Coptic was the language spoken in Egypt from late ancient times to the seventeenth century, when it was overtaken by Arabic as the national language. Derived from ancient Egyptian, the language of the hieroglyphs, it was written in an adapted form of Greek script. This dictionary lists about 2,000 Coptic words whose etymology has been established from ancient Egyptian and Greek sources, covering two-thirds of the known Coptic vocabulary and complementing W. E. Crum's 1939 Coptic Dictionary, still the standard in the field. The Egyptian forms are quoted in hieroglyphic and/or demotic forms. An appendix lists the etymologies of Coptic place-names. The final work of Czech Egyptologist Jaroslav Černý (1898-1970), Professor of Egyptology at Oxford, the Dictionary was brought through to publication by colleagues after his death.

This is the introductory volume to the first dictionary on the etymological relations between ancient Egyptian and other Afro-Asiatic languages. Gábor Takács’ new multi-volume Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian (now to appear at regular intervals of about 12-18 months) will be a hallmark in Egyptian and Afro-Asiatic linguistics. The amount of material offered, the extensive treatment of scholarly discussions on each item, and the insights into the connections of Egyptian with its related Afro-Asiatic languages, including many new lexical parallels, will make it an indispensable tool for comparative and interpretative purposes and the unchallenged starting point for every linguist in the field. Volume 1, the opening volume of the dictionary, can rightly be called the key to the work; it not only provides the users with a comprehensive analysis of the Afro-Asiatic background of the Egyptian consonant system, but also offers a critical appraisal of linguistic theories on Egyptian historical phonology, the problems surrounding the origins of the Egyptian language, and an extensive bibliography to the dictionary volumes to appear.

This is the third and final volume of the Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian. It comprises the Egyptian words with initial m-. The amount of material offered, the extensive treatment of scholarly discussions on each item, and the insights into the connections of Egyptian and the related Afro-Asiatic (Semito-Hamitic) languages, including many new lexical parallels, will make it an indispensable tool for comparative purposes and an unchallenged starting point for every linguist in the field.The reader will find the etymological entries even more detailed than those of the introductory volume, due to the full retrospective presentation of all etymologies proposed since A. Erman's time, and thanks to an extremely detailed discussion of all possible relevant data even on the less known Afro-Asiatic cognates to the Egyptian roots.