Editing Egyptian language (section)

==History==
The Egyptian language can be grouped thus:<ref name="Bard">Compiled and edited by Kathryn A. Bard with the editing assistance of Steven Blage Shubert.  {{cite book |last=Bard |first=Kathryn A. |author-link=Kathryn A. Bard |author2=Steven Blake Shubert |title=Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt |year=1999 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-18589-9 |page=274f. (in the section ''Egyptian language and writing'')}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Kupreyev |first=Maxim N. |title=Deixis in Egyptian: The Close, the Distant, and the Known |year=2022 |orig-year=copyright: 2023 |publisher=Brill |page=3}}</ref>

{{tree list}}
* Egyptian
** Earlier Egyptian, Older Egyptian, or Classical Egyptian
*** Old Egyptian
**** Early Egyptian, Early Old Egyptian, Archaic Old Egyptian, Pre-Old Egyptian, or archaic Egyptian
**** standard Old Egyptian
*** Middle Egyptian
** Later Egyptian
*** Late Egyptian
*** Demotic Egyptian
*** [[Coptic language|Coptic]]
{{tree list/end}}

The Egyptian language is conventionally grouped into six major [[chronological]] divisions:<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-12-11 |title=What Is the Egyptian Language? |url=https://gattours.com/blog/egypt-culture/what-is-the-egyptian-language/ |access-date=2023-10-15 |website=GAT Tours |language=en-US}}</ref>
*Archaic Egyptian (before {{circa|2600 BC}}), the [[reconstructed language]] of the [[Early Dynastic Period (Egypt)|Early Dynastic Period]],
*Old Egyptian ({{circa|2600|2000 BC}}), the language of the [[Old Kingdom of Egypt|Old Kingdom]],
*Middle Egyptian ({{circa|2000|1350 BC}}), the language of the [[Middle Kingdom of Egypt|Middle Kingdom]] to early [[New Kingdom of Egypt|New Kingdom]] and continuing on as a [[literary language]] into the 4th century AD,
*Late Egyptian ({{circa|1350|700 BC}}), [[Amarna period]] to [[Third Intermediate Period of Egypt|Third Intermediate Period]],
*Demotic Egyptian ({{circa|700 BC|400 AD}}), the vernacular of the [[Late Period of ancient Egypt|Late Period]], [[Ptolemaic Egypt|Ptolemaic]] and early [[Roman Egypt]],
*[[Coptic language|Coptic]] (after {{circa|200 AD}}), the vernacular at the time of [[Copts#History|Christianisation]], and the liturgical language of [[Egyptian Christianity]].

Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using both the [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|hieroglyphic]] and [[hieratic]] scripts. 
[[Demotic script|Demotic]] is the name of the script derived from the hieratic beginning in the 7th century BC.

The [[Coptic alphabet]] was derived from the [[Greek alphabet]], with adaptations for Egyptian phonology. It was first developed in the [[Ptolemaic period]], and gradually replaced the Demotic script in about the 4th to 5th centuries of the Christian era.

[[File:Egyptian lects.svg|thumb|center|upright=4.1|Diagram showing the use of the various [[lect]]s of Egyptian by time period and linguistic [[Register (sociolinguistics)|register]]]]

===Old Egyptian===
[[File:Peribsen2.JPG|thumb|right|Seal impression from the tomb of [[Seth-Peribsen]], containing the oldest known complete sentence in Egyptian]]

The term "Archaic Egyptian" is sometimes reserved for the earliest use of hieroglyphs, from the late fourth through the early third millennia BC. At the earliest stage, around 3300 BC,{{sfn|Mattessich|2002}} hieroglyphs were not a fully developed [[writing system]], being at a transitional stage of [[proto-writing]]; over the time leading up to the 27th century BC, grammatical features such as [[Nisba (suffix)|nisba]] formation can be seen to occur.{{sfn|Mattessich|2002}}{{sfn|Allen|2013|p=2f.}}

Old Egyptian is dated from the oldest known complete sentence, including a [[finite verb]], which has been found. Discovered in the tomb of [[Seth-Peribsen]] (dated {{Circa|2690 BC}}), the seal impression reads:

{{clear}}
:{| cellpadding=5
|-
| <hiero>d:D n:f</hiero> || <hiero>N19:n</hiero> || <hiero>G38:f</hiero> || <hiero>M23*L2:t*t</hiero> || <hiero>O1:F34 s:n</hiero>
|-
|{{wikt-lang|egy|dmḏj|d(m)ḏ.n}}{{wikt-lang|egy|.f}} || {{wikt-lang|egy|tꜣwj|tꜣ-wj}} {{wikt-lang|egy|n}} || {{wikt-lang|egy|zꜣ}}{{wikt-lang|egy|.f}} || {{wikt-lang|egy|nswt-bjtj|nsw.t-bj.t(j)}} || {{wikt-lang|egy|pr}}-{{wikt-lang|egy|jb}}''.sn(j)''
|-
|unite.{{gcl|PRF}}.he<ref>{{cite journal |last=Werning |first=Daniel A. |year=2008 |title=Aspect vs. Relative Tense, and the Typological Classification of the Ancient Egyptian {{Transliteration|egy|sḏm.n⸗f}} |journal=Lingua Aegyptia |volume=16 |page=289}}</ref>  || land.two for || son.his || [[He of the Sedge and Bee|sedge-bee]] || house-[[Ancient Egyptian conception of the soul#Ib (heart)|heart]].their
|-
|colspan=6 | "He has united [[Upper and Lower Egypt|the Two Lands]] for his son, [[nsw-bjt|Dual King]] [[Seth-Peribsen|Peribsen]]."<ref name="c">{{Harvcoltxt|Allen|2013|p=2}} citing [[Jochem Kahl]], Markus Bretschneider, ''Frühägyptisches Wörterbuch'', Part 1 (2002), p. 229.</ref>
|}

Extensive texts appear from about 2600 BC.{{sfn|Allen|2013|p=2f.}} An early example is the [[Diary of Merer]]. The [[Pyramid Texts]] are the largest body of literature written in this phase of the language. One of its distinguishing characteristics is the tripling of [[ideogram]]s, phonograms, and [[determinative]]s to indicate the plural. Overall, it does not differ significantly from Middle Egyptian, the classical stage of the language, though it is based on a different dialect.

In the period of the 3rd dynasty ({{Circa|2650|2575 BC}}), many of the principles of hieroglyphic writing were regularized. From that time on, until the script was supplanted by an early version of Coptic (about the third and fourth centuries), the system remained virtually unchanged. Even the number of signs used remained constant at about 700 for more than 2,000 years.<ref>{{cite web |title=Hieroglyph {{!}} writing character |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/265009/hieroglyph |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=5 December 2018 |language=en}}</ref>

===Middle Egyptian===
Middle Egyptian was spoken for about 700 years, beginning around 2000 BC, during the [[Middle Kingdom of Egypt|Middle Kingdom]] and the subsequent [[Second Intermediate Period of Egypt|Second Intermediate Period]].{{sfn|Loprieno|1995|p=5}} As the classical variant of Egyptian, Middle Egyptian is the best-documented variety of the language, and has attracted the most attention by far from [[Egyptology]]. While most Middle Egyptian is seen written on monuments by hieroglyphs, it was also written using a [[cursive hieroglyphs|cursive variant]], and the related [[hieratic]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.archaeology.org/9903/newsbriefs/egypt.html|title=Earliest Egyptian Glyphs – Archaeology Magazine Archive}}</ref>

Middle Egyptian first became available to modern scholarship with the [[Decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs|decipherment of hieroglyphs]] in the early 19th century. The first grammar of Middle Egyptian was published by [[Adolf Erman]] in 1894, surpassed in 1927 by [[Alan Gardiner]]'s work. Middle Egyptian has been well-understood since then, although certain points of the [[Egyptian verb|verb]]al inflection remained open to revision until the mid-20th century, notably due to the contributions of [[Hans Jakob Polotsky]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Polotsky |first=H. J. |title=Études de syntaxe copte |publisher=Société d'Archéologie Copte |location=Cairo |date=1944}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Polotsky |first=H. J. |title=Egyptian Tenses |publisher=Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities |volume=2 |number=5 |year=1965}}</ref>

The Middle Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 14th century BC, giving rise to Late Egyptian. This transition was taking place in the later period of the [[Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt]] (known as the [[Amarna Period]]).{{Citation needed|date=August 2020}}

====Egyptien de tradition====
{{main|Egyptien de tradition}}
Original Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian texts were still used after the 14th century BCE. And an emulation of predominately Middle Egyptian, but also with characteristics of Old Egyptian, Late Egyptian and Demotic, called "{{lang|fr|Égyptien de tradition}}" or "Neo-Middle Egyptian" by scholars, was used as a literary language for new texts since the later [[New Kingdom of Egypt|New Kingdom]] in official and religious [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|hieroglyphic]] and hieratic texts in preference to Late Egyptian or Demotic. ''Égyptien de tradition'' as a religious language survived until the Christianisation of [[Roman Egypt]] in the 4th century.

===Late Egyptian===
Late Egyptian was spoken for about 650 years, beginning around 1350 BC, during the [[New Kingdom of Egypt]]. Late Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplant [[Middle Egyptian language|Middle Egyptian]] as a [[literary language]], and was also the language of the New Kingdom administration.{{sfn|Loprieno|1995|p=7}}<ref>Meyers, ''op. cit.'', p. 209.</ref>

Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the [[Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt]] and later. Late Egyptian is represented by a large body of religious and secular [[Ancient Egyptian literature|literature]], comprising such examples as the ''[[Story of Wenamun]]'', the love poems of the Chester–Beatty I  papyrus, and the ''[[Instruction of Any]]''. [[Sebayt|Instructions]] became a popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, which took the form of advice on proper behavior. Late Egyptian was also the language of New Kingdom administration.<ref>Loprieno, ''op.cit.'', p.7</ref><ref>Meyers, ''op.cit.'', p. 209</ref>

Late Egyptian is not completely distinct from Middle Egyptian, as many "classicisms" appear in historical and literary documents of this phase.<ref>Haspelmath, ''op.cit.'', p.1743</ref> However, the difference between Middle and Late Egyptian is greater than the difference between Middle and Old Egyptian. Originally a [[synthetic language]], Egyptian by the Late Egyptian phase had become an [[analytic language]].<ref>Bard, ''op.cit.'', p.275</ref> The relationship between Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian has been described as being similar to that between Latin and Italian.<ref>Christidēs et al. ''op.cit.'', p.811</ref> 
* Written Late Egyptian was seemingly a better representative than Middle Egyptian of the spoken language in the New Kingdom and beyond: weak consonants ''ꜣ, w, j'', as well as the feminine ending {{Transliteration|egy|.t}} were increasingly dropped, apparently because they stopped being pronounced.
* The demonstrative pronouns  {{Transliteration|egy|pꜣ}} (masc.), {{Transliteration|egy|tꜣ}} (fem.), and {{Transliteration|egy|nꜣ}} (pl.) were used as definite articles. 
* The old form {{Transliteration|egy|sḏm.n.f}} (he heard) of the verb was replaced by {{Transliteration|egy|sḏm-f}} which had both prospective (he shall hear) and perfective (he heard) aspects. The past tense was also formed using the auxiliary verb {{Transliteration|egy|jr}} (make), as in {{Transliteration|egy|jr.f saḥa.f}} (he has accused him).
* Adjectives as attributes of nouns are often replaced by nouns.

The Late Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 8th century BC, giving rise to Demotic.

===Demotic===
{{main|Demotic Egyptian language}}
[[Image:Funerary stele Thousei Louvre E27220.jpg|thumb|10th century stela with Coptic inscription, in the [[Louvre]]]]
Demotic is a later development of the Egyptian language written in the [[Demotic (Egyptian)|Demotic script]], following Late Egyptian and preceding [[Coptic language|Coptic]], the latter of which it shares much with. In the earlier stages of Demotic, such as those texts written in the early Demotic script, it probably represented the spoken idiom of the time. However, as its use became increasingly confined to literary and religious purposes, the written language diverged more and more from the spoken form, leading to significant [[diglossia]] between the late Demotic texts and the spoken language of the time, similar to the use of classical Middle Egyptian during the Ptolemaic Period.

===Coptic===
{{main|Coptic language}}
[[Coptic language|Coptic]] is the name given to the late Egyptian vernacular when it was written in a Greek-based alphabet, the Coptic alphabet; it flourished from the time of [[Early Christianity|Early Christianity (c. 31/33–324)]], but Egyptian phrases written in the Greek alphabet first appeared during the [[Hellenistic period]] {{circa|3rd century BC}},{{sfn|Allen|2020|p=3}} with the first known Coptic text, still pagan ([[Old Coptic]]), from the 1st century AD.

Coptic survived into the medieval period, but by the 16th century was dwindling rapidly due to the persecution of Coptic Christians under the [[Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)|Mamluks]]. It probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that. Coptic survives as the liturgical language of the [[Coptic Orthodox Church]] and the [[Coptic Catholic Church]].