Talk:Egyptian language

Hieroglyphs in lead

The first sentence of the lead currently includes the following string of hieroglyphs: 𓂋𓏺𓈖 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 all in a line, one after another. This is not correct. They should display like this:

(as appears in the infobox at right).

Precisely because of this issue with display, we usually avoid giving hieroglyphs in running text (and make use of wikihiero and Template:Hiero) I see no advantage to displaying incorrect hieroglyphs when we have correctly displaying ones right next to them, but, when I removed the incorrect ones, User:Florian Blaschke reverted the change claiming that the display issue was "Probably a problem on your end". Furius (talk) 20:30, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

This is excessive perfectionism, IMO. The vertical placement of some hieroglyph combinations is a predictable, non-distinctive and superficial feature; a string of hieroglyphs still gives you all the information about the spelling that you need to reconstruct the authentic appearance as long as you know a couple of rules, whereas a romanisation does not, and while it may not look exactly the way it would in an authentic inscription, it's still far more similar to it than a romanisation. The wikihiero things are effectively displayed as images, as they are impossible to search for, copy and type unless you enter the source code. This seems to me a much greater drawback than some cosmetic feature of arrangement.--62.73.69.121 (talk) 08:27, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

The contrast between two stop series

As early as Late Egyptian, we're told, 'the phonemes d ḏ g gradually merge with their counterparts t ṯ k.' This sentence creates the impression that the contrast between the two stop series is eventually lost. Yet nevertheless in Demotic, according to the article, it is still the case that 'stops may be either aspirated or tenuis (unaspirated), although there is evidence that aspirates merged with their tenuis counterparts in certain environments.' And finally, in Coptic, it turns out that 'earlier *d ḏ g q are preserved as ejective t' c' k' k' before vowels', so the contrast is preserved even there. If there was no merger of the phonemes in all positions but just changes of d ḏ g into t ṯ k in some positions, then it would be appropriate to at least say that the ejectives in Coptic originate from those tenues that hadn't merged with the aspirates in Demotic and Late Egyptian. And also the initial wording about Late Egyptian shouldn't create the impression of an eventual merger.

A further interesting question is how we know that the Coptic reflexes of Early Egyptian d ḏ g q are ejectives, when the only thing Bohairic spelling shows is that they are unaspirated. Loans into neighbouring languages with ejectives, perhaps? I'd expect Akkadian transcriptions from Early and Late Egyptian to show that, too. 62.73.69.121 (talk) 08:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Contradiction

The table of consonant reflexes claims that Coptic ϫ stands for /t͡ʃ/ and originates from Demotic ṯ (*/t͡ʃʰ/) and d (*/t͡ʃ/), while ϭ stands for /c/ and originates from Demotic k (*/cʰ/), g and q (*/c/). So the difference would be between an affricate and a palatal stop. However, the table of Coptic consonants claims that Coptic ϫ stands for /c/ or /cʼ/, while ϭ stands for /cʰ/. Then the difference would be between an unaspirated (and ejective) palatal stop and an aspirated palatal stop. Which is it? 62.73.69.121 (talk) 22:40, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Reformed Egyptian

Editors at Reformed Egyptian maintain these are related languages, so I'm adding reformed Egyptian to the see also here. Egyptologists seem to have forgotten this 166.198.21.32 (talk) 01:16, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

That's not how WP:SEEALSO works. It is not particularly likely that people reading this article would be interested in that article, so we don't list it. In general, we do not make changes to articles based on what others happen to say, per WP:OTHERCONTENT. Remsense诉 01:17, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Writing System and Origin

I have a question about the following paragraph, from the 'Writing Systems' section:

'Egyptian scholar Gamal Mokhtar noted that the inventory of hieroglyphic symbols derived from "fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African", reflecting the local wildlife of North Africa, the Levant and southern Mediterranean. In "regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence [North] African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects the reality" that the geographical location of Egypt is, of course, in Africa.'

In the article on hieroglyphics, the same quotation is used to support the idea that the origins of the language and its symbols are African, as opposed to Mesopotamian. (Mesopotamia is the origin of the first writing system, and the question at hand in the hieroglyphics article is whether the Egyptian writing system was inspired by or independent of that earlier invention of writing.) In other words, it appears from the hieroglyphics article that the scholar quoted here was not establishing anything about Egypt's location, which of course is not in doubt. Rather this is an assertion about the origin of the writing system, independent or derived. Which point does the original source make, and thus which point should the article assert at this point?

Thank you. 172.103.79.205 (talk) 19:53, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

It is a matter of some debate, but the majority position in the scholarship is that cuneiform and hieroglyphics were independent inventions. If this quote is being used as the primary evidence or example for one position or another, that would seem a mistake to me. Remsense ‥ 论 22:36, 3 December 2024 (UTC)