Editing Ancient Egypt (section)

===Sounds and grammar===
Ancient Egyptian has 25 consonants similar to those of other Afro-Asiatic languages. These include [[pharyngeal consonant|pharyngeal]] and [[Emphatic consonant|emphatic]] consonants, voiced and voiceless stops, voiceless [[Fricative consonant|fricatives]] and voiced and voiceless [[Affricate consonant|affricates]]. It has three long and three short vowels, which expanded in Late Egyptian to about nine.{{sfnp|Loprieno|1995a|p=46}} The basic word in Egyptian, similar to Semitic and Berber, is a [[Semitic root|triliteral]] or biliteral root of consonants and semiconsonants. Suffixes are added to form words. The verb conjugation corresponds to the [[Grammatical person|person]]. For example, the triconsonantal skeleton '''{{transliteration|egy|S-Ḏ-M}}''' is the semantic core of the word 'hear'; its basic conjugation is ''{{transliteration|egy|sḏm}}'', 'he hears'. If the subject is a noun, suffixes are not added to the verb:{{sfnp|Loprieno|1995a|p=74}} ''{{transliteration|egy|sḏm ḥmt}}'', 'the woman hears'.

Adjectives are derived from nouns through a process that Egyptologists call ''[[Arabic grammar|nisbation]]'' because of its similarity with Arabic.{{sfnp|Loprieno|2004|p=175}} The word order is {{smallcaps|predicate–subject}} in verbal and adjectival sentences, and {{smallcaps|subject–predicate}} in nominal and adverbial sentences.{{sfnp|Allen|2000|pp=67, 70, 109}} The subject can be moved to the beginning of sentences if it is long and is followed by a resumptive pronoun.{{sfnp|Loprieno|1995b|p=2147}} Verbs and nouns are negated by the [[Grammatical particle|particle]] ''n'', but ''nn'' is used for adverbial and adjectival sentences. [[Stress (linguistics)|Stress]] falls on the ultimate or penultimate syllable, which can be open (CV) or closed (CVC).{{sfnp|Loprieno|2004|p=173}}