The problems involved in translating from Egyptian texts may be realized in some measure z when it is noted that such a form as0 may be read idm•k form, with at least three pronunciations and corresponding dif ferences in meaning; or infinitive + suffix, 'thy hearing,' where "thy" may be either sub-: jective or objective), idm• (w)•k (passive in w, "thou art heard"; or masc. relative-form, a[hel whom thou hearest'), or idm•k(wy) (pseudo participle I per. sg., "I being heard"). The context, in conjunction with fairly definite prin ciples of word-order, must be our chief guide amid such perplexities.
The enclitic personal pronouns serve not only as verb subjects but are attached as possessives to nouns (e.g., pr•y, "my house"). They enter also into composition to make an emphatic ab solute pronoun employed as subject of a nominal sentence (a verbless type whose English equiva lent would require an indicative form of the verb "be"). Another, older set of absolute pronouns, from which the weak enclitics were derived, represents our objective case. The demonstrative pronouns in common use vary from age to age, but agree in containing p in the masc., t in the fern., and n in the plural. The definite article "the," non-existent before the Empire, is a weakened demonstrative which even in the Coptic shows the same character istic letters. There is no indefinite article until the Coptic, which uses a weakened form of the numeral "one." The origins of both 'the" and "a" in Egyptian thus parallel the developments in modern European languages, including English.
Egyptian nouns and adjectives are of but two genders, masculine and feminine. Their distinctive endings are: masc. sg. none or w fern. sg.
dual wy dual ty pl. w pl. wt As in the verb, the dual was 'early lost. The prefix m (common in Semitic) is used some times to make nouns of place and especially of instrument (e.g., n•idnyt, "cosmetic," from the root irks, "to paint the face"). There are two main types of adjective formation. The one, showing the simple verb root, is often indistin guishable from a participle; the other, the nisbe (so called from its Arabic counterpart), is made from nouns or prepositions (which were originally nouns) by adding y (e.g. hnsk•t•y, from the fern. noun hnsk•t, "curl;' hr•y, "[he] who or [that] which is upon," from hr, "upon" [connected with the noun hr, "face°]). The adjective regularly follows its noun. The same close connection may exist between two nouns as between a noun and a suffix-pronoun; thus pr•f, "his house," is analogous to "the house (temple) of Amon." The second noun, Ymn, is called a direct genitive and is said to be in the construct relation with the first. That the vowel sounds are slurred in the first word of such a phrase, whose emphasis naturally falls at the end, is clearly shown by Coptic spellings. Under other circumstances an indirect genitive is used, preceded by the declinable adjective ny, "of," nisbe of the preposition n, "to." Modified forms of adjectives and of prepositions furnish the few and heterogeneous adverbs.
Literature.— The Egyptian language, whose mechanism has just been noticed, has left an extensive literature, characterized by a con creteness of thought as vivid as the concrete pictures with which it is written. Amid the
maze of inscribed records which the dry cli mate of Egypt has bequeathed us, the field most largely represented is religion. From the Old Kingdom, 4,500 years ago, come the "Pyramid Texts," the earliest large body of literature yet known from any source. A trust in mere mas sivity of the tomb to preserve royal bodies and so win for them life hereafter was thus early felt inadequate. So during the V. and VI. Dynasties the corridors of five pharaohs' pyra mids were inscribed with varying collections of hymns, prayers, rituals, and magic formulae, in part already hoary with age, calculated to make doubly sure the felicity of the royal dead. Religious texts whose benefits may be shared by all classes are found on the coffins of the Middle Kingdom, and at greater length on long rolls of papyrus (the so-called "Book of the Dead") in the Empire and down through the Restoration. Contrasting with the traditional cults of the living, a monotheism earlier than the Hebrews' speaks (about 1400 a.c.) in the great hymn of its royal founder, the emperor Ikhnaton.
History is represented on the one hand by fragments of royal annals, annotated royal re liefs and hymns of victory. On the other are memorial records left by expeditions abroad, and the more intimate data derived from auto biographies which nobles and high officials have left carved in their tombs.
The classic age, the Middle Kingdom, is richly productive of philosophy. Satisfaction with the traditional order is evident in a set of maxims, the Wisdom of Ptahhotep, suggestive of the biblical book of Proverbs. But pessi mistic tendencies appear in a misanthrope's dialogue with his own soul on the wretchedness of a wronged and unappreciated life. Another writer looks beyond present misery to a mes siah who shall establish justice. Eloquence as such is more prominent than the righting of grievous wrongs in a fourth composition, the Laments of the Peasant.
The same fondness for affected language permeates the Middle Kingdom tale of Sinuhe (see Fig. 2), a historical novel depicting the supposed adventures of a fugitive Egyptian courtier of that name in Palestine over five hundred years before the coming of the He brews. Even love-songs survive from the late Empire.
Science, represented by mathematics and medicine, was clearly cultivated for practical pur poses only; for the mathematical formulz are very inexact, and the medical prescriptions are in large part based on magic.
Bibliography.—A fuller picture of Egyptian literature proper, with translations, may be gained from Breasted, 'Development of Reli gion and Thought in Ancient Egypt' (New York 1912), and Maspero, 'Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt' (New York 1915). On the technique of the writing, consult Breasted in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures (July 1916, pp. 230-49, ill.). English readers have as yet no handy volume on the subject of hieroglyphics in general, such as Germans enjoy in Erman, 'Die Hiero glyphen) (Berlin 1912).