note that these symbols do NOT EXACTLY match our ABC.
Firstly learn and remember - they represent consonants ONLY!
What about the signs for "a" , "I", and "u" you ask, that one sees in the dreaded Budge, popularised by the Dover reprint series? Well these sounds are consonants and semivowels that MAY have had allophones that were vowels or developed into vowels later in Demotic or Coptic, since Coptic has a full set of vowel signs written with signs borrowed from Greek. Most scholars believe Middle Egyptian had a three vowel system - a - i - u, a feature of other Semitic and Afroasiatic languages.

What's an Allophone? Or ... some linguistics are necessary here!

And how can a sign be both a Consonant and a Vowel?
You may have noticed how in English al, aul and oul tend to change to a ou sound particularly before d? Another example of this is the way the k in Japanese kawa - river changes toa g in compounds so that a river kawa becomes the Fujigawa in a place name. In Japanese k has an allophone - an alternate sound of g in a medial positon although its k in the beginning of a word!
An allophone is a subset of a phoneme. Phonemes are transcribed between two slashes /C/. C = consonant. Phones and allophones are transcribed with square brackets [ C ]. The 'a' signs could have had an a vowel allophone, the I a j or y , and the "u/w" a u or oo in some contexts. W and Y are semivowels or glides in English along with one form of r.
Time to confront the "ABC"

"A" - the Vulture that singeth aaargh!!

This sign is a griffon vulture not the "mwt" bald vulture which represents a triliteral "mwt". You will also see it written as ae, aa, ' and with an IPA sign like a ? without the dot for this "a" is a glottal stop sound - the Aleph of Hebrew or the Alif of Arabic.

An "A" that's "aye" ! Well I - /i/ the Reed.

Budge's a with a superscript dot is /i/. This is the plumed tuft of a reed - Not a feather! It's Hebrew YOD. In some books you'll see this I sound given a superscript '. It may have had a /j/ allophone and perhaps an allophone of /ai/ or /a/ since the Greeks wrote names beginning with this sound in Middle Egyptian with an A not an I - Amun was actually Imwn!. This was possibly originally pronounced *Imoun? Or maybe at one stage *aimoun which would explain the Greek A spelling?
Used as a suffix pronoun this sign = the first person I or My.
This is NOT ever an E!!! The e's and o's you see added in modern texts are inserted to make it easier to distinguish the syllables. Most scholars add e's but some Europeans prefer o. Hence Neferet and Nofret are the same name - the Beautiful one (Female)!

The Double Reed
When written double or as two slahses the double reed equals /y/ (Budge uses i).
Note that - y as -wy masc. Or -ty fem. Marks the dual ending.

The other "A" - the Hand

Don't confuse this with the similar sign showing a hand holding a cone. This sign is a verb (r)di - give or offer. The Empty Hand is a Pharyngeal Fricative! Arabic Ain or Hebrew Ayin, a throaty sound we do not have in English. Although Budge marks this A with a Macron it is NOT a LONG vowel! It is transcribed either with an A or an ' .

"u/w" - the QUAIL CHICK

Most scholars use W but Budge uses U. Hence you may see the same word written - USER, WSR or WOSER. Possibly this sound was a consontantal W at the beginng of words and syllables and a u or maybe an ou in the middle or at the end of syllables. Its Hebrew Waw or Vau or Greek Digamma.
Note that - w as a suffix marks the Masc. Pl. And - wt the fem. Pl.
It is often drawn in shorthand as a spiral.

Why a Quail Chick. Quails were raised as domestic birds for eggs and meat. Our chickens (descended from a Southeast Asian Jungle fowl) were not introduced into the Mediterranean area from India until about the time of the Persian wars.

"B" - the FOOT

B as in Beth and bia metal ore and bn - not This is a drawing of both the foot and the calf.

"P" - the Stool or Square

While you'll see a Square in many modern texts , this square is shorthand for a drawing of a wicker (woven cane) Stool which is what you'll see in wall paintings and inscriptions.
P as a prefix in words is an emphatic masculine article " the one who ..."

"F" the Horned Viper - NOT A SNAIL!"

This is Cleopatra's Asp - the Horned Viper or FENT. As an SG-1 fan I tend to nickname this the Baby Gouald! And the way it's printed in many books it tends to look like a snail!
As a suffix this letter marks the 3rd person Masc., He, his, which is written as =f, -ef or sometimes - ouf.

M - the OWL

You will see several variants of this letter including a headless bird with two tufts sticking out of its shoulders and ocassionally a wedge shape. The wedge shorthand derives from the biliteral im. Dont confuse the shorthand m with the triliteral mae.
There is a suffix preposition - m meaning in or from . This appears as -em in the middle of many names.

N - Water the Wave

Dont confuse this with mw wwhich has three ripples !
As a suffix preposition - n = for to, as a pronoun, our, and between words responds to our genitive.

R - the Mouth or Opening

In the late Period (Rosetta Stone etc) you will see a lion (rw) used to represent R and L in foreign names. R and N seem to have developed an L allophone during the Middle Egyptian period possibly as a response to the many Semitic or IE (Indoeuropean) speakers visiting or living in Egypt.
As a preposition - er = at to with into
Dont confuse this oval shape with the sign ir which represents an eye or the verb to do or make.

The "Hs"

Our H /h/ is represented by a sign like a squared off spiral. This is the h in words like home. The symbol is thought to represent a hut or a house with a courtyard. Egyptian also had another H sound, a "guttural "h", anohther pharyngeal fricative, whose IPA symbol is a h with a bar through its top. This is Budge's H with a subscript dot underneath it, drawn as a TWIST of Fiber. I like to call it the Embroidery Skein.

Budge uses two other H signs with diacritics to represent sounds that are fricatives which we do not currently have in English though they didd exist in an early stage of the langauge.
The Ruled Circle (the one with horiztonal lines drawn through it) is Budge's H with a subscript marker similar to that used to mark the scansion of short syllables in Classical Latin and Greek texts. The sound it represents is a "ch' or "kh" /x X/. This is a palatlal or vlear fricaitive like the sound in Gaelic "loch" or German "nach". It sounds like a strongly aspirated k to English speakers.

The underlined H - the TEAT or Udder. The final "h" sound is a "kh" , cedilla c , the sound in ach and ich.

S, SH and Z

S is a Door Bolt sometimes printed as just two short vertical slashes through a line. S is also represented as a folded over cloth printed as a l with a curved top. It is /s/ and may have had an allophone of z in Archaic Egyptian? Possibly two separate phonoemes s and z merged which would explain the two separate signs for one sound?
As a suffix -s marks the 3rd person Fem.
The Egyptians also had a separate sound for SH drawn and printed with several variants. Usually it is a RECTANGLE despite the varying details. Sometimes it has two slashes across it or a ripple pattern. It is thought to have originallly been a sound for a pool or cistern *SHE.

Q - NOT Never ever KW Please!

The Q or K with a subscript dot is an Uvular K - not the kw or k plus u of many Indoeuropean languages.
It's the Q in Quran of Arabic or Hebrew Qoph. Think of it as an extra strong K!
It should not really be printed or drawn as a triangle but as the curved side of a hill or sand dune. QA is high in Egyptian.

K - the Winnowing Basket

This probably likes more like a cup or a saucer to modern readers who have never seen traditional non-mechanical winnowing methods of sorting grain from chaff.
K as a suffix = thee thy thou YOUR Masculine Singular.

G the Stand or Headrest

The sign for g /g/ is thought to be a headrest or some kind of stand.

T and D

T is a Mound or Hemisphere possibly a small loaf of Bread. Don't confuse the small T with the larger sing , biliteral NB.
T as a prefix is fe. Emphatic like P but "She who ...."
As a suffix T marks the Female as in the word Taweret - she who is powerful!

D is an OPEN HAND

This is Budge's T with a subscript DOT. It is a OPEN Hand showing a palm and Thumb.

J is Judge! Our favorite Zen Golfer Jaffa Prime!

BR> The "Jays" - Like English Egyptian had two kinds of "J" sounds - the second being -

TJ - the Tether or Lasso, Bolo, Loop.

For some reason Budge transcribes this as "TH" possibly because this sound later became a t in Coptic. The Th is not our Fricative. Its the strong aspirated T at the beginning of words like tin written t with a superscript h in phonetic transcriptions.
In the late period this t sound is also written or drawn as a pestle borrowed from the biletral pestle - ti.
This "TJ" is /c tj/ the "ch" in church or tune.
Tj = YOUR Fem.Sing.

DJ - the Royal Cobra

This is the Dj or J in Joke and Judge /dz z dj/
It later bcame a D sound in Coptic . Budge underlines it.

Well that brings us to the end of the Egyptian ABC!
Hopefully I can find and soon add some good links to sites that also explain other parts of the Egyptian writing system so please come and visit again. Watch this space for new links to be continually added as I discover and test new sites!

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