Egyptian HieroglyphicsBy Autumn Baccellia

Egyptian Hieroglyphics represented

Sacred Writings

The Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic AlphabetWhich consisted of mainly of consonants

1st row: A A B KH D F2ndrow: G H H I Y DJ K3rd row: I M N O W P Q4th row: R S SH T TCH Z

The stages of Egyptian Writings:

1st Pictographic – Each element standing for itself

2nd stage uses the rebus principle to construct words that cannot easily be depicted and which were sounded out.

Here you have a prayer in HieroglyphicsFollowed by the written Arabic language for the Hieroglyphics aboveFollowed by the written Coptic language for the Hieroglyphics aboveThe closest you get to how the Ancient Egyptians spoke in the New Kingdom (1552 BC) is the spokenlanguage of Coptic.

Around 1580/1490 BC A strong foreign influence appeared in the language with theintroduction of words from Asiatic language.

Ancient Egyptian language has affinities with the Semitic languages of Western Asia,(Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Babylonian) also others of North Eastern Africa which iscalled Hamitic.

During around and about 2700 BC the Ancient Egyptians were influenced by the Mestopotamians withtheir written language of Akkadian/Cuneiform and that is how the idea of Hieroglyphics came into beingwhich also followed with Hierotic which is the cursive writings of Hieroglyphics then followed wasDemotic, Coptic, Hebrew and currently Arabic. The Kushites borrowed the written language of theEgyptians and formed what is called The Meroitic Language they also had a cursive writing for MeroiticHieroglyphics, which is known as Meroitic Cursive. The Ancient Egyptians spoke many languages due tothe trading routes along the Nile and Mediterranean coast. Not all the Egyptians knew what theHieroglyphic writings meant only the Educated and wealthy Egyptians understood Hieroglyphics, not evensome of the Scribes knew what they writing.

T he language tree of the A ncient WorldSpoken and written languages of Ancient Egypt include:

Spoken Written

Akkadian/Cuneiform Perhaps around 3250 BC (Mesopotamia)

HieroglyphicsAramaicBabylonianCarian Part of the Anatolian LanguageHittite From the HittitesGreekHurrian Language of the HanigalbatsLatinLibyanNubianKushites MeroiticUgariticCopticHebrewSyrian

Languages of Kadesh, Lebanon, Palestine and Sinai were differentdialects of Arabic.

The Kingdom of Kush The Meroitic Hieroglyphic and Cursive Alphabets