Re: Revived Egyptian (was: Ah-ha! New computer, YANC and fluency)

At 16:51 13.4.2000 -0500, Terrence Donnelly wrote:
 >Subject:        Ftaa, Språk Fornegyptiska
 >               ^^^^


Funny the Swedish Library Catalog Code for Egyptian looks like a Coptic
word, don't you think? :-)

>Already got it!
>
> >Working backwards from Coptic vocalism isn't easy, as Lepsius pointed out!
> >
> >The traditional egyptologist pronunciation with zero = /e/,  3 and ` = /a/
> >and w = /u/ has something going for it to us who speak pharyngeal-deprived
> >tongues.  Maybe one could use /o/ for 3 or ` to distinguish them.  Yikes, I
>
>It seems that 3 and ' aren't vowels at all.  3 was most likely /n/, and
>' is a glottal stop!
According to whom?  AFAIK 3 is glottal stop (2alif) voiced pharyngeal
fricative (9ayn).  Loprieno says 3 was originally /R/, tho I don't quite
see what he bases it on.  If so it would explain the fact that AA *r and *l
merged, but probably they would have been both [l] rather than [r] to begin
with.  If _h was originally a voiceless lateral fricative then 3 might well
have been its voiced counterpart rather than /R/.

Anyway the trad. pronunciation of approximants as vowels isn't all that far
out, since that actually happened in several AA languages: Vj and Vw
diphthongs monophthongized into i: and u:, 2alif and 9ayn disappeared,
leaving darker versions of vowels as phonemes.  Even in Coptic vicinity to
old 3 and ` gives vowels different qualities than /2/ from other sources or
non-guttural consonants.

My idea for 3 "o" builds on the fact that Danish /R/ colors a preceding /@/
as /O/.  Also since m3`t was something like [mu2a] in late Egyptian
[moa(t)] seems a reasonable mnemonic, and it *is* helpful to be able to
tell 3 and ` apart when memorizing vocabulary, don't you think?  I for one
memorize sounds rather than spellings, mostly.

BTW I would be quite pleased to revive Coptic.  Cool lang and the coolest
Greek-derived script around!




/BP

 B.Philip Jonsson  <mailto:bpj@...>bpj@netg.se
<mailto:melroch@...>melroch@my-deja.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__
            Anant' avanaute quettalmar!               \ \
   __  ____ ____    _____________  ___ __   __ __     / /
   \ \/___ \\__ \  /___  _____/\ \\__ \\ \  \ \\ \   / /
   / /   / /  /  \    / /Melroch\ \_/ // /  / // /  / /
  / /___/ /_ / /\ \  / /Melarocco\_  // /__/ // /__/ /
 /_________//_/  \_\/ /Eowine__   / / \___/\_\\___/\_\
I neer Pityancalimeo\ \_____/ /ar/ /_atar Mercasso naan
~~~~~~~~~Cuinondil~~~\_______/~~~\__/~~~Noolendur~~~~~~
|| Lenda lenda pellalenda pellatellenda cuivie aiya! ||
"A coincidence, as we say in Middle-Earth" (JRR Tolkien)