Your Amateur Researcher (YAR), the writer of this short essay, has a copy of Allen:
Allen, James P. 2000, 2001. Middle Egyptian: an introduction to the language and culture of hieroglyph. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
In Chapter 1 Allen draws to the end of his introduction with the remark:
‘Except for the most obscure words, hieroglyphic texts can be read today almost as easily as those of any other known language.’ [p.9]
He presents some exercises on page 12. Here are a couple of examples from the exercises:
X: 1
This is summarised in the NedjNedj Database as:
"" setj wu em bAk-ef kher tep-ef en wen mAya = "I was his servant, his true confidant" verily I in connection with servant him-of upon head him-of exist [?] true : Allen [12:2] <cloth tether quail owl jabiru cup squatter viper block mouth profile stroke viper water propeller sickle whistle>
For this example Allen helpfully provides the translation:
I was his servant, his true confidant
X: 2
"" peti nA neteten iyi wi en er-es = "what is the reason we have returned" what these you-all come I us-all in relation to her–it : Allen [12:4] <stool bun pair twig: mouth squattermouth water eagle water bunx2 water plural reed: legs pair legs coil pair water plural mouth cloth>
Again Allen offers an idiomatic translation:
What is the reason we have returned
Easy as any other known language
Is Allen being fair in suggesting to those like YAR that reading hieroglyphs is easy?
Is he doing this so as not to discourage us from looking at the rest of his study of Middle Egyptian? Or perhaps he was not thinking of English as one of his easy-to-read ‘known languages’, nor even, say, French:
où est la plume de ma tante
for this French statement about my aunt’s pen is probably considerably easier to read than hieroglyphs for perhaps every single person alive on the planet.
Maybe Allen was thinking not of European languages but other known languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Thai and the many besides these that are written with non-Roman scripts. Should this be the case, then ‘easily’ is hardly the right word to use, because such languages for beginners are daunting in their difficulty.
While YAR was still cheerfully under the influence of Allen’s view of the facility with which one might read the Ancient Egyptian (AE) hieroglyphs, he attempted the exercises on page 12, including the two examples given above.
This entry will show step by step how YAR got on.
Analysis X: 1
Glyphs by name
<cloth tether quail owl jabiru cup squatter viper block mouth profile stroke viper water propeller sickle whistle>
Allen’s idiomatic translation
I was his servant, his true confidant
Easy-to-read respelling or transliteration
setj wu em bAk-ef kher tep-ef en wen mAya
☉ ☉ ☉ ☉ ☉
YAR began by making an attempt at identifying words within the above green sequence, and at respelling the example in the easy-to-read manner adopted in the NedjNedj Database, with the transliterated result shown above.
Next he set about trying to identify words — for in AE there was no word separation or punctuation — within this string of characters. First, <owl> might be the common preposition em ‘in connection with’; and the two <viper> instances might each be the 3sg masculine pronoun (he / him / his) often suffixed to a word and hence marking the end of it.
So was the first word the group <cloth tether quail> occurring before the <owl>? It appeared to read as setju. If it were setju, what did the NedjNedj database offer about such a word? One example, spelt slightly differently, popped up:
Table 1.1: setju <cloth tether quail>
Egyptian
|
respelt
|
English
|
EngJSM
|
source
|
ID JS
|
glyphs
|
"stw"
|
setju =
|
"sower"
|
:
|
Faulkner Concise [255:4]
|
<cloth tether arrowskin quail>
|
 |
There were no other setju examples, so perhaps the sentence began with ‘sower’. However, as the analysis progressed, this seemed increasingly unlikely, especially in the light of Allen’s translation with no mention of such an idea. So what if the word were just setj?
For this possibility Faulkner provides:
Egyptian
|
respelt
|
English
|
EngJSM
|
source
|
ID JS
|
glyphs
|
"st"
|
setj =
|
""
|
verily :
|
Faulkner Concise [255:1]
|
<cloth tether>
|
 |
Faulkner adds a note that setj is: ‘var. of particle ỉst’ [isetj].
Consequently the database pursuit moved on to isetj, with this new result:
Table 1.3: isetj
"ist "
|
isetj =
|
"verily"
|
verily :
|
Gardiner [628.1:16.1]
|
<reed cloth tether>
|
 |
The first word in the green sequence of X:1 might therefore be ‘verily’. This would leave an isolated <quail>, but for this item further investigation showed that it might be a short form of one of numerous ways of rendering the 1sg pronoun ‘I’. Indeed Kamrin provided the following helpful example:
Table 1.4: wi <quail>
"wi"
|
wi =
|
"I"
|
I :
|
Kamrin [229:5.12]
|
<quail>
|
 |
Summarising progress with Example X: 1 so far, we now have:
setj wi ...
Verily, I ...
Continuing on, if <owl> is preposition em ‘in connection with’, the next word, ending in <viper> would be < jabiru cup squatter viper> or bAk-ef.
What might bAk mean? Collier/Manley offer an answer:
Table 1.5: bAk <jabiru cup squatter (viper)>
Egyptian
|
respelt
|
English
|
EngJSM
|
source
|
ID JS
|
glyphs
|
"b3k"
|
bAk =
|
"servant"
|
servant person:
|
Col/Man [15:5]
|
<jabiru cup squatter>
|
 |
Progress with the X: 1 sentence:
setj wi em bAk-ef ...
Verily / I / in connection with / servant him-of / ...
The next two words appear contradictory: kher ‘under’:
Table 1.6: kher <block mouth>
"Xer"
|
kher =
|
"under"
|
under :
|
Col/Man [117:21.01]
|
<block mouth>
|
 |
and tep ‘upon’; but tep can stand for anything at the top or above, such as ‘upon’, ‘head’, ‘first’, ‘primaeval’ and the like:
Table 1.7: tep <profile stroke (viper)>
"ṭep"
|
tep =
|
"upon"
|
upon :
|
EAWB [156:13]
|
<profile stroke>
|
 |
"ṭep-k"
|
tep-ek =
|
"thy head"
|
head thee-of:
|
EAWB [177:9.3]
|
<profile stroke cup>
|
 |
Progress with the X: 1 sentence:
setj wi em bAk-ef kher tep-ef ...
Verily / I / in connection with / servant him-of / under / head him-of / ...
This leaves the final glyphs: <water propeller sickle whistle>.
Of these four the last two <sickle whistle> are the easiest:
Table 1.8: mAya <sickle whistle>
"m3¬"
|
mAya =
|
"true"
|
true :
|
Col/Man [95:9.2]
|
<sickle whistle arm>
|
 |
Thus mAya, written in Table 1.8 with the complementary glyph <arm> as <sickle whistle arm>, means ‘true’.
In the X:1 sentence its role might be
—either that of an adjective following a noun (say ‘confidant’), as Allen has suggested in ‘true confidant’;
—or, standing as it does at the end of a statement, it might be a terminal epithet akin to Euclid’s QED (quod erat demonstrandum: ‘which had to be demonstrated’). So mAya at the end might assert of the foregoing statement or remarks that they are ‘true’. There are other instances of such terminal epithets in Ancient Egyptian, such as ‘justified’, and ‘true of voice’, so why not mAya ‘true’?
This leaves two hieroglyphs, <water> and <propeller>.
The database does not help much. In a very few instances where these glyphs occur together, the following are the most promising:
Table 1.9: <water propeller>
"wnwn"
|
wen wen =
|
"move about"
|
sway :
|
Faulkner Concise [61:12.2]
|
<propeller water propeller water>
|
 |
"nwn"
|
newen =
|
"pull"
|
pull :
|
Faulkner Concise [128:1.2]
|
<water propeller water>
|
 |
Neither row in Table 1.9 is particularly encouraging. The first example has the glyphs reversed (<propeller water>) and redoubled; and the second is an imperfect match. Moreover the meanings of ‘move about’ and ‘pull’ seem to be unlikely components in the sentence of X:1.
Perhaps <water> is the preposition ‘of’, which it commonly is, leaving only the mysterious <propeller>.
The X:1 example now looks like:
setj wi em bAk-ef kher tep-ef en wen mAya
Verily / I / in connection with / servant him-of / under / head him-of / ...... [?] / true
Idiomatically this might be:
I [was] his servant under his leadership [?] of xxx: True.
This may now be compared with Allen’s idiomatic translation:
I was his servant, his true confidant
While YAR's effort is rough and incomplete, that of Allen is questionable. Even should <propeller> wen mean ‘confidant’, for which the database has so far uncovered no confirmation, this sentence has been much less than ‘easy’ to attempt to come to terms with.
Analysis X: 2
Glyphs by name
<stool bun pair twig: mouth squattermouth water eagle water bunx2 water plural reed: legs pair legs coil pair water plural mouth cloth>
Allen’s idiomatic translation
What is the reason we have returned
Easy-to-read respelling or transliteration
peti nA neteten iyi wi en er-es
☉ ☉ ☉ ☉ ☉
Proceeding in the same way as for the previous example, trying to identify easy-to-spot words, we can note that <squattermouth> is a common end-of-word determinative, and likewise that the <plural> sign often occurs at the ends of words. We might fairly quickly surmise that the sentence appears to read something like:
peti nA neteten iyi wi en er-es
The investigation thus begins with peti:
Table 2.1: peti <stool bun pair twig: mouth squattermouth>
"peti trå"
|
peti =
|
"What then"
|
what :
|
EAWB [235:5.3]
|
<stool bun pair twig: mouth squattermouth>
|
 |
"pty"
|
peti =
|
"who?"
|
who :
|
Gardiner [566.1:18.2]
|
<stool bun pair twig: mouth squattermouth>
|
|
Progress with the X: 2 example:
peti ...
what – who ...
The next word would seem to be the demonstrative ‘this’:
Table 2.2: nA < water eagle>
"n3"
|
nA =
|
"this"
|
this these:
|
Allen [52:4.3]
|
<water eagle>
|
 |
The word after that seems to be unmistakable, neteten:
Table 2.3: neteten < water bunx2 water plural>
"nttn"
|
neteten =
|
"you-all"
|
you-all :
|
Gardiner [576.2:13.2]
|
<water bunx2 water plural>
|
 |
In fact Gardiner, who has supplied the above example of Table 2.3, does not use the expression ‘you-all’ but rather has: ‘indep. pron. 2nd. pl. c., you’. Gardiner then refers the reader to §64 in his Egyptian Grammar, a section that presents all the independent (i.e. stand alone, or free) pronouns. This section, however, does not add anything more in particular about the 2pl pronoun ‘you-all’.
Progress with the X: 2 sentence:
peti nA neteten ...
what – who / this / you-all ...
The next group of glyphs might be the verb iyi ‘come’:
Table 2.41: iyi <reed: legs pair legs>
"jj"
|
iyi =
|
"come"
|
come :
|
Allen [453.2:12]
|
<reed: legs pair legs>
|
 |
"ỉỉ"
|
iyi =
|
"come"
|
come :
|
Faulkner Concise [10:3.1]
|
<reed: legs reed legs>
|
 |
Further database enquiry on an expanded group of glyphs (<reed: legs pair legs coil pair>) suggested an alternative translation:
Table 2.42: iyi <reed: legs pair legs coil pair>
"iy-wy"
|
iyi-yu-wi =
|
"welcome"
|
come entity agent [welcome]:
|
Gardiner [628.2:24.2]
|
<reed: legs reed legs quail pair>
|
 |
Explanatory digression
The words 'entity agent' in the yellow portion of Table 2.42 may be explained as follows.
It has been noted by YAR that the sound /u/ suffixed to a word allows such a word to be described as ...-entity. This is akin to ...-ance in English, in words such as 'appear-ance', 'deliver-ance'. The /u/ sound in hieroglyphic writing is indicated by <quail>, <coil> or <plural>.
In like fashion, /i/ when suffixed to a word can have the same effect as ...-er (or ...-or) in English, in words such as bak-er, conduct-or, govern-or, swim-mer. That is to say the suffix indicated the person doing something, or the 'agent'. The /i/ sound in hieroglyphic writing is indicated by <reed>, <reeds> or <pair> and perhaps by <strokex2>
So in the example of Table 2.42 we have:
iyi-u-i: go - entity - agent
rendered as iyi-yu-wi, or iyiyuwi. This spelling rather than iyiui is so as to avoid having two vowels together, a device used throughout the Bayala (Australian Aboriginal) and NedNedj (Hieroglyphic) databases.
Progress with the X: 2 sentence:
peti nA neteten iyi-yu-wi ...
what – who / this / you-all / welcome ...
As with the previous example, X:1, we have arrived at a final four glyphs: <water plural mouth cloth>. It has already been suggested that <plural> might mark the end of a word, hence:
Table 2.5: nu <water plural>
"n(w?)"
|
nu =
|
"therefore"
|
:
|
Gardiner [571.2:13.3]
|
<water plural>
|
 |
"nw"
|
nu =
|
""
|
we-two :
|
Faulkner Concise [124:12.2]
|
<water plural>
|
|
"n"
|
en =
|
"we"
|
we-all us:
|
Gardiner [572.1:1.11]
|
<water plural>
|
|
"n"
|
en =
|
"we"
|
we-all us-of:
|
Kamrin [229:2.20]
|
<water plural>
|
|
The different transcription in the last two rows of the above table is due to two reasons.
First, the <plural> glyph might either be pronounced (as /u/) as in the top two rows, or it might be an unvoiced plural indicator, as in the last two.
Second, it is not known today whether single signs such as <water> were pronounced with vowel before of after the consonant. For vowels were generally not written. So <water> might have been en or ne: who knows? Equally <owl> ('in connection with') might have been em or me; and <mouth> ('in relation to') might have been er or re.
All four transcriptions in this table are really only guesses.
But to return to the analysing of Example X:2. Once again there are uncertainties at the end of the example. Are the final glyphs <mouth cloth> to be read res or er-es?
Table 2.61: res <mouth cloth>
"rs"
|
res =
|
"indeed"
|
indeed :
|
Gardiner [578.2:6]
|
<mouth cloth>
|
 |
Gardiner writing in connection with the example in Table 2.61, states: ‘‘rs, with the 3rd. fem. suffix used as a neuter, is very rare.” §252.4.
Wallis Budge provides a few examples too:
Table 2.62: er-es <mouth cloth>
"er - s"
|
er-es =
|
"about it"
|
in relation to it:
|
EAWB [195:7.5]
|
<mouth cloth>
|
|
"eres"
|
er-es =
|
"with it"
|
in relation to it:
|
EAWB [202:1.5]
|
<mouth bolt>
|
 |
Note that /s/ may be rendered by either the glyph <cloth> or <bolt>, as in the green column of Table 2.62.
Neither Gardiner nor Wallis Budge is really helpful for the present analysis.
Neither Gardiner nor Wallis Budge is really helpful for the present analysis.
So the example X:2, after analysis with assistance from the NedjNedj database, appears to be:
peti nA neteten iyi-yu-wi en er-es [res?]...
what – who / this / you-all / welcome / we-all – us-all / in relation to it
Perhaps this might be construed as something like:
Why [is it] that you-all welcome[d] us-all to it
Once again this might be compared with Allen’s idiomatic translation:
What is the reason we have returned
Allen’s idiomatic version of this second example X: 2 does not acknowledge ‘you-all’, but it does offer the concepts of ‘reason’ and ‘return’. ‘the reason’ could be justified by the initial interrogative; and ‘return’ could be allied to ‘welcome’ uncovered in the foregoing analysis of Table 2.42.
Again this can scarcely be regarded as ‘easy’ translating.
☉ ☉ ☉ ☉ ☉
CONCLUSION
If only some real scholars might see this blog and disperse the fog by which YAR appears to be surrounded.
Jeremy Steele
Tuesday 11 March 2014
===================
