Egyptian language

Egyptian language

Egyptian language

The Egyptian language is a northern Afro-Asiatic language closely related to the Berber and Semitic languages. It has the second longest history of any language (after Sumerian), having been written from c. 3200 BC to the Middle Ages and remaining as a spoken language for longer. The phases of Ancient Egyptian are Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian (Classical Egyptian), Late Egyptian, Demotic and Coptic. Egyptian writings do not show dialect differences before Coptic, but it was probably spoken in regional dialects around Memphis and later Thebes.

Ancient Egyptian was a synthetic language, but it became more analytic later on. Late Egyptian develops prefixal definite and indefinite articles, which replace the older inflectional suffixes. There is a change from the older Verb Subject Object word order to Subject Verb Object. The Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts were eventually replaced by the more phonetic Coptic alphabet. Coptic is still used in the liturgy of the Egyptian Orthodox Church, and traces of it are found in modern Egyptian Arabic.

Ancient Egyptian has 25 consonants similar to those of other Afro-Asiatic languages. These include pharyngeal and emphatic consonants, voiced and voiceless stops, voiceless fricatives and voiced and voiceless affricates. It has three long and three short vowels, which expanded in Later Egyptian to about nine. The basic word in Egyptian, similar to Semitic and Berber, is a triliteral or biliteral root of consonants and semiconsonants. Suffixes are added to form words. The verb conjugation corresponds to the person. For example, the triconsonantal skeleton S-D_-M is the semantic core of the word 'hear'; its basic conjugation is {{{2}}} 'he hears'. If the subject is a noun, suffixes are not added to the verb: sd_m h.mt 'the woman hears'.

Adjectives are derived from nouns through a process that Egyptologists call nisbation because of its similarity with Arabic. The word order is PREDICATE-SUBJECT in verbal and adjectival sentences, and SUBJECT-PREDICATE in nominal and adverbial sentences. The subject can be moved to the beginning of sentences if it is long and is followed by a resumptive pronoun. Verbs and nouns are negated by the particle n, but nn is used for adverbial and adjectival sentences. Stress falls on the ultimate or penultimate syllable, which can be open (CV) or closed (CVC).

POST COMMENT

The World of Indian Languages The Cool Photo-Editing Basics Tricks Explained in Simple Language to Become a Photoshop Guru What is the Best Way to Learn a Language? Tips for learning Tiếng Việt , an intriguing language ! Understand Language, Organize International Conference And Meet With Clearer Lanuage Interpretation Translation Services – Means To Overcome Language Barrier Conversing in Spanish language Spanish Speaking Countries Have an understanding of the Language Rocket German Language Review-Rocket German Language Course Get unlimited language translation at ease with just a click French Language Learning and Immersion New Italian Language training What is the italian language ?