Coptic is the only stage of the language in which the spelling gives a clear idea of the pronunciation. It is therefore the mainstay of the scholar in investigating or restoring the word-forms of the ancient language. Greek transcriptions of Egyptian names and words are valuable as evidence for the vocalization of Egyptian. Such are found from the 6th century b.c. in the inscription of Abu Simbel, from the 5th in Herodotus, &c., and abound in Ptolemaic and later documents from the beginning of the 3rd century b.c. onwards. At first sight they may seem inaccurate, but on closer examination the Graecizing is seen to follow definite rules, especially in the Ptolemaic period. A few cuneiform transcriptions, reaching as far back as the XVIIIth Dynasty, give valuable hints as to how Egyptian was pronounced in the 15th century b.c. Coptic itself is of course quite inadequate to enable us to restore Old Egyptian. In it the Old Egyptian verbal forms are mostly replaced by periphrases; though the strong roots are often preserved entire, the weaker consonants and the צ have largely or entirely disappeared, so that the language appears as one of biliteral rather than triliteral roots. Coptic is strongly impregnated with Greek words adopted late; moreover, a certain number of Semitic loan-words flowed into Egyptian at all ages, and especially from the 16th century b.c. onwards, displacing earlier words. It is only by the most careful scrutiny, or the exercise of the most piercing insight, that the imperfectly spelled Egyptian has been made to yield up one grammatical secret after another in the light brought to bear upon it from Coptic. Demotic grammar ought soon to be thoroughly comprehensible in its forms, and the study of Late Egyptian should not stand far behind that of demotic. On the other hand, Middle Egyptian, and still more Old Egyptian, which is separated from Middle Egyptian by a wide gap, will perhaps always be to us little more than consonantal skeletons, the flesh and blood of their vocalization being for the most part irretrievably lost.[14]

In common with the Semitic languages, the Berber languages of North Africa, and the Cushite languages of North-East Africa, Egyptian of all periods possesses grammatical gender, expressing masculine and feminine. Singularly few language groups have this peculiarity; and our own great Indo-European group, which possesses it, is distinguished from those above mentioned by having the neuter gender in addition. The characteristic triliteral roots of all the Semitic languages seemed to separate them widely from others; but certain traits have caused the Egyptian, Berber and Cushite groups to be classed together as three subfamilies of a Hamitic group, remotely related to the Semitic. The biliteral character of Coptic, and the biliteralism which was believed to exist in Egyptian, led philologists to suspect that Egyptian might be a surviving witness to that far-off stage of the Semitic languages when triliteral roots had not yet been formed from presumed original biliterals; Sethe’s investigations, however, prove that the Coptic biliterals are themselves derived from Old Egyptian triliterals, and that the triliteral roots enormously preponderated in Egyptian of the earliest known form; that view is, therefore, no longer tenable. Many remarkable resemblances have been observed in the grammatical structure of the Berber and Cushite groups with Semitic (cf. H. Zimmern, Vergleichende Grammatik d. semitischen Sprachen, Berlin, 1898, especially pronouns and verbs); but the relationship must be very distant, and there are no ancient documents that can take back the history of any one of those languages more than a few centuries. Their connexion with Semitic and Egyptian, therefore, remains at present an obscure though probable hypothesis. On the other hand, Egyptian is certainly related to Semitic. Even before the triliterality of Old Egyptian was recognized, Erman showed that the so-called pseudo-participle had been really in meaning and in form a precise analogue of the Semitic perfect, though its original employment was almost obsolete in the time of the earliest known texts. Triliteralism is considered the most essential and most peculiar feature of Semitic. But there are, besides, many other resemblances in structure between the Semitic languages and Egyptian, so that, although the two vocabularies present few points of clear contact, there is reason to believe that Egyptian was originally a characteristic member of the Semitic family of languages. See Erman, “Das Verhältnis d. ägyptischen zu d. semitischen Sprachen” (Zeitschrift d. deutschen morgenl. Gesellschaft, 1892); Zimmern, Vergl. Gram., 1898; Erman, “Flexion d. ägyptischen Verbums” (Sitzungsberichte d. Berl. Akad., 1900). The Egyptians proper are not, and so far as we can tell never were, Semitic in physical feature. As a possible explanation of the facts, Erman supposes that a horde of conquering Semites, like the Arabs of a later day, imposed their language on the country, but disappeared, being weakened by the climate or absorbed by the native population. The latter acquired the Semitic language imperfectly from their conquerors; they expressed the verbal conjugations by periphrases, mispronounced the consonants, and so changed greatly the appearance of the vocabulary, which also would certainly contain a large proportion of native non-Semitic roots. Strong consonants gave place to weak consonants (as

has done to

, in the modern Arabic of Egypt), and then the weak consonants disappearing altogether produced biliterals from the triliterals. Much of this must have taken place, according to the theory, in the prehistoric period; but the loss of weak consonants, of ע and of one of two repeated consonants, and the development of periphrastic conjugations continued to the end. The typical Coptic root thus became biliteral rather than triliteral, and the verb, by means of periphrases, developed tenses of remarkable precision. Such verbal resemblances as exist between Coptic and Semitic are largely due to late exchanges with Semitic neighbours.

The following sketch of the Egyptian language, mainly in its earliest form, which dates from some three or four thousand years b.c., is founded upon Erman’s works. It will serve to contrast with Coptic grammar on the one hand and Semitic grammar on the other.

The Egyptian Alphabet

= l; so conventionally transcribed since it unites two values, being sometimes y but often א (especially at the beginning of words), and from the earliest times used in a manner corresponding to the Arabic hamza, to indicate a prosthetic vowel. Often lost.
and are frequently employed for y.
= ’(א); easily lost or changes to y.
= ’(ע); lost in Coptic. This rare sound, well known in Semitic, occurs also in Berber and Cushite languages.
= w; often changes to y.
= b.
= p.
= f.
= m.
= n.
= r; often lost, or changes to y. r and l are distinguished in later demotic and in Coptic.
= h distinction lost in Coptic.
= ḥ    ”      ”
= h; in Coptic ϣ (sh) or Ϧ (kh) correspond to it.
= ḫ; generally written with (š) in the Old Kingdom, but corresponds to kh in Coptic.
= s distinction lost at the end of the Old Kingdom.
= ś    ”      ”      ”
= š (sh).
= q; Coptic κ.
= k Coptic κ; or ϭ, ϫ, according to dialect.
= g Coptic κ; or ϭ.
= ṯ; often lost at the end of words.
= t (θ); often changes to t, otherwise Coptic ϯ; or ϫ, ϭ.
= d; in Coptic reduced to t.
= ḏ (z); often changes to d, Coptic ϯ; otherwise in Coptic ϫ.

ROOTS