Late Egyptian language

Late Egyptian
Region Ancient Egypt
Era ca. 1350 to 700 BC, when it evolved into Demotic
Afro-Asiatic
Early forms
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog None

Late Egyptian is the stage of the Egyptian language that was written by the time of the New Kingdom around 1350 BC – the Amarna period. Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the Ramesside Period and later. Late Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplant Middle Egyptian as a literary language.

Late Egyptian literature

Late Egyptian is represented by a large body of religious and secular literature, comprising such examples as the Story of Wenamun, the love poems of the Chester–Beatty I papyrus, and the Instruction of Any. Instructions became a popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, which took the form of advice on proper behavior. It was also the language of the Ramesside administration.[2][3]

Differences between Middle and Late Egyptian

Late Egyptian is not completely distinct from Middle Egyptian, as many "classicisms" appear in historical and literary documents of this phase.[4] However, the difference between Middle and Late Egyptian is greater than the one between Middle and Old Egyptian: from being a synthetic it became an analytic language.[5] Their relationship has been described as being similar to that of Latin and Italian.[6]

Developments during the first millennium BC

Hieroglyphic orthography saw an enormous expansion of its graphemic inventory between the Late Dynastic and Ptolemaic periods.

Middle Egyptian had a renaissance after the Third Intermediate Period, when it was often used in hieroglyphic and hieratic texts in preference to Late Egyptian.

Late Egyptian grammars

References

Footnotes

  1. Late Egyptian does not derive from Middle Egyptian, which was based on a different dialect.
  2. Loprieno, op.cit., p.7
  3. Meyers, op.cit., p. 209
  4. Haspelmath, op.cit., p.1743
  5. Bard, op.cit., p.275
  6. Christidēs et al. op.cit., p.811

Sources

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