HIEROGLYPHICS
Introduction.
The term hieroglyphics is used, with others, by Greek and Latin writers to describe the sacred characters of the ancient Egyptian language in its classical phase. It is used by the moderns for various systems of writing in which figures of objects take the place of conventional signs. This article is limited to an account of Egyptian hieroglyphics, with some notice of the derived systems called hieratic and demotic.
It is no longer necessary in an article like the present to give a history of the interpretation of hieroglyphics and a sketch of the grammar of ancient Egyptian. What students need is a statement of the main results as to the Egyptian characters themselves and a systematic bibliography.
The written language of the ancient Egyptians remained the same from the date of the earliest monuments (Third Dynasty) until the age of the Ethiopian kings (b.c. cir. 700), when a vulgar dialect expressing the common speech is first found in written documents. Then, if not earlier, the older phase of the language became the classical Egyptian, sometimes called the sacred dialect, to distinguish it from the vulear dialect. The classical Ee-yptian was used almost as late as the fall of paganism generally for all documents but legal and commercial ones, for which the vulgar dialect was used.[1]
It is necessary to observe that although Egyptian is not proved to be a Semitic language, it contains in its oldest known form undoubted Semitic elements, both m structure and roots. The constant comparison with the Semitic languages which is here necessary is there- fore not merely employed for the sake of the analogies that may be discovered, but on the ground of partial afhinity, which, however, must not be strained.
It must also be borne in mind that the grammar of ancient Egyptian is in its infancy. We know many of its principal facts, but we do not know them accurately. For instance, we know the forms of many tenses of the verb, and can perhaps place these tenses in groups, as past, present, and future, but we cannot define the different senses of the various tenses of cach group. Similarly, in Coptic we do not always know the shades of difference within a group of tenses. It may be that in Coptic these shades have disappeared through the decay of the language, but it would be rash to affirm this of the classical Eeyptian. Thus this essential part of the erammar will not be understood until the verb has been thoroughly worked downwards from the oldest texts through the classical language, then through the demotic, and then the Coptic, and again in inverted order from the Coptic upwards. The same labour has to be performed for the whole grammar in each of the three phases of the language, before we can speak with any certainty of Eeyptian grammar. This is said in no disparagement of the admirable work already done, but as a necessary caution to the student.
The following sections are abridged (to p. 806, end of section on ‘‘Secret Writing”), with additions and modifications, which are noted by their being included in parentheses, from M. de Rougé’s Chres- tumathie Egyptienne, Abrégeé Grammatical.
The Systems of Writing.
The elements of Egyptian writing are composed of 4 certain number of actual objects, natural or artificial, imitated by drawing or engraving.
Egyptian writing falls into three systems—(1) hieroglyphic, (2) hieratic, (8) demotic or enchorial, the hieratic being a simplified form of hieroglyphic, and the demotic of hieratic. The complete designing of hiero- elyphics required skill and time. They thus came to be reduced in writing to the simplest forms which retained the leading characteristics. These were called by Champollion linear hieroglyphics. The linear forms not lending themselves with sufficient readiness to very rapid writing, a further abbreviation was made, by which the forms became almost conventional,—the original type usually ceasing to be immediately recognizable: this cursive system Champollion called hieratic. The demotic writing is a new abbreviation of the hieratic: it gradually departs so far from the original types as to appear to consist of arbitrary signs.
Hieroglyphics are written either in horizontal lines or vertical columns, and are ordinarily read from the right. The heads of animals and the lke shew from what direction to begin reading. Wieratic and demotic are written from right to left, in horizontal lines. In very early times hieratic is sometimes written in vertical columns.
(The hieroglyphic is a lapidary system, the hicratic and demotic purely systems for common writing. Con- sequently the hieroglyphic is the most difficult of the three to read, as the engraver or painter paid great attention to the symmetrical appearance of each group of signs, and grammatical forms were hence often omitted. In hieratic and demotic the signs follow each other without interruption of the natural order, and the grammatical forms are usually given, and even more fully.)
Characters in Relation to their Use in Writing.
Egyptian writing is composed of a mixture of signs of two distinct classes—(1) ideographic, each sign representing an idea; (2) phonetic, representing a sound, either (α) a simple articulation (alphabetic) or (β) a complete sound, i.e., a complete syllable (syllabic). The two classes were combined according to fixed rules in writing words.
Ideographic Signs.
This class may be best divided into (α) representative signs and (β) symbolic (tropical).
The representative signs exactly express the idea of the object of which they present an image, as > a star.
- ↑ As early as the time of the Empire differences of dialect due to difference of speech in Upper and Lower Egypt had crept into cor- respondence (Brugsch, Gram. HMiér., 93). Ultimately vulgar forms and constructions are distinctly traceable in the sacred language (Id. Le.; ef. Id., Geogr. Inschr., i. 94,95). There are also natural changes due to development or decay or both, and artificial changes due to fashion. Modifications of grammatical forms and the growth of style are instances of natural changes, and the direct borrowing cf Semitic words by the scribes of the Ramessides, and, what is still more remarkable, the actual Semiticization of Egyptian words, are examples of artificial changes (Maspero, Zist., 337, 338).
