MlKKoci.YI'HH S 



707 



a vulture, Mat. 



a water-line, N. 

 V a red crown, N. 

 5 a vase, No. 



a goose flying, Pa. 

 Q a door, P. 

 A a knee, Q. 



a papyrus plant, 

 Ha. 



/fore-part of lion, 

 X Ha. 



\ twisted cord, H. 

 *==> a tusk, Hu. 

 a finger, Teb. 



(j I] two reeds, I. 



.. /two oblique 

 ' \ strokes, I. 



a bowl, K. 

 part of dress, xa. 

 /leaf of water-lily, 



a mormyruB fish, 



xa. 

 a mace, xa. 



/[\ a stand, x e r. 



n] top of quiver, Sa. 



a goose, Se. 

 a woof, Sa. 



I a reed, Su. 



a bolt, S. 



I 1 back of chair, S. 



JtT0T a garden, Sha. 

 i vv i a pool, SH. 

 J a spindle, &. 



a hand, T. 



tongs, 9. 



a cake, T. 



a chicken, U. 



a twisted cord, U. 



Under the rule of the Ptolemies in Egypt the 

 values of the hieroglyphs were systematically 

 changed. Thus - , x en t became m; /J\, nes, 

 became n, and so on. The various forms of the 

 same vowel were confused with one another, and 

 many changes between consonants took place. 



The language of the hieroglyphs is most nearly 

 represented by Coptic. Coptic is a name given to 

 the Egyptian language written with the letters of 

 the Greek alphabet, and a few signs borrowed from 

 the demotic forms of some of the hieroglyphs. 

 The Bible was translated into Coptic early in the 

 3d century A.D., and the greater part of this work, 

 indispensable for the proper study of the hiero- 

 glyphs, has come down to our time. Coptic litera- 

 ture is chiefly theological, and the texts are full 

 of Greek words. The forms of Egyptian words as 

 given > in the hieroglyphs are often considerably 

 modified in Coptic ; many of the changes are 

 caused by phonetic decay. The Coptic language 

 ceased to be spoken about a century ago. See 

 COPTS. 



In Egyptian the noun has two genders, mascu- 

 line and feminine ; feminine nouns usually end in 

 t. Plural nouns end in u or I'M, and are generally 



followed by ||| or j. In Egyptian nouns have no 

 declensions, and the cases are expressed by particles 

 placed before nouns. Adjectives have no gram- 

 matical forms to indicate degrees of comparison. 

 The following are the principal Egyptian numerals : 



Mill tu.-i 5 



HUH sun 6 



*%<* 7 

 xemennu 8 



in 



in paut 



in 



meti 



nn 'taut 



mab 



10 



20 



I 



xa 1000 



t.-l. 10,000 



hefnu 100,000 



1. 1. -h 1,000,000 



shaft 100 Q shen 10,000,000 



The personal pronouns are: nuk or dnuk, 'I;' 

 entuk (inasc.), entut (fern.), 'thou;' entuf, 'he,' 

 I'ntna, 'she;' entuten, 'you 1 (plur.) ; entnsen, ruin, 

 'they.' The personal Kiiffixes are A, 'I,' k, 'thou' 

 ( masc. ), t, ' thou ' ( fern. ) ; /, ' he,' , ' she ; ' n, 

 'we;' ten, 'you;' sen, set, 'they.' The Egyptian 

 verb has no tenses, moods, voices, conjugations, 

 or personal endings. The exact meaning of a verb 

 must be gathered from the context or the syntax 

 of the sentence. The Egyptian verb is often 

 accompanied by one of the following auxiliary 

 verbs: du, 'be;' un, 'be,' 'to arise;' art, 'do;' 

 aAa, 'stand;' td, 'give.' 



Considered as one of the most ancient written 

 languages, Egyptian throws great light upon com- 

 parative philology, the relative antiquity of various 

 words and locutions, the general construction of 

 language itself, and the development of picture- 

 writing into the abstract ciphers of sound, called 

 letters. During the 19th dynasty, or alxmt 1400 

 B.C., many Semitic words were introduced into the 

 language by the success of the Egyptian arms in 

 the East, and such words as bata for Beth, 'a 

 house,' makatiiru for Migdol, ' a tower,' and otln-i>. 

 appear ; they are, however, rare and few in number 

 compared to the body of the language. 



The invention of hieroglyphs, called Neterkharu, 

 or ' divine words,' was attributed to the god Thoth, 

 the scribe of the gods, and lord of the hieroglyphs. 

 Pliny attributes their invention to Menon. The 

 literature of the Egyptians was in fact styled 

 Hermaic or Hermetic, on account of its supposed 

 divine origin, and the knowledge of hieroglyphs 

 was, to a certain extent, a mystery to the ignorant, 

 although universally employed by the sacerdotal and 

 instructed classes. To foreign nations the hiero- 

 glyphs always remained a mystery, although Moses 

 is supposed to have been versed in the knowledge 

 of them ( Philo, Vita Moysis). The Greeks, who had 

 settled on the coast as early as the 6th century B.C., 

 appear not to have possessed more than a colloquial 

 knowledge of the language ; and although Solon, 

 538 B.C., is said to have studied Egyptian doctrines 

 at Sebennytus and Heliopolis, and tlie doctrines of 

 Pythagoras are thought to have been derived from 

 Egypt, these sages could only have acquired their 

 knowledge from interpretations of hieroglyphic 

 writings. Hecatreus (521 B.C.) and Herodotus (456 

 B.C. ), who visited Egypt in their travels, obtained 

 from similar sources the information they have 

 afforded of the language or monuments of the 

 country. Democritus of Abdera, indeed, about 

 the same period (459 B.C.), described both the 

 Ethiopian hieroglyphs and the Babylonian cunei- 

 form, but his work has disappeared. After the 

 conquest of Egypt by Alexander, the Greek rulers 

 began to pay attention to the language and history 

 of their subjects ; and Eratosthenes, the keeper 

 of the museum at Alexandria, and Manetho, the 

 high-priest of Sebennytus, dn-\v up accounts of the 

 national chronology and history from hieroglyphic 

 sources. Under the Roman empire, in tin- n-ign of 

 Augustus, one Chieremon, the keeper of the library 

 at the Serapeum, compiled n dictionary of the 

 hieroglyphs ; and l>oth Diodorus and Stralw men- 

 tion them, and describe their nature. Tacitus, 

 later under the empire, gives the account of the 

 monuments of Thebes translated by the Egyptian 



