The Pronunciation

of
Ancient Egyptian
The issue of the pronunciation of the Ancient Egyptian language has recently become
confused by popular presentations that ignore some of the essential and undoubted
characteristics of Egyptian hieroglyphics, most importantly that Egyptian, just as today is
usually the case with Arabic and Hebrew, did not write vowels -- except in late
transcriptions of foreign (mainly ree!" words# $or a time $rench (vowels" and erman
(no vowels" scholars hotly debated this, but the matter was settled more than a century
ago# This is typically not explained to people who are told that their names can be written
in such and such a way in hieroglyphics (cf# %om en hieroglyphes", or who are simply
told that the name of the Egyptian sun god is &'a& -- the pronunciation we find in the
recent entertaining but historically absurd movies Stargate (())*" and The Mummy
(()))"# +ell, &ra& may be Tahitian for &sun,& but it is not Ancient Egyptian#
As it happens, the Egyptian dialogue in those movies, reconstructed by ,tuart Tyson
,mith, avoids that mista!e, for anyone who listens carefully- but the misconception is
perpetuated by the English dialogue, despite .r# ,mith/s advice# 0ndeed, although the
Egyptians did not write vowels in Egyptian words, there is evidence about what the
vowels were in many words# 1ut the evidence is for different stages of the Egyptian
language# $or most of Egyptian history the language written in actual hieroglyphics or in
its cursive counterpart, hieratic, was the literary language initiated in the 200 .ynasty
(())(-(345" of the 6iddle 7ingdom# That is called &6iddle Egyptian#& 0n hieroglyphics
or hieratic, therefore, one is only li!ely to encounter either 6iddle Egyptian or the earlier
literary form of the language, 8ld Egyptian, the language spo!en in the Archaic 9eriod (0
: 00 .ynasties, c# ;(<<-=54<" and the 8ld 7ingdom (000->0 .ynasties, =54<-=(?)"#
+hile Sir Alan Gardiner, in his great and indispensable Egyptian Grammar @8xford
Aniversity 9ress, ()=3, ()5*B, says that 6iddle Egyptian was &possibly the vernacular of
.ynasties 02-20,& ,tephen $ryer has brought to my attention recent research to the effect
that the literary language of the 200 .ynasty was in some measure an artificial attempt to
return to the forms of 8ld Egyptian# ,ince the political project of Egyptian 7ings was
always to restore things &as they were in the beginning,& this is not surprising# 6iddle
Egyptian, therefore, may have something li!e the status of Classical ,ans!rit, which
restored and fixed the forms of the language of the >edas but could not undo all the
changes that had already occurred in the spo!en language#
Although 6iddle Egyptian became the literary and written language, the spo!en language
continued to change# The language of the %ew 7ingdom (2>000-22 .ynasties, (?3?-
(<43" and much of the Third 0ntermediate 9eriod (220-220> .ynasties, (<43-3(?" is
then called &%ew& or &Date Egyptian#& 1y the 'amessid 9eriod (.ynasties 202 : 22",
most hieratic documents are in Date Egyptian# The best evidence of the pronunciation of
Date Egyptian, however, is from the documents found in the diplomatic archives of
Amenhotep 000 and A!henaton at Amarna, for these documents were !ept in A!!adian,
not in Egyptian# A!!adian was the diplomatic language of the day, essentially the same
language as its two daughter languages, 1abylonian and Assyrian- and its system of
writing, cuneiform, represented vowels# Date Egyptian grammar also begins to be
revealed by hieroglyphic inscriptions during the reign of A!henaton, when the spo!en
language briefly replaced 6iddle Egyptian# Thus, while 8ld and 6iddle Egyptian did not
have a definite article (&the&", Date Egyptian does, p3, later pronounced &pi& or &pe& in
Coptic -- though now it appears that this change had already begun in the actual spo!en
language of the 200 .ynasty#
$ollowing Date Egyptian are two stages of the spo!en language, .emotic (c# 3(? 1C-*3<
A." and Coptic (c# *<< A.-c# (5<<"# Egyptian words borrowed into early ree!
probably reflect .emotic (ree! demotikos E &popular&" pronunciation# .emotic was
written in its own cursive script, so this form of the written language is also called
&.emotic#& +hile the last hieroglyphic inscription was made at 9hilae in ;)* A., not
long after the Christian 'oman Emperor Theodosius 0 (;3)-;)?" ordered the closure of
pagan temples, the last .emotic text is from *3<#
.emotic writing disappeared only because, as the Egyptians themselves converted to
Christianity, they ceased to use the old script# 0nstead, they began to write in the ree!
alphabet, with the addition of seven letters borrowed from .emotic to write sounds that
didn/t exist in ree!# ,ince vowels did exist in ree!, we suddenly have the complete
vocaliFation of the last stage of the Egyptian language, which is then called &Coptic,&
from the Arabic term for Egyptian Christians, the Copts, al-Qubt. (or Qibt."# That word
was from, via Coptic, the ree! name for Egypt, Aigyptos, which was derived from an
Egyptian name for 6emphis, H.wtk3pth. (or 8wtk3pt8, see below for the use of the
numbers", the &House of the ,oul @K3B of 9tah#& 9tah was the patron god of 6emphis#
The name 6emphis itself apparently comes from Mnnfr, originally the name of the
pyramid of 7ing 9epi 0 of the >0 .ynasty, &Enduring 1eauty,& or, with the name of the
7ing understood, &The oodness of 9epi Endures&# Coptic slowly died out as Egyptians
converted to 0slam and Arabic became the spo!en language#
Although it ceased to be a spo!en language by the (3th century, Coptic remains the
liturgical language of the Coptic Church, to which 5G of Egyptians still belong, and thus
is as well remembered and used in that context as Datin is in the Catholic Church or
classical Arabic is in 0slam# ,o even now Coptic is not a &dead& language the way
1abylonian is (whose last cuneiform inscription was in 3? A."# ean !ran"oi#
$ha%pollion ((3)<-(4;=" learned Coptic because he suspected it was the same language
written in the hiergylyphics of the 'osetta ,tone# He was right, and was thus aided in his
epic decipherment# The Copts themselves recently achieved international prominence
when one of their number, 1utros 1utros-hali, served as ,ecretary eneral of the
Anited %ations# There is also now a large Coptic immigrant community in the Anited
,tates, swollen by people fleeing terrorist activity by 0slamic fundamentalists in Egypt#
There are different !inds of signs used in Ancient Egyptian writing# &0deograms&
represent whole words, usually with a two or three consonant root, as in Arabic or
Hebrew# Thus the glyph is the word &good& or &beautiful,& or &be good,&
&beautiful,& &happy,& although it is a picture, according to ,ir Alan ardiner, of the heart
and windpipe (it loo!s li!e a banjo to me"# An ideogram that is an image of its object is a
&pictogram,& li!e the glyph for the scarab or dung-beetle, , or li!e that for the sun,
#
However, if the consonant root of the ideogram or pictogram occurs in other words, it can
be transferred to use as a &phonogram,& simply representing the sounds# Thus the glyph
, a picture of a gaming board, is used as a &biliteral& phonogram in many
words, e#g# %n &remain,& %nkh &efficient,& %nt &thigh,& in the common name of the god
Amon, etc# The glyph can be used as a &triliteral& phonogram to mean &become&
or can occur in khpr#h, a certain blue crown worn by the !ing# This could be confusing,
so words are often also written with &generic determinatives,& glyphs that were not
pronounced but indicated what !ind of thing a word was, e#g# which shows that a
word is the name of a god, or which shows that a word has something to do
with writing# This device was also used in cuneiform#
1esides phonograms that stand for two or three consonants, there are also =* (or =?" signs
that represented single (&uniliteral&" sounds, the Egyptian &alphabet#& These were
originally ideograms also, and some continued to stand for common words# $or instance,
is the picture of a mouth, is used to mean &mouth,& &language,& etc#, and is a
uniliteral sign# These alphabetic signs were freHuently written with ideograms or
pictograms as &phonetic complements,& both to provide reminders about pronunciation
and to distinguish meanings, as when grammatical endings differentiate between nouns
and verbs, or between singular and plural# $or us, the alphabetic signs can conveniently
be used to represent and discuss Egyptian phonology#
%ote that Egyptian glyphs have a front and a bac!# All the images above and below face
to the left, e#g# the alphabetic sign , which indicates that the text is to be read
from left to right# This is conformable with the usage of English and other European
languages# However, although this would be familiar and agreeable to the Egyptians,
Egyptian usage was ordinarily to write from right to left, as today is done in Hebrew and
Arabic# They indicated this direction by having all the glyphs face to the right instead of
to the left, which transforms the sign for d above to # 6uch the same thing was
done with the ree! alphabet, whose left to right form consisted of mirror images of the
original 9hoenician letters that had been adopted and that were at first written, li!e
9hoenician, right to left# The Egyptians also often wrote from top to bottom in narrow
columns, so Egyptian text could even be easily integrated into Chinese and Iapanese
boo!s#
'esources on ancient languages are sparse today# $or a long time the only Coptic
grammar 0 had seen, some years ago in the ACDA 'esearch Dibrary, was in $rench, for
Catholic missionaries to Egypt (0 thin! this was A# 6allon/s Grammaire copte
@0mprimerie catholiHue, 1eirut, ()?5B"# %ow, one !ind of thing that seems to be easily
obtainable are reprints of older, even much older grammars# Thus, 1ritish American
1oo!s (+illits, California", has reprinted Henry Tattam/s Coptic Grammar of (4;<# The
print is clear and it loo!s to be a fairly complete grammar (for its day and age", but it
lac!s a vocabulary list# ,imilarly, a reprint of +illiam 1# 6ac.onald/s Sketch of Coptic
Grammar of (4?5 is available from the same publisher, but its usefulness is compromised
by its being a hand written text# 0 have just obtained, however, a good modern grammar,
although it is intended as a textboo! more than a scientific description of the languageJ
ntroduction to Sahidic Coptic, by Thomas 8# Dambdin @6ercer Aniversity 9ress,
6acon, A, ()44B# Although set up in courier, which ma!es the whole thing loo! li!e
typescript, the boo! has a clear Coptic typeface# 0t also has a (?< page Coptic-English
glossary#
$or Egyptian itself, there are more reprints# 6any boo!s by E#A# +allis 1udge are
available from .over, but they are grotesHuely out of date and perhaps had better be
avoided -- a generation or more of readers may be hopelessly confused by 1udge/s use of
vowels# 1etter is Egyptian !ieroglyphic Grammar" #ith $ocabularies% E&ercises%
Chrestomathy 'A (irst-)eader*% Sign-+ist , Glossary by ,#A# 6ercer, reprinted from
()=5 by Ares 9ublishers (Chicago"#
,till without peer, and still in print, is ardiner/s Egyptian Grammar# A new grammar of
similar Huality, with vocabulary, a%e# E. Hoch&# Middle Egyptian Grammar @0,1% <-
)=<(54-(=-*B, although &not entirely finished& and provided only in spiral binding, has
now become available, either from 1enben 9ublications ((*4; Carmen .rive,
6ississauga, 8ntario D? ;K=, Canada" or from Iames Hoch himself# 0 have also just
obtained A +ate Egyptian Grammar, produced posthumously from the materials of the
great Egyptologist aro#la' $ern( by ,arah 0sraelit roll and Christopher Eyre @Editrice
9ontificio 0stituto 1iblico, 'oma, ());B# This treatment loo!s grammatically thorough,
exhaustive, and exhausting, but doesn/t have a vocabulary list#
A vast graphic type font set for Egyptian and the hieroglyphic text processing programs
&lyph for +indows& and &6ac,cribe& used to be available on line at The Extended
Dibrary, but the site no longer seems to exist# The font set itself, which uses the same
classification system as ardiner/s Egyptian Grammar, is now accessible at
Hieroglyphica# 0 do not !now where the original -ublications nteruni.ersitaires de
)echerches Egyptologi/ues nformatisees @edited by %icolas rimal, Iochen Hallof, .ir!
van der 9las, Atrecht, 9aris ());B has moved#
The following table presents and discusses the alphabetic hieroglyphic signs in the order
of phonetic type used by scholars# A number of the sounds do not exist in languages li!e
English but still do exist in Arabic, which is distantly related to EgyptianJ ,o Egyptians
today can still vocaliFe sounds from the ancient language that otherwise would be
unpronounceable in other modern languages# +hen 0 visited Egypt, Egyptian guides who
could read hieroglyphics appeared to enjoy using the sounds that they could pronounce
but that many European tourists had never heard before# Terms for the sounds are those
used in the -honetic Symbol Guide, by eoffrey 7# 9ullum and +illian A# Dadusaw
@Aniversity of Chicago 9ress, ()45B# The discussion of the glyphs is mainly based on
ardiner# A recent technical discussion of Egyptian phonology (and grammar" may be
found in Ancient Egyptian, A linguistic introduction) *y Antonio +oprieno @Cambridge
Aniversity 9ress, ())?B# %ote that audio files may ta!e some time to load#
The picture of
a vulture, this
The picture of
a flowering
The Egyptians
wrote the
The picture of
a forearm, this
The picture of a
Huail chic!, this is
represents the
sound of a
&glottal stop&
(or &glottal
plosive&",
which is a brief
closing of the
wind pipe, li!e
a little cough#
This is the
Hebrew aleph,
the Arabic
hamFa, or the
English
Coc!ney
pronunciation
of &t& in
&bottle#& A
special symbol
is used for this
in transcription
type fonts for
Egyptian# 0n
A,C00 text, 0
use the number
&;#&
Doprieno (p#
;(" points out
that 3
corresponds to
an r in ,emitic
languages and
so, for an
uncertain
period of
Egyptian
history, may
have been
some version
of an r (&a
uvular trill&" in
Egyptian# %ow
Hoch
emphatically
reed, this was
originally a
&y& (palatal
glide" and
could still be
written that
way (or the
erman
version of a
&y&, ,"# The
special symbol
often used for
this sound,
however, is the
letter &i& with
an apostrophe
instead of the
dot# The &y& in
Egyptian was
so wea! that it
was rarely
pronounced#
+ords
beginning with
&y,& li!e the
name of the
god Amon,
simply begin
with vowels in
the evidence
of vocaliFation
that we have#
How this
contrasts with
3 is a good
Huestion --
Hoch simply
says that/s
what it can be-
but some
languages, li!e
Hawaiian,
ma!e a real
distinction
between words
previous letter
twice in certain
contexts# ,ince
this was usually
at the end of a
word, it has
been argued
that this is the
same usage as
in Hebrew or
Arabic and that
it actually
represents the
'owel of a long
&i#& 0t is hard to
argue with this#
+here &yy& is
usually written
inside words, as
in the .emotic
word for
&ree!,&
-ynn, which is
clearly from
&0onian,& there
is little doubt
that a long &i& is
meant#
0n transcription,
&yy& is usually
written &y& (in
contrast to the
&i& L apostrophe
for &y&" -- or
&jj& if &j& is
used for the
undoubled
sound# These
are
noncommital on
the issue of the
letter being a
vowel#
represents a
strongly
guttural
consonant, the
0ayn in Arabic#
The throat
contracts but
does not close
(a voiced
pharyngeal
fricative"#
Egyptians
today have no
trouble with
this, but it is a
sound that
does not occur
in 0ndo-
European
languages and
has
disappeared
from other
,emitic
languages, as it
did from
Coptic#
Transcription
type fonts
represent this
with a large
apostrophe that
is concave to
the right, li!e a
pried open &c#&
As in some
systems for
Arabic, we can
use the number
&)#&
simply a &w& (labial
glide"# However,
li!e &y,& the &w&
has become very
wea! and
sometimes
disappears# +hile it
is tempting and
sometimes
compelling to read
it in some contexts
as a vowel, as in
the name of the
builder of the reat
9yramid, khwfw,
&7hufu,& we
usually don/t have
any evidence about
that# &+& is written
&ou& in Coptic, but
this is because
there is no &w& in
ree! and &ou& can
ma!e do# +hen it is
followed by a
vowel, there is not
much ambiguity#
Thus, w#h*,
&answer& in
Egyptian, is
ou.#he* or w.#he*
in Coptic#
,imilarly,
,
&The 8ne& (female,
for a goddess" in
Egyptian, is
in Coptic#
denies that 3
was e.er a
glottal stop (p#
)" but gives no
reference#
or syllables
beginning with
a glottal stop
and words or
syllables
beginning with
vowels# +e
don/t have
enough
evidence about
Ancient
Egyptian to
!now if that
was the case
there#
0n A,C00, it
will be
necessary to
use &y,& a
Huestion mar!,
&M,& which is
used for a
glottal stop in
some systems
for Arabic, or
perhaps the
number &3#&
The picture of
a foot, this is a
&b& (voiced
bilabial
stopNplosive"#
1/s in Egyptian
often
correspond to
m/s in Hebrew
or Arabic# Thus
the root #l% in
The picture of
a stool, this is
a &p&
(unvoiced
bilabial stop"#
%ote that p
doesn/t exist in
Classical
Arabic, which
means that
words from
The picture of a
horned viper,
this an an &f&
(voiceless
labiodental or
bilabial
fricative"#
The picture of
an owl, this is
an &m&
(bilabial nasal
resonant"#
The picture of
water, this is an &n&
(alveolar nasal
resonant"#
Arabic or #hl%
in Hebrew,
&peace,& &to be
healthy,& etc#,
is #n* in
Egyptian#
,imilarly, b/s in
such ,emitic
languages can
turn up as m/s
in EgyptianJ
/%nn for
+*nn,
&Debanon#&
Coptic li!e
&pa& (&the&"
turn up as &ba&
in Arabic#
The picture of
a mouth, this is
an &r& (a
resonant whose
varieties can
no longer be
determined for
ancient
Egyptian"#
%ote that there
is no l in
Egyptian#
Asually
Egyptians just
pronounced
foreign l/s as
r/s# +hen
ree! names,
li!e
&9tolemaios&
or &7leopatra,&
were later
transcribed, the
biliteral sign
rw was used
The picture of
a reed shelter
in fields, this
is a simple &h&
(a voiceless
glottal
fricative"#
The picture of a
wic! of twisted
flax, this
represents
another strongly
guttural
consonant, an h
which, li!e 0
above, occurs
with a strong
contraction of
the throat, but
without voicing
(a voiceless
pharyngeal
fricative"# This
is the letter h.a
in Arabic,
another sound
that Egyptians
today can still
pronounce
without
difficulty# 0t is
not li!e the
This is a
picture that
may be a
placenta,
because it is
used to write
&placenta,& but
it is hard to see
how it is
pictographic# 0t
represents the
sound kh
which occurs
in Hebrew and
Arabic, in the
erman
pronunciation
of 1acht, or in
the ,cottish
pronunciation
of &Doch& (a
voiceless velar
fricative"# kh is
an adeHuate
transcription,
The picture of &an
animal/s belly with
teats,& this
represents a softer
form of kh (a
voiceless palatal
instead of a velar
fricative", as in the
erman
pronunciation of
ich (not erman
dialect
pronunciations as
i#h"# The Egyptians
didn/t always
distinguish this
from kh
themselves# $h
could be used to
transcribe it, if this
weren/t easily
confused with t#h
below#
%ow Hoch says
for &l#&
Doprieno (p#
;(", however,
advances the
opinion that
the contrast
between r and l
may not have
been lost in all
dialects of
Egyptian, since
independent l/s
emerge in
Coptic and also
seem to have
been indicated
by an nr
&grapheme& in
Date Egyptian
texts that
reflect the
spo!en
language#
&ch& in
&Channa!ah& in
Ash!enaFi
Hebrew# This
presents special
difficult for
A,C00
representation#
,ome typescript
systems for
Arabic use a
capital &H,& but
here 0 will
continue with a
postscript
period, as for
Arabic, though,
continuing the
use of numbers,
and considering
its similarity to
the original
glyph, the
number 8 might
be good#
though
underlined to
emphasiFe that
it is a digraph#
that this simply has
&an un!nown
value,& but suggests
it may have been
li!e a +elsh ll# This
is interesting, since
the +elsh ll had
also been suggested
as the original
pronunciation of
the Arabic d.1d#
The picture of
a piece of
folded cloth,
this is an &s&
(voiceless
alveolar
fricative"# 0n
8ld Egyptian
this was
contrasted with
&F,& and is in
that context
transcribed
with an acute
The picture of
a bolt, this was
a &F& in 8ld
Egyptian
(voiced
alveolar
fricative"# 0n
6iddle
Egyptian,
however, F
came to be
used to write
s/s#
The picture of a
pool, this was
an &sh& just li!e
in English,
Hebrew, and
Arabic
(voiceless
palato-alveolar
fricative"#
The picture of
a hill-slope,
this was li!e
the /af in
classical
Arabic
(voicless
uvular
stopNplosive"#
That is a &!&
that is
pronounced at
the soft palate,
at the bac! of
The picture of a
bas!et with handle,
this is a regular &!&
(voicless velar
stopNplosive"#
mar! on top# 0n
6iddle
Egyptian,
however, both
s and F were
used to write
s/s#
the mouth,
rather than on
the hard palate,
further
forward, as a
&!& normally
is# This is no
longer
pronounced
different from
a &!& in
Hebrew, but
most Arabs can
pronounce it
properly, even
though there
are dialect
variations in
spo!en ArabicJ
,ometimes it is
replaced by a
glottal stop (in
Debanon and
Egypt itself"-
and in the ulf
it is .oiced (a
voiced uvular
plosive", li!e a
&g&
pronounced on
the soft palate,
as it is in
9ersian (initial
position only",
which
borrowed it
from Arabic# 0n
Coptic it
became a &!#&
The picture of
a stand for a
jar, this is a
&g,&
pronounced as
a stop, li!e the
English &g& in
&gun& (voiced
velar
stopNplosive",
not li!e the
palatal
affricative
English &g& in
&ginger, which
is li!e the &j& in
&jump& (a &dj&
or &dFh&"#
The picture of
a loaf, this is a
&t& (voiceless
dental or
alveolar
stopNplosive"#
The picture of a
tethering rope,
this is simple a
&t& in Coptic,
and has turned
into a &t& in
many 6iddle
Egyptian words,
but is thought to
have been
pronounced li!e
the &ch& in
English
&church& earlier
(voiceless
palato-aveolar
affricative"# t#h
would be good
for
transcription#
The picture of
a hand, this is a
&d& (voiced
dental or
alveolar
stopNplosive"#
The picture of a
sna!e, this has
become a &d& or a
&t& in Coptic, but is
thought to have
been a &j& as in the
English &jump&
earlier (voiced
palato-aveolar
affricative"# 0t can
correspond to a &j&
(23m" in Arabic#
Thus, for the
Arabic root %l,, &to
suc!& or &suc!le,&
we find
,
&breast,& in 8ld
Egyptian# This had
already become
simply %nd in
6iddle Egyptian#
,ince not everyone studying Egyptian, or even reading it professionally, wants to tangle
with the problems of restoring its pronunciation, two convenient devices have been
adoptedJ
(# Add &e/s& where necessary# Thus, khpr gets pronounced as kheper, and nfr gets
pronounced as nefer#
=# ,ince few non-Arabists have occasion to learn to pronounce 3 and 0, just pretend
they are the vowel &a#& ,o r0, the sun or the sun god, 'O, gets pronounced ra# 0n
context, this is unobjectionable, but as people have gradually gotten the idea that
r0 4as really pronounced ra, Alan ardiner/s own warning might be repeated (his
italics"J
5ut it must ne.er be forgotten that the .ocali6ations thus pro.ided are purely
artificial makeshifts and bear little or no relation% so far as the .o4els are
concerned% to the unkno4n original pronunciations as heard and spoken by the
Egyptians themsel.es. @p# =4B
,ome words, of course, can be restored# $or an example, one of the names of Amenhotep
000 was 1*%30tr0 (a tongue-twister if there ever was one", meaning &'O is the Dord of
Truth#& 1ut we have the whole name in A!!adian from the Amarna archiveJ 1i%%uar2a
or 1i*%uar2a# $or the first word, &lord,& , the vowel is clearly an &i,& ni*# The
second word is an important word to the Egyptians, %30t, &truth& and &justice#& Mua
raises a couple of HuestionsJ +here is the &t&M And where does the &a& goM The &t& is the
feminine ending for a noun# 0n two related languages, Hebrew and Arabic, this is also the
case- but for both of them the &t& is usually not pronounced in the singular# The same
thing seems to have happened in Egyptian# The verb %30 is usually written
with the interesting glyph , which is a combination of a pictogram for &sic!le,&
%3, with an obscure glyph that turns it into the phonogram %30# This is rather li!e what
happened with Chinese characters, though the device advanced no further in
hieroglyphics#
The noun %30t is written with the glyph , which originally was a pictogram
for &feather,& #hwy, then became a phonogram #hw as in Shw, the god of the air, &,hu#&
The feather is then used for an ideogram or generic determinative in one writing of %30t
as , and finally becomes an ideogram in # The feather
was evidently the symbol of the goddess M30t, and her image always made for a
determinative or ideogram in an alternate writing, # The word %30t is
often written as Maat with the vocaliFation convention mentioned above# %ow, however,
we can see that the main vowel was a &u,& and, from the information about syllable
structure in Coptic, we can say that the &a& is the vowel of the feminine ending, without
the t# ,o the full vocaliFation for Date Egyptian was %u30a#
Egyptian may seem more guttural than the reader
expects, but that is characteristic of the group of languages to which Egyptian belongs#
8nly Arabic still preserves all the sounds, but even Hebrew still 4rites them in the
traditional spelling#
The last part of Amenhotep 000/s name is the name of the sun god, /0# /0 itself we !now
from Coptic as , i#e# )7 in ree! @noteB# This comes out in A!!adian as /2a# Thus the
central vowel is a long &i#& 0t is the general impression that long &e/s& in Coptic come
from long &i/s& in Egyptian# The A!!adian version doesn/t show us the 0ayn, but it does
throw in an extra &a#& ,uch an &a,& however, is a familiar phenomenon from Hebrew and
Arabic# uttural consonants are hard to pronounce at the end of words# The word
&6essiah& in Hebrew is actually written as though it were pronounced M3#h2cha, but this
is a convention to indicate that it is really pronounced M3#h2ach, with the &a& inserted to
ease the transition from the long &i& to the &ch#& %o such writings occur in Arabic, but in
spo!en Arabic it is clear that a transitional &a& is freHuently inserted in words li!e r4h.,
&spirit,& or the imperative verb &goP& That comes out as r4ah.# Egyptian certainly did the
same thing# /20 would have been difficult enough to pronounce that it became /2a0 in
speech, which is what got pic!ed up in the A!!adian transcription# The accompanying
diagram shows the difference between an ideographic and a phonetic writing for r0# %ote
that the difference between the word r20 meaning &sun& and /20 meaning the &sun god& is
the generic determinative for &god#&
The Egyptian pronunciation of /2a0 may seem difficult and strange# 0t then may be
interesting to note that an important name from Hebrew would have posed similar
difficulties# Jesus in Hebrew would have been 56#h4a0, from the root y#h0, &to be
saved, helped, victorious#& The 0ayn, indeed, may have no longer been pronounced in
Iesus/s day# +here it 4ould be pronounced, in Arabic, a curious thing has happenedJ
Although the original form of the name is preserved, as 5a#40, the name occurs much
more commonly with the 0ayn transposed to the front, as 02#3# This is certainly easier to
pronounce, though why the change occurred in this word and not in others is a good
Huestion#
Another example of vocaliFation we might consider is the word &9haraoh#& This comes
from Hebrew, Par0.h# 0n Egyptian we find pr03, which means &reat House#& The
glyph means &great,& and means &house#& This became a synonym
for the !ing about the time of A!henaton# ,aying &The reat House& did such and such
would be eHuivalent of saying today that &the 9alace said& or &the +hite House said,& in
referring to the actions of a monarch or the American 9resident# +ith Hebrew as the
evidence, we could say that pr03 would have been vocaliFed par0.3 in Date Egyptian#
$inally, let me mention an Egyptian word that ended up as a part of California history#
+hen 0 was a child and visited the nearby old California mission at ,an $ernando, 0 was
impressed how cool it was in the summer with its thic! adobe walls# Dater 0 discovered
that adobe wasn/t always used in such missions# All the missions in ,an Antonio, Texas,
five or more, were built of the plentiful Texas limestone# ,everal California missions, li!e
Carmel and ,anta 1arbara, also ended up with stone churches# Actually, neither adobe
nor stone are the best things for earthHua!e country li!e California -- they are brittle
materials and result in the sudden collapse of structures# 1ut at least repairing earthHua!e
damage to adobe might be easier than repairing cut stoneJ The great stone church at ,an
Iuan Capistrano still is a ruin from its collapse in the earthHua!e of (4(=#
%ow, &adobe& is the ,panish word for mud bric!# There is a fol! etymology for this in
,pain, but it actually seems to have been borrowed from the Arabic word ,
&the mud bric!#& ,panish has Huite a few words from Arabic whose origins don/t often get
ac!nowledged# ,panish words that begin with &al& are always suspicious, but in this case
the word in Arabic begins with a &sun letter& (&t#&", which means that it assimilates the
pronunciation of the &l&# 1ut 0at.t.8b, is not ultimately from ArabicJ 0t was itself
borrowed from Coptic, which has the word , &mud bric!&- and, as we might
expect, the Coptic word is ultimately from the 6iddle Egyptian word for mud bric!,
, with a phonogram for d* and an ideographic determinative for
&bric!&#
Thus, loo!ing at the California missions, we use the same word for the same objects that
the Egyptians commanded the 0sraelites to ma!e for the palaces of 9haraoh#
The Pronunciation of Ancient Egyptian) 1ote
There is now some controversy about the pronunciation of Coptic# Coptic died out as a
primary spo!en language in the (?th century# 6ost classical Coptic literature was written
in the ,ahidic dialect, and when that is taught today (e#g# Thomas 8# Dambdin,
ntroduction to Sahidic Coptic, 6ercer Aniversity 9ress, ()4;, ()44", a sort of
compromise &academic& pronunciation, partially based on the academic pronunciation of
ree!, is used# 0n those terms, , ree! Eta, is pronounced li!e a long 7 in 0talian or
,panish (H#v# Dambdin, p#xi", or $rench 9# ,imilarly, , ree! Epsilon, is pronounced
li!e $rench : or the short English e in &bet#& However, it is a matter of general agreement
in the study of Classical ree! that the /uality of the vowels Eta and Epsilon was actually
the opposite of this# Eta was literally the &long& vowel in ta!ing longer to pronounce, but
its Huality was the &open& vowel of $rench : and English &bet#& Epsilon, in turn, although
&short& in Huantity, was pronounced with the &close& vowel of $rench 9 and English &bay&
(cf# +illiam +atson oodwin : Charles 1urton ulic!, Greek Grammar, 1laidsdell
9ublishing Company, ();<, ()?4, pp#5 : )-(<- and Herbert +eir ,myth, Greek
Grammar, Harvard Aniversity 9ress, ()55, pp# (=-(;"# 0n modern ree!, Epsilon now
has the &open& pronunciation, while Eta, Qpsilon (Classical ; as in erman", and 0ota are
all pronounced li!e the i in English or $rench &police,& i#e# assimilated to 0ota# As Coptic
began to be written in the ree! alphabet, these sound changes in ree! were already
beginning to occur, and there is already the occasional confusion between Eta and 0ota,
Eta and Qpsilon (cf# Dambdin p#xvii"#
The ,ahidic dialectic of Coptic came to be replaced as a literary language by the 1ohairic
dialect, beginning in the )th century and culminating in the adoption of 1ohairic as the
liturgical language of the Coptic Church in the ((th century# ,ahidic is generally thought
to have been a dialect of Apper Egypt, 1ohairic of Dower Egypt, or the +estern .elta#
+hen Coptic died out as a primary spo!en language, this meant that ((" the liturgical
language, 1ohairic, remained the only living spo!en form of Coptic, and (=" even people
learning the liturgical language would have Arabic as their first language, which could
gradually introduce an Arabic phonological bias into Coptic, i#e# people raised spea!ing
Arabic might naturally pronounce Coptic as Arabic, without realiFing that there was
going to be a difference# 8n top of this, in the ()th century we get a &reform& of the
proununciation that introduces a bias from another language, namely 6odern ree!#
0n the time of the Coptic 9atriarch 7irellos (Cyril" 0> ((4?*R(45(", there were
negotiations to unify the Coptic and the Egyptian 6el!ite Church, i#e# the Church in
doctrinal communion with the 9atriarch of Constantinople, from which the Coptic
Church had split in *5< A. over disagreement about the $ourth Ecumenical Council#
This unification did not come about, but the affair curiously inspired a movement to use
6odern ree! pronunciation instead of the traditional 1ohairic pronunciation# The
project was begun by Arian # 6oftah, who taught Coptic for the 9atriarchate- and it was
subseHuently pursued by the authority of the Coptic Church# 1y the mid-=<th century the
result was that the &reco-1ohairic& pronunciation was used Huite generally and the
older, indigenous pronunciation all but forgotten#
0t was not long before people began to thin! better of this strange business and wished to
recover the &8ld 1ohairic& pronunciation -- just at the point where evidence was
disappearing rapidly over what that pronunciation had been# There was still some living
memory, from elderly Copts and isolated churches, of what the pronunciation was# The
current 9atriarch, ,henouda 000, at the time Abba ,henouda, encouraged Emile 6aher to
study the evidence for the old pronunciation, and from various sources he produced (in
()54" a system of &8ld 1ohairic& pronunciation, which is now being promoted for the
Coptic Church#
An interesting result in this system is that the Eta and Epsilon are both ta!en to be
pronounced <, as in English &bat& (indeed, the a-e ligature, S, was borrowed into the
0nternational 9ronunciation Alphabet from 8ld English" -- though the Eta could also be
pronounced i (as noted with ,ahidic above"# %ow, < is not a sound that occurs in every
language# 0t is present in 6odern English, Arabic, and 9ersian, but not, for instance, in
$rench, erman, 0talian, or ,panish# There is no particuar reason to doubt that < was the
pronunciation of Epsilon and Eta in Coptic at the time of the reco-Coptic &reform,& but
there is good reason to wonder if this was the pronunciation before the effect of phonetic
bias introduced by the dominance of Arabic# The evidence, indeed, for the pronunciation
is from transcriptions of Arabic and from living spea!ers whose first language, of course,
is Arabic#
8ne of the most interesting types of evidence for the pronunciation of Coptic are lists of
words in Arabic transcribed into Coptic that were used to aid Copts in learning Arabic, at
the time when Arabic was becoming the primary spo!en language# The long T in Arabic,
whose Huality in 6odern Arabic is <, is freHuently written as Eta, Epsilon, or even two
Epsilons in Coptic# The two Epsilons are perhaps used to represent the fact the long T in
Arabic is also long in /uantity, i#e# ta!es longer to say, as with the long vowels in
Classical ree!# These transcriptions, however, are not evidence that Eta and Epsilon
were actually pronounced <, but only that the represented the closest sound to that in
Arabic# +e get a similar problem when Arabic 4 is transcribed as , ree! 1eta, in
Coptic# As in 6ediaeval ree!, probably was pronounced as a ., or alternatively a b#
However, although Arabic 4 turns up as . in 9ersian and Tur!ish, 0 !now of no dialect of
Arabic where it is pronounced that way# As with the Eta, the &8ld 1ohairic& interpretation
ta!es the Arabic eHuivalent literally and reads 1eta as 4 (or b"# 0t is odd, on the other
hand, that Coptic did have its own way of writing 4, as 75, which was the ree! way of
writing a long 8 and is still a device used in $rench to write 4# As seen the text above,
75 does occur in Coptic where there was a 4 in Egyptian# ,omehow, the Arabic 4 struc!
the Coptic ear as more li!e . than li!e 75#
8f course, we can imagine that Coptic already had < and did not have a ., and that it was
adapting the best Greek letters to its own phonology# The difficulty 0 find with that
possibility is the fact that Coptic was perfectly ready to preserve letters from .emotic,
the latest form of the writing of Ancient Egyptian, to write sounds that were not in ree!#
There are five or six of these used in traditional Coptic# Thus, my suspicion is that while
Eta and Epsilon may have been pronounced <, and 1eta 4, in the ()th Century, these are
effects of the influence of Arabic# 9eople at first learned Arabic with an eHuivalent Coptic
pronunciation (with : for <", but then, as time went on, they got Arabic phonology right
but then began reading Coptic with it (with < for :"# 0n fact, 0 wonder if something of the
sort may have been in mind at the time of the reco-Coptic &reform#& 0 wonder if Arian
# 6oftah realiFed that he was teaching Coptic with Arabic phonology and thought that
even a 6odern ree! eHuivalent, although anachronistic, would be preferable# Anyone
promoting the &8ld 1ohairic& pronunciation might pause to consider that#