Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

Introduction. Ixix
reader, and convey to his mind an exact conception of what the
writer intended to express. The names of the cardinal numbers
show that the people who invented the words quoted above Borrowing
counted by fives, for they have words for " one "
"
two
_j| ,
L "three" A, "four" "^ V and
a Q < =^3 n
When
"five" e=>^, and their
_n&
next number is "ten" n .
they came in contact with the
Semites they borrowed from them the numbers " six "
N
I
,
d^ e sign
Heb.ttW, "seven" 0^''', Heb. 3Dtt5, "eight" , Heb. Borrowing of
Mil ~N~W Illl the pronouns
and " nine " 1 '
D Heb. yvn. In a similar manner they
(1 ^^l',",
borrowed t & as a sign of the feminine, and several of the pronouns,
feminine.
and at a much later period many of the Semitic words that were
current at the time in Syria and Palestine. And it has always
seemed to me that some of the aboriginal words of the primitive
Egyptians found their way into neighbouring countries, where they
still live. Thus the common Egyptian word khefti *^,
"
enemy," which has its equivalent in the Coptic shaft cy-i-crr,
is also found in Amharic under the form shafta f\(tf-- The Survivals in
,-^=^1
Amharic.
Egyptian word teng ffi 4> 4f> "pygmy>" seems to be preserved
in the Amharic denk K'M* : The Egyptian word tuat * \^
"
morning," seems to survive in the Amharic tuwat (]\,^ :
;
JlC>s (jj
and with
the Egyptian So. (?) or v&
" "
man," person," may be compared
the Amharic saw f\(fr:
"
man or woman," "
person."
As none of the literature of the peoples who lived on each
side of the Valley of the Nile has been preserved, we have no means
of finding out how much they borrowed linguistically from the
Egyptians or the Egyptians from them, but I believe the Egyptians
were as much indebted to them as to the Semites. I do not for Value of
one moment suggest that such literature as the modern inhabitants stidlmT
of the Valley of the Nile and the neighbouring countries possess, dialects for
whether it be those on the east or those on the west of the Nile,
can be utilized for explaining ancient Egyptian texts, but the
comparatively small amount of attention which I have been able
to devote to the grammars and vocabularies of some of the
languages now spoken in the Eastern Sudan has convinced me
that they contain much that is useful for the study of the language
of the hieroglyphs. The ancient Egyptians were Africans,
and they spoke an African language, and the modern peoples of
the Eastern Sudan are Africans, and they speak African lan-
guages, and there is in consequence much in modern native
e 3
'