Re: Ancient Egyptian Orthography (Was: Conlang orthographies [was Re: Latin grammar])

En réponse à David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:

>     Anyway, you know how some languages have class systems, right?
> Bantu
> languages have a bunch, for example.  Well Ancient Egyptian has
> orthographical class systems.  It's really weird.
Hehe, I find it one of the nicest feature of the Egyptian writing.

>     One interesting determinative is the bar determinative.  So, say you
> have
> the consonant /r/, which looks like an oval that's pointed on the long
> ends
> (shaped like a mouth).  It can make the sound /r/, but if you put the
> bar
> determinative under it, it becomes the word for "mouth", /re/ or /rA/.
> The
> bar determinative tells you that the hieroglyph is standing for what it
> looks
> like.  But, of course, it has no phonetic value.
It is also used with determinatives to give them back their phonetic value.

>     Similarly, there are three alphabets for Egyptian: One of
> uniliterals
> (just an alphabet, like English: One hieroglyph = one sound); one of
> biliterals (each hieroglyph stands for two consonants, so, for example,
> the
> house shaped one stands for /pr/); and one for triliterals (each
> hieroglyph
> stands for three consonants, like the Ankh, which I'm sure everyone
> knows the
> look of, which is /?\nx/, where /?\/ is a pharyngeal approximant).  Now,
> with
> the latter two alphabets, you think it'd be more efficient, so if you've
> got
> the word Ankh (which means "life"), you just write the /?\nx/
> triliteral,
> right?  Wrong!  Egyptian has this funny thing called phonetic
> complements.
> What you actually write for the word for life is the triliteral /?\nx/
> (the
> ankh), followed by the water waves (phonetic value of /n/), followed by
> the
> ball with horizontal lines (phonetic value of /x/). The word is not
> pronounced /?\nxnx/, though; just /?\nx/.  The phonetic complements are
> just
> there to remind the reader of some of the phonetic elements of the bi
> or
> triliteral.
Yep. That's due to the fact that often the same sign can be used as uniliteral
or bi/triliteral. For instance, the name "Amon" (which contains the "god"
determinative of course :)) ) is written with the hieroglyph for "mn", which is
supposed to look like a papyrus field (to me it looks like a rectangle with
teeth on top ;)) ). But this hieroglyph can also stand only for "m". So to
remind that it has to be pronounced completely, the little water waves "n" are
added.

Redundancy rules!!! ;)))

  Sometimes you just put one phonetic complement; sometimes
> two;
> sometimes none at all.  And sometimes they're written before the bi or
> triliteral, and sometimes afterwards.  It all depends on what looks
> good.
Calligraphy is what stands in Egyptian for orthography. I think the original
use of the phonetic complements was just to make the words fit in cartouches
and look nice and balanced. Being used so often, people began to forget that
some of the sign actually stood up for more than one consonant, and the
aesthetic additions suddenly took also the role of phonetic complements,
reminding people of the actual reading of the principal character.

> But the point is, these are extra elements that are purely orthographic
> and
> have no bearing on the language itself.
Hehe, nice exercise for a conlanger: imagine a language to which the Egyptian
writing system is actually phonemic ;))) .

  This (and especially the
> determinatives, since it's like a whole class system that exists solely
> on
> papyrus) seems like some interesting stuff that could go into a conlang
> in
> some form.
I've toyed with the use of silent endings in Maggel words to separate
homophones. But it didn't go far yet since I just don't have enough vocabulary
to have homophones ;))) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.