730
by too much Greek, duplicating and too often expelling native expressions that were already adequate for its very simple requirements. Above all, it is absurdly and clumsily pleonastic. The Writing. The ancient Egyptian system of writing, so far as we know, originated, developed, and finally expired strictly within the limits of the Nile Valley. The germ of its existence may have come from without, but, as we know it, it is essentially Egyptian and intended for the expression of the Egyptian language. About the 2nd century B.c. the semi-barbarous inhabitants of Ethiopia contrived to adapt it to their own idiom in modified forms of hieroglyphic and demotic, which are still undecipherable, and the demotic writing of Ethiopia may have been employed as late as the 5 th or 6 th century a.d. Egyptian hieroglyphic was carried by conquest into Syria, certainly under the XIXth Dynasty, and again under the XXVIth for the engraving of Egyptian inscriptions ; but in the earlier period the cuneiform syllabary, and in the later the “ Phoenician ” alphabet, had obtained a firm hold there, and we may be sure that no attempt was made to substitute the Egyptian system for either of these. In very early times a number of systems of writing already reigned in different countries forming a compact and not very large area—fr0m South Arabia to Asia Minor, and from Persia to Crete and Egypt. Whether they all sprang from one common stock of picture-writing we shall perhaps never know, nor can we as yet trace the influence which one great system may have had on another. From the evidence at present available, it seems likely that Egyptian hieroglyphic was not the direct ancestor of any system outside the valley of the Nile. It is certain that the mode of writing in Egypt from the IVth Dynasty onwards was essentially the same as that which was extinguished by the fall of paganism in the 4th century a.d. Its elements in the hieroglyphic form are pictorial, but each hieroglyph has one or more welldefined functions, fixed by convention in such a manner that the Egyptian language is expressed word by word. Although a picture sign may at times have embarrassed the skilled native reader by offering a choice of fixed values or functions, it was never intended to convey merely an idea, so as to leave to him the task of putting the idea into his own words. How far this holds good for the period before the IVth Dynasty it is difficult to say. The known inscriptions of the earlier times are so brief and so limited in range that the mode of writing them cannot yet be fully investigated. As far back as the 1st Dynasty, phonograms (see below) were in full use. But the spelling then was very concise : it is possible that some of the slighter words, such as prepositions, were omitted in the writing and were intended to be supplied from the context. As a whole, we gain the impression that a really distinct and more primitive stage of hieroglyphic writing by a substantially vaguer notation of words lay not far behind the time of the 1st Dynasty. The employments of the signs are of three kinds : each represents (1) a whole word ; or (2) a sound as part of a word ; or (3) pictorially defines the meaning of a word the sound of which has already been given by a sign or group of signs preceding. For instance, i1""11*11! is the conventional picture of a draughtboard (shown in plan), with the draughtsmen (shown in elevation) on its edge :—this sign (1) signifies the word mn, “set,” “firm” ; or (2), ■ mmin. in the group ^ , represents the same sound as part of the word mrih, “good” ; or (3), in the group a/ww
[the WRITING.
EGYPTOLOGY
snt, it shows that
the meaning is a “draughtboard,” or “draughts.” Thus signs, according to their employment, are said to be (1) “word-signs, (2) “phonograms,” or (3) “determinatives.” Word-Signs.—The word-sign value of a sign is, in the first place,
the name of the object it represents, or of some material, or quality, or action, or idea suggested by it. Thus ^ Is “ face ” ; ^, a vase of ointment, is mrh.t, “ointment” ; c=j is wdb, ‘ ‘ turn. ” Much investigation is still required to establish the origins of the values of the signs ; in some cases the connexion between the pictures and the primary values seems to be curiously remote. Probably all the signs in the hieroglyphic signary can be employed in their primary sense. The secondary value expresses the consonantal root of the name, and any, or almost any, derivative from that root: as when _ 0— , a mat with a cake upon it, is not only Mjp, an “offering-mat,” but also htp in the sense of “conciliation,” “peace,” “rest,” “setting” (of the sun), with many derivatives. In the third place, some signs may be transferred to express another root having the same consonants as the first: thus $) } the ear, by a play upon words can express not only Mm, “hear,” but also Mm, “paint the eyes.” Phonograms.—Only a limited number of signs are found with this use, but they are of the greatest importance. By searching throughout the whole mass of inscriptions, earlier than the periods of Greek and Roman rule, when great liberties were taken with the writing, probably no more than one hundred different phonograms can be found. The number of those commonly employed in good writing is between seventy and eighty. The most important phonograms are the uniliteral or alphabetic signs, twenty-four in number in the Old Kingdom and without any homophones : later these were increased by homophones to thirty. Of biliteral phonograms—each expressing a combination of two consonants—there were about fifty commonly used : some fifteen or twenty were rarely used. As Egyptian roots seldom exceeded three letters, there was no need for triliteral phonograms to spell them. There is, however, one triliteral phonogram, the eagle,
, tyw, or tiu (?), used for the
plural ending of adjectives in y formed from words ending in t (whether radical or the feminine ending). The phonetic values of the signs are derived from their wordsign values and consist usually of the bare root, though there are rare examples of the retention of a flexional ending; they often ignore also the weaker consonants of the root, and on the same principle reduce a repeated consonant to a single one, as when the hoe K, hnn, has the phonetic value 7m. The history of some of the alphabetic signs is still very obscure, but a sufficient number of them have been explained to make it nearly1 certain that the values of all were obtained on the same principles. Some of the ancient words from which the phonetic values were derived probably fell very early into disuse, and may never be discoverable in the texts that have come down to us. The following are among those most easily explained:— 1 [j , reed flower, value y and X ; from (j > V > reed. (It seems as if the two values y and X are obtained by choosing first one and then the other of the two semi-consonants composing the name.) , '(])), “hand.” I, forearm, value v) ; from r, “mouth.”
, mouth,
, Ti-t, “belly.”
- £-«=», belly and teats, = h ;
(The feminine ending is here, as usual, neglected.) i
1, tank, /] , slope,
value 2 ; from = f? >
1
>> d
(The doubled weak consonant is here neglected.) r—»=~^3, hand, value d; from
, b “tank.” “slope,’ “ height.’ “hand.
cobra.” cobra, "1' For some alphabetic signs more than one likely origin might be found, while for others, again, no clear evidence of origin is yet forthcoming. 1 “ Acrophony ” (giving to a sign the value of the first letter of name) was indulged in only by priests of the latest age inventing la tastic modes of writing their “ vain repetitions ” on the temple wai •
