From: John Armstrong Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 17:18:04 -0500 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Ancient Egyptian Texts A link to lots of links to commercial online sources of ANE books: http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/ABZU/ABZU_PUBLISHER_INDEX.HTML Abzu Publisher and Book Dealer Index. For explanation of Abzu see: http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/ABZU/ABZU.HTML Abzu: Guide to Resources for the Study of the Ancient Near East. As I remember all U of Chicago URLs are case-sensitive. -- John ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 21:32:33 -0500 (EST) From: Graham To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL More thoughts on Ascii Transcription...?!? Hello, Mr. Van den Berg, Fine, I have nothing against the Manuel de Codage. The system I presented was just one that I have used. There is no reason that anyone should adopt my system. I am perfectly willing to let things go as they have been all this time. I probably should have just been quiet in the first place, (I am only a student afterall) but no one had yet said anything at all on the list when I proposed what I proposed. I was only attempting to help by giving people a way to express Egyptian. One system is as good as another when you come right down to it. :) Geoff Graham sokar@minerva.cis.yale.edu ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 00:10:10 -0800 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: Stephen Fryer Subject: Re: AEL More thoughts on Ascii Transcription...?!? I must say that I agree with Hans van den Berg's comments on Manuel de Codage. It is a quite usable means of giving transliterations in ASCII, plus it ties in very nicely with a very useful (and potentially overwhelmingly powerful - see the Web page that Hans mentioned) means of transmitting the hieroglyphic texts themselves in ASCII. If you have WinGlyph or MacScribe the text files can be loaded and show you the glyphs, etc. - Serge Rosmorduc has started on a project to create a database of inscriptions in (almost) Manuel format which can be used in this way. I would also like to thank Hans for making his work on the Manuel de Codage Web page available; even if he feels it is incomplete, it is extremely valuable, especially since I think many people didn't realize that there was more to it than a basic transliteration system. This, and his other work on the CCER web site, are an extremely valuable resource for all of us. Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services Lund, BC V0N 2G0 Canada ***************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have. ***************************** ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 00:10:12 -0800 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: Stephen Fryer Subject: Re: AEL Textbooks and phonemes Professor Schenkel has pointed out one of the problems in producing textbooks - they tend to take up a large amount of time and effort, and this time and effort take the author away from other valuable pursuits in the field. While I have never written a major textbook, I know how much time and effort goes into designing and writing the materials for even a 30-hour course, let alone one for a full semester or year (which is basically what this sort of textbook would need to be). I would like, on a related note, to express my thanks to Prof. Schenkel particularly, and also to all the other professionals, who have joined this list and devoted time to assisting with our discussions. Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services Lund, BC V0N 2G0 Canada ***************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have. ***************************** ============================================================================== From: akirklan@unlgrad1.unl.edu (Alan Kirkland) Subject: AEL Defining Grammatical terminology To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 09:04:23 -0600 (CST) Dear colleagues and lurkers, There has been of late some discussion of the usage of grammatical terms in the currently available grammars of Egyptian. Remembering a specific example, I recall someone saying they wouldn't know a participle or an infinitive by definition if it bit them. Well, don't feel too bad. Most people who don't spend their lives wrapped up in linguisitc study don't. Much less how such entities operate in the schema of language. Probably the best advice that I could give is the same I give my students who hit me with the same questions; consult a good grammar of English. While there is no great dearth of them in this day and age, there are some very fine ones that were written from the turn of the century to the early 50's. Most older grammars and textbooks of Greek and Latin for introductory students will give quite good explanations of them also. What I have done is to make up a "cheat sheet" for my Egyptian students, and if I get the chance after this week I'll try to make it available to the list. I am truly benefitting from the discussion on this list, it is giving me all sorts of wonderful ideas for improving the teaching of this fascinating language. My students are pressing me to take my notes and class materials and put together some sort of textbook. While I am aware that this is a largely thankless task, I am becoming interested in undertaking it by virtue of sheer frustration with the available material. I would like to humbly ask the membership of the list to respond to the following questions: 1) What would you like to see in an introductory text? 2) Would you like to see text extracts as exercises rather than abstract (i.e. made-up) exercises for translation? 3) Would you like to see a section on the calligraphy of the signs? 4) If a section on grammatical terms were included, would this be useful towards understanding the explanation of Egyptian grammar? 5) Would it be helpful if this introductory textbook presumed zero-knowledge on the part of the student? 6) If I actually begin to do this, how much support do y'all think there would be for it? I would appreciate any or all comments and answers to these questions. Replies off-list would be appreciated if you think your answers will get prolific. I believe that the responses to these questions would be most germane to the list subject-matter, but I don't want to hog bandwidth. Tell me what you think. Cheers, Alan -- "We stand on the shoulders of Giants, who were lifted up by Titans, and all we can and will accomplish we owe to them." Alan F.C.W. Kirkland University of Nebraska akirklan@unlgrad1.unl.edu ============================================================================== To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: David Maclennan Subject: Re: AEL Defining Grammatical terminology Date: 20 Feb 1997 09:18:28 +1200 In <9702191504.AA07615@unlgrad1.unl.edu>, Alan Kirkland wrote: I would like to humbly ask the membership of the >list to respond to the following questions: > > 1) What would you like to see in an introductory text? User-friendliness. > 2) Would you like to see text extracts as exercises rather than > abstract (i.e. made-up) exercises for translation? Yes > > 3) Would you like to see a section on the calligraphy of the > signs? Definitely. > 4) If a section on grammatical terms were included, would this > be useful towards understanding the explanation of Egyptian grammar? Very useful, I should think. > > 5) Would it be helpful if this introductory textbook presumed > zero-knowledge on the part of the student? Definitely - after all, it is an introductory text we're talking about, isn't it? > > 6) If I actually begin to do this, how much support do y'all > think there would be for it? Couldn't tell you, but I'd certainly be interested. Cheers, David Maclennan ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 15:14:03 -0800 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: Stephen Fryer Subject: Re: AEL Defining Grammatical terminology At 09:04 AM 97/02/19 -0600, you wrote: > Probably the best advice that I could give is the same I give my >students who hit me with the same questions; consult a good grammar of >English. One caveat: the behaviour range of a class of words in one language will rarely match the behaviour range of the same class of words in another language, especially one from a different language family. This can lead to the occasional amusing story, such as a colleague of mine some years ago teaching ESL was asked by a student from Japan "What is the past tense of 'happy'?" In Japanese this is a perfectly reasonable question to ask about an adjective, but not in English. Fortunately, Egyptian is a little more closely related to English than Japanese is. At a slight tangent, I sometimes feel when reading Egyptian grammar of the Polotskyan dispensation that the definition of the class "adverb" has been broadened so much that it comes dangerously close to matching the definition of "word" ;-). >Most older grammars and textbooks of Greek >and Latin for introductory students will give quite good explanations >of them also. Finding Greek and Latin textbooks these days is, for most people, as easy as finding textbooks of Egyptian grammar. >What I have done is to make up a "cheat sheet" for my >Egyptian students, and if I get the chance after this week I'll try to >make it available to the list. I am sure this would be useful to many people. Does this sheet also point out places where the meaning of terms is somewhat different for English and Egyptian? Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services Lund, BC V0N 2G0 Canada ***************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have. ***************************** ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 15:59:07 -0500 From: James_Hoch@mail.campuslife.utoronto.ca (James Hoch) Subject: AEL School Editions of Texts To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk John Armstrong raises a very good point about editions of Egyptian texts. As is obvious, until recently almost all publications had to be handwritten, so scholarly editions were all that could be expected. Editions and collections of texts for students were designed, for the most part, to resemble the format of scholarly editions (i.e. no aids). Now, students learning classical Greek and Latin, for instance, are provided with edited texts--words are divided and punctuation supplied. In addition emendations to the texts are noted, and other notes help the student out. In my opinion, an elementary reading book would be desirable, and now with modern technology, it could be a reality. One might imagine a multi-volume series with the first reader being highly edited, followed by a transitional volume with at least word spaces and line breaks indicated, and finishing with traditional straight text (but with notes). Purists might argue that the Egyptians did not use word spaces, but in hieratic, words ARE written as units--ligatures are found within words, but not between words. Personally, I would be interested in working on such a book, but time is a problem, and I have my own research to carry out. Also, the next project that I have in mind is a workbook to accompany my grammar. This would contain supplementary exercises of the type that I assign my classes and would provide practice materials. It would also include less formal treatment of the grammar and tips on how to recognize forms, constructions, etc. These are things that I expect instructors to present in class and prepare as hand-outs for their students, but for those learning on their own (and there are a lot of you out there), supplementary materials would really help. (And on the other hand, not all instructors actually produce extra materials for their students.) After getting a good grip on the grammar, my advice is read, read, read. Furthermore, read interesting texts. There are many fascinating texts out there that should be available to beginning students. Mark's idea of working on the grammar by taking on a lesson of Gardiner, or of other textbooks for those working with them, is a good one. Gardiner is still a very useful book, and has a lot of material to work with. It would be interesting to deal with the "problematic" (from the point of view of "standard theory") portions of Gardiner--and I mean not to deal with the "problems" in a very technical sense, but rather to point out that things are often more complex (or actually easier, but different) than Gardiner presents them, and that rather than worry about such things now, let's move on, and the study group can discuss the specific matters at a later point. Of course, the different levels of proficiency should be kept in mind, and anything beyond the general level of things under discussion would probably be best dealt with off-list. Best wishes! James Hoch -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CampusLife - University of Toronto http://www.campuslife.utoronto.ca ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================== From: John Armstrong Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:36:31 -0500 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Defining Grammatical terminology Alan Kirkland writes: > There has been of late some discussion of the usage of > grammatical terms in the currently available grammars of Egyptian. > Remembering a specific example, I recall someone saying they wouldn't > know a participle or an infinitive by definition if it bit them. > Well, don't feel too bad. Most people who don't spend their lives > wrapped up in linguisitc study don't. Much less how such entities > operate in the schema of language. I spent a lot of my life wrappped up in linguistic study, and I have a pretty good idea what a participle or an infinitive is in general, but I don't necessarily know what an Egyptian participle or an Egyptian infinitive is, nor really does anyone else until they dip into an Egyptian grammar and see how the terms are used. Similarly I know what adverbial means and I know what sentence means but I have no idea what an adverbial sentence is until I see it explained in a grammar, and I know what dependent and independent mean and I know what pronouns are but I can only guess what the difference is between dependent and independent pronouns until I see the forms all laid out and their usage explained. And these are all cases where I know the individual words. When I come to stative verb or prospective participle I can do no more than sort of guess what the words mean until I see an explanation, and when I see nisbe-adjective I can't even guess. My point is that there's not much point in worrying about what you know and don't know in the way of grammatical terminology when you come to study Egyptian becuase the fact is there's going to be a lot of terminology you're guaranteed not to know becuase it's exotic and peculiar to the language. The important thing is to not shy away but make yourself confront the challenge of figuring out what everything means. As a practical matter the best course is often to make a minimal effort to find out the standard dictionary meaning of a term (if it's in the dictionary) but then dig into the grammar itself and pay close attention to the author's discussion and-- especially-- the examples. -- John ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:19:33 -0800 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: Stephen Fryer Subject: Re: AEL Ancient Egyptian Texts A book I find interesting and useful is _Voices from Ancient Egypt_, R. B. Parkinson. This is an anthology of translations of Middle Kingdom texts (or texts that were probably composed in the Middle Kingdom. It has an introduction discussing the historical background and the nature of the writings (script, uses of writing), plus introductions to each section, and to each text. Many of the texts are illustrated with drawings or photographs of the originals (whether monuments, graffiti, or papyri), plus drawings and photographs of material of relevance to the adjacent text. I think this is one of the closer approaches to the kind of respect for the original texts that has been discussed recently. Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services Lund, BC V0N 2G0 Canada ***************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have. ***************************** ============================================================================== From: "YED" To: "AEgyptian-List" Cc: "AEL Mark Wilson" Subject: AEL I would like to learn some Egyptian more Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 22:00:27 +0100 further to the mailing of Mark "List Owner" Wilson, i am interested by the proposition to learn Egyptian hrough the medium of AEgyptian-List. I learn Egyptian since 4 years and I use principally Gardiner grammar and Faulkner dictionary ; I also use _Cours d'Egyptien hieroglyphique from P. Grandet & B. Mathieu_ and _grosses handworterbuch from Rainer Hannig. I have lesson once by month with a teacher where we translate text. I want use another manner to study for three reasons : 1- It's possible that I stop lessons because my work ; 2- For me, we don't go enough deep in grammar and syntax ; 3- I'm interested by late Egyptian texts like Pyramid texts. texts we have studied : -The battle of Qadesh ; -The battle of Megiddo ; -papyrus Anastasia ; -Book of the dead ch. 125 (Nu papyrus) and plate III & IV ; -and some inscriptions like Scarabs. At the present time, we studied "papyrus d'Orbiney" ; by example, I am not entirely satisfied with neo-egyptian grammar explanations that we have because -for me- we only touch on the topic. Personally I should work deeply on classical and late grammar that in neo-egyptian. Also, I think that exchangr with other people would be beneficial for me (perhaps for the others too ?) Best regards, amicalement, Yves Dupont - Lyon Croix-Rousse - France ydupont@lyonnet.dtr.fr ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 23:19:35 -0800 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: Stephen Fryer Subject: Re: AEL School Editions of Texts At 03:59 PM 97/02/19 -0500, Dr. Hoch wrote: > >Personally, I would be interested in working on such a book, but time is a >problem, and I have my own research to carry out. This is a problem which faces many who would like to create books. I have been wondering whether it would help if it was possible to recruit volunteers to assist with some parts of such projects (I'm not sure exactly what -transcribing handwritten or photographed texts into Manuel de Codage format so they could be printed in typeset form from programs like WinGlyph or MacScribe perhaps?) Having spent some time recently working on _Middle Egyptian Grammar_ you probably have a good idea of what (if any) use such assistance might be. Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services Lund, BC V0N 2G0 Canada ***************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have. ***************************** ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 09:13:14 -0500 From: James_Hoch@mail.campuslife.utoronto.ca (James Hoch) Subject: AEL Re(2): AEL Defining Grammatical terminology To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Stephen Fryer wrote: At a slight tangent, I sometimes feel when reading Egyptian grammar of the Polotskyan dispensation that the definition of the class "adverb" has been broadened so much that it comes dangerously close to matching the definition of "word" ;-) Not quite so... The category of "adverb" is fairly limited in forms and constructions (e.g. prepositional phrases--which are adverbial in English, as well). It just happens to be the dominant form of predication in Egyptian. Therefore adverbial forms/constructions are exceedingly common. In many languages, true verbal forms have dominance as predicators [e.g. "verb," from Latin _verbum_, "word" (supply appropiate emoticon here)]. Egyptian, on the other hand, uses adverbial *forms* of the verb or adverbial phrases as the predicate in similar situations. In actual effect, however, just because the grammatical category of "adverbial" is used for predication does not mean that verbal force is absent. By way of comparison, take, for instance, the English: "I am reading Chaucer for English 101." Here the predicate is "is reading"--which is analysed as a verb ("to be") plus participle. The grammatical category of participle is ADJECTIVE, thus here we have an *adjectival* predicate--but we still would still classify the sentence as verbal, at least in our general thinking. (Yes, there is the verb "to be" involved, but in English, predicate adjectives *require* this verb.) Adverbials are limited in Egyptian? Yes, for verbal forms there are only two: 1) the stative, 2) the circumstantial forms. Other adverbials: Well, the same as in most languages--1) prepositional phrases (including Hr + infinitive), 2) nominal phrases (such as "every day"--which also serve as adverbials in English and other languages), and 3) words that we would classify as adverbs from our viewpoint in English ("here," "there," "yesterday," etc.)--most of which are probably nominal, therefore the same thing as 2), above. In short, the list of "adverbial" is quite limited; the category is, however, used frequently. Perhaps a stumbling block is distinguishing between a word's BASIC PART OF SPEECH (verb, noun, adjective), i.e. what a word has as its basic category--and on the other hand, the GRAMMATICAL FUNCTION of a particular form of that word: (e.g. verbal [almost extinct in Egyptian], nominal, adjectival, and adverbial). Egyptian tends to use verbs as "adverbials," "nominals," and "adjectivals." According to the standard theory, the different forms, which are assigned to different categories, are distinct (e.g. you can't put an adverbial where you need a nominal). Rather than worry about what all the forms are, you can think of the different grammatical functions as bins from which a sentence-crafter assembles a sentence. When you need a noun, you grab into the nominal bin (nouns, infinitives, adjectives, participles, etc., etc.); when you need an adjective, grab into the adjectival bin (adjective, participle); when you need an adverb (and you will need these a lot), grab into that bin (listed above). The assembly-line analogy may seem simplistic, but it actually works quite well. Further, the grammatical category "adverb" is a difficult one in general. Rather than puzzle ourselves over it needlessly, let's take it as a label, a name--because whatever it is as a category, it does form a consistent group. Once we know how it is used, then we can discuss it theoretically. Just as I was about to post this, John Armstrong's message arrived--his point that even knowing one language's grammatical jargon does not necessarily help when dealing with Egyptian is well taken. I would argue that having a solid background in English can only help, but there certainly are peculiarities in terminology, especially in Egyptian. Looking at Egyptian grammatical categories is instructive concerning English, as well. And there are large similarities: English infinitives and gerunds (=Egyptian infinitive) are nominals, English participles are adjectives, etc. This post is longer than I intended, and I hope it does not confuse more than it explains. The simple point is: there are categories, call them what we will, and they do behave with a logic. A rigourous logic, in fact. Best wishes to all! James Hoch -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CampusLife - University of Toronto http://www.campuslife.utoronto.ca ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================== From: cuibono@garnet.berkeley.edu Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:00:55 -0800 (PST) To: James Hoch cc: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL School Editions of Texts but why does there have to be a transition from edited to un-edited texts? as was mentioned, students of latin and greek avail themselves of critical editions. the question is, after all, what was the text. those greek/latin critical additions contain an apparatus criticus that provides the reader with variants, should they wish to be familiar with the those textual questions. but my experience, admittedly limited, is that in egyptology the text as found is treated as something quasi-sacred and not to be disturbed. why should this be so? because something is written does make it so. not to belabor my point, let me summarize by supporting the idea of critical editions, but add that broader issues such as paleography or emendation can be left to those who are particularly concerned rather than to students of egyptian in general. chris hoffman ============================================================================== From: John Armstrong Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 09:40:42 -0500 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Ancient Egyptian Texts Stephen Fryer writes: > A book I find interesting and useful is _Voices from Ancient Egypt_, R. B. > Parkinson. This is an anthology of translations of Middle Kingdom texts ... I also like this book. It tends to just give excerpts from long texts such as the instructions or Sinuhe, but full texts of those can be found in the first (OK MK) volume of Lichtheim, and it gives lots of items of genres that are not well represented in Lichtheim such as letters and administrative documents. Plus the plates and facsimiles (accurate drawings) of the actual texts are really nice and reinforce the down-to-earth quality of the collection. I think the book is still in print (U of Oklahoma Press) and pretty cheap. -- John ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 09:38:11 -0500 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: cejo@midway.uchicago.edu (Charles E. Jones) Subject: AEL Existing Egyptian primers / teaching grammars In looking forward to a new and potentially more useful Egyptian primer, it might also be useful to look back at the existing corpus of such things, of which there are quite a number. I will undertake to compile a bibliography of them if anyone is interested, and if I can count on some help from those of you who have taught (or learned) Egytian from any of them, rejected any of them, or have any other comments onm them. I do not intend to limit the bibliography to English language materials. Off the top of my head the list would include: Bakir Brunner - Brunner/Ockinga Budge De Buck Decker/Patton Du Bourguet Englund Gardiner Graefe Grandet/Mathieu Hoch Johnson Menu Schenkel Zauzich - Zauzich/Roth Zonhoven There are unquestionably many more than this small sample. I'll be grateful for hints or suggestions on what else to include, etc. (off-list). Thanks. -Chuck Jones- cejo@midway.uchicago.edu ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 14:15:04 -0600 From: "Patrick C. Ryan" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk CC: PROTOL9@idt.net Subject: AEL SCHLANGEN Dear AEgyptians: I posted this on the sci.archaeology list a couple of weeks ago but have not received a response from Professor Yurco. It is an interesting question (I hope), and I would be curious to see what members of this list might care to comment. ... (I) "asked Professor Yurco of the OI if he was of the opinion that the *viper* following the term "iti" (father) was a MALE determinative". It is my opinion that: "It is totally unreasonable to believe that "f" is a determinative for MALE in the word itf because: 1) it occurs in no other word in that function; a) there are many words for which MALE would be an appropriate determinative; none have it! b) there is a different determinative, the side view of phallus and scrota, which DOES serve as a determinative for MALE in many words; 2) because Egyptian is AA, and Nostratic is the parent of IE and AA, we can look at IE examples for an explanation: a) IE atta = father b) IE appa = father c) ATA and APA occur in so many languages around the world that many philologists consider them Lallwoerter, the result of universal childish babble; 1)) even if that were true (and I doubt it), it would not affect the explanation I give for ITF, which is: 3) ITF should be interpreted and IT/F, i.e. IT or IF, corresponding to ATA and APA; a) Both IT and IF have reflexes in Coptic: eio:te and apa/ab(b)a; b) That the Egyptians sometimes indicated two pronunciations in one spelling is known: the classical example is ps(i), cook, which is also occasionally written pz/pfs/pfz/pzf; 1)) TMK, no Egyptologist has seriously maintained that the word is correctly *PFS/Z; from the earliest days, this has been recognized as an indication of PS/Z OR FS/Z; a)) this is probably the result of dialectal differences; 1))) These differences are also manifested in spellings where 3 and r (both acknowledged /r/ sounds) interchange (or both appear), inter alia; 4) ITF can, in some circumstances, be interpreted as it.f, his father; a) but not in all attestations; or, at least, only with great difficulty and awkwardness else why would some have maintained it is a determinative? So, IMHO, the like interpretation is that IT *AND* IF were terms for "father" based on dialectal or cultural differences." So, that is the situation. I will be interested in everyone's response. Pat Ryan -- PATRICK C. RYAN {ProtoL9@mail.idt.net} * (501) 227-9947 9115 W. 34th St. * Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 * USA Veit ek, at ek hekk, vindga meidhi, naetr allar niu, geiri undadhr... a theim meidhi er mangi veit hvers hann af rotum renn.' * (Havamal 138) ****************************************** -- PATRICK C. RYAN {ProtoL9@mail.idt.net} * (501) 227-9947 9115 W. 34th St. * Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 * USA Veit ek, at ek hekk, vindga meidhi, naetr allar niu, geiri undadhr... a theim meidhi er mangi veit hvers hann af rotum renn.' * (Havamal 138) ****************************************** ============================================================================== From: cuibono@garnet.berkeley.edu Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 14:09:17 -0800 (PST) To: John Armstrong cc: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Ancient Egyptian Texts ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 21:41:17 -0500 (EST) From: Luxor3@aol.com To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Would anyone like to learn some Egyptian? I would definitely welcome such a discussion/exercise to help in this study. My own background inlearning this area at the very beginning. I enrolled in Emily Teeter's class a couple of years ago, but due to my travel schedule and work on my master's thesis, did not fully complete the 10 lessons. Now that my thesis is finished, I hope to have time to devote to studying ancient Egyptian. In Teeter's class we used Gardiner, Zauzich (Hieroglyphs without Mystery), Fischer (Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy), Davies (Egyptian Hieroglyphs), Faulkner (Middle Egyptian Dictionary). I've since picked up DeBuck (Egyptian Reading Book). I'm anxious to get back into this and would welcome any guidance/assistance/discussion. Thank you. Lynn Kordus Wausau, Wisconsin, USA ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 19:56:55 -0600 From: "Patrick C. Ryan" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk CC: John Armstrong Subject: Re: AEL Ancient Egyptian Texts cuibono@garnet.berkeley.edu wrote: Dear John; This is what I received: no message. Pat -- PATRICK C. RYAN {ProtoL9@mail.idt.net} * (501) 227-9947 9115 W. 34th St. * Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 * USA Veit ek, at ek hekk, vindga meidhi, naetr allar niu, geiri undadhr... a theim meidhi er mangi veit hvers hann af rotum renn.' * (Havamal 138) ****************************************** ============================================================================== From: John Armstrong Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 10:11:38 -0500 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Thoughts on how we might proceed (long) It seems to me that a clear picture of the desires and concerns of the members is emerging on this list. Basically, people want to work together to learn Egyptian but are not sure how to go about it, especially as regards choosing materials and setting the level of difficulty. I believe the group has enough knowledge to set up a reasonable plan and enough commitment to actually carry it out, and that, if it is inclined to, it can start focusing on making some decisions. Here are some questions that I think have answers that most people will agree on right now. (1) Q. What form of Egyptian do people want to study? A. Middle Egyptian. (2) Q. What is the preferred language for teaching materials used and produced by the group? A. English. (3) Q. What is the primary level of study? A. Elementary, but with plenty of room for intermediate and advanced, as long as it does not seriously get in the way of the elementary. These are only my opinions, but in any case the answers to these questions seem clearer to me than some others which I will now turn to. Apologies in advance if I seem to be trying to decide everything unilaterally. I'm really not, just trying to provide a framework for discussion. (4) Q. Will some people be teachers and others students? A?. Not really. Some people may be more information providers and others more information consumers, but everyone will be encouraged to contribute whatever they can, including researching hard questions, negotiating with vendors and institutions, preparing and maintaining documents, etc. (5) Q. How fast will we go? A?. As fast as we can-- but that won't always be very fast. At the very least I think we should try to make some kind of progress every week, week in week out, except maybe big vacation times. Also, we need to watch out about getting stuck waiting on something that's not happening for one reason or another, and either make that thing happen or make an adjustment so we can make progress without it. (6) Q. How will people who join late or drop out and come back be able to catch up? A?. We will leave a semi-permanent "paper trail" of what we've done, including an archive of at least some of the messages and also a repository of the electronic materials we accumulate. Some people can simply be behind and ask questions like "I'm still working on text 2 and I don't understand X". Plus at some point we will restart at the beginning either all together or as a spin-off "new class". So far the questions have been pretty general. The following are more Egyptian-specific. (7) Q. Will we all (or at least most of us) be working on the same reading materials at the same time? A?. Yes. (8) Q. Should these reading materials be isolated "exercise" sentences or real texts? A?. I believe they should be real texts. (9) Q. Assuming we opt for real text, where will we get them? A?. My thought is, we will develop our own editions as we go along. A concrete course of action might be to work through the texts in de Buck's ReadingBook evolving our notes, glossary, etc. as we go along. When we finish we will have produced a version of what de Buck himself originally planned to do (not comparable in quality of course, but aiming at the same goals). (10) Q. If we read mainly real texts that we develop our own editions of as we go along, we won't be dependent on a teaching grammar (such as Gardiner or Hoch) for reading material. Do we still want to adopt a standard grammar that everyone will have and use for reference? A?. I believe that if we read mainly real texts we will not have to adopt a standard grammar, and can leave it to individuals to choose the grammar or grammars they personally want to use. Of course we will maintain a list of available items along with some (positive and negative) recommendations, but nobody will absolutely have to have a certain grammar in order to follow what we are doing. (11) Q. If we don't adopt a standard grammar, how will we develop a shared body of knowledge. A?. This is one of the hardest questions. My answer is that we will develop our shared body of knowledge primarily within the text editions we produce as we go along. The knowledge will take the form of detailed word-by-word notes on the texts together with complete glossaries with grammatical labeling of the individual forms, as well as maybe separate overviews of the forms of pronouns, verb forms and other "paradigmizable" linguistic phenomena in the text. Of course we could produce other things too, for example lists of common or semantically grouped words for vocabulary building, discussions of issues, bibliographies, etc., etc.-- really anything that anyone thinks is useful and is willing to work on. (12) Q. Since we're mostly non-experts, how do we know when we've understood something correctly and in sufficient detail? A?. This is another hard question. I think we will have to feel are way on this as we go along. I think the hardest part will be the verbs and the sentence patterns. In addition to the problems presented by the language itself there are also the problems presented by the linguistic analyses, which differ significantly from authority to authority. Realistically, I think we will want to be operating at the level of detail where we will have to at least understand the "standard theory" even if we don't totally buy into it. (13) Q. Do we really need to get into a lot of grammatical discussion? Couldn't we just translate? A?. To be honest I do not think it is possible to learn Egyptian outside a framework of grammar. If we could do like StarGate and plunge ourselves into world where people actually spoke Egyptian things might be different, but I don't think that opportunity is going to come up. (14) Q. What about dictionaries? A?. Even though we will be compiling glossaries of the texts we read (under the approach I've been elaborating on), I think people will do well to have and use a simple dictionary such as Faulkner. (15) Q. Will this scheme really work?. I.e. can a total beginner really just start reading some text and be able to understand what's going on? A?. If we are not in a hurry, and are willing to keep talking about a word or phrase or sentence until at least most people feel they understand it, I think the answer is yes. The key to making this approach work is to be very opportunistic and try to learn the easy stuff real fast and spend most of your time on the hard stuff. My sense is that for Egyptian the easy stuff is nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numbers, prepositions and adverbs and the hard part is mostly verbs and sentence patterns. (16) Q. What if it doesn't work? A?. If things really don't seem to be working the first thing I would try is to call a time out on reading texts, work through some SHORT set of lessons (maybe six weeks worth), and then go back to the texts and see if things are better. Hopefully they would be. I want to emphasize once again that all this is just one person's idea of how we could proceed and is intended primarily to provide a framework for discussion. -- John ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 18:58:42 +0200 From: "Jose M. Galan" Subject: AEL Transcription of Ancient Egyptian To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk A few messages ago, there was some concern in the AEL about the computerized transcription of ancient Egyptian. I will avoid a discussion on the "Manuel de Codage", since I am not aware of every detail involved in its development. I just want to point out to those interested in this issue the existence of a solution for "publishing" in Internet Ugaritic texts in transcription. We have developed a font called "IluInternet" that shows neatly all the special characters in the screen and on paper when printed. It can be used both by Mac and PC users. If the user wants to search for a word within the Ugaritic corpus, a virtual keyboard with all the special characters is displayed in the screen. IluInternet contains also all the necessary characters to transcribe Egyptian, although the virtual keyboard now shows only those needed for Ugaritic, because of the nature of the texts treated. This font is used combined with html implemented with Java, what permits to use two different fonts at once by including tags indicating the font change. This way, the ASCII numbers limitation disappears, concentrating the special characters within the low numbers of the ASCII table (32-126). The Web site alluded is http://www.labherm.filol.csic.es Within its section called "GSRC-Internet", the user has access to a Data Bank containing the Ugaritic corpus. A side of the texts themselves, he/she can develop words concordances, possible restitutions for partially preserved words, and much more. In order to see correctly the special characters, the Web guest must use a navigator with Java, such as Netscape 3.0. Download the font for Mac or PC, and then install it in your computer system. I hope this information will be of some interest. Jose M. Galan Instituto de Filologia, CSIC C/ Duque de Medinaceli, 8 28014 - Madrid (Spain) ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 20:07:37 -0500 (EST) From: NebetHet@aol.com To: protol9@idt.net, AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk cc: PROTOL9@idt.net Subject: Re: AEL SCHLANGEN Em hotep (in peace), Pat Ryan: The reason you have not heard back from Professor Frank Yurco is that he is currently in Egypt taking a tour with a group of Field Museum of Natural History members and friends... As my own class with him is set to resume March the 3rd, I suspect his involvement with our lists will begin again around that time. I just wanted you to know that there was a good reason you had not heard back from him and that I'm sure, were he here currently, he would be quite pleased to get involved in this very wonderful discussion. Ankh udja seneb em hotep (life, prosperity and health, in peace!) ( Tamara )=| Ma'at is the Foundation of Ra's Heaven / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ "Modern Egyptology is one part adventure, one part detective work, and one part anal-compulsive meticulousness--it's got it all!" -- Egyptologist Kent Weeks, re-discoverer of KV5 / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Rev. Tamara Siuda, Chief Priest, The House of Netjer http://users.aol.com/hetnetjer/private/hetntr.html Member, American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) and Ancient Egypt Studies Association (AESA) / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ ============================================================================== From: Rui Pedro Duarte To: "'AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk'" Subject: RE: AEL Thoughts on how we might proceed (long) Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 14:30:07 -0000 ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC225F.3CCF7E40 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Although I'm not a student of egyptology I'm a curious follower of this = list.=20 Ever since I've visited Egypt last summer I've grown very curious of = everything related with ancyent egypt.=20 Unfortunattly my knowledge in this area is very small (and I'm not even = comparing it with yours) but I hope that some time in a near future I'll = have more knowledge and hopeffuly thanks to this list. I won't be an active participant in your discuttion since I would just = slow you down but I will be an interested reader.=20 I'm just posting this so that you are aware of my existence as a = recipient of this list. -Rui Pedro Duarte Rui.Duarte@cgd.pt ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC225F.3CCF7E40 Content-Type: application/ms-tnef Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 eJ8+IgkOAQaQCAAEAAAAAAABAAEAAQeQBgAIAAAA5AQAAAAAAADoAAENgAQAAgAAAAIAAgABBJAG AFABAAABAAAADAAAAAMAADADAAAACwAPDgAAAAACAf8PAQAAAFsAAAAAAAAAgSsfpL6jEBmdbgDd AQ9UAgAAAABBRWd5cHRpYW4tTEByb3N0YXUuZGVtb24uY28udWsAU01UUABBRWd5cHRpYW4tTEBy b3N0YXUuZGVtb24uY28udWsAAB4AAjABAAAABQAAAFNNVFAAAAAAHgADMAEAAAAfAAAAQUVneXB0 aWFuLUxAcm9zdGF1LmRlbW9uLmNvLnVrAAADABUMAQAAAAMA/g8GAAAAHgABMAEAAAAhAAAAJ0FF Z3lwdGlhbi1MQHJvc3RhdS5kZW1vbi5jby51aycAAAAAAgELMAEAAAAkAAAAU01UUDpBRUdZUFRJ QU4tTEBST1NUQVUuREVNT04uQ08uVUsAAwAAOQAAAAALAEA6AQAAAAIB9g8BAAAABAAAAAAAAAMj RQEIgAcAGAAAAElQTS5NaWNyb3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQSAAQAwAAAAUkU6IEFFTCBUaG91 Z2h0cyBvbiBob3cgd2UgbWlnaHQgcHJvY2VlZCAobG9uZykA/A8BBYADAA4AAADNBwIAGAAOAB4A BwABACIBASCAAwAOAAAAzQcCABgADgASABwAAQArAQEJgAEAIQAAADUyNjNDM0EyMzE4RUQwMTE4 RUE1MDBBQTAwQzlCOTU1AAYHAQOQBgBABAAAEgAAAAsAIwABAAAAAwAmAAAAAAALACkAAQAAAAMA NgAAAAAAQAA5AGCRyjtfIrwBHgBwAAEAAAAwAAAAUkU6IEFFTCBUaG91Z2h0cyBvbiBob3cgd2Ug bWlnaHQgcHJvY2VlZCAobG9uZykAAgFxAAEAAAAWAAAAAbwiXzvCosNjVo4xEdCOpQCqAMm5VQAA HgAeDAEAAAADAAAATVMAAB4AHwwBAAAAFgAAAERPSU5XMi9ET0lOVzIvUDE0OTU3OAAAAAMABhBo JHmJAwAHEPgBAAAeAAgQAQAAAGUAAABBTFRIT1VHSElNTk9UQVNUVURFTlRPRkVHWVBUT0xPR1lJ TUFDVVJJT1VTRk9MTE9XRVJPRlRISVNMSVNURVZFUlNJTkNFSVZFVklTSVRFREVHWVBUTEFTVFNV TU1FUklWRUdSAAAAAAIBCRABAAAArgIAAKoCAAAkBAAATFpGdYmAEfn/AAoBDwIVAqgF6wKDAFAC 8gkCAGNoCsBzZXQy9QAAKgLhYQeABgAGwwKAbE1UEocB8TIDxQIAcAhycTISgXN0ZW3dAoMzAuQH EwKDNBQMD9/sZjUUDBYINgNFFHUHbV0CgH0KgAjPCdk7HR8yPDU1AoAKgQ2xC2BuZ70B0DcN8AsK FZEL8mMAQBEV8Gx0aAhgZ2ggQEknbSBubwVAYRogFQB1DbACMCBvZvAgZWd5BTAcoSPwIoO9IxBj CHEIYAQgAhBsHLCedwSQI6IiIAQAIGwEAMh0LiAKhUV2JdEAkJxuYxJwIpAnYCB2BAC6aRUQZCdA I/ImcGEVAPkjIHVtB4AFwCgDCcAlsP8DoCdhJHAk9iOyKqImMSAg/iAdIAtgKJID8CIgIwAnwM55 I3Ij4ybHVW4CEAAgVnUSQAJAbCRwbSRwa+ki0HdsCYBnEnALgCYk3QrAZSMQJlEqo3MAwCWQ/CAo AHAosCKWK6EDoAWgXm0KsSwSKIAsxHkIYXOQKSBidQVASSAiMP5wEnAiICyAIyADcDUhB3HbMCIj EG4w0AXAZjSgCHD/J+IxsRGAKCEEYDcRL5gx8ps08g3QdS8xNUFuawQgryQgJikKhTTQdwIgJwVA 9mI4siMAYzXgKCEKsTXgPmMFIABwBUAwMTQiIGT/BAAk8AJAJSADoCelO3E5cP0osGolQClhJaE0 Ej3gKmL/NJQD8DGxO+QLgBUQHSAVAT8osDDBBIEmxyKSP4Nwb/8VACwSJjM1kDU0QCIwsSMAzndF giOxL2FleCaRCfD/J9EpQCMBHSA9AQiQI4Q6Xz8LRhpBC/AUwEjtIVktUjB1aSBQCYADYCBEunU8 wWUKhQfwTAAuTJTgQGNnZC4FMAqFHEECAE8wAAADABAQAAAAAAMAERAAAAAAQAAHMGAdCZtdIrwB QAAIMGAdCZtdIrwBHgA9AAEAAAAFAAAAUkU6IAAAAACPJQ== ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC225F.3CCF7E40-- ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 08:45:47 -0600 From: "Patrick C. Ryan" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Transcription of Ancient Egyptian Jose M. Galan wrote: > > A few messages ago, there was some concern in the AEL about the > computerized transcription of ancient Egyptian. I will avoid a discussion > on the "Manuel de Codage", since I am not aware of every detail involved in > its development. I just want to point out to those interested in this issue > the existence of a solution for "publishing" in Internet Ugaritic texts in > transcription. We have developed a font called "IluInternet" that shows > neatly all the special characters in the screen and on paper when printed. > It can be used both by Mac and PC users. If the user wants to search for a > word within the Ugaritic corpus, a virtual keyboard with all the special > characters is displayed in the screen. IluInternet contains also all the > necessary characters to transcribe Egyptian, although the virtual keyboard > now shows only those needed for Ugaritic, because of the nature of the > texts treated. > This font is used combined with html implemented with Java, what permits to > use two different fonts at once by including tags indicating the font > change. This way, the ASCII numbers limitation disappears, concentrating > the special characters within the low numbers of the ASCII table (32-126). > The Web site alluded is http://www.labherm.filol.csic.es > Within its section called "GSRC-Internet", the user has access to a Data > Bank containing the Ugaritic corpus. A side of the texts themselves, he/she > can develop words concordances, possible restitutions for partially > preserved words, and much more. > In order to see correctly the special characters, the Web guest must use a > navigator with Java, such as Netscape 3.0. Download the font for Mac or PC, > and then install it in your computer system. > I hope this information will be of some interest. > > Jose M. Galan > Instituto de Filologia, CSIC > C/ Duque de Medinaceli, 8 > 28014 - Madrid (Spain) Dear Jose and AEgyptians: You bring up a good point. Here is the standard I have been using; it seems to be understandable to everyone: 3 i (y) ' w b p f m n r h H x X s (z) S q k g t T d D I have resisted using A for 3 (Egyptian vulture) and E for ' (hand and arm) because, at origin, these were consonants not vowels (or even semi-vowels) but I will conform to any convention that is most comfortable for all on the list. Additionally, I have learned from a kind e-mail that Frank Yurco is currently in Egypt. Perhaps he will care to comment on it/f when he returns. Pat -- PATRICK C. RYAN {ProtoL9@mail.idt.net} * (501) 227-9947 9115 W. 34th St. * Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 * USA Veit ek, at ek hekk, vindga meidhi, naetr allar niu, geiri undadhr... a theim meidhi er mangi veit hvers hann af rotum renn.' * (Havamal 138) ****************************************** ============================================================================== From: "Mark Wilson" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 21:59:06 +0000 Subject: Re: AEL Thoughts on how we might proceed (long) Dear John, Thanks for your suggestions. I think gist of what you are saying is quite reasonable. It might be useful to get some idea of what level people are currently at. Geoff Graham's lesson 1 is now available on the web site at: http://www.rostau.demon.co.uk/AEgyptian-L/ Perhaps people could have a look at it and report back to us how they found it. It seems to be pitched at a suitable level for beginners. The lesson includes vocabulary, a reading exercise and a key to the exercise. > (7) Q. Will we all (or at least most of us) be working on the same > reading materials at the same time? > > A?. Yes. > > (8) Q. Should these reading materials be isolated "exercise" sentences > or real texts? I agree that we should work through real texts, but I think it is important to do exercises as well because each exercise brings out another aspect of the language in a logical progression. I don't think we can completly ignore the set exercises. We need not necessarily adopt a standard grammar, but a few list members have Gardiner and have indicated an interest in working through some of the exercises. So we could try Gardiner for a while, see how it goes, then maybe move onto something a bit more Polotskyan in nature to balance it out. Now here's a suggestion. As there are already solutions to Gardiner lessons 1-9 from the Griffith Institute in Oxford (http://www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/gri/8.html), why not try to work on our own solutions for lessons 10 onwards? We could allow a few weeks for everyone to catch up to lesson 10, and then work together from then on. We could then maybe nominate a different person to supply an answer to each of the questions from the lesson we are working on. What does everyone think about this? Whatever we do, it doesn't have to go on for ever, we can try it for a while and see how it goes. The way I see thinks working is that different groups might work on different things at the same time. Maybe someone else might like to suggest particular texts to go through for those of you who'd like to get straight into the texts. I would invite comments related to how we might proceed to be made on-list so that we can all see how the general consensus is developing. There's plenty of interest out there, what's needed now is for us to agree on something to do, and then do it! Mark Wilson weneg@rostau.demon.co.uk ============================================================================== From: "M. A. R. Barker" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Thoughts on how we might proceed (long) Date: Mon, 24 Feb 97 18:28:56 -0600 Dear Mark, Do you mind if I forward you my longish response to Mr. Armstrong's letter? You will see that I agree (and disagree here and there) with both of you. ----- Dear Mr.Armstrong, (snip) I agree with many of your points: (1) Middle Egyptian; (2) English; (3) Elementary -- but quite probably separate topics for"intermediate" and "advanced" students. In my opinion, it would be difficult to mix these: too slow for the advanced/intermediate people, and too fast and confusing for the beginners. I am in agreement with (4). It will be hard for more advanced people to be patient with beginners, but this is urgent. That is why I advocate three different sub-lists where each assumed level can have its own materials: on Level A we present the signs (and sounds, as far as we know them), plus some basic grammar, and lots of reinforcement materials. On Level B the intermediates work through basic texts, still with exercises and drills. On Level C the advanced students read texts selected and annotated by one or more of our senior people. THere might be a Level D as well: historical phonetics/phonemics, where people can talk about sound-shifts and the introduction of grammatical formations. We can ask people to mark their levels carefully: put "A" into the subject header for introductory materials, "B" for intermediate, etc. Once our sub-topics are established and clearly marked, a person who does not wish to look at textual analyses much too advanced for him/her can simply push the "discard" button on their mailing programme. I cannot help but disagree concerning having all levels work on the same materials at the same time. This is not pedagogically productive for beginners, intermediates, and advanced students all together -- at least I have never seen it to work very well in my 30-plus years of teaching languages! Materials should be separately aimed at each student level. I also believe that we must take advantage of the past 5 decades of advances in language teaching. Just having "real texts" is, in the opinion of most modern teachers, not an effective way of imparting and reinforcing linguistic structures. Plodding through a dictionary, looking up each word, and puzzling through a grammar (usually written by a scholar for other scholars) may work eventually, but it is not quick, and it is not effective. I strongly urge the production of carefully written and graded exercises, aimed at the gradual and structured acquisition of a limited grammatical and lexical corpus. Your point (9) is good for the late intermediate and advanced levels. THere should still be a good portion of "language learning" exercises at these levels, too. How I wish I had had some real drills and exercises to teach me some of the finer points of the negative constructions of Egyptian (just as an example). Your point (10) sounds good, but coverage of individual points is very uneven in some of the extant Egyptian grammars. Some teach a given point well; others not. Should we not start (at least) with a single book -- Gardiner or Hoch -- and let people bring in other grammars and materials, if they wish? I do not believe we can build a corpus of analysed texts unless we first bring our students to the levels where they can first read them, then analyse them, then produce teaching materials based upon them. Your point (13): here I agree. Just "translation" reminds me of the learned Irani teacher who "taught" Persian by laying copies of the Divan of Hafez in front of his bemused students. Using dictionaries (in Arabic lexical order!) and a 30-page "introductory grammar" that taught mostly the script and a couple of simple paradigms, he got almost nowhere in one academic year. He resigned, and his successor reverted to an older and much more structured grammar -- which still had only 10 English-Persian and Persian English sentences at the end of each "lesson." Our students only learned Persian when they went out to Iran on fellowships! Such extremes do not have to be our fate: teachers of Latin and Greek now have made considerable progress in developing teaching materials, and we can do the same. (15) Faulkner -- with the English-Egyptian index -- is a good start. THe "Worterbuch" is too much for most people, and Budge is just not adequate. Like you, I wish to emphasise that this is just one person's idea: mine. I do have experience of teaching other "funny" (= exotic, not commonly taught) languages. I wrote and taught Urdu and Baluchi for 30 years; I taught some introductory Arabic; I was the head of a language-teaching department (South Asian and Near Eastern Studies) for about 10 years. I have also studied Egyptian since I was a boy -- since about 1940. I am now retired and I'd like to help, if I can. Should our members' majority opinion not support what I have said above, I shall not be surprised: older teaching methodologies are still the rule, particularly with less-commonly taught languages. I shall cooperate anyway, to the best of my ability. Phil Barker > I agree that we should work through real texts, but I think it is > important to do exercises as well because each exercise brings out > another aspect of the language in a logical progression. I don't think > we can completly ignore the set exercises. I don't think we can ignore exercises at all! Just "read and translate" is an outdated and ineffective pedagogical strategy. > Now here's a suggestion. As there are already solutions to Gardiner > lessons 1-9 from the Griffith Institute in Oxford > (http://www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/gri/8.html), why not try to work on our > own solutions for lessons 10 onwards/ Good idea. The Gardiner exercises are much too brief and too difficult in themselves to be the entire corpus of what we want to do. But they're useful. > There's plenty of interest out there, what's needed now is for us to > agree on something to do, and then do it! Absolutely rghtg on. Phil Barker ============================================================================== To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: David Maclennan Subject: AEL Lesson 1 - problem with downloading Date: 25 Feb 1997 16:03:50 +1200 I have just tried to download lesson 1 from the website. However, my system won't let me download the high-resolution version - it's x-zip compressed or something, and when I clicked on the prompt that Netscape threw up to download the plug-in for this, it said that "Netscape doesn't have a plug-in released for your operating system". So I've had to download the low-res versions, and have a further problem in that with the key, the last word of the translations for examples 15 and 20 get chopped off. Something similar happens with examples 10, 15 and 20 of the lessons themselves. I probably won't be the only one with this problem, so perhaps it could be looked into? Cheers, David Maclennan ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 21:05:18 -0500 (EST) From: Ouellet Brigitte To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL suggestions Hello to everyone, Before making any suggestions I whish to excuse myself for my rather bad english. I'm trying the best as I can. I'm a Ph.D. student in History of Religions at the University of Montreal. Like some mention before, my experience of ancient egyptian is limited. You can easely guess that my thesis most have something to do with Ancient Egypt. I took two years of middle egyptian and I'm now teaching the little I know, ie.e the ABC to a little class of 12 students since their were no specialist to teach it. This is crazy, I know, but while working on the preparation for this little cours I discover that there were alots of problems that I needed to overcome. There is not much good publications in french to help on the matter. So I found myself to have to go from one book to another trying to seek the informations I needed. Anyhow, the class is on the way, half of it its done. But I whish to go on doing what I started to do. When I heard about the list, I was very happy. So here's my suggestions: 1- Please do not forget that on the list there are people that are starting from nothing and that they are interesting in learning something. So I guess that we ought to think about them. The list has this that is good, there no deadlines or exams. So let's enjoy it and learn. 2- We should then start from the basic elements. I for one, I think before getting into the lessons right away, we need to talk about the origin, the formation and basic elements of the script. In preparing my class I discover that there was not always "consensus" on everything regarding the matters. And I would be very happy to talk about it. 3- Since we probably have grammar, dictionnaries, etc. and each of us probably has different books. Why don't we first try to list the interesting books in a bibliography and discuss their values and contents. 4- In having all different material to work with, I would strongly suggest that after having go over the basic - and only after, we decide which grammar lessons we will do and each of us consults other material to complete the lesson we have decided. So we can all benefits about this, and also from the comments of the ones that have more knowledge about it. In hoping we make this list worth while for those who are whishing to learn or sharing their knowledge. Sincerly, Brigitte Ouellet @>------->&<-------<@ *** @>------->&<-------<@ *** @>------->&<-------<@ | "On ne peut se voir soi-meme dans un miroir, | | sans se connaitre deja, | @ sinon ce n'est point se voir mais voir seulement quelqu'un" @ | | | (KIERKEGAARD) | @>------->&<-------<@ *** @>------->&<-------<@ *** @>------->&<-------<@ *******Brigitte Ouellet******* *****Faculte de theologie***** ****Universite de Montreal**** Ouellebr@MAGELLAN.UMontreal.CA ****************************** ============================================================================== From: John Armstrong Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 08:55:25 -0500 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Text of Ptolemy's Geography This is really more of a Classics than an Egyptian language question but since I feel I'm among friends here I'll try here first. A big part of my armchair traveller's interest in ancient Egypt is the Pharaonic and Greco-Roman placenames. I can access the better known Greek sources through standard editions esp. Loeb), but I am kind of stuck on Ptolemy, the 2nd cent CE astronomer and geographer (and astrologer). I have the Dover reprint of the 1932 translation: Edward Luther Stevenson trans. _Claudius Ptolemy: The Geography_ (Dover, 1991) ISBN 0-486-26896-9 but it is rather peculiar and seems to be conveying more of a Latin than a Greek text. I can make sense out of it-- the Egyptian section anyway-- but would like to check it against the Greek text. I'm almost certain I would have to do an inter-library loan from a university library to get it, but would at least like to know in advance what I would be looking for. Can anyone advise me? BTW I think readers of this list would be interested in the Egyptian section of the Geography. It is in Book IV Chapter 5 of the work and can be found on pp. 100-104 of Stevenson's translation. It gives longitude and latitude of virtually all places mentioned to 5 minutes of arc that you can use to make a skeletal map. I assume Ptolemy himself based them on some map he had (one of someone named Marinus?), with maybe some adjustments from other geographers' reports and astronomical observations. There is a fascinating reproduction of a map of Egypt by the famous cartographer Ortelius (1595) in John Baines and Jaromir Malek, _Atlas of Ancient Egypt_ (Facts on File, 1980), pp. 22-23, that seems to be based primarily on Ptolemy, but unfortunately the print is extermely small and (for me at least) very difficult to read. The authors indicate the original is in the British Library. If anyone knows of a larger reproduction I'd be interested in hearing about it. -- John ============================================================================== From: "Mark Wilson" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 19:30:09 +0000 Subject: Re: AEL Lesson 1 - problem with downloading Dear David, Sorry to hear you're having trouble with the download. Netscape should give you an option to simply save the file onto your hard disk. What you then get is a ZIP file containing the 3 hi-res images. You will then need to use a program like pkunzip, winzip, StuffIt Expander or similar to unzip the file. You then use a graphics package of your choice to view and print as necessary. The reason I have done it this way is that it avoids the web browser attempting to display the hi-res image which a) is not so useful because it comes out far too big to fit on the screen and b) causes the computer to sit there for ages churning away at the hard disk even on a Pentium PC with 24 Megs of RAM. > So I've had to download the low-res versions, and have a further > problem in that with the key, the last word of the translations for > examples 15 and 20 get chopped off. Something similar happens with > examples 10, 15 and 20 of the lessons themselves. The low res scans have been done with an 800x600 super vga screen in mind. If you have a lower resolution, it may be that you need to use the scroll bars at the bottom of the display to move the view from side to side. I've just noticed that there is quite a wide left margin on each of the 3 images. I've removed this margin in the low-res versions which has resulted in the width of the image being closer to that which should fit on a VGA screen. You may need to hit the 'reload' button to get Netscape to fetch the updated images. Let me know if you're still having problems. Regards, Mark Wilson weneg@rostau.demon.co.uk ============================================================================== To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: David Maclennan Subject: Re: AEL Thoughts on how we might proceed (long) Date: 26 Feb 1997 08:55:05 +1200 In <331231c4147c605@mhub1.tc.umn.edu>, M. A. R. Barker wrote: >I am in agreement with (4). It will be hard for more advanced people to be >patient with beginners, but this is urgent. That is why I advocate three >different sub-lists where each assumed level can have its own materials: on >Level A we present the signs (and sounds, as far as we know them), plus some >basic grammar, and lots of reinforcement materials. On Level B the intermediates >work through basic texts, still with exercises and drills. On Level C the >advanced students read texts selected and annotated by one or more of our senior >people. THere might be a Level D as well: historical phonetics/phonemics, where >people can talk about sound-shifts and the introduction of grammatical >formations. We can ask people to mark their levels carefully: put "A" into the >subject header for introductory materials, "B" for intermediate, etc. Once our >sub-topics are established and clearly marked, a person who does not wish to >look at textual analyses much too advanced for him/her can simply push the >"discard" button on their mailing programme. I like this suggestion. I think this is a good way to go. As a total beginner, I want lessons pitched at my level of inexperience to start with, getting more complex as I go on. So you've got my vote on this one! David Maclennan ==============================================================================