EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. The origin of the most ancient language of Egypt, the hieroglyphic, is unknown. It can be traced, however, as far back as the 3d dynasty, and the date of its discovery was no doubt much earlier than 3000 B,C. It has some points of affinity with the Semitic languages, while differing widely from them in many particulars. Some of its words appear to be of Indo-European origin, and some writers have even placed it in that family of languages. It had two dialects—those of Upper and Lower Egypt; and from these sprang another, the vulgar dialect, which became the national language just before the adoption of the Coptic. The characters of the ancient language present a very complex system, partly pictorial and symbolic, and partly syllabic and alphabetic. Out of this grew the hieratic or common written form of the language, principally used for documents written on papyrus. The demotic writing is a form of the hieratic employed for legal documents from the 26th dynasty downwards. The oldest demotic papyrus is in the museum at Turin, and dates back to 620 B.C. It was used till the 2d c. of the Christian era, after which there was a gradual transition to the Coptic, which is the exclusive vehicle of. Christian Egyptian literature. The language nearly died out in the last c., making way for the Arabic. The chief change in the Coptic was in the introduction of Greek words, especially of the religious class, The Coptic is written with the. Greek alphabet, with the addition of six new letters and• a ligature, the letters being taken from the demotic to express sounds not used by the Greek. The ancient Egyptian literature, which scholars during the last fifty years have been laboring to decipher and system atize, has not fulfilled the expectations excited by the discoveries of Champollion. Historically considered it is very unsatisfactory, through lack of system. The religious documents are still less orderly. Of the religious works the most important is the Book of the Dead, which is a collection of mythical prayers referring to the future state of the disembodied soul. In spite of the best efforts of De Rol ige, a man of the highest critical faculty, to present it to us in its most favorable form, it is greatly confused, marked by poverty of thought. The temple inscriptions are stilted and monotonous, but some of the hymns found in the papyri are of a higher order. The historical writings, so far as they are official, are in the worst style of panegyric. Some of the
letters present a lively portrayal of the manners of the people. Champollion and his. followers have done the world a valuable service in unfolding the mysteries of the ancient Egyptian writings. Though the disclosures thus far made are less important than was anticipated and there are still many perplexing problems to be solved, the fault is not theirs. It is impossible to see any evidence of a chronological development of Egyptian literature, its characteristics being the same in all periods. The religion of Egypt has been generally regarded as polytheistic, but De Rouge thinks it rested upon a monotheistic foundation, the religious writing speaking of one supreme being, self-existent, self-producing, the creator of heaven and earth. Polytheism, whether or not the earliest form of belief, probably held its ground with monotheism. The litera ture seems to present a mixture of both. The many deities may have been held sub ordinate to the one supreme and self-existent being, but this was a low form of mono theism, though it may have been a step upward from thorough polytheism. Works of fiction or amusement prevailed in the time of Rameses, and historical accounts during the reigns of the Ptolemies; while homilies, rituals, and other Christian literature entered the country during the Coptic period. Of the magical literature there are many specimens, in which are recorded the conflicts between the good and evil powers, and the incantations, injunctions, and threats of the conjurers. The medical papyri make it probable that the Egyptians had a science of medicine long previous to 3000 B.C. The practice. appears to have been rational, without any superstitious intermixtures. Their remedies embraced the milk of animals, honey, salt, vinegar, etc., the application of raw flesh, ammonia, lard, and prescriptions of draughts, unguents, and injections. The later documents are of an inferior kind, containing much magic and, incantation. The scientific treatises are of more value, showing that the Egyptians were acquainted with the true motion of the planets, the earth included. They also had an understand ing of geometry. Prominent among the ancient epics is that of Pentaur, which has been called the Egyptian Iliad and is several centuries older than the Greek. A trans lation of it by prof. Goodwin will be found in The Cambridge Essays. The satirical writings do not even spare the sacred person of the king. Of judicial documents many have been discovered.