Ancient Egyptian Language

 
Hieroglyphs 3kb  
Pharaoh 19kb  
Mummy 37kb 
Rosetta Stone 111kb  

  
Writing in Hieroglyphs  
Scribes  
Jean F. Champollion 
Papyrus  
Timeline  
Language  
Communication 

 
Hieroglyphics & Writing 
 Daily Life in Ancient Egypt 
Rosetta Stone 
Ancient Egypt for kids  
The History of Egypt

Written language began in the northeast corner of Africa 5000 years ago among the peoples along the Nile. They used pictures to represent words. These were known as ideograms. The ideograms evolved into representations of sounds, or phonograms. These writings were called hieroglyphs, meaning "sacred inscriptions," because they were often found on the walls of temples.  

The ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphs for more than 3500 years (until 400 C.E.). Afterwards, they used the Greek alphabet with some extra letters added to represent Egyptian sounds. This form of writing was called Coptic. Coptic was eventually replaced by Arabic, which is spoken in Egypt today. The ancient Egyptian language died out and was forgotten. The last heiroglyphic text was written 1600 years ago. Since then, no one had any idea what the hieroglyphs represented, so they made up their own translations. They decided they were magic spells and secret religious chants.  
 

The Rosetta Stone  The key to unlocking the secrets of the hieroglyphs would not come until 1799, with the discovery of the Rosetta stone. Some Frenchmen in the army of Napoleon Bonaparte building a fortress in the town of Rashid (then called Rosetta) found a piece of basalt  covered in writing. This stele , which was written on March 27th, 196 B.C.E., was dubbed the Rosetta Stone.   The reason this stone was so important is this: There was a decree written on the stone. The decree wasn't particularly important (It  praised the ancient Egyptian King Ptolemy V), but the way it was written was! The Rosetta Stone had the same piece of writing on it written in three different languages. The first was ancient Egyptian, the second Demotic (a later form of ancient Egyptian), and the third section was written in Greek. In that time, there had been many Greeks living in Egypt, and most of them couldn't read hieroglyphs or Demotic. Therefore, the decree was written in three languages so that it could be understood by everyone.   In 1799, no one could read hieroglyphs or Demotic, but they could read ancient Greek. The Greek section was translated, and used to decipher the older two sections. Johan David Akerblad, a Swedish diplomat, made some progress with identifying the phonetic  symbols in the Demotic version, but that was as far as anyone got. You see, everyone was still thinking that each hieroglyph represented a word, and of course that wasn't right.   Then, in 1814, an Englishman named Thomas Young realized that the hieroglyphs might represent sounds, and these sounds could be combined to form words. Of course, he didn't understand any of the words, and he couldn't even tell what the sounds were, but he identified the names and places in the Greek writing and compared them to the Egyptian writing, deducing  correctly that the words in cartouches  were the names of Kings and Queens.   For twenty more years different people tried to decipher  the language. Finally, Jean-François Champollioin succeeded. He was fluent in Coptic, Arabic, and Hebrew, three descendants of ancient Egyptian. Gradually, he discovered the sounds the pictures represented. He realized all 24 characters formed an alphabet. He realized there were also a few hieroglyphs that did stand for words. His predecessors  had been partly right, after all. Finally, in 1822 at the age of 21, Champollion became the first person in 1500 years to read the language of the ancient Egyptians.   The Rosetta stone now rests in the British Museum in London.

Hieroglyphs  This picture shows the Egyptian Hieroglyphs  for A, F, D, 1000, H, K, and C.        Paintings  Hieroglyphs were often used to decorate   tombs, walls, and other important buildings.  ...  Rosetta Stone  Containing a decree written in three   languages, the Rosetta Stone was the key to  deciphering the ancient Egyptian language.