/r/AncientEgyptian
A place for all things related to the ancient Egyptian languages. All stages: Old, Middle, Late, Demotic, and Coptic. All scripts: Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, Abnormal Hieratic, Demotic, and Coptic.
A place for all things related to the ancient Egyptian languages. All stages: Old, Middle, Late, Demotic, and Coptic. All scripts: Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, Abnormal Hieratic, Demotic, and Coptic. Please flair posts with language or script stage.
This may be a hub for interesting news or a place for students to ask questions and get help from experts. Translation requests for texts believed to be written in Egyptian may also be submitted here. Posts without a linguistic component should be submitted to /r/ancientegypt.
As of now, posts espousing a fringe view are permitted, provided that they are somehow rooted in linguistic evidence. E.g. "Aliens built the pyramids" is allowed so long as the evidence cited appears in an ancient Egyptian text.
Occasionally texts on this site use characters in the Unicode Standard Egyptian Hieroglyphic block. If you don't have a font on your system that supports hieroglyphic characters, you will see a bunch of missing characters. If so, install an Egyptian font, such as Google's Noto Sans Egyptian Hieroglyphs. You may need to restart your browser before you see the updated glyphs. Feel free to message us if you need help.
If you plan to answer questions about Egyptian language, please flair your username with the relevant credentials. Self-taught users are welcome. Experts in one particular phase of the language should mark themselves as such for the sake of the asker. (E.g. an expert in Coptic might answer a question about Old Egyptian, with the caveat that it is slightly outside of their exact area of expertise. An appropriate flair accomplishes this neatly.)
It is common for people to want to translate modern phrases into ancient Egyptian for various reasons (logos, tattoos, t-shirt designs, etc.). There are people here who can help, but you must pay them for this service. Because this subreddit is a free educational resource, we would like to keep business transactions to a minimum. For now, please flair any such queries as "Composition Request" so that they will be clearly marked in the feed and easy to filter if we come up with a better system in the future.
/r/AncientEgyptian
Hey all, figured you would be the best people to ask on thus subject. My name is Tanis and I'm really keen on getting a hieroglyphics tattoo, inspired around the ancient ruins of Tanis, Egypt. I don't want to get some random gibberish on me so I figured I'd ask the experts where I could find a proper spelling of the name of the city.
I was curious so I started doing some research and saw that the ancient Egyptians called the city Djanet, which is basically my mom's name with a D on the front. I love the relation between the names and would love to get the name of the city tattooed on me the way they spelled it back then in hieroglyphics.
Any help on this would be super appreciated! I'm a little unfamiliar with the etiquette on this subreddit, as well as which era the city of Tanis was built so please forgive any transgressions regarding my etiquette and flair
Came across this image on Twitter. I can understand most of it, but I need help with 3 small sections (look at the picture)
I hope this is not too much, thank you
A question from a Classicist who never touched Egyptology. I've looked for this word in some dictionaries, but none of them mention examples or documents where the word is attested. Is there a dictionary or a database that provides such information?
Great News: Ancient Egyptian language AI teacher
Great News:Ancient Egyptian language AI teacher أخبار عظيمة: مدرس اللغة المصرية القديمة بالذكاء الصناعي Ϩⲁⲛⲥ̀ⲙⲏ ⲉⲩⲛⲓϣϯ: ⲡⲓⲣⲉϥϯⲥ̀ⲃⲱ ⲛ̀ϯⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ϧⲉⲛ ⲡⲓⲛⲟⲩⲥ ⲛ̀ⲑⲁⲙⲓⲟ https://somiyagawa.com/thoth أكتب أى حاجة هيترجمها قبطى و هيروغليفي و ديموطيقى بال Transliteration
Thoth is an AI bot that can explain Ancient Egyptian and Coptic grammar and translate them into English or other major languages; even they can do a transcription of Coptic from a picture of printed texts.
So I’m doing some translating work for the word Kftjw/Keftjw and trying to trace back what the Egyptian Scribe heard compared to what the Minoan actually said their home was called. I know Minoan is an SVO language and uses the a,i, and u. In Minoan , the K is a velor stop. Wouldn’t Kh in Egyptian also be some form of a back dorsal to velor stop, regarding phonetics, meaning you don’t pronounce the K since it’s voiceless? Would that “e” actually be pronounced as the letter “i” or “ai” in Minoan? Thanks for viewing what I have been figuring out so far.
What is the difference between Gardiner E1 𓃒 and E38 𓃽? Are they used differently?
Hi everyone, I have another grammar question, or three. Again, this example come from Allen if that is any help.
So, let's take the word njwt. In the example I have, it is written with the area with intersection ideogram for town + uniliteral sign bread-loaf 't' + a single stroke. Am I correct in saying that the 't' is a phonetic complement?
If so, cool, that makes sense. Second question: why, in some words combining a ideogram and phonetic complement, are the complements not in the same order as the consonants. For example, nswt, which has the sedge ideogram for king + uniliteral sign bread loaf 't' + uniliteral sign water 'n' (with 't' and 'n' being on top of each other, and me reading the signs in this order). Why have the 't' and 'n' switched places? Is there a particular grammatical reason for it? Is it an aesthetic choice, something to do with the grouping? Or is it just because? And does this happen more often with words?
Side note: Are these two uniliteral signs used specifically because they represent the consonants in the word not present in the sedge phonogram 'sw'? or is that also just a coincidence?
Apologies in advance for all the random questions; I just got to wondering and thought maybe somebody here had the answers :)
Any one know about the grandfathers/mothers of ancient Egypt 🇪🇬
I've tried to translate this frame of a door animation commissioned by vtuber Hara Rae Sol but so far I've had no luck because I don't know what I'm doing. Allegedly it's "historically accurate" and "we spent a lot of time getting it to be translatable" but it might just be a troll. It's supposed to tell a some kind of story. (edited to add the image in question because I'm an idiot)
Hi, I'm now reading the Story of Sinuhe and I'm beginning to learn about Ancient Egyptian and found this phrase.
The translation (in French) gives "Welcome to my home (lit. "Be good, you, with me"). I understand the language of Kemet" and I'm trying to dissect this phrase, so I can understand word by word.
Could you explain the construction of the phrase? Especially in the part "I understand the language of Kemet"?
I bought this and I want to know who it is. I can know how to read it I just can’t tell what it says. I don’t know what time period it’s from either. I just need the cartouche.
Hi, I am currently studying Middle Egyptian, and was wondering if anyone knows the answer to my question?
So, I’m reading that the word for mother is ‘mjwt’, and I have written here with a triliteral (mwt), phonetic compliment (t), and a determinative. So, why does the transcription contain an j? Where does it come from?
Words from ancient Egyptian language we still use till now in colloquial Egyptian and reached us through Coptic language
Ϩⲁⲛⲥⲁϫⲓ ⲛ̀ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ⲛ̀ⲁⲡⲁⲥ ⲧⲉⲛⲥⲁϫⲓ ⲙ̀ⲙⲱⲟⲩ ϣⲁ ϯⲛⲟⲩ
كلمات من أصل مصرى قديم لسة بنتكلمها لغاية دلوقتي