El egipcio presenta diversas características propias de las lenguas afro-asiáticas. La mayoría de formas léxicas constan de raíces de tres consonantes, por ejemplo, <nfr> ‘bello, bueno’. A veces hay raíces de dos consonantes como, por ejemplo, <rʕ> «Sol» (el «gancho a la derecha» indica una fricativa faringal sonora). Existen también raíces aun mayores, con hasta cinco consonantes.
Fonología
Las vocales y otras consonantes eran insertadas en las raíces para derivar diferentes significados de la misma forma que lo hacen hoy día el árabe, el hebreo y otras lenguas afro-asiáticas. Sin embargo, debido a que las vocales no eran escritas en el idioma egipcio (exceptuando el copto), es difícil reconstruir las palabras y, por tanto, el término ʔanj podría significar ‘vida, vivir, viviendo’ (aquí el «gancho a la izquierda» es la oclusiva glotal). En la moderna transcripción <a, i, u> representan las vocales egipcias, el nombre Tut-anj-Amón era escrito <tut ʔnj imn> o <imn-tut-ʔnj>. Se trata de una convención basada en la pronunciación del idioma copto, aunque la realmente utilizada se desconoce pues, seguramente, sufriría variaciones a lo largo de tres mil años.
Fonológicamente el egipcio diferenciaba consonantes bilabiales, labiodentales, alveolares, palatales, velares, uvulares, faringeales y glotales, en una disposición similar a la del árabe. El orden de las palabras es «verbo-sujeto-objeto». Por tanto, no se diría «el hombre abre la puerta» sino «abre el hombre la puerta». Este idioma utilizaba también el llamado estado constructo que combina dos o más nombres para expresar el genitivo, similar a las lenguas semíticas y bereberes. La siguiente tabla resume las oclusivas cuyo valor fonético ha sido aproximadamente reconstruido a partir de la transcripción de nombres propios, la comparación con otras lenguas y la evidencia del idioma copto:
| labial | alveolar | palatal | velar | postvelar | glotal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TC | VF | TC | VF | TC | VF | TC | VF | TC | VF | TC | VF | ||
| obstruyente no continua |
sorda | p | /p/ | t | /t/ | ṯ | /ʧ~c/ | k | [k] | q (ḳ) | /q/ | 3 | /ʔ/ |
| sonora | b | /b/ | |||||||||||
| enfática | d | /d/ | ḏ | /ʤ ~ ɟ/ | g | /g/ | |||||||
| nasal | m | /m/ | n | /n, l/ | |||||||||
| obstruyente continua |
sorda | f | /f/ | s (ś) | /s/ | ḫ (x) | /x/ | ḥ | /ħ/ | h | /h/ | ||
| sonora | z | /z/ | ẖ | /ç~ɣ/? | ˤ | /ʕ/ | |||||||
- TC:Translitaración convencional, VF:Valor fonético
Gramática
En las primeras etapas del idioma egipcio no existían los artículos, no había palabras para ‘el / la’, o ‘un / una’. En el período tardío se usaron las partículas <p3, t3> y <n3> como cuasi-artículos. Como otras lenguas afro-asiáticas, el egipcio utilizaba dos géneros gramaticales, femenino y masculino. También tenía tres posibilidades para el número gramatical: singular, dual y plural, aunque había una tendencia de la pérdida del número dual en el egipcio tardío.
Escritura egipcia
La mayoría de los textos que han sobrevivido en lengua egipcia están escritos en jeroglíficos sobre piedra. Sin embargo, en la antigüedad, la mayoría de los textos fueron escritos sobre papiros en escritura hierática y más tarde demótica. Había también una forma de escritura jeroglífica cursiva usada para documentos religiosos sobre papiro, tal como en muchos textos del Libro de los Muertos. Este sistema de escritura es más simple de usar que los jeroglíficos en las inscripciones sobre piedra, sin embargo, no era tan cursiva como el hierático, careciendo de la amplia utilización de ligaduras. Adicionalmente, existía una escritura llamada hierático lapidario. En la etapa de desarrollo final de la lengua, el alfabeto copto reemplazó el antiguo sistema de escritura.
El nombre nativo para el sistema de escritura jeroglífica egipcio era sh3 n mdw ntr (escritura de las palabras de los dioses). Los jeroglíficos eran empleados de varias maneras en los textos: como logogramas o ideogramas, representando la idea descrita por las figuras, o más comúnmente como fonogramas denotando su valor fonético.
Referencias
Bibliografía
- Loprieno, A.: Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-521-44384-9.
Enlaces externos
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Phonology
While the consonantal phonology of the Egyptian language may be reconstructed, its exact phonetics are unknown, and there are varying opinions on how to classify the individual phonemes. In addition, because Egyptian is also recorded over a full two millennia, the Archaic and Late stages being separated by the amount of time that separates Old Latin from modern Italian, it must be assumed that significant phonetic changes would have occurred over that time.
Phonologically, Egyptian contrasted labial, alveolar, palatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal consonants, in a distribution rather similar to that of Arabic. It also contrasted voiceless and emphatic consonants, as with other Afroasiatic languages, although exactly how the emphatic consonants were realized is not precisely known. Early research had assumed opposition in stops was one of voicing, but is now thought to either be one of tenuis and emphatic stops, as in many of the Semitic languages, or one of aspirated andejective stops, as in many of the Cushitic languages.[17]
Since vowels were not written, reconstructions of the Egyptian vowel system are much more uncertain, relying mainly on the evidence from Coptic and foreign transcriptions of Egyptian personal and place names. The vocalization of Egyptian is partially known, largely on the basis of reconstruction from Coptic, in which the vowels are written. Recordings of Egyptian words in other languages provide an additional source of evidence. Scribal errors provide evidence of changes in pronunciation over time. The actual pronunciations reconstructed by such means are used only by a few specialists in the language. For all other purposes the Egyptological pronunciation is used, which is, of course, artificial and often bears little resemblance to what is known of how Egyptian was spoken.
Consonants
The following consonant system is posited for Archaic (before 2600 BC) and Old Egyptian (2686–2181 BC), with IPA equivalents in square brackets where they differ from the usual transcription scheme:
| Labial | Dental | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyn- geal |
Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | ṯ [c] | k | q* | ʔ | ||
| voiced | b | d* | ḏ* [ɟ] | ɡ* | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | š [ʃ] | ẖ [ç] | ḫ [χ] | ḥ [ħ] | h | |
| voiced | z* | ꜣ (3) [ʁ] | ꜥ (ʻ) ʕ | ||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
*possibly unvoiced ejectives
The phoneme /l/ did not have an independent representation in the hieroglyphic orthography, and was frequently written with the sign for /n/ or /r/.[18] The probable explanation is that the standard for written Egyptian was based on a dialect in which former /l/ had merged with other sonorants.[6] /ʔ/ was rare and also not indicated orthographically.[18] The phoneme /j/ was written as ⟨j⟩ in initial position (⟨jt⟩ = */ˈjaːtVj/ ‘father’) and immediately after a stressed vowel (⟨bjn⟩ = */ˈbaːjin/ ‘bad’), as ⟨jj⟩ word-medially immediately before a stressed vowel (⟨ḫꜥjjk⟩ = */χaʕˈjak/ ‘you will appear’), and as null word-finally (⟨jt⟩ = /ˈjaːtvj/ ‘father’).[18]
In Middle Egyptian (2055–1650 BC), a number of consonantal shifts took place. By the beginning of the Middle Kingdom period, /z/ and /s/ had merged, and the graphemes ⟨s⟩ and ⟨z⟩ were used interchangeably.[19] In addition, /j/ had become /ʔ/ word-initially in an unstressed syllable (e.g. ⟨jwn⟩ /jaˈwin/ > */ʔaˈwin/ ‘color) and following a stressed vowel (e.g. ⟨ḥjpw⟩ */ˈħujpvw/ > /ˈħeʔp(vw)/ ‘[the god] Apis’).[20]
In Late Egyptian (1069–700 BC), the following changes are present: the phonemes d ḏ g gradually merge with their counterparts t ṯ k (⟨dbn⟩ */ˈdiːban/ > Akkadian transcription ti-ba-an ‘dbn-weight’); ṯ ḏ often become /t d/, though they are retained in many lexemes;ꜣ becomes /ʔ/; and /t r j w/ become /ʔ/ at the end of a stressed syllable and eventually null word-finally (e.g. ⟨pḏ.t⟩ */ˈpiːɟat/ > Akk. transcription –pi-ta ‘bow’).[21]
More consonantal changes occurred in the first millennium BCE and the first centuries CE, leading to the Coptic language (1st–17th century AD). In Sahidic ẖ ḫ ḥ merged into ϣ š (most often from ḫ) and ϩ /h/ (most often ẖ ḥ).[22] Bohairic and Akhmimic are more conservative, having also a velar fricative /x/ (ϧ in Bohairic, ⳉ in Akhmimic).[22] Pharyngeal *ꜥ merged into glottal /ʔ/, after having affected the quality of surrounding vowels.[23] /ʔ/ is only indicated orthographically when following a stressed vowel, in which case it is marked by doubling the vowel letter (except in Bohairic), e.g. Akhmimic ⳉⲟⲟⲡ /xoʔp/, Sahidic & Lycopolitan ϣⲟⲟⲡ šoʔp, Bohairic ϣⲟⲡ šoʔp ‘to be’ < ḫpr.w */ˈχapraw/ ‘has become’.[22][nb 1] The phoneme ⲃ /b/ probably was pronounced as a fricative [β], and became ⲡ /p/ after a stressed vowel in syllables which were closed in earlier Egyptian (compare ⲛⲟⲩⲃ < */ˈnaːbaw/ ‘gold’ and ⲧⲁⲡ < */dib/ ‘horn’).[22] The phonemes /d g z/ are only found in Greek borrowings, with rare exceptions triggered by a proximate /n/(e.g. ⲁⲛⲍⲏⲃⲉ/ⲁⲛⲥⲏⲃⲉ < ꜥ.t n.t sbꜣ.w ‘school’).[22]
Earlier *d ḏ g q were preserved as ejective t’ c’ k’ k’ in prevocalic position in Coptic.[24] Despite the fact that these were written using the same graphemes as for the pulmonic stops (⟨ⲧ ϫ ⲕ⟩), their existence may be inferred based on the following evidence: The stops ⟨ⲡ ⲧ ϫ ⲕ⟩ /p t c k/ were allophonically aspirated [pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ] before stressed vowels and sonorant consonants.[24] In Bohairic these allophones were written with the special graphemes ⟨ⲫ ⲑ ϭ ⲭ⟩, while other dialects did not mark aspiration, thus Sahidic ⲡⲣⲏ vs. Bohairic ⲫⲣⲏ ‘the sun’.[24][nb 2] It then may be observed that Bohairic does not mark aspiration for reflexes of older *d ḏ g q, e.g. Sahidic & Bohairic ⲧⲁⲡ */dib/ ‘horn’.[24] Similarly, the definite article ⲡ is unaspirated when a word beginning with a glottal stop follows, e.g. Bohairic ⲡ + ⲱⲡ > ⲡⲱⲡ ‘the account’.[25]
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