Egyptian hieroglyphs (Middle Egyptian)

Overview

Middle Egyptian (or Classical Egyptian) is the phase of the ancient Egyptian language spoken and, above all, written between roughly 2000 and 1350 BC (from the Middle Kingdom to the early New Kingdom). It is the best-taught and best-documented form of Egyptian: it serves as the standard grammatical reference and remained a prestigious literary and monumental language (the "Latin" of Egypt) down to the Greco-Roman period. Egyptian constitutes an autonomous branch of the Afro-Asiatic family (alongside Semitic, Berber, Cushitic, Chadic, and Omotic). It is written mainly in hieroglyphs (a monumental figurative script), together with its cursive variants, Hieratic (manuscripts) and later Demotic. It is a mixed system: phonetic signs (consonantal), logograms, and silent semantic determinatives. It was deciphered by Jean-François Champollion (publicly announced in 1822), thanks to the Rosetta Stone and to his knowledge of Coptic, the ultimate descendant of Egyptian.

History of the people

Pharaonic Egyptian civilization developed in the Nile valley and delta. The unification of Upper and Lower Egypt occurred around 3100 BC (traditionally attributed to Narmer/Menes), inaugurating a sequence of dynasties: the Old Kingdom (the Giza pyramids, 3rd–6th dynasties), the First Intermediate Period, the Middle Kingdom (11th–12th dynasties, the apogee of the classical language and of literature), the Second Intermediate Period (Hyksos), the New Kingdom (18th–20th dynasties: Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, Ramesses II), the Third Intermediate Period, the Late Period, and then Persian and Macedonian rule (Alexander, 332 BC), the Ptolemaic (Lagid) dynasty (down to Cleopatra VII), and Roman annexation (30 BC). It was a strongly hierarchical society organized around the pharaoh (a divine king), an administration of scribes, a powerful clergy, and a polytheistic religion centered on the cult of the dead, Maat (the cosmic order), and the great sanctuaries. Writing, a monopoly of the scribes, was an instrument of administrative, religious, and commemorative power.

History of the language

Egyptian is attested over more than three and a half millennia, the longest continuous written documentation of any language. Its phases are: (1) Archaic/Old Egyptian (Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Texts, c. 2700–2100 BC); (2) Middle Egyptian or Classical Egyptian (c. 2100–1350, the language of the great literature: Sinuhe, The Shipwrecked Sailor, the Instructions), subsequently preserved as a frozen literary/religious language down to the Roman period; (3) Late Egyptian (c. 1350–700, the vernacular of the New Kingdom, with articles and a new syntax); (4) Demotic (c. 700 BC–5th century AD, a cursive language and script); (5) Coptic (c. 300 AD–17th century as a living language), written in the Greek alphabet augmented with Demotic signs, the last form and the key to decipherment. Extinction: spoken Coptic gradually died out after the Arab conquest (7th century), supplanted by Arabic; it survives as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church to this day. The earlier scripts (hieroglyphs, Demotic) fell into disuse in the 4th–5th centuries AD with Christianization and the closing of the pagan temples.

The script

The hieroglyphic script (Greek hierogluphika, "sacred carvings"; the Egyptian name mdw-nṯr, "words of the god") appeared around 3200 BC (the Abydos labels, the Narmer palette) and remained in use until the end of the 4th century AD. The last known dated hieroglyph is the graffito of Nesmeterakhem (Esmet-Akhom) at Philae, dated 24 August 394 AD. About 700 to 1000 signs were in common use in Middle Egyptian (the inventory swelled to several thousand in the Greco-Roman period). A single sign has three functional values according to context: (1) phonogram (a consonantal sound value, of 1 to 3 consonants); (2) logogram/ideogram (a whole word, often marked by a vertical stroke 𓏤, the so-called "sense stroke"); (3) determinative (placed at the end of a word, unpronounced, specifying the semantic category). The direction of writing is variable: most often right to left, but also left to right or in vertical columns. The key rule: figurative signs (especially human/animal heads) "face" toward the beginning of the line, so one reads COMING FROM the direction they face. There is no word separation and no punctuation. Groups of signs are arranged aesthetically in balanced rectangular "boxes" (quadrats). Hieratic (cursive, on papyrus/ostraca, from the earliest times) and Demotic (from the 7th century BC) are cursive simplifications of the same system.

Sign system

The standard reference for classification is Alan Gardiner's Sign List (Egyptian Grammar, 1927; 3rd ed. 1957), which organizes ~760 common signs into 26 thematic categories labeled A–Z + Aa: A men/occupations, B women, C deities, D parts of the body, E mammals, F parts of mammals, G birds, H parts of birds, I amphibians/reptiles, K fish, L invertebrates, M plants, N sky/earth/water, O buildings, P boats, Q furniture, R temple/cult, S crowns/clothing, T weapons, U agriculture/crafts, V ropes/baskets, W vessels, X loaves, Y writing/music, Z strokes/geometric shapes, Aa unclassified signs. Each sign receives a code (e.g., G1 = vulture = ꜣ; N35 = ripple of water = n; S34 = ꜥnḫ). Phonograms: 24 uniliterals (the pseudo-"alphabet"), ~80 biliterals, and twenty to thirty triliterals. Phonetic complements: small redundant phonograms accompanying a bi-/triliteral to resolve ambiguity (e.g., nfr F35 often followed by f and r). Digital encoding: the Manuel de Codage (MdC) and the Unicode Egyptian Hieroglyphs block (U+13000–U+1342F, 1071 signs, introduced in Unicode 5.2, October 2009), subsequently extended (Unicode 12+ adds controls and extensions).

Phonology

The script is almost exclusively consonantal (like the Semitic scripts): vowels are not written, so vocalization is largely reconstructed (via Coptic, cuneiform/Greek transcriptions, and Afro-Asiatic comparison). Egyptologists use a conventional pronunciation for convenience (inserting an e between consonants; ꜣ and ꜥ read as a; j and w read as i/u). The consonantal inventory (classical Egyptological transliteration): ꜣ (aleph), j/ỉ (yod), y, ꜥ (ayin, a voiced pharyngeal), w, b, p, f, m, n, r, h, ḥ (pharyngeal), ḫ (velar), ẖ (palatal), z and s (sibilants originally distinct, later merged), š, q/ḳ (an emphatic uvular), k, g, t, ṯ (tj), d, ḏ (dj). A unified transliteration system (the so-called Leiden system) standardizes certain signs. Distinctions often neutralized in writing or in Middle Egyptian: z/s, t/ṯ, d/ḏ.

Grammar — essentials

An Afro-Asiatic language. Gender: masculine unmarked / feminine in -t (𓏏). Number: plural -w (often three strokes 𓏪 or tripling of the sign), dual -wj (m.)/-tj (f.), marked by two strokes (𓏭). No definite article in classical Middle Egyptian. Suffix pronouns (possessives and subjects): =j (1sg), =k (2sg m.), =ṯ (2sg f.), =f (3sg m.), =s (3sg f.), =n (1pl), =ṯn (2pl), =sn (3pl); plus dependent and independent pronouns. Genitive either direct (juxtaposition) or indirect with agreeing nj/nt/nw. Basic word order VSO. The verb comprises suffixal forms (sḏm=f, imperfective/aorist or perfective depending on spelling and context; sḏm.n=f, completed/past; prospective/subjunctive; passives sḏm.w, sḏm.tw; nominal emphatic forms). The stative (pseudo-participle) expresses a resultant state. Participles and relative forms exist. Negations: n + suffixal form, nn, tm (a negative auxiliary), m + infinitive (negative imperative). Key prepositions: m, n, r, ḥr, ḫr, ḏr. Pseudo-verbal constructions: subject + ḥr/m + infinitive (progressive), subject + r + infinitive (future).

Reading tips

Operational reading method: (1) Determine the direction: locate the oriented figurative signs (faces, birds); one reads toward them — if they face right, one reads right to left. In columns, read from top to bottom, column after column, following the same rule. (2) Segment the words (no spaces): locate the determinatives, which mark the END of a word and give its category (e.g., 𓀀 man, 𓊹 divine, 𓂻 legs = movement, 𓏤 stroke = logogram). (3) Transliterate each phonogram into consonants, grouping biliterals/triliterals and their phonetic complements (redundant: do not count them twice). (4) Do not look for written vowels; vocalization is conventional. (5) Recognize the cartouches (the royal name) and the fixed formulae (see the formulae). (6) Beware of honorific transposition: the name of a god or of the king is often written graphically at the head of a group/sentence although it is read afterward. (7) Check the gender (final -t) and the number (two strokes = dual, three strokes = plural). (8) Identify the predicate: a verbal form sḏm=f, a stative, or a non-verbal sentence (A pw "A is...", nominal). Always give the transliteration before the translation and flag uncertain readings.

Pitfalls

Major pitfalls for a reader or an automated engine: (1) Absence of vowels: all vocalization is a modern convention — never present a pronunciation as certain. (2) Absence of spaces and punctuation: segmentation into words depends on recognizing determinatives and known patterns. (3) Variable direction (right-to-left, left-to-right, columns): a misreading of the orientation reverses everything; rely on the orientation of the figures. (4) A single sign has several values (phonogram / logogram / determinative) depending on context — do not fix on a single value. (5) Redundant phonetic complements: do not read them as additional consonants (e.g., nfr+f+r reads as nfr). (6) Honorific transposition: gods/king written graphically ahead of their syntactic position. (7) Historical graphic confusions (z/s, t/ṯ, d/ḏ, ẖ/ḫ). (8) Rare signs and late spellings (Greco-Roman period) very different from the classical repertoire. (9) Gaps and damaged signs on the originals: mark [...] rather than fill them in. (10) False friends with Coptic for vocalization (Coptic reflects a late stage and dialectalization).

Decipherment history

After antiquity, the ability to read hieroglyphs was lost entirely for ~1400 years. Medieval and early modern attempts (including that of Athanasius Kircher, mid-17th century) failed, distorted by the mistaken idea of a purely symbolic/allegorical script. The turning point came with the Rosetta Stone, a priestly decree (the Memphis Decree, 196 BC) inscribed in three scripts (hieroglyphs, Demotic, Greek) for two languages (Egyptian and Greek), discovered in 1799 by Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt. The Greek, being legible, provided the key. The English physicist Thomas Young (from 1814 onward) established that the cartouches contain royal names written phonetically and identified several signs (including those of "Ptolemy"). Jean-François Champollion achieved the decisive breakthrough: announced on 27 September 1822 in his Lettre à M. Dacier, then systematized in his Précis du système hiéroglyphique (1824). His foundational findings: the script is mixed (phonetic + ideographic, not purely symbolic); the phonetic signs also apply to Egyptian names (not only foreign ones); and, above all, Pharaonic Egyptian is the ancestor of Coptic, which he had mastered, allowing sounds and meanings to be assigned. Comparison of the cartouches of Ptolemy (Rosetta) and Cleopatra (the Philae obelisk) confirmed the phonetic values. Modern grammar was subsequently founded by A. Erman and K. Sethe (the Berlin school) and then codified by A. Gardiner.

Common formulae & expressions

ḥtp-dj-nsw

"An offering which the king gives" — the introductory formula for funerary offerings, nearly ubiquitous on stelae and tombs.

ꜥnḫ wḏꜣ snb — a.w.s.

"Life, prosperity, health" — a wish following mention of the king/pharaoh (equivalent to "may he live...").

dj ꜥnḫ (ḏt)

"Given life (eternally)" — a royal epithet following the cartouches.

nsw-bjtj

"King of Upper and Lower Egypt" (lit. "he of the sedge and the bee") — a royal title preceding the throne name.

sꜣ Rꜥ

"Son of Re" — a title preceding the king's birth name within the cartouche.

ꜥnḫ ḏt

"May he live forever" — a wish for perpetuity.

mꜣꜥ-ḫrw

"True of voice / justified" — an epithet of the deceased who has succeeded in the judgment of Osiris.

ḥtp dj Wsjr

"An offering which Osiris gives" — a variant oriented toward the god of the dead.

nb tꜣwj

"Lord of the Two Lands" — a royal epithet (Upper + Lower Egypt).

Corpora & reference editions

• Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae (TLA), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (online lexical and textual corpus)
• Ramses Online / Projet Ramses (Late Egyptian, University of Liège)
• Coptic Scriptorium (for Coptic, downstream of Egyptian)
• Corpus of the Pyramid Texts (ed. Sethe) and the Coffin Texts (ed. de Buck)
• Online lexical resources (e.g., AED / dictionaries derived from the Wörterbuch)
• Unicode Egyptian Hieroglyphs (U+13000–) + Manuel de Codage (MdC) for encoding signs
• JSesh (free hieroglyph editor) and associated sign databases

Bibliographic references

• Alan H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, 1927 (3rd ed. 1957) — The absolute reference grammar and Sign List; the standard classification of signs (codes A1, N35...).
• James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2000 (3rd ed. 2014) — The standard modern pedagogical manual, widely used in English-language teaching.
• Raymond O. Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, 1962 — A handy reference dictionary of Middle Egyptian (Griffith Institute).
• Adolf Erman & Hermann Grapow, Wörterbuch der aegyptischen Sprache, 1926-1931 (5 vols.; Belegstellen 1935-1953) — The great historical dictionary of Egyptian (Berlin), the major lexicographic reference (abbreviated Wb.).
• Jean-Francois Champollion, Lettre à M. Dacier relative à l'alphabet des hiéroglyphes phonétiques, 1822 — The founding document of the decipherment of hieroglyphs (read before the Académie on 27 September 1822).
• Jean-Francois Champollion, Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens, 1824 — A systematic exposition of the deciphered writing system.
• Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, 1995 — A linguistic presentation of Egyptian within its Afro-Asiatic and diachronic framework.
• Pierre Grandet & Bernard Mathieu, Cours d'égyptien hiéroglyphique, ed. Kheops, 1990 (rev.) — The reference French-language manual for learning Middle Egyptian.
• Wolfgang Schenkel, Einführung in die altägyptische Sprachwissenschaft, 1990 — A German-language introduction to the linguistics of ancient Egyptian.