What language did the ancient Egyptians speak? Ancient Egypt: misconceptions and reality
Most films, some newspapers and magazines are published in Egyptian. It can be said that all entertainment media in Egypt operate in the Egyptian dialect.
Upper Egyptian dialect, aka “saeidi”. This dialect is spoken in Upper Egypt (in the southern part of the country, along the Nile) by about 19 million people.
These two dialects have become very distant from each other over the centuries. Their speakers do not always understand each other. Usually they understand phrases only in general outline. Not only are the words different, but also some of the sounds and grammar are different.
How much do Egyptians and other Arabs understand each other?
They understand only in general. Different dialects of Arabic have slightly different grammar and word composition. This is why the MSA exists - so that Arab nations have a common language and understand each other.
Do Egyptians speak English well?
Fine. Let us remember that until 1952 Egypt was under British control. Since those times, one of the signs of an educated Egyptian was fluency in English. Nowadays English is taught compulsorily at school.
A lot of English words already included in the Egyptian Arabic dialect. All inscriptions on road signs are now in Arabic and English. Some media operate in two languages at once. The main inscriptions on banknotes are duplicated in English.
There are three universities in Egypt where teaching is conducted only in English: the British University of Egypt, the American University of Egypt, and the University of the Future of Egypt.
Do Egyptians speak Russian well?
If an Egyptian works as a hotel or excursion guide with Russian tourists, then naturally he knows quite well.
Traders, waiters, taxi drivers in resort areas know more or less - a stock of 200-300 words and expressions. This is quite enough to communicate with tourists about all pressing matters. However, if things don’t go in favor of an Egyptian, he usually very quickly forgets all foreign languages. This is the specific behavior of Egyptians in resort areas, however, not only Egyptians.
![](https://i2.wp.com/jj-tours.ru/articles/images8/egypt-language-3s.jpg)
Outside of resort areas, don't expect to meet anyone who speaks Russian.
At the time of publication of this article, charter flights to and are still closed. However, Egyptians at resorts do not forget the Russian language. Russian tourists still appear here - they arrive on regular flights to Cairo. And most Ukrainians and Belarusians speak Russian with Egyptians.
Is it convenient to use translators on smartphones?
You can use it, but it's of little use. No translator can translate directly between Russian and Egyptian Arabic. This is usually done according to the “Russian English Arabic” scheme, and the result is often complete rubbish.
It is possible to successfully translate only individual words and phrases and only text (without voiceover). For example, you need to explain to the taxi driver what you need to do at the airport. Then you can use the translator on your smartphone and show the taxi driver the word “airport” on the screen.
And don’t forget that most translators only work when the Internet is turned on.
The most widely spoken language in Egypt is Egyptian Arabic (Masri), part of the Arabic language branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Arabic was brought to Egypt during the Muslim conquest of the seventh century, its development being largely influenced by the indigenous Copto-Egyptian language of pre-Islamic Egypt and later other languages such as Turkish. Arabic is the national language of Egypt and is spoken by more than 76 million people. It is also one of the most widely spoken and studied languages. The Coptic language, a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian language which was once written in Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic and vernacular scripts, is used by the Coptic Orthodox Church. The Coptic alphabet is a modified form of the Greek alphabet, with some letters derived from the vernacular. The official language of Egypt is Standard Arabic and is used in most print media. English and French are also widely spoken and used in business circles.
What is your name? | Esmak/esmik e? | ما اسمك ؟ |
My name is … | Esme... | اسمي … |
I'm from Russia. | Ana man Russia. | أنا من روسيا. |
What would you like? | Aiz/aisa e? | ماذا تريد ؟ |
I want juice | Aiz/ayza asyr. | أريد عصير |
I want to eat | Aiz/aiza akl. | أريد أن آكل |
I want to sleep | Aiz/aiza enem. | أريد أن أنام |
I don't want… | Mish aiz/aiza... | أنا لا أريد … |
Welcome! | Ahlan wasaylan! | نرحب مرة أخرى! |
Hello! | Salam alaikum! | مرحبا ! |
Good morning! | Sabak elher! | صباح الخير ! |
Good evening! | Masa elher! | مساء الخير ! |
Goodbye! | Mae salama! | وداعا ! |
Thank you. -You're welcome. | Shukran.-Afuan. | شكرا. الرجاء . |
Please,… | Min fadlak/fadlik. Liao sanakht. | من فضلك … |
Yes. | Ayua. | نعم. |
No. | La-ah. | لا. |
No. | Mafish. | لا. |
Can | Mumkin | يمكن للمرء |
It is forbidden | Mish mumkin | ممنوع |
Fine | Kvaes/kvaesa. Hallua. | جيد |
No problem! | Mafish nishakl! | لا مشكلة! |
No problem! | Mish muskel! | لا مشكلة ! |
I'm tired/tired. | Ana taben/tabena. | أنا متعب / استنفدت. |
How are you? - How are you? | Zaye ssakha? - Zaye ssakha? | كيف حالك ؟ — كيف حالك ؟ |
What is this? | Ed? | ما هذا ؟ |
Who is this? | Me haza? | من هو هذا ؟ |
Why? | Le? | لماذا؟ |
Where? | Fin? | أين؟ |
How? | Ezzay? | كيف؟ |
Where are you going? | Raiha fin? | إلى أين أنت ذاهب ؟ |
What is the price? | Beckem? | كم؟ |
Do you have water? | Andak Maya? | هل لديك الماء؟ |
Do you have a pen? | Andak alam? | هل لديك قلم ؟ |
I have water. | Ana andi maya. | لدي الماء. |
I don't speak Arabic. | Ana mabat kallimsh arabi. | أنا لا أتكلم العربية. |
I speak Arabic | Ana Beth Kallim Arabi | وأنا أتكلم العربية |
a little | seamstress | قليلا |
I don't understand. | Ana (mish) fahem/fahma. | أنا (لا) فهم. |
Everything is fine? | Kulyu tamem? | هل أنت بخير ؟ |
Everything is fine. | Kulyu tamem. | كل شيء على ما يرام . |
I love you. | Ana backbek enta/enti. | أنا أحبك. |
Me too. | Ana Komen. | ولا أنا. |
Driver please | Yarais, min fadpack, | السائق، يرجى |
stop here. | Han's camp | تتوقف هنا . |
Is it true? - Is it true. | Wallahi. | حقا ؟ — صحيح . |
Mother | Ommy, mom, om | أمي |
Dad | Abby, baba, ab | أب |
Daughter | Benty | ابنة |
Son | Abmy | ابن |
Girl, girl | Bant | فتاة ، فتاة |
Boy | Jack | صبي |
Man | Rogel | رجل |
Woman | Seth | امرأة |
Cigarette | Cigar | سيجارة |
Cigar | Cigar | سيجار |
Juice | Asyr | عصير |
Tomato juice | Asyr uta, asyr tomato | عصير طماطم. |
Bag | Shanta | حقيبة |
Towel | Photo | منشفة |
Shop | Makhzin | متجر |
Fish | Samak | سمك |
Gold | Dehab | الذهب |
Chain | Selseya | سلسلة |
Water | Mayan | ماء |
Break | Raha | استراحة |
House | Manziel bate | منزل |
Apartment | Sha-a | شقة |
Room | Oh yeah | غرفة |
Pharmacy | Saidaleya | صيدلية |
Village | Korea | قرية |
Expensive | Gali | غاليا |
A little bit, a little bit | Shwaya-swaya | قليلا |
So-so | Nose-so-nose | مش بطال |
Completely, everything, entirely... | May-may | تماما، كل تماما … |
Too much, too much | Ktir | الكثير أيضا |
Enough is enough | Halas | كفى |
Never | Halas | أبدا |
0"K! | Pssah! | 0"K ! |
(Don't know | (Mish) erif/harp | (لا) أعرف |
Drunkard | Sakran(s) | سكير |
Strawberry | Faraola | فراولة |
Peach | Hoh | خوخ |
Banana | Moz | موز |
Apricot | Mishmish | مشمش |
Plum | Barkuk | برقوق |
Melon | Cantalope | شمام |
Watermelon | Batykh | بطيخ |
Hookah | Shisha | الشيشة |
I | ana | أنا |
You | enta/enti | أنت |
He | howa | هو |
She | heya | هو |
We | ehna | نحن |
You | act | أنت |
They | homma | هم |
Numbers | ||
One | wahid | واحد |
Two | ethnin | اثنان |
Three | teleta | ثلاثة |
Four | cart | أربعة |
Five | anchovy | خمسة |
Six | Setta | ستة |
Seven | saba | سبعة |
Eight | Tamania | ثمانية |
Nine | tesa | تسعة |
Ten | ashara | عشرة |
The language in Egypt has changed over thousands of years of history. First mentions of written sources- hieroglyphs, date back to approximately 3400 BC. It is believed to have originated after the invention of the Sumerian language in Mesopotamia.
The last official document was written in the language of Ancient Egypt in 394 AD. The change of language group to Coptic occurred after the Roman Empire and Christianity came to power in the state. The temples and chapels built by order of the pharaohs were empty and forgotten. Today, the Coptic language is used in the conduct of services by clergy of the Christian Church.
Which language is considered the official language in Egypt?
After the arrival of the Muslim army in Egypt (the conquest began in 639 AD), the Arabic language came to the country. Currently the name of the country is Arab Republic of Egypt. The official state language is Arabic. The local population speaks the Egyptian dialect of Arabic, which is somewhat different from the classical one (fuskha). On fuskha, news is broadcast and newspapers are printed. The pronunciation of the inhabitants of the southern and northern parts of Egypt is significantly different. The Egyptian dialect spoken in the capital is considered the purest.
Books in Arabic (Egyptian dialect)
"Kalimni Arabi"
The textbook consists of seven levels. Audio materials read by native speakers of the dialect and a printed manual are presented. Offers dialogues, grammar exercises.
"That's what they say in Cairo"
Modern course of the Egyptian dialect of Arabic. Contains a study guide in PDF form with recordings from native speakers (20 lessons). The publication was prepared by the Department of Middle Eastern Languages, ed. V.E. Posukhova.
Pimsleur course
Language lessons recorded by native speakers. Cairo variant of the Egyptian dialect. Consists of 30 lessons.
In scientific literature, both in our country and in foreign countries, the term “ancient Egyptian language” is sometimes used, which means the language of the population of Ancient Egypt.
This term is inaccurate, since when calling a language ancient (for example, ancient Chinese, ancient Greek), they mean the existence of the same new, modern language, in other words, the definition of “ancient” creates the impression that we are talking about the ancient stage of living modern language.
With the Egyptian language the situation is different. The Egyptian language became dead already at the beginning of our era, when it was replaced by Coptic, which represents the last stage of development of the Egyptian language and is organically connected with it, but at the same time differs from it so much that in linguistics it is considered independent language. Coptic is related to the late Egyptian language in much the same way as Italian is to Latin. But the Coptic language is also already a dead language. Currently, the people of Egypt speak Arabic. Therefore, we call the Egyptian language only the language that was used by the population of Ancient Egypt from time immemorial until the 3rd century. n. e.
Since the monuments of the Egyptian language have been preserved over a huge period, estimated at no less than three and a half millennia, it is quite natural to assume that during this time the Egyptian language has changed. Indeed, the monuments of the language show that over the course of more than thirty-five centuries it went through the following stages of development:
- 1. The language of the era of the Old Kingdom (XXXII--XXII centuries BC; in English scientific literature this stage of language development is called Old Egyptian, in French - ancien еgyptien, in German - Altдgyptisch. It would be perfect to designate this period the Russian term "ancient Egyptian", but since it is incorrectly used to designate the entire Egyptian language, it would be unclear what we're talking about: about the ancient stage of language development or about language in general. Therefore, to designate the ancient period of the history of the language, it is advisable to adopt the term proposed by the largest Soviet Egyptologist Yu. Ya. Perepelkin - “Old Egyptian”.
- 2. Middle Egyptian, or classical, language (XXII-XVI centuries BC); in English scientific literature - Middle Egyptian, in French - moyen еgyptien, in German - Mittelеgyptisch.
- 3. New Egyptian language (XVI--VIII centuries BC); in English scientific literature -
Late Egyptian, in French - nйоgyptlen, in German - Neuдgyptisch.
- 4. Demotic language (8th century BC - 5th century AD)
- 5. Coptic language (from the 3rd century AD)
The history of the Egyptian people, the creator and speaker of the Egyptian language, begins very early - at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Such an early beginning of Egyptian history (in comparison, for example, with the history of European peoples) was facilitated by favorable geographical conditions, i.e. climate, soil fertility, abundance of plants, animals, fish, etc. This, in the words of K. Marx, is a “natural wealth of means of life" accelerated the development of Egyptian society in the early stages of its development. Already at the end of the 4th millennium BC. the development of productive forces, an increase in labor productivity, and hence the possibility of obtaining and appropriating surplus product and its exchange led to the emergence private property on the means of production and property inequality, to the possibility of appropriation of other people's labor. Egyptian society is divided into classes hostile to each other. The first class society appears - the slave system. At the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Slave states emerge in the Nile Valley as “a product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions.” From that time on, the history of Ancient Egypt is the story of the three-thousand-year development of the oldest slave-owning society and state and its death under the blows of the invaders. In its development, the Egyptian people created the greatest cultural values that entered the general treasury of world culture. The achievements of the Egyptians include, for example, the creation of the first written language in world history, the soul of which was the sound, phonetic principle. Without a doubt, the Egyptian language developed long before the era of slavery, i.e. long before the 3rd millennium BC. But the language of this ancient period is not possible to study due to the lack of written monuments. In relation to literature, one can wholeheartedly agree with the opinion of Academician. B. A. Turaev, who called this period the time of creation of a “stock of folk literature.” Only with the organization of the state and the advent of writing does it become possible to study the Egyptian language. In its millennia-long development, it went through a number of stages: Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian, New Egyptian, Demotic, Coptic.
(Start )
Egypt is not Africa or Asia; it is an oasis, partly reclaimed from the desert by the Nile, partly built on the sea. Directly adjacent to Africa and Asia, lying near the islands of the Greek world, this country was inhabited by a mixed race. Historical Egyptians were close to both the Semites of Asia and the Hamites of Libya and Sudan; At the end of the history of classical Egypt, the European stream also flowed into the Nile Valley. The kinship of Hamites and Semites is recognized in science, the Egyptian language is considered Hamitic and occupies a special place in this group, it also shows kinship with Semitic languages; This is confirmed by the large number of common or formerly common roots, suffixes, grammatical forms, the three-letter nature of roots and their meanings, based exclusively on consonants; as in Semitic languages, vowel sounds in the Egyptian language served to form derived words from roots and for morphology. Despite our poor knowledge of Egyptian vocalism and the significant changes in consonants, we can still recognize various phenomena of phonetics and morphology, both common to the Semitic languages and of native, Hamitic origin.
The history of the Egyptian language, in view of its origin and unusually long existence, should be especially instructive. At present, it cannot yet be written - we still know the language itself too poorly, especially its vocabulary. We still have to guess the meaning of many words; until now, almost every new text gives us words that have not been encountered before. Material collected by Brugsch in his published in 1867–1882. seven-volume hieroglyphic-demotic dictionary, now turns out to be both insufficient due to the multitude of newly found and published texts, and of little use, since it completely does not correspond to the state of science and often sins in methodological terms. At the Paris Congress of Orientalists in 1896, Ehrmann presented a program for the “Thesaurus linguae Aegyptiacae” conceived by the Berlin school of Egyptologists, which should embrace the entire available stock of Egyptian literature and provide, as exhaustively as possible, quotations for every Egyptian word. This enterprise, designed to last decades and involve a large number of participants, brought into study the rich material of inscriptions and papyri scattered throughout museums, and by February 1914 57,884 citations had been used, yielding 1,228,700 alphabet cards; the manuscript of the future dictionary was completed almost to the end of the eighth letter and contains 5,387 words, which is approximately a third of the total lexical material. Working on it gave Ehrman the opportunity to make a number of observations on the structure and fate of the Egyptian language during its centuries-old life; these observations, reported in several articles, established first of all that “the Egyptian language is very rich; as rich as can only be the language of a cultured people who, during their long life, have repeatedly experienced literary development. The first time was around 3000 BC. e. – the time of the “Pyramid Texts”, which provide the basic material from which it is necessary to proceed in matters of vocabulary and spelling. Around 2000, during the era of the XII Dynasty, classical secular literature flourished, which had a great influence on subsequent eras and introduced many new words and meanings into the language. A significant increase in lexical material was also observed in the next period of Egyptian culture - the so-called New Kingdom (from the 16th century), when the spoken language, already “New Egyptian”, received literary rights and introduced many words from everyday life, as well as those borrowed from foreign ones. languages. These new, previously neglected elements forced the scribes to develop for themselves a special, so-called “syllabic”, i.e. completely phonetic, spelling. Thus, the Egyptian vocabulary did not remain united and motionless - it grew and changed. For example, out of 106 roots starting with the letter “vav”, 59 are found already in the ancient period; The Middle Kingdom added 25, the New - another 18; Among these increments there are very important and commonly used words. Finally, 4 new verbs were discovered only in texts of the Greco-Roman era, when numerous and long inscriptions on the walls of later temples were composed in a dead language in which the words were mixed different periods and which was acquired only through special classes, since in daily and even literary use there was a language of demotic writing that was even more distant from antiquity.” The material of the latter, unfortunately, is attracted by Ehrman to a limited extent, but his observations on the decline of the vocabulary, on how much of the ancient wealth was retained in the language of Egyptian Christians, in Coptic, are extremely interesting. Of the 33 words beginning with the combination of “kof” and “aleph” in Coptic, only four can be found, of the 35 words beginning with “shin” and “aleph” - only seven; for 87 words from h to hn we can count only 10 Coptic; of the indicated 106 roots starting with “vav”, only 35 are found in Coptic. This ratio will change somewhat in favor of the Coptic language if the Coptic dictionary, hitherto known only from the Bible and church literature, is replenished from papyri, but no matter how many different varieties are added item names Everyday life, V overall picture will remain the same: the language has become pitifully impoverished, and often retains only one derivative from entire roots. The explanation for this is simple: Christians translated the Bible not into the speech of the pagan educated classes, but into the dialect of the common people. Therefore, the tradition of 3000 years of education died, and the language had to begin its life again.”
To these conclusions, important for the history of language and drawn from observations of the dictionary made in the laboratory itself, we will briefly add those that have long become common knowledge and to which grammar leads. The ancient Egyptian language, which was literary during the era of the Old Kingdom, and then remained as an artificial official and sacred language until the last times of Egyptian pagan culture, is distinguished by its great closeness to Semitic (especially in conjugation, in possessive suffixes). In the era of the Middle Kingdom, the literary language is still grammatically quite close to the ancient one, but under the New Kingdom the language of secular works, partly of inscriptions, already reveals features that to a certain extent resemble those noticed in Romance languages in relation to Latin. The language becomes analytical. The feminine ending (t) disappears, some, especially final, letters (especially r) are weakened or completely eliminated, new ones appear instead of the previous suffixes and the so-called status of pronominalis of names, new formations for possessive pronouns; conjugation is made descriptive, and forms are complex with auxiliary verbs the simpler ones are pushed aside, the definite and indefinite members take full rights, the first, formed from the demonstrative pronoun, the second - from the numeral “one”. Undoubtedly, there were changes in phonetics, but they are mostly hidden for us, firstly, by the lack of vocalization, and then by the archaism of spelling. Works of secular fine and business literature of the New Kingdom were written in this language. It is unlikely that the ancient Egyptian language at this time could be understood without prior school study. In the Ethiopian and Sais eras, a new cursive script, the so-called demotic, appeared for everyday purposes, and texts written in it revealed new grammatical features that moved the language even further away from its prototype. This language is still very little developed, since the extremely cursive font, consisting half of ligatures and abbreviations, is very difficult. At present, only two scholars - Spiegelberg and Griffis - have acquired sufficient experience in reading and knowledge of demotic texts for their work to be considered reliable. The Berlin Egyptologists did not take demotic literature into account in their future dictionary, and this will constitute a significant gap in the history of the language. Meanwhile, this literature was extremely rich and has come to us, due to its late origin, in a better and more complete form. Here, in addition to many business documents of various contents and often enormous sizes, we have a significant number of works of fine literature and poetry; there is also something approaching our concept of political literature. Finally, Egypt's conversion to Christianity created the final period in the history of its language and literature. The name Coptic (from an Arabic corruption of the name of the Egyptians “qubt”) refers to the language of the Christian Egyptians who rejected the pagan hieroglyphic writing and adopted the Greek alphabet, adding to it for the missing sounds native letters derived from demotic signs. Probably, grammatically, this language was not much different from Demotic - in it only fragments of ancient Egyptian forms have been preserved, while it is much closer to New Egyptian. For Egyptologists, in addition to the interest of the literature itself written in it, this language is of particular importance due to the fact that it has vocalization and makes it possible establish, at least approximately, the position and nature of vowels in ancient Egyptian words preserved in Coptic and some grammatical forms. He renders another service in that, having himself discovered no less than four dialects, he undoubtedly confirms one ancient testimony that in Ancient Egypt dialectical differences were so noticeable that in the era of the New Kingdom a resident of the Cataract region could hardly understand the speech of an inhabitant of the Delta. In addition to the grammatical features of this grandson ancient language, it also differs in what is reflected on it significant influence Greek language. The centuries-old influence of Hellenism and the influence of the Greek Bible, the church fathers and Christian worship, which was performed in Greek for a long time and still retains many Greek elements, were also reflected here. The influence of Greek syntax is noticeable; as for Greek words, Coptic texts are filled with them even more than the New Egyptian ones are Semitic; they were used completely arbitrarily without any consistency and, for the most part, even unnecessarily. After the Muslim conquest, the Coptic language was influenced to a much lesser extent by the Arabic language, but it was not able to withstand competition with it and little by little fell into oblivion. Back in the 16th century. there are texts written on it; they are mostly caused by church needs and already reveal artificiality and illiteracy; in the 17th century the language finally died out and survived only in church service, little understood by the clergy themselves. From these last centuries we have only a few artificial writings of Coptic scholars and patriots who wanted to show off their learning. IN late XIX V. such a literate was the professor of the Coptic patriarchal school (something like a theological academy) Claudius Labib-Bey. He even tried to revive the spoken Coptic language, promoting it among his students and even in families. It is unlikely that his good undertakings will defeat the inexorable law of nature and resurrect the language of a great nation that died four centuries ago, the oldest cultural language of humanity, which is currently remembered on the banks of the Nile, besides churches, only two signs in Cairo: above the Coptic patriarchal school and above the printing house of Labib himself, this last refuge of Egyptian writing.
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