Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

the vowel o, and this is proved by the *
forms of quoted
Introduction. lix
or e in the first two
above. It has seemed to me for several
years past that the vowel signs which we find in many Egyptian Vowels as
words were intended not to be read necessarily as parts of the indications of
... . . . the meanings
words, but only to indicate or limit their signification. But the of words or
subject is too large to discuss in an Introduction to a Dictionary,
and demands a book to itself. Meanwhile, I understand that
M. Naville is preparing a volume on the whole question, and as
there is every reason to believe that he will present in a new light
many important facts bearing upon Egyptian phonetics, its
vei"bal forms,
appearance is eagerly awaited.
The system of transliteration which I have used in this The Egyptian
Dictionary is a modification of that which was employed by Birch habet in
^gg
and some of the older Egyptologists, and by Brugsch until the
last years of his life. The following is the transliteration of the
letters of the Egyptian Alphabet which Brugsch printed in the
first volume of his Worterbuch (1867) :
\\
f]
u >
ua (w)
J
ra
m or
m
In 1880, the following modification of this Alphabet appeared The Egyptian
a
in the fifth volume of his Worterbuch (Folge und Umschreibung l8s
der alphabetischen Zeichen) :
a. Vowels and half-vowels :
a. ( & (N). -o a (y).
f] u >
w CO-
\\ i. I, y (.). u, o.