From: "Bert Leyns" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: AEL Advice for an Egyptian grammar Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 11:16:49 +0200 Hi ! In reply to all this, I can tell you that there is - in my opinion - a wonderful and non-expensive grammar written by Prof. Harco Willems (Catholic University of Leuven). Unfortunately it is written in Dutch, but prof. Willems may prepare an English version in the future. The ISBN is 978-9033472039. It is published by ACCO, Leuven. Kind regards, Bert Leyns ============================================================================== From: David New Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 16:53:40 +0800 Subject: Re: AEL Advice for an Egyptian grammar To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Dear Sacha, I wouldn't completely dismiss Gardiner. As an amateur, I would have to disagree that Gardiner is outdated, outmoded or obsolete (apart from his use of the English language). Compared to Allen's grammar, for the infinitive, stative, imperative and participles/relative forms there are no significant differences. For the suffix-conjugation/sdm.f forms, they are the mostly the same apart from Gardiner not separating passive sdm.f and prospective passive forms, and Gardiner's perfective/imperfective including Allen's subjunctive and prospective forms (Hoch's grammar doesn't seem to separate the prospective or subjunctive either). However, Gardiner details the use of the sdm.f with subjunctive and prospective meaning without using those terms, which to my mind is a perfectly valid approach as the identification of the subjunctive and prospective is more often than not context-based rather than dependent on differences in verb stems/endings anyway (as is also often the case for the participles/relatives/statives/infinitives). So whether you have studied Gardiner or Allen, your translations should be the same but your parsing would use different terms (eg. Allen would say "subjunctive" whereas Gardiner might say "perfective sdm.f with future meaning or as a wish/exhortation"). Allen also has a chapter on the non-attributive uses of the relative forms. I gather that this terminology is far from universally accepted and these forms can be translated as other sdm.f forms. Perhaps some of the academics have an opinion on this topic? Allen's book is fantastic. I particularly appreciated his simple grammatical explanations (eg. for A pw B sentences, 'A is B' or 'B is A') as well as some of the summary tables (eg. for participle endings, subordinate clauses and negations). His VsdoSOA memory-aid is pure genius (apologies if he wasn't the first to use it). As Stephen Fryer said, Hoch's grammar is very good but lacks a little depth. It follows a different approach to the sdm.f verb forms, which can make comparison's to Gardiner/Allen a bit confusing to begin with. Crazy as it may sound, I think running Gardiner and Allen side by side is the best way to learn, by far. And if you've already done one, the other should be plain sailing. By ignoring Gardiner you'll be missing out on unparalleled detail. David New ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 12:33:59 +0000 (UTC) From: Embrdrkbh@aol.Com To: David New , AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk Subject: Re: AEL Advice for an Egyptian grammar David, As a fellow amateur, I heartily agree with you. I began (on my own) with Gardiner. I learned a lot. I was not all the way through when the original GlyphStudy group started (with Allen). But I often went back to Gardiner! Thanks again. You stated the case VERY well! Karen Hauck ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:08:37 -0500 From: Robert Myers To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Advice for an Egyptian grammar Hi; Some students have remarked that Gardiner is fine for the first ten or eleven lessons without a teacher; then the learning curve gets steeper, and studying with Allen is a good idea for a while before returning to Gardiner. We have heard some good things on GlyphStudy about Kamrin aside from the numerous errata about ease of study. Is Kamrin based on Mercer? Bob ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 14:31:48 -0000 (GMT) Subject: Re: AEL Advice for an Egyptian grammar From: msore@albawaba.com To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Interesting comparisons and preferences between various options. My question (for all or any) concerns the NATURE of the various books called "grammars". A grammar may be written in a lot of ways, for a lot of purposes, addressing various audiences. Are the dominant (and minor) grammar textbooks that have been recommended here written to teach people how to translate? To teach people how egyptologists do things? To be linguistic analyses? To compare the stages of the same language historically? To compare different dialects and related languages comparatively? Are they designed to focus on the writing system or the sentence structures? Do they discuss alternative explanations and provide arguments for choosing between theories? Are they purely pedagogical with graded exercises with answers? While it may be said that a rose is a rose is a rose, it may not be useful to consider all grammars as the same. matthew ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:59:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Bob Manske Subject: Re: AEL Advice for an Egyptian grammar To: Ancient Egyptian Language List No, yes, well, both. Some years back, Kamrin did publish an extension to an edition of Mercer, originally published in 1926, but I can't recommend the book. I'd be happy to say why if asked. She also published a book called Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs which does not purport to be anything other than a very basic introduction to what I might call "reading standard museum artifacts", for want of a better "elevator review". Basically it covers standard formulae found on stelae and coffins. I told her that we were using it in GlyphStudy to provide a gentler introduction to hieroglyphs. She laughed and said another group had sent her a list of all the errors in it. Yeah, well, we're doing OK despite that, I said. As you know, beginning in mid-July of this year, GlyphStudy is also starting up another full grammar study group, this time reading James E. Hoch's grammar. We want to compare that with Allen's to see if inexperienced users have a better time with it than with Allen and also, of course, to compare the two, rather different, approaches. Bob ============================================================================== From: Ahatnakht@aol.com Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:18:03 EDT Subject: Re: AEL Advice for an Egyptian grammar To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk Good point, Matthew. These are indeed very much the things we need to know when choosing one over the other. To make a start on the answer I'd say : 1) Allen - teaching book, goes quite into depth with lots of lengthy explanation and graded exercises, does teach translation. Middle Egyptian only - language and writing 2) Collier & Manley - purely a beginners teaching book (not really a grammar) - teaches to translate funerary formula and simple inscriptions. Middle Egyptian only - language and writing system 3) Ockinga - reference grammar, not suitable for self-teaching - just gives you paradigms, constructions etc, with brief explanations on usage - it does not teach translation. Middle Egyptian - writing system and language 4) Gardiner starts out as a teaching grammar but is so much in-depth that it is really a bit of everything (except the language comparison) - I'll leave it to someone more expert to explain him more fully! He does make reference to differing opinions! Middle Egyptian - writing system (THE sign list!) and language 5) Antonio Loprieno "Ancient Egyptian" - not a grammar at all and certainly not a teaching book (but a thouroughly useful reference for the more advanced student, nevertheless, both for grammar nuances and for translation) very much linguistic emphasis (including phonology) and does also compare different stages of the language. - Old Egyptian to Coptic, does not focus on the writing system at all. 6) Barbara Watterson "Egyptian Hieroglyphs" and "More about Egyptian Hieroglyphs" - not really a grammar but a beginner's teaching books (suitable for self-study), does teach some translation, graded exercises (with answers). Don't know anything about Hoch or Kamrin, not having used or even looked into them. There are also a few other grammars out there, which hardly ever seem to get mentioned - for example Schenkel's "T=FCbinger Einf=FChrung" advocates a different transliteration system, so a quick discussion of that may be very useful (I suppose that falls into the category "how Egyptologists do things" - which of course also applies to all of the above, as well, except Loprieno!). There is also the very important aspect as to which "theory" the grammar adhere's to - i.e.Standard Theory, any of the post- or or Not-so-Standard theories, some of which has already been addressed in the posts about Gardiner. For the beginner to use two different "Theory" books would be very confusing! Ayako Akama's bibliography list (to which AEL's homepage has a link) contains pretty much all the different grammar books with a brief description and does include some of the "type of grammar" information. Mechthild ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:03:07 -0500 From: Robert Myers To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Advice for an Egyptian grammar Once I got my copy of Allen, I gave my copy of Mercer away to a young Egyptian friend, to see what he could make of it. So, I don't remember much about it other than it looked well organized and simple enough, but does not try to meet the reader in the way that, say, the old (now free as PDF) Erman/Breasted grammar does. If someone wants to learn the basics of Egyptian in short order without undue strain, that one seems to be a good candidate. As for the original question, it seems to me that we have a sort of spectrum of texts from teaching to reference, depending on the preferences of the author and the nature of the course using the book. Of all the books I have heard of that give a rich treatment of Egyptian, the best reputation so far seems to me possible to be Loprieno. I think it speaks well of Hoch that he tried to dispel the mistake about the k glyph appearing reversed in hieratic texts. Such a maneuver seems rather brave. Best wishes, Bob ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:36:59 -0000 (GMT) Subject: Re: AEL Advice for an Egyptian grammar From: msore@albawaba.com To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Yes. most of the pedagogical works in egyptology are about how to get students to use egyptological jargon and translate according to the traditions established by the big names in the field. Linguistics is not a focus found in egyptology. Sorry. Loprieno's book is not linguistics. No linguist reading it would recognize any standard linguistic treatment. It may be described as taking established egyptological language issues and throwing various linguistics terms at them. But the terms are thrown inconsistently, outside of any coherence or theory, and without respect for linguistic levels and principles. Loprieno does not treat phonology with phonological tools, does not treat morphology with morphological tools, does not treat syntax with syntactic tools and does not treat diachronic or comparative issues with the principles linguists provide. He also ignores semantics and issues about the lexicon. No matter what linguistic theory is used, a linguistic treatment will have (a) some kind of generative framework, (b) some clear notion of linguistic rule, (c) some treatment of how the several levels of linguistic structure relate to each other, (d) some acknowledgement of the diachronic and dialectal variation in the language, and (e) some serious discussion of how researchers can and should make empirical decisions. Loprieno's book does not do these things. It just puts linguistic lipstick on the egyptological pig. With all due respect. There is a lot of non-linguistic information presented in the egyptological literature. And there is a lot of non-linguistic information presented in the primers and textbooks about the Egyptian language. This material, however, is from a tradition outside linguistics. And it uses the terms and constructs of a tradition outside linguistics. How would an analyst decide WHICH explanation of any particular language pattern should be preferred? That is a central question to anyone doing linguistics. And it is a question that is not addressed in the various books suggested as textbooks on the Egyptian language. matthew ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:11:10 +0200 Subject: Re: AEL Advice for an Egyptian grammar (for those who read french) From: Marc Diebold To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Another one, out of print, outdated (1955), in french, useful to french speaking guys who have difficulties understanding english grammars. Very close to Gardiner's, in size and with § numbers. Useful if you need a french language grammar. Easyer to understand than Bernadette Menu's french grammar. Grammaire de l'égyptien classique de Gustave Lefebvre 471 pages *Editeur :* Ifao/Inst.Franc.Archeol.; *Édition :* 2e éd. rev. et corr (1990) *Langue :* Fran=E7ais *ISBN-10:* 2724700945 *ISBN-13:* 978-2724700947 can be hard to find Marc ==============================================================================