The Egyptian language can be grouped thus: • Egyptian • Earlier Egyptian, Older Egyptian, or Classical Egyptian • Old Egyptian • Early Egyptian, Early Old Egyptian, Archaic Old Egyptian, Pre-Old Egyptian, or archaic Egyptian • standard Old Egyptian • Middle Egyptian • Later Egyptian • Late Egyptian • Demotic Egyptian •
Coptic The Egyptian language is conventionally grouped into six major
chronological divisions: • Archaic Egyptian (before ), the
reconstructed language of the
Early Dynastic Period, • Old Egyptian (), the language of the
Old Kingdom, • Middle Egyptian (), the language of the
Middle Kingdom to early
New Kingdom and continuing on as a
literary language into the 4th century AD, • Late Egyptian (),
Amarna period to
Third Intermediate Period, • Demotic Egyptian (), the vernacular of the
Late Period,
Ptolemaic and early
Roman Egypt, •
Coptic (after ), the vernacular at the time of
Christianisation, and the liturgical language of
Egyptian Christianity. Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using both the
hieroglyphic and
hieratic scripts.
Demotic is the name of the script derived from the hieratic beginning in the 7th century BC. The
Coptic alphabet was derived from the
Greek alphabet, with adaptations for Egyptian phonology. It was first developed in the
Ptolemaic period, and gradually replaced the Demotic script in about the 4th to 5th centuries of the Christian era. s of Egyptian by time period and linguistic
register Old Egyptian , containing the oldest known complete sentence in Egyptian, c. 2690 BC The term "Archaic Egyptian" is sometimes reserved for the earliest use of hieroglyphs, from the late fourth through the early third millennia BC. At the earliest stage, around 3300 BC, hieroglyphs were not a fully developed
writing system, being at a transitional stage of
proto-writing; over the time leading up to the 27th century BC, grammatical features such as
nisba formation can be seen to occur. Old Egyptian is dated from the oldest known complete sentence, including a
finite verb, which has been found. Discovered in the tomb of
Seth-Peribsen (dated ), the seal impression reads: : Extensive texts appear from about 2600 BC. An early example is the
Diary of Merer. The
Pyramid Texts are the largest body of literature written in this phase of the language. One of its distinguishing characteristics is the tripling of
ideograms, phonograms, and
determinatives to indicate the plural. Overall, it does not differ significantly from Middle Egyptian, the classical stage of the language, though it is based on a different dialect. In the period of the 3rd dynasty (), many of the principles of hieroglyphic writing were regularized. From that time on, until the script was supplanted by an early version of Coptic (about the third and fourth centuries), the system remained virtually unchanged. Even the number of signs used remained constant at about 700 for more than 2,000 years.
Middle Egyptian Middle Egyptian was spoken for about 700 years, beginning around 2000 BC, during the
Middle Kingdom and the subsequent
Second Intermediate Period. As the classical variant of Egyptian, Middle Egyptian is the best-documented variety of the language, and has attracted the most attention by far from
Egyptology. While most Middle Egyptian is seen written on monuments by hieroglyphs, it was also written using a
cursive variant, and the related
hieratic. Middle Egyptian first became available to modern scholarship with the
decipherment of hieroglyphs in the early 19th century. The first grammar of Middle Egyptian was published by
Adolf Erman in 1894, surpassed in 1927 by
Alan Gardiner's work. Middle Egyptian has been well-understood since then, although certain points of the
verbal inflection remained open to revision until the mid-20th century, notably due to the contributions of
Hans Jakob Polotsky. The Middle Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 14th century BC, giving rise to Late Egyptian. This transition was taking place in the later period of the
Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (known as the
Amarna Period).
Egyptien de tradition Original Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian texts were still used after the 14th century BCE. And an emulation of predominately Middle Egyptian, but also with characteristics of Old Egyptian, Late Egyptian and Demotic, called "" or "Neo-Middle Egyptian" by scholars, was used as a literary language for new texts since the later
New Kingdom in official and religious
hieroglyphic and hieratic texts in preference to Late Egyptian or Demotic.
Égyptien de tradition as a religious language survived until the Christianisation of
Roman Egypt in the 4th century.
Late Egyptian Late Egyptian was spoken for about 650 years, beginning around 1350 BC, during the
New Kingdom of Egypt. Late Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplant
Middle Egyptian as a
literary language, and was also the language of the New Kingdom administration. Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the
Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt and later. Late Egyptian is represented by a large body of religious and secular
literature, comprising such examples as the
Story of Wenamun, the love poems of the Chester–Beatty I papyrus, and the
Instruction of Any.
Instructions became a popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, which took the form of advice on proper behavior. Late Egyptian was also the language of New Kingdom administration. Late Egyptian is not completely distinct from Middle Egyptian, as many "classicisms" appear in historical and literary documents of this phase. However, the difference between Middle and Late Egyptian is greater than the difference between Middle and Old Egyptian. Originally a
synthetic language, Egyptian by the Late Egyptian phase had become an
analytic language. The relationship between Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian has been described as being similar to that between Latin and Italian. • Written Late Egyptian was seemingly a better representative than Middle Egyptian of the spoken language in the New Kingdom and beyond: weak consonants
ꜣ, w, j, as well as the feminine ending were increasingly dropped, apparently because they stopped being pronounced. • The demonstrative pronouns (masc.), (fem.), and (pl.) were used as definite articles. • The old form (he heard) of the verb was replaced by which had both prospective (he shall hear) and perfective (he heard) aspects. The past tense was also formed using the auxiliary verb (make), as in (he has accused him). • Adjectives as attributes of nouns are often replaced by nouns. The Late Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 8th century BC, giving rise to Demotic.
Demotic Demotic is a later development of the Egyptian language written in the
Demotic script, following Late Egyptian and preceding
Coptic, the latter of which it shares much with. In the earlier stages of Demotic, such as those texts written in the early Demotic script, it probably represented the spoken idiom of the time. However, as its use became increasingly confined to literary and religious purposes, the written language diverged more and more from the spoken form, leading to significant
diglossia between the late Demotic texts and the spoken language of the time, similar to the use of classical Middle Egyptian during the Ptolemaic Period.
Coptic Coptic is the name given to the late Egyptian vernacular when it was written in a Greek-based alphabet, the Coptic alphabet; it flourished from the time of
Early Christianity (c. 31/33–324), but Egyptian phrases written in the Greek alphabet first appeared during the
Hellenistic period , with the first known Coptic text, still pagan (
Old Coptic), from the 1st century AD. Coptic survived into the medieval period, but by the 16th century was dwindling rapidly due to the persecution of Coptic Christians under the
Mamluks. It probably survived in the Egyptian countryside—spoken by Muslims and Christians alike—as a spoken language for several centuries after that. Coptic survives as the liturgical language of the
Coptic Orthodox Church and the
Coptic Catholic Church. ==Dialects==