Re: Ancient Egyptian writng

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
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