Coptic emerged as the written form of the Egyptian language in the third century, when Greek was still the official language in Egypt. By the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641, Coptic had almo
The present book collects 31 articles that Jacques van der Vliet, a leading scholar in the field of Coptic Studies (Leiden University / Radboud University, Nijmegen), has published since 1999 on Chris
The Egyptian language, with its written documentation spreading from the Early Bronze Age (Ancient Egyptian) to Christian times (Coptic), has rarely been the object of typological studies, grammatical
Oromo, also known as Afaan Oromo, Oromiffa(a), and sometimes in other languages by variant spellings of these names (Oromic, Afan Oromo) is an Afro-Asiatic language, and the most widely spoken of the
The modern view of the ancient Egyptian world is through the lens of a scribe: the trained, schooled, literate individual who was present at many levels of Egyptian society, from a local accountant to
The Ngas (Angas) language is spoken by some 400,000 people on the southern escarpment of the central Nigerian Plateau (Plateau State). The historically innovative language of the Chadic Angas-Sura gro
Based on the hieroglyphic texts of the Ramesses Age of Ancient Egypt (c. 1300-1100 BC), the books in this series present a modern English translation of the vast majority of historical sources for thi
This book, the first of its kind, examines how the phonology and grammar of the ancient Egyptian language changed over more than three thousand years of its history, from the first appearance of written documents, c.3250 BC, to the Coptic dialects of the second century AD and later. Part One discusses phonology, working backward from the vowels and consonants of Coptic to those that can be deduced for earlier stages of the language. Part Two is devoted to grammar, including both basic components such as nouns and the complex history of the verbal system. The book thus provides both a synchronic description of the five major historical stages of ancient Egyptian and a diachronic analysis of their development and relationship.
The Madhrib is almost a linguistic melting pot, with intensive crossover with the Berber languages. Here Kossman (African linguistics, Leiden U., the Netherlands) examines the pre-Islamic and early Is
A contemporary of Descartes and Newton, Athanasius Kircher, S. J. (1601/2–80), was one of Europe’s most inventive and versatile scholars in the baroque era. He published more than thirty works in fiel
This book offers a comprehensive, self-contained introduction to one of the oldest known recorded languages--Hieroglyphic Egyptian. Unlike other approaches, it is geared toward learning to read one of
In 1799 Napoleon's army uncovered an ancient stele in the Nile delta. Its inscription, recorded in three distinct scripts--ancient Greek, Coptic, and hieroglyphic--would provide scholars with the firs
Read the Bldg Blog interview with Mary Beard about the Wonders of the World series(Part I and Part II)The Rosetta Stone is one of the world's great wonders, attracting awed pilgrims by the tens of tho
Describes the hieroglyphic writing system of ancient Egypt, and recounts how it was replaced by other types of writing and how people learned to read it once again after the discovery of the Rosetta S
