DOI Artikel:
Albright, William Foxwell: The principles of Egyptian phonological development
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12747#0075
[2] THE PRINGIPLES OF EGYPTIAN PHONOLOGIGAL DEVELOPMENT. 65
This table présents, on the one hand, the Semitic consonants corresponding to a
given Egyptian one, and, on the other, the Goptic ones derived in various words
from the same Egyptian consonant; the striking parallelism should go far to con-
vince, even without giving seiections from our thousands of etymologies. Like ail
languages with a very long linguistic history, as Greek, Egyptian présents in the
course of its remarkably long évolution from Semitic (from before 5ooo B.C.
to 5oo A.D.) some curious phonetic cycles, as, e. g., b^m^b, /W,
s> bz> s.
The history of Egyptian etymology has been a very unusual one. Owing to its
extremely early séparation from the main body of the Semitic languages, Egyptian
differs most from its sister tongues in the places where we should, a priori, most
expect agreement, in the names of relationship, the names of parts of the body, and
the mimerais. Yet several names of relationship are related, we have now identified
nearly fifly names of parts of the body, and the divergence in the numerals, though
considérable, is no greater than between Amharic and the other Semitic languages,
and yet ail thèse strange appearing forms in Amharic are Semitic, if we examine
carefully. The number of Proto-Semitic words exclusive of verbs which have sur-
vived, often in much altered form, in Coptic does not exceed a hundred, at the
outside, yet when we consider the fact that less than twenty per cent of the old
Egyptian vocabulary has survived in Coptic, this is hardly surprising. The study of
Egypto-Semitic etymology must proceed by the comparison of triliteral stems with
the corresponding Semitic, and often, in the case of the weak stems, by the com-
parison of the underlying roots, invariably biliteral with weak verbs. There will
always be left a residuum of words which cannot be directly combined, as in ail
Semitic languages; this is made up of foreign loan-words and of blend-formations
peculiar to the individual language. Owing especially to some abnormal combinatory
changes in the numerals which misled them, the first students in this field made a
great many impossible combinations, and so less than half of the words given in
Erman's first list can now be combined as done by him, mainly following Brugsch.
The writer's first list was seriously vitiated by the same tendency, as were also Ember's
first papers; the phonetic laws had yet to be found. As mentioned above, Holma's
first list is practically useless, containing only one good new etymology, pth ccover-
throw,i and Assyr. fyatâpu; we may hope for excellent work from the distinguished
Finnish philologist as soon as he becomes acquainted with the phonetic laws, those
implacable judges of truth and error in philology.
(1) It is often supposée! lhal l survived througli Ibis whole period, but was written with tbe same cbaracler
as n. That tliis cannot be so is shown by the fact that, while the Egyptians indeed employed n to transcribe
Sera. I in the Old Empire, they used a combination of n and r for this purpose in the New Empire. In the
Arabie of the Maghrib there is a strong tendency to change / to n, just as in Egyptian. Moreover, in Coptic,
\ often corresponds etymologicaily to Sem. n, and only occasionally to Semitic /.
Recueil, t. XL. — Troisième série, t. VIII. g
This table présents, on the one hand, the Semitic consonants corresponding to a
given Egyptian one, and, on the other, the Goptic ones derived in various words
from the same Egyptian consonant; the striking parallelism should go far to con-
vince, even without giving seiections from our thousands of etymologies. Like ail
languages with a very long linguistic history, as Greek, Egyptian présents in the
course of its remarkably long évolution from Semitic (from before 5ooo B.C.
to 5oo A.D.) some curious phonetic cycles, as, e. g., b^m^b, /W,
s> bz> s.
The history of Egyptian etymology has been a very unusual one. Owing to its
extremely early séparation from the main body of the Semitic languages, Egyptian
differs most from its sister tongues in the places where we should, a priori, most
expect agreement, in the names of relationship, the names of parts of the body, and
the mimerais. Yet several names of relationship are related, we have now identified
nearly fifly names of parts of the body, and the divergence in the numerals, though
considérable, is no greater than between Amharic and the other Semitic languages,
and yet ail thèse strange appearing forms in Amharic are Semitic, if we examine
carefully. The number of Proto-Semitic words exclusive of verbs which have sur-
vived, often in much altered form, in Coptic does not exceed a hundred, at the
outside, yet when we consider the fact that less than twenty per cent of the old
Egyptian vocabulary has survived in Coptic, this is hardly surprising. The study of
Egypto-Semitic etymology must proceed by the comparison of triliteral stems with
the corresponding Semitic, and often, in the case of the weak stems, by the com-
parison of the underlying roots, invariably biliteral with weak verbs. There will
always be left a residuum of words which cannot be directly combined, as in ail
Semitic languages; this is made up of foreign loan-words and of blend-formations
peculiar to the individual language. Owing especially to some abnormal combinatory
changes in the numerals which misled them, the first students in this field made a
great many impossible combinations, and so less than half of the words given in
Erman's first list can now be combined as done by him, mainly following Brugsch.
The writer's first list was seriously vitiated by the same tendency, as were also Ember's
first papers; the phonetic laws had yet to be found. As mentioned above, Holma's
first list is practically useless, containing only one good new etymology, pth ccover-
throw,i and Assyr. fyatâpu; we may hope for excellent work from the distinguished
Finnish philologist as soon as he becomes acquainted with the phonetic laws, those
implacable judges of truth and error in philology.
(1) It is often supposée! lhal l survived througli Ibis whole period, but was written with tbe same cbaracler
as n. That tliis cannot be so is shown by the fact that, while the Egyptians indeed employed n to transcribe
Sera. I in the Old Empire, they used a combination of n and r for this purpose in the New Empire. In the
Arabie of the Maghrib there is a strong tendency to change / to n, just as in Egyptian. Moreover, in Coptic,
\ often corresponds etymologicaily to Sem. n, and only occasionally to Semitic /.
Recueil, t. XL. — Troisième série, t. VIII. g