From: "tkelly" To: "'Ancient Egyptian Language List'" Subject: RE: AEL re: James Hoch's Key and STUDY GROUPS Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 04:52:35 -0700 Matthew, Where the grammars come from: Loprieno(1995)in the Ancient Egyptian: A linguistic introduction, on page 8., writes that there are four successive approaches to the decipherment of the "Egyptian writing systems" (Egyptian grammar is therefore a historical process). They are: Erman's "Berlin School;" Gardiner's ".study of the Egyptian language.;" Polotsky's ".Standard theory.;" and the current ".functional linguistics models approach..." that is in no doubt inspired by Chomsky's work. Therefore, when a student changes authors, from one publication to another, they are also, most probably, changing the "approach" to understanding Egyptian grammar. This has learning consequences. If I have been informed correctly, Hoch's approach is based on the "Standard theory" and Allen's approach is based on the "functional linguistics models". So, there is no mystery, by selecting an author's work the student has determine the "approach" that is to be used to study the ancient Egyptian language. So, as a student you make a choice; you can start with Erman and work forward in time; or at the "functional linguistics models" level and work back in time; or some where in the middle and become a schizophrenic:} To get a better understanding of the development of Egyptian grammar before Erman, I suggest that you read the Introduction, in Volume One, of Budge (1978), An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, pp. v-lxxiv. It brings one from Young and Champollion through Erman work. If you follow Loprieno add Gradiner, Hoch, and Allen to have a complete picture where the Egyptian grammars come from. Also remember that there are numerous excellent Egyptian grammars written by European scholars, one that comes to mind is Edel's two volumes "Altagyptisvhe Grammatik". I hope this information helps. Tom Kelly ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:00:58 -0700 From: Ruth Kramer To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL re: James Hoch's Key and STUDY GROUPS > What is the linguistic framework > within which they are written? What kind of linguistic "grammar" is the > model being followed? Just to augment Tom's historical perspective, I'd like to comment that Egyptologists tend to use their own frameworks, which are not informed by contemporary theoretical linguistics, i.e., they do not use Minimalism, HPSG or any of the widely-used frameworks in linguistics itself. Some of the frameworks are very Egyptian-specific (e.g., the "Standard" theory) and others are broader but informed by functionalist/structuralist approaches to language. There is very little mention of categories, rules or embedding in most grammars, and certainly no trees. There are some exceptions to this -- Mark Collier's work tends to be more conversant with theoretical linguistics, and there's the considerable body of work by Christopher Reintges (including a grammar of Coptic). There is also an obscure grammar of Middle Egyptian by Leanna Gaskins that uses trees and a grammar of Middle Egyptian from the 1970's by John Callender that uses typical theoretical linguistic terminology. In my own research, I try to marry theoretical linguistics and Egyptology to some extent, and some of my papers are up on my website if you want to take a look. However, all the major grammars don't use theoretical linguistic terminology or concepts. > Are there grammars or treatments of parts of the Egyptian language that > employ constructs known to be useful in related languages (other than > Coptic)? For example, the related languages are root-based, but > Egyptological treatments (and dictionaries) are not root-based. Chris Reintges has a paper on root and pattern morphology in earlier Egyptian (in the journal Lingua Aegyptia, vol. 4), and most of the Egyptian grammars do believe there are roots and discuss the verbs as such (e.g., classed into various root types). It's just not as much of an organizing principle in learning the language as in, say, Hebrew or Arabic -- perhaps because of the lack of vowels (patterns). > When will an approach to Egyptian grammar using such constructs be > emerging, do you think? It is slowly emerging -- I have hope that as time goes on, Middle Egyptian will eventually be described fully from a theoretical linguistic perspective. I hope this helps! Ruth -- Ruth Kramer Department of Linguistics University of California, Santa Cruz http://people.ucsc.edu/~rkramer/ ============================================================================== From: "gilbert" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk Subject: AEL AEL re: James Hoch's Key and STUDY GROUPS Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 03:18:03 +0800 An article that may be of interest in connection with this thread is DePuydt's: "A Note on Learning and Teaching Egyptian" It can be found in the journal Lingua Aegyptia, vol. 3 (http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~lingaeg/lingaeg03.htm) Gilbert ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 16:53:13 -0000 (GMT) Subject: Re: AEL re: James Hoch's Key and STUDY GROUPS From: msore@albawaba.com To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Thanks Ruth Kramer Your overview response was extremely helpful, and conforms to my own experience. There is work to do. I just came across this characterization of "Standard Theory": "The designation 'Standard Theory' is used here as a convenient cover term for contributions by the late Hans Jacob Polotsky, who was Professor of Egyptian and Semitic Linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and by his school to Egyptian and Coptic grammar. These contributions are empirically solid and therefore generally accepted. In a narrower sense, the term 'Standard Theory' refers to a theoretical model for the study of Egyptian sentence structure also developed and refined by Polotsky. This model is based on the principle called 'conversion.' According to this principle, 'sentences of all types can be transposed through various grammatical means into one of the three non-verbal word classes: substantive, adjective, and adverb ..." from Leo Depuydt's Conjunction, Contiguity, Contingency, Oxford U Press, 1993, p xv. Questions. Is that view held widely? Is that view still considered empirical and/or generally accepted? Is that a view that can be expressed in a linguistic framework from outside egyptology? Is that approach useful in addressing linguistic issues in general in ancient Egyptian, or it is just for sentence syntax? What work has been done since Polotsky to either validate or expand this kernel? Does the alleged validity of this approach work for any other languages, like those in Afroasiatic? Thanks very much for your help. Matthew ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:56:38 +0200 From: Serge Rosmorduc To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL New version of JSesh available Hello all, Version 2.5beta of JSesh, my free Hieroglyphic text editor is available. It includes a few changes: * cartouches width works correctly * encapsulated postscript export * and above all, lots (really lots) of new signs, including complete A, E and F families. JSesh web site holds two new tutorials on how to draw glyphs for JSesh: http://jsesh.qenherkhopeshef.org/tutorial_list JSesh web site : http://jsesh.qenherkhopeshef.org To download JSesh: http://jsesh.qenherkhopeshef.org/download I hope to increase the release rate of JSesh versions quite soon :) Best regards, Serge Rosmorduc ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 16:35:12 -0000 (GMT) Subject: RE: AEL re: James Hoch's Key and STUDY GROUPS From: msore@albawaba.com To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Thanks Tom Kelly. You suggested one of the approaches is, "the current ".functional linguistics models approach..." that is in no doubt inspired by Chomsky's work. Having studied linguistics and Chomsky for decades, I see nothing of any kind of modern linguistic approach in Allen, or in Loprieno. There are borrowings of bits of jargon, but no foundations, no systemic approaches that look anything like either Chomsky or "functional" lingustics. As to the "Standard Theory", does it have a coherent statement? Has it been adapted to any kind of linguistic theory? Or does it remain a small set of guiding assumptions not really generating a useful linguistic foundation? The prevalence of the various kinds of troubles experienced by novices AND analysts, and the remarkable diversity of descriptive frameworks, and the frustrating diversity of pedagogical materials all point (do they not) to a need for some linguistic unification? Here is another illustrative point. In reading various comments here on AEL about transcription/transliteration/unicode questions, it became quickly clear that the concerns of non-linguists are prominent, and the concerns of linguists (who want to do phonology) are peripheral. I keep wondering if there is a clear division in the minds of egyptologists between doing work on writing and doing work on language. Another supporting point is one I have made for years, which is that in decades of looking at both linguistics, semitic linguistics, and Egyptian, there is pretty much no overlap in literature. How many articles on Egyptian can be found in the linguistics journals? How many articles on linguistics (sensible to those not deep in the jargon of Standard Theory) can be found in the egyptology journals? Wouldn't it make sense to try to create some overlap? What is found very often is a simple (but insufficient) POINTING at Loprieno as THE place where you will find linguistics. [Sorry, I didn't find much there.] The field of Egyptology is full of people of the best intellects, the most boundless energy, a terrifically interdisciplinary bent, and a vibrantly communicating community. Doing some foundational linguistics is a step I would have expected. Thanks very much, Matthew ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:22:47 -0000 (GMT) Subject: Re: AEL re: James Hoch's Key and STUDY GROUPS From: msore@albawaba.com To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Ruth, Tom In addition to German schools of Egyptological analysis of the ancient language, is there not a longstanding French School? What would be the main lines of demarcation between them? Secondly, I am wondering if the term "functional" as used in describing the type of linguistics in recent grammatical and pedagogical work really means "eclectic"? Thank you Matthew ==============================================================================