The language of Ancient Egypt has been the object of careful investigation since its decipherment in the nineteenth century, but this is the first accessible account which uses the insights of modern linguistics. Antonio Loprieno traces Ancient Egyptian's historical development from Old Egyptian to Coptic, and, combining diachronic and synchronic viewpoints wherever possible, he looks at the hieroglyphic system and its cursive varieties (Hieratic and Demotic), the phonology of Classical Egyptian and Coptic, the phonology and syntax of the literary languages, and semantic and pragmatic constraints on syntax. He also looks at the genetic connections of Egyptian within the Afroasiatic family, especially with Semitic languages such as Akkadian, Arabic, and Hebrew. This book will be essential reading for linguists and Egyptologists alike.

This book provides a unique perspective on the linguistic relationships between the Ancient Egyptian and Bantu languages of East/Central/Southern Africa. It will be of interest to readers of Egyptology, linguists, students, and the wider public who wish to find out more about the structure of the Ancient Egyptian language and how it connects with other languages, particularly with Bantu languages. The subject matter is different from other books as it examines the etymology of words, together with their sound/meaning relationships and shows by using verifiable hieroglyphic forms how Ancient Egyptian words may be pronounced by inserting Bantu vowels which fit the meanings derived from the skeletal templates of consonants in the Ancient Egyptian language.

Introduction With a focus on their physical appearance, urban form, and their cultural and historical contexts, this book examines the cities of Egypt, the Ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome. Key is architecture: the structures that undeniable antiquated urban communities, roads, squares, and different in the middle between; the way these parts are arranged in a city plan; and how they were used in ancient societies. Our goal is to see how things and buildings made by long-gone people help us understand the urban environments our ancestors lived in in the Mediterranean and Near East.

This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to the field of language contact and multilingualism in ancient Egypt before the Greco-Roman period (4th millennium BCE–4th c. BCE). It gives a survey of the historical evidence of linguistic interference of Egyptian with languages in Africa, the Near East and the Mediterranean, discusses the different attested phenomena of language contact and offers a case study of foreign language communities in ancient Egypt. Detailed indexes makes this book a rich source of linguistic information for general linguistics and neighboring disciplines.

Scholars in Egyptology have often debated the following question: was the ancient Egyptian society organized along patrilineal or matrilineal lines? In taking a fresh and innovative look at the ancient Egyptian family, Allen attempts to solve this long-standing puzzle. Allen argues that the matrilineal nature of the ancient Egyptian family and social organization provides us with the key to understanding why and how ancient Egyptian women were able to rise to power, study medicine, and enjoy basic freedoms that did not emerge in Western Civilization until the twentieth century. More importantly, by examining the types of families that existed in ancient Egypt along with highlighting the ancient Egyptians' kinship terms, we can place the ancient Egyptian civilization in the cultural context and incubator of Black Africa. This groundbreaking text is a must-read for Historians and those working in African Studies and Egyptology.

This collection of papers comprises almost all major areas of interest of Werner Vycichl: Egyptology and Coptology, Semitic linguistics, Beja (Northern Cushitic), Chadic, and general Semito-Hamitic (Afro-Asiatic) comparative linguistics.