Late Egyptian Grammar. An Introduction

Friedrich Junge's pioneering introduction to the grammar of Late Egyptian, the language of the New Kingdom, principally of the Ramessid Period (ca. 1350-1000 BCE), fills a longstanding gap in teaching works for Ancient Egyptian. This English translation of the second German edition makes the work available to a wide audience. The author devotes special attention to the language of papyri and ostraca texts and documents of everyday life without neglecting the style and language of belles lettres and monumental inscriptions. Through copious examples, exercises, and bibliographical information, the reader is familiarized with all the major text categories. The book assumes some knowledge of Middle Egyptian. The presentation moves from the distinctive features of Late Egyptian writing and orthography, through morphology and the structures of the simple and compound clauses and sentences, to larger linguistic units. Throughout, the forms of Late Egyptian are set in context in the history of the language, relating them to Middle Egyptian forms on the one hand and to Demotic and Coptic forms on the other. Detailed comments are given both for the examples and for the exercises that close the main chapters. An appendix offers a preliminary synthesis of formulas in oaths and letters, units of value including weights and measures, and the organization of the necropolis administration at Deir el-Medina, the workmen's village at Thebes from which vast numbers of sources were recovered. An extensive apparatus of bibliography, vocabulary, and indexes provides easy access to the content of the grammar and to factual information. In this second English edition the author has made numerous corrections to the text while incorporating where possible points raised by reviewers.