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Peust, Carsten
Egyptian phonology: an introduction to the phonology of a dead language — Göttingen, 1999

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1167#0106
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base for the Coptic forms (s>\dAxe, bAdJH2., fAeese).110

There are some words in which <l> following <h> developed into <r> in the Middle Kingdom

(rule by Wolfgang Schenkel, personal communication):

• %c.w "treasuries" (since OK) > *ihr.w^ > s&20Xl)p, b^o.(l)p

• h'p'i "Nile" (since OK) is also written hrp (and hpr with graphical metathesis) in the
MK (Wb III 42 and de Buck 1935-1961: VII, 346c B3C) (not preserved in Coptic)

• dh' "leather" (since MK), also written d,hr since MKlla (not preserved in Coptic)
There are a few more words in which <S is represented as p, \, or N in Coptic outside this
condition, which seems to be due to a later process:

• 'hmw ~ csmw ~ 'hmw "twigs" > b^&Se.A\ (for the Egyptian word see von Deines &
Grapow 1959: io8f.; etymology by Vycichl 1990: 110)

• sml'.ti "to be praised (stative)" > bC»\d>.p(0O'irT (uncertain; for an alternative
etymology cf. Cerny 1971: 46)

• di.t-*sl "to multiply" > sT&UJO, bTAU[0~TdJ-lUJO

• Perhaps: s>'-i.iri.t-f (end of New Kingdom) "until he does" > Demotic s't-f ~ s'mt-f
> HJJdvNT-H-, aUJ^T€-tJ-, huj&Te-H- ~ (more rarely) M^ANTe-^- (conjugational prefix
terminative 3.sg.masc). I assume, however, that the forms with N are actually
derived from Late Egyptian/ Demotic (r)-sF-m-dr- "since (has been doing)", cf. de
Cenival (1984: 22of.) and Cerny & Groll (1998: §§ 32.6-32.8).

3.6.4.5 Interchange with <z>

There are rare cases of graphical confusion between <c> and <z>, e.g.:

• 'bs ~ zbs "to drown" (both Old Kingdom, see Allen 1984: 554)

• qi' "to vomit" (since MK) > sK&.-BO&, attested as qh in the early New Kingdom and
again in Ptolemaic Neo-Middle Egyptian (see Westendorf 1962: §3i-7)

See in general Kammerzell (1991c: 10, 12 and 1992/93: 249) where additional examples
are cited. Kammerzell assumes that we have an inherited phoneme /z/~/8/ (or similar)
here for which Egyptian had no distinct grapheme. Another possible assumption would be
that the sound shift /d/ > /?/ proceeded through an intermediate stage /3/ (or similarly)
which evoked occasional writing variants with <z>.

110 On this word see Vycichl (1983: i32). Vycichl (1940: 81) argues that <S does not
express a consonant here but merely indicates the feature which surfaces as a
double vowel in Coptic (vowel length in my interpretation). While this might be a
possible function of Demotic <'>, I hesitate to assume that <S could already express
mere vowel length in the New Kingdom since we would expect many more writings
with unetymological <*> in that case.

111 Not attested as such, but the phrase m-'h'.w-j "by my treasuries" in the Story of
Sinuhe is miswritten as m-hr-j "in my face" in two Ramesside manuscripts, cf. Cerny
(1942: 335f.) and Koch (1990: 53).

112 See Devaud & Sethe (1910: i63), Jansen-Winkeln (1996: §50), and the attestations
in de Buck (1935-1961: IV 12b and V 86a, 88b).

106
 
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