tyra 2014 egyptian and semitic roots - a basic toolkit

8/10/2019 Tyra 2014 Egyptian and Semitic Roots - A Basic Toolkit

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Comparing Egyptian and Semitic Roots: A Basic Toolkit

compiled by Joshua D. Tyra

Suppose you have found a Semitic word and an Ancient Egyptian word that are closeenough in form and meaning to suggest they may be related. To determine whether

a connection really exists and if so, of what kind, here is a checklist of questions andresources.

1.

Could the Semitic word be a loanword from Egyptian?

a.

Muchiki, Yoshiyuki. Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords in North-West Semitic.1

i.

Check the table of consonant correspondences on 313-314.For a discussion of specific consonants, see 314-325. For a

more detailed discussion of the correspondences in each

Northwest Semitic language or dialect, see the chapter devotedto each language. If youre lucky, your Semitic word and its

putative Egyptian source will be listed among the data.

ii.

NB: As the name indicates, the Muchiki study does not reflectdata from Akkadian. Allen says that working with Akkadian

transliterations of Egyptian words is problematic because of

the ambiguity of cuneiform writing.2

2. Could the Egyptian word be a loanword from Semitic?

a.

Hoch, James E. Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdomand Third Intermediate Period.3

i. Check the tables of consonant correspondences on 431-437.

The discussion of specific consonants and phonological issuesis found on 399-430. Again, if youre lucky, your Egyptian word

and its Semitic source will be specifically mentioned in the

1Yoshiyuki Muchiki,Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords in North-West

Semitic, ed. Michael V. Fox, SBL Dissertation Series 173 (Atlanta, GA: Society ofBiblical Literature, 1999).

2James P. Allen, The Ancient Egyptian Language: An Historical Study

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 31.

3James E. Hoch, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and ThirdIntermediate Period(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).


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2 Comparing Egyptian and Semitic Roots: A Basic Toolkit Joshua D. Tyra

body of this work.

ii.

NB: Although this remains a basic handbook on the topic, some

scholars including Rainey have had serious reservations aboutsome of Hochs conclusions. It is a very good idea to check

Raineys review of Hoch to see if his comments have anybearing on your words.4(Raineys scathingly sarcastic toneadds real entertainment value to this piece!)

b.

Allen, James P. The Ancient Egyptian Language: An Historical Study.5

i.

See the table of consonant correspondences on p. 31 (found inan abbreviated form on p. 36, Semitic column) and the brief

but helpful discussion on 31-33.

3. Could both these words have developed from the same source in Afroasiatic?

That is, are they true cognates?

a.

Allen, James P. The Ancient Egyptian Language: An Historical Study.6

i.

See the table of consonant correspondences on p. 36

(Cognates column) and the discussion of cognates on 33-36.

Specific Egyptian and Semitic words can be accessed via theword index (243-250).

Read (and heed) Allens caveats about the uncertainty of

working with Afroasiatic cognates (33).

b. Loprieno, Antonio.Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction.7

i.

Though Loprieno does not have a handy table of Afroasiatic-derived consonant correspondences between Egyptian and

4Anson F. Rainey, Egyptian Evidence for Semitic Linguistics (Review of

Hoch), in Past Links: Studies in the Languages and Cultures of the Ancient Near East,

ed. Shlomo Isreel, Itamar Singer, and Ran Zadok, Israel Oriental Studies, XVIII

(Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998), 43153. For further Hoch criticism, see Allen,

The Ancient Egyptian Language, 31 n. 3, 205206.

5Allen, The Ancient Egyptian Language.

6Ibid.

7Antonio Loprieno,Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1995).


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Semitic, Chapter 3 on Egyptian phonology discusses a number

of Afroasiatic words (see esp. 31-35). The word index, whichincludes Afroasiatic and Proto-Semitic, is also helpful (304-

312).

4.

Are these two words close enough in form and meaning that one of the aboverelationships is possible?

a. In principle, the correspondence in form and meaning should be exact.

Deviations from the normal phonetic correspondences should beexplicable with reference to known linguistic phenomena (and

common sense). Changes in meaning should be plausible and notinvolve too many speculative steps.

b.

In practice, as the data show, there could be significant variation intransliterating Egyptian to Semitic and vice versa. There is seemingly

even greater latitude in the correlation of consonants in wordsinherited from Afroasiatic.8Still, if your two words are going todeviate phonetically from the statistical norms, they should at least

deviate in attested ways. (Let them be, as Aristotle said in the Poetics,consistently inconsistent.) Shun the equation of two consonants

whose correspondence is completely unknown in the source

documents.

5. Are these two words close enough in space and time that one of the aboverelationships is possible? Propinquity, propinquity, propinquity.

a.

Date the sources of your words, if possible. Bear in mind that Genesisand Exodus contain most of the Egyptian loanwards in the Old

Testament, as one might expect from the content.9Allen notes that

Semitic loan-words and proper names are found mostly in texts ofthe New Kingdom and later but also appear in Egyptian execration

texts of the Old and Middle Kingdoms.10

8Allen alludes to a fascinating system of ranking the certainty of proposed

cognates, which he goes on to use in his discussion (The Ancient Egyptian Language, 34

36).9And there arent all that many. See Thomas O. Lambdin, Egyptian Loan Words

in the Old Testament,Journal of the American Oriental Society73, no. 3 (1953): 145

55. This material is incorporated into Muchiki,Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords

in North-West Semitic.

10Allen, The Ancient Egyptian Language, 31.


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b.

It may not be possible (or necessary) to be more specific than Egypt

and the Levant, but considering the geographical provenience ofsource material is important. In the case of loanwords, it is part of the

overall plausibility of the borrowing scenario.

6.

What was the Proto-Semitic form of my Semitic word?

a.

The answer to this question can affect the consonants you will expect

to find in a cognate or loanword. If your Semitic word has cognates in

other Semitic languages, take careful note of the correspondencesbetween them. Many Hebrew phonemes, for example, are mergers of

multiple Proto-Semitic phonemes, and several Hebrew lettersrepresented more than one sound. This means that if your Hebrew

word contains //, you should be aware that this phoneme was a

merger of two Proto-Semitic sounds, * and *, and that the letterwas probably used for both sounds even into the biblical period.

Reference to cognates in Ugaritic and Arabic, which preserved thedistinction, will tell you if the Hebrew root contains // or //. If it is// then you will be looking for an Egyptian cognate with //, //, or

even //. If it is //, then the Egyptian cognate will need to have //.11For Biblical Hebrew, working carefully through all the data in HALOT

should sort this out.

b.

The exact phomenic inventory of Proto-Semitic is still being worked

out. See Huehnergard,12Lipiski,13and Allen14for three differenttakes (Allen says his chart is a summary of recent scholarly

concensus15).

7. Where can I look up Egyptian words online?

11Ibid., 36.

12John Huehnergard, Introduction, inBeyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical

Hebrew and Related Languages, ed. John Kaltner and Steven L. McKenzie (Leiden and

Boston: Brill / Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 12.

13Edward Lipiski, Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar, First

Edition, Orientalia Lovaniensa Analecta 80 (Louvain: Peeters Publishers, 1997), 107,

150.

14Allen, The Ancient Egyptian Language, 34.

15Ibid., 34 n. 24, 206207.


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a.

The Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae16is a digitalized version of the great

Wrterbuch der aegyptischen Sprache. This mammoth dictionary,though published from 1926-1931, has remained a standard resource

of the Egyptian language. The Digital Slip Archive containsfascinating extra material that would not fit into the dictionary: for

instance, information about word use at various periods and indifferent genres.17

b. You will need to create a free account with username and password

and agree to the terms of use in order to access the site.

c.

Once logged in, click on search the list of Egyptian words.

d. Enter your search for an Egyptian word in the Lemma field. The

Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae uses the Manuel de Codage(MdC) systemof hieroglyphic transliteration, which is case sensitive and uses only

the regular letters of the Roman alphabet. A chart giving the phonetichieroglyphic signs, their standard Egyptological transliterations, andtheir equivalents in MdC can be found here:

e. Be sure to check the box labelled English translation (not availablefor list of Demotic lemmata), or your results will all be in German.

Note that the checkbox is far to the right of the screen and its label isfar to the left.

f.

Note that you can restrict the word class of your results and evensearch on the English or German translations (a great feature!).

16.

17See .


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, James P. The Ancient Egyptian Language: An Historical Study. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Hoch, James E. Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and ThirdIntermediate Period. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Huehnergard, John. Introduction. In Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrewand Related Languages, edited by John Kaltner and Steven L. McKenzie.

Leiden and Boston: Brill / Society of Biblical Literature, 2002.

Lambdin, Thomas O. Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament.Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society73, no. 3 (1953): 14555.

Lipiski, Edward. Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar. FirstEdition. Orientalia Lovaniensa Analecta 80. Louvain: Peeters Publishers,

1997.

Loprieno, Antonio.Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Muchiki, Yoshiyuki. Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords in North-West Semitic.

Edited by Michael V. Fox. SBL Dissertation Series 173. Atlanta, GA: Society ofBiblical Literature, 1999.

Rainey, Anson F. Egyptian Evidence for Semitic Linguistics (Review of Hoch). InPast Links: Studies in the Languages and Cultures of the Ancient Near East,

edited by Shlomo Isreel, Itamar Singer, and Ran Zadok, 43153. IsraelOriental Studies, XVIII. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998.

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