DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1167#0014
roots here.1
The indigenous Egyptian scripts are complex systems in which several graphemic
subtypes coexist. Furthermore, while most scripts in the world have different styles for
casual writing on the one hand and for printing or careful inscriptions on the other, few of
them show deep structural divergences in their writing modes as does Egyptian. In
general the study of graphemic theory can certainly profit from taking Egyptian into
consideration.
Despite all these factors, the popularity of Egyptian among scholars with a general
linguistic background is quite low. The reasons for this are diverse. For example, the
complex writing system may seem to many a high barrier to overcome prior to any exami-
nation of the language proper, even though the difficulties in interpreting the Egyptian
script are not in principle different from the difficulties in interpreting written records of
any extinct languages. Another reason is the fact that Egyptology has developed a rather
idiosyncratic style in describing the language which is not easily accessible to scholars
who have not been educated in this discipline. More recently, however, scholars have be-
gun to describe Egyptian specifically for a linguistic audience (cf. especially Schenkel
1990, Loprieno 1995, and Kammerzell 1998a).
This book is intended to help readers with a general linguistic background become famili-
ar with the basic issues and principal problems of one subdiscipline of the Egyptian lan-
guage: its phonology. I presuppose the general notions of structuralist phonology as deve-
loped by the Prague circle, but adhere to no specific school of modern phonology. Rather,
descriptions are frequently presented from a typological perspective. I hope that the book
will enable linguists and philologists specialized in fields other than Egyptian to access
and interpret Egyptian evidence and integrate it into their own particular studies.
The notion of definiteness is an important grammatical category in the languages of
modern Western Europe and the Mediterranean. The languages of this area have
morphological markers to express the definiteness or indefiniteness of a noun phrase
(definite vs. indefinite articles). However in most languages throughout the world,
there is no specific morphological category which corresponds to our definite or
indefinite article. Instead, definiteness or indefiniteness is either not expressed at
all, or may interact with various categories as diverse as case, verbal agreement, or
word order. The idea to consider the presence of a definite article an areal feature is
due to Martin Haspelmath (lecture in Goettingen, 1997). The development of a
definite article can be observed in Egyptian during the 2nd millenium bc. Afterwards
it is attested from Semitic, even later from Greek whence it seems to have spread to
other parts of Europe in the course of christianization.
In Egyptian and most languages which once aquired a definite article, the numeral
"one" was grammaticalized at a later date to develop into an indefinite article. In
several modern languages of the Middle East and India (e.g. Turkish, Persian, and
Hindi) the numeral "one" is used in an extended function coming close to an
indefinite article, whereas a definite article is missing. This is probably another
areal feature which may or may not be historically connected to Egyptian.
14
The indigenous Egyptian scripts are complex systems in which several graphemic
subtypes coexist. Furthermore, while most scripts in the world have different styles for
casual writing on the one hand and for printing or careful inscriptions on the other, few of
them show deep structural divergences in their writing modes as does Egyptian. In
general the study of graphemic theory can certainly profit from taking Egyptian into
consideration.
Despite all these factors, the popularity of Egyptian among scholars with a general
linguistic background is quite low. The reasons for this are diverse. For example, the
complex writing system may seem to many a high barrier to overcome prior to any exami-
nation of the language proper, even though the difficulties in interpreting the Egyptian
script are not in principle different from the difficulties in interpreting written records of
any extinct languages. Another reason is the fact that Egyptology has developed a rather
idiosyncratic style in describing the language which is not easily accessible to scholars
who have not been educated in this discipline. More recently, however, scholars have be-
gun to describe Egyptian specifically for a linguistic audience (cf. especially Schenkel
1990, Loprieno 1995, and Kammerzell 1998a).
This book is intended to help readers with a general linguistic background become famili-
ar with the basic issues and principal problems of one subdiscipline of the Egyptian lan-
guage: its phonology. I presuppose the general notions of structuralist phonology as deve-
loped by the Prague circle, but adhere to no specific school of modern phonology. Rather,
descriptions are frequently presented from a typological perspective. I hope that the book
will enable linguists and philologists specialized in fields other than Egyptian to access
and interpret Egyptian evidence and integrate it into their own particular studies.
The notion of definiteness is an important grammatical category in the languages of
modern Western Europe and the Mediterranean. The languages of this area have
morphological markers to express the definiteness or indefiniteness of a noun phrase
(definite vs. indefinite articles). However in most languages throughout the world,
there is no specific morphological category which corresponds to our definite or
indefinite article. Instead, definiteness or indefiniteness is either not expressed at
all, or may interact with various categories as diverse as case, verbal agreement, or
word order. The idea to consider the presence of a definite article an areal feature is
due to Martin Haspelmath (lecture in Goettingen, 1997). The development of a
definite article can be observed in Egyptian during the 2nd millenium bc. Afterwards
it is attested from Semitic, even later from Greek whence it seems to have spread to
other parts of Europe in the course of christianization.
In Egyptian and most languages which once aquired a definite article, the numeral
"one" was grammaticalized at a later date to develop into an indefinite article. In
several modern languages of the Middle East and India (e.g. Turkish, Persian, and
Hindi) the numeral "one" is used in an extended function coming close to an
indefinite article, whereas a definite article is missing. This is probably another
areal feature which may or may not be historically connected to Egyptian.
14