The Ancient Egyptian Language: An Historical Study

by James P. Allen

This book, the first of its kind, examines how the phonology and grammar of the ancient Egyptian language changed over more than three thousand years of its history, from the first appearance of written documents, c.3250 BC, to the Coptic dialects of the second century AD and later. Part One discusses phonology, working backward from the vowels and consonants of Coptic to those that can be deduced for earlier stages of the language. Part Two is devoted to grammar, including both basic components such as nouns and the complex history of the verbal system. The book thus provides both a synchronic description of the five major historical stages of ancient Egyptian and a diachronic analysis of their development and relationship.

Genres: Egyptology, History, Nonfiction, Language

266 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

James P. Allen (Ph. D., Univ. of Chicago, 1981), Wilbour Prof. of Egyptology, Brown University, has published extensively on ancient Egyptian language, religion, and history.

Allen, James P., 1945-, Library of Congress Authorities

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a detailed description of Ancient Egyptian phonology, morphology and syntax, starting with Coptic and then attempting to reconstruct the language of earlier periods as accurately as possible. This is not any kind of introduction to the hieroglyphic writing system, however. Allen prefers to work purely through phonetic transliteration and he only mentions a few hieroglyphs in cases where readings can be ambiguous.

In what the book deals with, Allen’s book is comparable to a volume in Cambridge University Press’s “X: A Linguistic Introduction” series, but the level of detail, and the expectation that a reader already have a background in this field, make it almost a dry reference grammar of Ancient Egyptian. As a historical linguist myself, I am used to picking up books on languages well outside the families which I focus on, and I can usually follow the descriptions of even relatively “exotic” languages. This book, on the other hand, I found to be extremely challenging. Part of this may be due to the level of uncertainty inherent to earlier stages of Ancient Egyptian, but I also can't help but feel that the author could have made this book more accessible to the reader.

[André · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really not an easy read for a beginner in the Egyptian language(s), but very thorough about the change of grammar throughout the thousands of years that the Egyptian language was used. Because of how the book is structured, it jumps forth and back between time periods, highlighting the changes and differences between the periods, rather than splitting it all up into Old, Middle, Late Egyptian, Demotic, Coptic. Its main focus lies on the syntax of Egyptian in all stages. One star less for not including hieroglyphic spellings, more reconstructions, and for being overall very complex and not easy to use.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in-depth and linguistically technical look at the development of the Ancient Egyptian language from the earliest inscriptions to the Coptic. Honestly, this book is of limited usefulness to a non-linguist. The layperson will find the precision and level of detail too much to get their head around. Even though I probably fall into the layperson category too, I found it all fascinating, and noticed a number of similarities with Arabic words I'm familiar with.

[Oriente]

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