Through the Eras

Literaturemar, and pronunciation from other varieties, but constitutingtogether with them a single language. Somedialects are associated with different regions of a country.Other dialects, as is true with Egyptian, are separatedby time. A more familiar example of thisphenomenon is the language of the medieval Englishpoems Beowolf and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Theywere composed in dialects of English, but are nearly incomprehensibleto modern English speakers. Yet thelanguages of these poems are still the natural ancestorsof our modern language. In the same way, the dialectsof Egyptian—called Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian,Late Egyptian, Demotic, and Coptic—each grew outof the previous dialectical stage of the language and representdifferent time periods. There must also have beenregional dialects that scholars cannot recognize fromthe written evidence. Of the dialects preserved on papyrus,stone, and other writing materials, the oldest isOld Egyptian, used to compose the Pyramid Texts andthe autobiographies found in Old Kingdom (2675–2170 B.C.E.) tombs. Middle Egyptian, spoken duringthe Middle Kingdom (2008–1630 B.C.E.) was Egypt’smost important dialect. It was the classical languageused to compose poetry and prose for 1,500 years afterEgyptians stopped speaking it as their day-to-daylanguage. Late Egyptian was the day-to-day speech ofthe New Kingdom (1539–1075 B.C.E.) and was favoredby authors of popular tales. Demotic, used in speechby Egyptians during the Late Period through the RomanPeriod (664 B.C.E.–395 C.E.) was a vehicle forpopular literature and business deals. At the same timethat Demotic predominated among the Egyptianspeakingpopulace, the ruling class spoke Greek. FinallyCoptic, written with the Greek alphabet and some additionalcharacters used to convey sounds not found inGreek, is the last stage of the Egyptian language, emergingin the first century C.E. Egyptian Christians stilluse it as the language of prayer. Egyptians began speakingArabic after the Moslem conquest of their countryin 641 C.E.LANGUAGE FAMILY. The ancient Egyptian dialectsform one language and one language family calledHamito-Semitic or Afro-Asiatic. A language family normallygroups together languages with similar vocabularyand grammar. English, for example, is a branch of theIndo-European language family with close connectionsto both German and French. The Egyptian language’sclose connections are with languages now spoken inother parts of Africa and in the Near East. Among themany African languages related to Egyptian are Berber,spoken in North Africa; Wolof, spoken in West Africa;Scribe’s exercise board with Hieratic text. BROOKLYN MUSEUM OFART, 16.119, GIFT OF EVANGELINE WILBOUR BLASHFIELD, THEODORAWILBOUR, AND VICTOR WILBOUR HONORING THE WISHES OF THEIRMOTHER, CHARLOTTE BEEBE WILBOUR AS A MEMORIAL TO THEIR FA-THER, CHARLES EDWIN WILBOUR. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.and Bedja, spoken in Eritrea in East Africa. Egyptianalso shares similarities with the vocabulary and grammarof the Semitic languages including Arabic, Aramaic, andHebrew. These connections illustrate that Egypt was alwaysa bridge between the African continent and westernAsia.EGYPTIAN SCRIPTS. Hieroglyphs are the most easilyrecognized ancient Egyptian script, but were not themost commonly used. Hieratic, a cursive writing systembased on hieroglyphs, was the most commonly usedEgyptian script from the Old Kingdom (2675–2170B.C.E.) to the beginning of the Late Period about 664B.C.E. Scribes used cursive hieroglyphs, a writing of hieroglyphsthat included fewer interior details in eachsign, for writing the Book of the Dead. During the LatePeriod, scribes developed the Demotic writing system, aArts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.) 117