Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:34:45 +0100 From: "Jan-Egbert Hamming" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk Subject: AEL Hello everyone Hello AEL members! I just subscribed (again) to the mailing list. Please let me introduce myself: I am Jan-Egbert Hamming, 33 years old, married and have two children, living in the Netherlands. I work in the IT. In 2000, i also registered with this mailing list, but had too little time, switched to another job in 2006 and will switch in feb 2009 again to another job. I want to spend more time at learning hieroglyphic, because when i go on a holiday to Egypt, i want to be able to read parts of the inscriptions! :-) For learning, i have the book "Middle Egyptian, An introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs" by James P. Allen. I will completely restart learning Hieroglyphs I wish everybody a nice and prosperous 2009! Regards, Jan-Egbert Hamming ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:27:10 +0200 From: "Al. Andreou" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: AEL Hello everyone > > Hello AEL members! > Greetings from a list lurker and IT worker ant as well. Wishes for an illumined new year! For learning, i have the book "Middle Egyptian, An introduction to the > Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs" by James P. Allen. I will completely > restart learning Hieroglyphs > Could you, or any other members of the list that have worked with Allen's book share a critic of it? Having `psyched up' with history, theology and a bit of archaeology of Egypt, I'm about to make the leap to learning the language. For the moment, I'm using Gardiner's grammar (along with Faulkner's dictionary); is the dear Sir enough or `up to date', or should I go with Allen for better results? TIA, HAND, Alexandros Andreou. ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:51:53 +0100 From: "Marc Diebold" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: AEL Hello everyone Hi Jan, You'll probably like the following book if you intend to be able to read some parts of inscriptions in Egypt: How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-By-Step Guide to Teach Yourself look inside: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0520239490/ Marc. *From Library Journal *Collier (Egyptology, Univ. of Liverpool) and Manley (Egyptology, Univ. of Glasgow) have produced a succinct and usable introduction to reading Egyptian hieroglyphics and basic Middle Egyptian grammar. From the very first chapter, the reader translates actual inscriptions from monuments using exercises and a key. Inasmuch as Egyptian hieroglyphics form a phonetic writing system, some knowledge of grammar and vocabulary is required to decipher texts. Collier and Manley's volume provides this base along with a classified list of all hieroglyphic signs used in the book and the standard transliteration system used by scholars of Egyptian philology ============================================================================== From: "Paul Wheeler" To: "'Ancient Egyptian Language List'" Subject: RE: AEL Hello everyone Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 14:42:48 +0100 -----Message d'origine----- Could you, or any other members of the list that have worked with Allen's Book share a critic of it? Having `psyched up' with history, theology and a bit of archaeology of Egypt, I'm about to make the leap to learning the language. For the moment, I'm using Gardiner's grammar (along with Faulkner's dictionary); is the dear Sir enough or `up to date', or should I go with Allen for better results? TIA, HAND, Alexandros Andreou. Response ----------------- Frankly, I am in love of Allen's !!! The only thing I dislike is grammatical progression. Indeed I didn't started with this one but with a French one. But then my working became fetching texts on the net with hieroglyphs, transliteration and translation ; and then use Allen's as a grammar reference to understand the lot. Gardiner's is well kept in my bookshelf, but I am not using it. It is out of date for verbs, but seems to still be a reference. I intend to study it later on. Allen is really a good purchase for a reference I think. Paul Wheeler paul@cliohist.net France ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 12:39:15 +0000 From: lucaslavia To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: AEL Hello everyone Hi, I was brought up on Gardiner's GRammar and personally swear by it howver I was not self taught. Gardiner's grammar is certainly an excellent aide and extremely useful but it does take a while to work out how to navigate and understand it effectively. Allen's latest grammar is far easier to learn from due to its superior structure. Personally if you are teaching yourself middle egyptian I would go for Allen but if you have the help of someone who is experience in either a) the language or b) using gardiner's grammar then by all means go for the classic. As for Faulkner's dictionary i wouldn't recommend anything else, that book is a godsend, it has even proved useful during my recent foray into late egyptian hieratic; you only have to get your head around the handwriting. Luke ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:37:00 +0100 From: Vincent Euverte To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Hello everyone Happy New Year, and best wishes to every list-member. Just a minor comment regarding the excellent book from Collier & Manley := It is indeed a very practical and easy-to-read method. If you do not intend to use a hieroglyphic software and not use the "Manuel du Codage", you probably do not need a proper classification of the signs. But be aware that this book defines its own classification, disregarding = the Gardiner's one, which is much recognized and used in the worldwide Egyptology. I hope this comment will not prevent you to acquire this good tool. I use it very often. Life, Health and Serenity 0 /*Vincent Euverte,*/* Projet Rosette : http://projetrosette.info * ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 16:27:11 +0200 From: "Al. Andreou" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: AEL Hello everyone Thanks to both Paul and Luke, as well as to Cheryl, for the replies. I am (fortunately or not) teaching myself the language, and I suppose any help I could get, even through a better structure or less threatening book size, would prove to be useful. I refuse, however, to use books in the style of Collier's (which was mentioned above). I find it too much of an advanced tourist guide book, even if through its hesitation to use "difficult" terms like "biliteral" or "triliteral", substituting them for "2-consonant" and "3-consonant". I think I'll go for Allen's book. Gardiner I've had the chance to peruse, both in book form in a library and in PDF, through which I worked my way through the first few lessons. Can't hurt to try something new though. Now, on a slightly different note: Is there a set "curriculum" one could follow? For now, besides the things that pertain to learning the language, I've been reading through Shaw's "(Oxford) History of Ancient Egypt", while Faulkner's "Pyramid Texts" and "Book of the Dead" are waiting on the desk. Oh, and the first volume of Elie Faure's "Histoire de l'art". Any more you could suggest, or a semi-set path? TIA, Alexandros. ============================================================================== From: "Paul Wheeler" To: "'Ancient Egyptian Language List'" Subject: RE: AEL Hello everyone Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 17:31:47 +0100 -----Message d'origine----- Now, on a slightly different note: Is there a set "curriculum" one could follow? For now, besides the things that pertain to learning the language, I've been reading through Shaw's "(Oxford) History of Ancient Egypt", while Faulkner's "Pyramid Texts" and "Book of the Dead" are waiting on the desk. Oh, and the first volume of Elie Faure's "Histoire de l'art". Any more you could suggest, or a semi-set path? TIA, Alexandros. Response ------- I don't know if there is a curriculum, but I am ardently awaiting some bibliography of other members !! As for me, One I love is the beautiful "The Egyptian Book of The Day" ISBN 0-8118-0767-3 with wonderful colour images of the original papyrus accompanied with faulkner's translation. Very interesting and useful for practicing reading the hieroglyphs... I had it for 15€ and it is my favourite of my collection. Don't know if it is still on sale. Other books of mine besides the language are mostly in French. Nota about Collier's. I don't like it much for primary learning because of the speech and some things I find not scientific (as for it's classification). Still I find it very useful for it's exercises giving fac-simile of original documents, and it gives very good keys for translating formulae that I didn't find in other books. So I find it a goog complement to self teaching. The Janice Kamrin's, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, I really don't like and it's still sleeping tightly fastened !!! Nota 2 pour Vincent E. : Vie, Force et Sant=C3=A9 =C3=A0 toi et ton entourage et longue prosp=C3=A9rit=C3=A9 pour Rosette Paul Wheeler paul@cliohist.net France ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 15:50:04 -0600 From: "Chris Weimer" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: AEL Hello everyone Shaw's History is a great book, and in class we combined it with Kathryn Bard's An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Grad students also use James Allen's Middle Egyptian grammar. ============================================================================== From: Ahatnakht@aol.com Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 14:12:00 EST Subject: Re: AEL Hello everyone - "curriculum" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk In a message dated 02/01/2009 16:03:42 GMT Standard Time, al.andreou@gmail.com writes: Now, on a slightly different note: Is there a set "curriculum" one could follow? Hi Alexandros, For what it is worth, here's my "curriculum" which took me from absolute beginner to the end of Papyrus Westcar in about two years (with ca. 30-40 minutes study/translation per day while commuting to work!) ---------------------------------------------- BOOK LIST in the order at which I acquired and used them: 1) Gardiner (gave up after four chapters, but returned later for English-Egyptian exercises, as these are useful to test your understanding of the grammar) 2) Collier & Manley ( finished it - excellent for drill, sound basic grammar and because it uses real texts rather than exercises; I'm not sure why people get worked up about the numbering of the sign list - you will never learn the numbering by heart anyway, and if you do need the Gardiner numbers, you can always look them up in Gardiner...) 3) Barbara Watterson - both volumes of Egyptian Hieroglyphs (finished both - very good for basic grammar introduction and vocabulary but bad hieroglyphic handwriting!) 4) Boyo Ockinga's grammar - (finished first five chapters for lots of useful drill exercises and now use it - extensively annotated - as reference grammar as it is nice and compact; too brief for a beginner without teacher, though) 5) Allen - (worked through the first nine chapters then gave up and found myself a friendly post-grad student for face to face lessons! Bear in mind that exercises are text snippets out of context and therefore sometimes confusing). 6) some 1st-year university course notes and exercises (alongside which I started translating Shipwrecked Sailor) - these included the drill of analysing each sentence before translating by writing the grammatical function of each word underneath the transliteration (and believe me, it makes live so much easier later when you try to figure out complicated sentence structures!) - eg. a basic sentence such as aHa.n rdj.n=f n=j mw : aHa.n (Auxiliary/non-enclitc particle) rdj.n (Verbal predicate - sDm.n=f) =f (Subject) n=j (indirect Object) mw (Object) 7) Loprieno's "Ancient Egyptian" - linguistic analysis - (am using this extensively now for finer grammar points rather than Allen - however, this is NOT a grammar but an analysis and not suitable for linguistic novices!) NB. Whatever you do - don't mix Standard Theory and non-Standard Theory books until you are well into intermediate level, or you'll get very confused. ------------------------------- TEXTS (translated in the order below (as recommended and supervised by my friendly post-grad student without whom I wouldn't have made such rapid, if any, progress): 1) The Shipwrecked Sailor 2) Letter Pepi II to Harkhuf 3) first Hekanakhte letter 4) Papyrus Westcar - story of the boating party and the story of Khufu and Djedi If you can't study even occasionally with a teacher it easy to find lots of resources on-line for most of these - in particular on this very List! :-) ---------------- Have fun! Mechthild Burton ahatnakht@aol.com ============================================================================== From: "Bianchi Pieromaria" To: "'Ancient Egyptian Language List'" Subject: Re: AEL Hello everyone - "curriculum" Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 16:12:41 +0100 I am an Italian physician and I started studying Egyptian hieroglyphs about 10 years ago even though my studying has not been continuous enough as to say that I have been applying for so long. I started learning from quite elementary publications which I found on the net but soon I realized that it wouldn't have taken me anywhere far from an absolute beginner level. So I subscribed this mailing list and I learned a lot just following the discussions that I found in it. I have to say that from this standpoint I was quite lucky because the Weni text was being translated and I had the opportunity to learn a lot and above all to learn from a genuine Egyptian text which allowed me to overcome the initial laziness even though I never found the courage to pose any specific question. On the other hand I learned a lot about religion, customs, history and so long. I was then still more lucky to meet James Hoch who told me about his grammar which I bought and I instantly found myself in a completely new environment simple, stimulating and absolutely friendly. After studying his grammar I went on with the Allen's which I found perhaps more classical, in fact I found a lot of similarity with the approach that I had followed studying ancient Greek and Latin. Anyway, I have to say that the previous study of Hoch's grammar greatly helped me in the comprehension of Allen's work. I am now dealing with Gardiner's grammar and I find it quite simple although not as simple as the previous ones. I am quite satisfied with my learning process even though I wish I had a lot more time to spend on it. I hope to have been of help. Happy 2009 to everybody there Pieromaria Bianchi ==============================================================================