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Re: Ancient Egyptian writng

From:R A Brown <ray@...>
Date:Sunday, January 15, 2006, 21:59
Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> The main sources for Egyptian vowels are Coptic, Greek and > Cuneiform spellings of Egyptian names.
I know ;)
> It seems a comparison > of theese suggests that vowels changed quite a bit through the > ages.
It would, indeed, be surprising IMO if this were not so. Vowels do on the whole seems more susceptible to change & dialect variation (as witnessed by the numerous YAEDTs on this list) than consonants. (Yes, I do know consonants can shift also). I imagine Egyptians under the Ptolemies would have found the _spoken_ language of the Old Kingdom very difficult to understand.
> See > > Author Loprieno, Antonio > Title Ancient egyptian : a linguistic introduction / Antonio Loprieno > Publication Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995 > Material Information xv, 322 s. : tab. > ISBN 0521443849 (inb.) > ISBN 0521448492 (hft.)
If Mr Loprieno also says that the main sources for Egyptian vowels are Coptic, Greek and Cuneiform spellings of Egyptian names, that would seem to support my earlier statement about the phonetic symbols indicating only vowels. I know some people think the use of |jj| (usually transcribed as |y| in anglophone circles) indicated [i:], and that initial |j| (usually transcribe in anglophone circles as an 'i' with a hook above it like the Greek "smooth breathing") had become silent and was a 'vowel carrier' - but these are marginal instances. In any case, a 'vowel carrier' doesn't of itself indicate what the vowel was. -- Ray ================================== ray@carolandray.plus.com http://www.carolandray.plus.com ================================== MAKE POVERTY HISTORY