Middle Egyptian Study Group

The group is using James P. Allen's Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, as their textbook. New members are welcome to join at any time, and below is a copy of a message from Karen McCollam, that appeared on the AEL list, to introduce the study group.

From: kmotc@swbell.net
To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" <AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk>
Subject: AEL NEWS FOR GLYPH STUDY GROUP--PLEASE READ
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 22:51:27 -0500

Em htp All,

We are officially kicking off our studies this week--at long last ( :

I need to announce a few things to get us started.

1. We are going to go with the Manual de Codage (What Allen deems Computer)
system of transliteration after all, since it seems using Allen's system,
even with the transliteration font I was going to propose, might not work on
all systems and is not permitted on AEL in any case.

<<Posts should be submitted as a simple e-mail message in plain ASCII text
format. Extended character sets, HTML, or other extended or enhanced text
formatting technologies should not be used when posting to the AEL.>>

So in your email programs make sure you don't have html on when you type. In
my email program Outlook Express that's called Rich text and comes under
formatting.


Here is the AEL onsite chart for the Computer transliteration scheme. Mark
reminded us of this the other day, but just in case some of you didn't catch
it--here it is again.
http://www.rostau.org.uk/AEgyptian-L/learning/hierointro.html

You may use j instead of i to for the reed-leaf to conform with Allen.


2. I have set up a subsidiary list for us over on Yahoogroups called
GlyphStudy. This group will  serve as a more informal  space where we can all 
discuss our progress,  laments,  programs for flash cards and such--so we do not
overtax the main list. Also that way we can encourage each other in our
studies and not feel like we are talking to much on AEL.

The Yahoogroup will allow everyone to ask all the basic questions about the
pacing of our studies and to chat about possible online chat groups for
study among other things. These sorts of discussions in the beginning are
bound to generate a lot of traffic and I think taking this part of the
process off-list is best and the list-owner here at AEL concurs.

How it works:

I send an invitation to each of you from the Yahoo site and then you must
allow the subscription. Everyone please do this, you have options on how to 
set your mail, individual, daily digest, or to check online, but please do 
accept the invitation.

Then make sure to check your mail for this list and for GlyphStudy once you
are subscribed.

I will try to mark my important list business posts  on AEL with all caps
or something equally obnoxious so folks know to read them, but you will need
to keep up with the homework threads to be a full participant.

We will continue to use AEL for grammar discussion, and to post specific
questions about homework problems.

Please be Clear About This. We are not Leaving AEL.

We will be asking homework questions on AEL, and we will discuss grammar on
AEL, but we will now have a second home for other sorts of discussions and
to help us work out the bugs for the study group as we get started.

We want to continue to talk grammar on the main AEL list because we want new
folks to know we exist, and because we want the continued input and wisdom
of those who have been studying ME longer than we have.

But let's all meet at the other site to discuss how we will pace the group.
I think I will do a list poll --and that requires folks to be checking mail
and to click and respond to the poll. The more feedback we get, the more
likely we are to reach a consensus that will accommodate the largest number
of people and to come up with alternative strategies for those who have
difficulties with what works for the majority.

I hope I have not confused anyone by introducing so much at once, but I
worry about people not following threads and so I wanted to put the
important things in one email.

I will send all of you invitations to GlyphStudy tonight and tomorrow. Then
we will begin chatting about how we want to begin.

best all,
looking forward to getting started,
Karen