HIEROGLYPHICS 797 and as a medial vowel in a syllable of two con- M ~" "
tm, " not," in Coptic TJUl. In Coptic, as
Semitic transcriptions have a much wider range, which "-comprehends nearly all the vowel sounds. (The unwritten aspirate or short vowel is not noticed in this place by M. de Rouge. It will be seen, under the Section on " the Tran scription of Vowels Omitted," that he does not admit the transcription of an unwritten vowel except as a makeshift, or in other words, that he does not allow the Egyptians to have had a vowel sound never written. The existence of the supposed vowel seems, however, certain on these grounds. Some syllables never take a vowel except for an unusual form, the root and the ordinary derivatives never bujng vowelled, and a vowel only appearing in what is obviously a derivative formed by lengthening the vowel. Further, the Coptic has such a vowel marked by peculiar forms v or above a letter, or in the latter case above a letter or syllable, indicating that the sound, here generally 6, was omitted in writing by the ancient Egyptians; and still more remarkably the Coptic use is sometimes found where the older writing would lead us to expect it. In ancient Egyptian the use of this helping vowel is implied, as an aspirate in a syllable written with a consonant alone, as WM n. m, <=> r ; in Coptic
s
ff } JH, sonants, as already mentioned, it is generally read G, e", but had this been its constant sound it would hare been represented by G, and would of course have been needless. It is safest to read the old Egyptian helping vowel 8. It resembles the Hebrew Sheva, as including its variants Hateph-Pathah, Hateph-Segol, and Hateph-Kames. M. de Kongo s section on this subject seems wanting in his usual clearness. This is, however, due to the inherent difficulty of the sub ject. The Egyptian vowels, except when used as semi-vowels, are undoubtedly vague. Thus, in the writing of Semitic words under the Ramessidea, while the consonants are most carefully represented, the vowels affected by those consonants are frequently used, and the apparent pronunciation is distorted. Consequently, though we have no difficulty in separating the vowels into the a, i, and group, adding the helping vowel, or short S, because the use of the i and u vowels as semi- vowels gives them and the third vowel (a) thus limited a certain definite character, yet, when we have to treat of vowels pure and simple, the distinction of these classes vanishes. Thus the idea of fixed vowels, with however wide legitimate extension, is constantly rising in the enquiry to be as constantly suppressed by the vagueness of their use. It must, therefore, be held that the transcriptions we adopt do not give the accurate pronunciation, inasmuch as the vowel constantly, but not always, depended upon the consonant preceding, and vowel complements are even added where they were not pronounced. This is proved by Greek transcriptions, as will be seen later. On the other hand, the vowelling of Greek and Latin proper names shews that the vagueness of the vowels was not absolute, for the Egyptian scribes in the decay of the old style, no longer bound by the ancient usage of complements, employed the vowels with such accuracy as their limitation in sounds permitted, subject to the carelessness of the age. Of course these vowels could not accurately represent the Latin five or the Greek seven. Perhaps it may be suggested, in conclusion, that some idea of the Egyptian vowel system may be formed by a comparison with unpointed Hebrew.) LABIALS. While approaching ph or /, * is distinct, for the Copts who adopted CJ> as necessary for the aspirated^? of the Memphitic dialect, also considered the * needful, of which their Cj is the demotic sign in a modified form. In some words "< is employed as a variant of u. On account of this function it has been transcribed by 10 instead of/. In consequence of this use it was sometimes omitted: thus N f , siii. for ^/~> . f , $nef "blood" /WWV N 1 /WWA J> U1UUU, Coptic CffOq. (M. de Rouge calls this letter, so used, a vowel or variant of_w, and in the example just cited characterizes it as a short vowel, but it seems more analogous to 1 after a vowel, when notqniescent, in the present or ordinary Hebrew pronunciation.) In Greek words
- - does not render cf> ; the Egyptians used either Q , p, or the com
bination Din, ph. But in the transcription of Semitic words we sometimes find * fur 2. In Coptic, besides q, this letter some times becomes c|> and ft. Like the Hebrew 3 the Egyptian b comprised the two shades of sound 3 b and 3 (bh or) v, at least in the Jess ancient periods. The Copts seem also to have known the two sounds, .though their one &. has been generally transcribed by v. The transcriptions of (he Greeks do not aid us, for their /3 was probably sounded v. Th, evidence of the Semitic words is perhaps more precise in the system of transcription of the (hieratic) papyri of the Nineteenth Dynasty. 3, b, is rendered either by p or by the group J J&., l>p; 3 (bh) by J alone : the ordinary sound of b should therefore approach v. In the hieroglyphics they ^a n were often content with (< fe^ , b, homophone of II , for 3. (The weight of this reasoning panly depends upon the antiquity of the Masoietie punctuation, which is, however, supported by the double rendering of the Egyptians.) The compound bp, introduced for Semitic words, is found later employed in hieratic for Egyptian words, no doubt to characterize the pronunciation b, 3 , better than by ^ alone, or the group J ^5^ i which serves as its variant in these same words. The signs J and f^Ssi sometimes interchange ; oftener Jj ^-^ replaces *^^ alone ; they also exchange, but rarely, with p and /. The ancient 6 produced regularly the Coptic fij and by affinity OYj H) c[>. , and 3JL. The two signs of p, Q and s , are complete homophones. The Memphitic dialect aspirated p, and used CJ) in many words where the Sahidic used FT. Here the Sahidic has been more faithful to the ancient pronunciation : in fact Greek was sometimes rendered by the group ID TO , ph, and the Hebrew Q by * , f. This ancient Egyptian letter was thenp; it also corresponds exactly to S. It was further used to transcribe approximately 3, as already remarked. It produced regularly in Coptic the SahiJic IT and the Memphitic Cj>. Affinities occasionally introduced q or iit The ancient p also presents some instances of var) ing with b. PALATALS. This class of letters lends itself to great varieties of pronunciation which render them difficult to understand ; it is in their nature to modify themselves considerably by the simple change of the vowel which follows them. The Greek and Roman transcriptions would lead us to consider the four signs Zl, ^^i , U, and ^ as perfect homophones. But we are led to another opinion, if we consider the transcriptions of Semitic words, and the Coptic derived words. The Semitic transcriptions afford the following results: , 3 and (]} answering to) c (gh) are almost always rendered by ffi ; 2, 3 cor responds to ^r=7i, and p to /I ; but this second rule is not so faithfully observed as the first. In the Coptic language there are here two distinct types : 1, K Sahidic, aspirated as ^Q in the Memphitic; 2, (S~" Sahidic corresponding to 2C Memphitic, but sometimes identical. Taking the Copts as guides we distinguish two palatals, which we mark as k and k. V did not exist in their writing, but in some rare cases which do not correspond to a special ancient letter: in a small number of words where it is derived from *z=^i , k, it is produced by the presence of the nasal which precedes; thus AftFj I, from In studying more closely the three signs A, ^=^ , U, we are easily convinced of the perfect homophony of LJ with ^=^1 . The equality of /] and U may seem more doubtful ; variants exist, but they are not frequent. However, we find the group Zl U , where the first letter only doubles the second, as we have seen in the group | "fe^ > and we are thus authorized to connect intimately ZI , LJ , and ^r^i, and transcribe them by k. To this articulation correspond regularly, in Coptic, K Sahidic and ^ Memphitic, (S~ and 2C less frequently, &) and P as rare exceptions. The rule of derivation is different in what concerns ffi , and it is there above all that we recognize the distinct type preserved in the Coptic (y. The sign ffi , which we transcribe k, shows sme ancient cases of variants with the preceding signs, and the Greek transcrip tions do not give us sufficient reasons for making a distinction. The Semitic transcriptions are more decisive ; the ffl, as already noticed, is quite specially set apart to render 3, and JJ answering to c The Coptic derived forms strengthen this first result ; they quite regularly
class themselves under the Sahielic (S~f answering to the Memphitic