Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/837

Rh HIEROGLYPHICS 799 that one often finds in Coptic the JUl added to an ancient root as a kind of final, which slightly jmodifies its signification : thus, OYUUg, &quot;to add;&quot; OYOUgJUl, &quot;to repeat;&quot; CCJUp, &quot;to strew;&quot; CCOpJUl, &quot; to wander,&quot; &c. (cf. also the Hebrew D added to the root). This peculiarity has not yet been noticed in the ancient language. N was regularly transcribed v and 3 ; an undoubted exception shews the change of 7 into n in the word v^. . . . V $^gfe&amp;gt; SanaJiem, &quot;grasshopper,&quot; Dv?D. The example justifies us in Searching for 7 under the transcription n, which is more easily explained as the ancient Egyptians originally had not any sign to express the articulation I. The Coptic ff transcribes the ancient n, but in course of time the liquid Z, *^, had gained a footing in the pronunciation ; a part of the Coptic words in which it figures derive it from the ancient n ; thus, -t. - 1 1 ^, nes, &quot; tongue,&quot; became &.C. The nasal presents- many peculiarities worthy of remark in the Egyptian writing and language. It influenced certain consonants, in the direction of modifying the pronunciation ; thus it softened t, as in the group nt for writing d. The s, preceded by a nasal, seems to have been also analogously modified ; for the Greeks transcribed the particle * ? , nes, which begins certain proper names, by z, as we have seen in Z[3ei&amp;gt;8eTr)s. The similar action of n on k, which was thus modified enough for the Sahidic dialect to have sometimes rendered it by V, has been previously observed. N, as already remarked, sometimes became 7, the Coptic r ; the combination nr must have more frequently given occasion to the pronunciation I through the softening of r; nr is often written | , , | , where JT*? represents a sounding n. The group | | | , which has the value nq, is a syllabic : the a is of no force in the pronunciation. In illustration of the modification of nr (where the n was originally sounding), the Coptic root, JaO, &quot;outside,&quot; may be cited ; it comes from the Egyptian J Q i i i i / t bunar, of the same sense. The Egyptian grammarians evidently considered the nasal a simple accident of the vowel, to be indicated or omitted at will in writing: thus the same person s name is written ^^^5 i ,,. S} kanra, and ^=^ J, kqra. In such cases a bar above the /TVfr I ill vowel may be used to note the omission of the nasal. Thus the particle LJ may be transcribed a, when we find it written under the form n, which it would be difficult to recognize without this note in transcription. The examples of this curious peculiarity are frequent^ it is a grammatical view analogous to the &quot; anusvara&quot; of the Indians ; it is known that the omission of the nasal has also been remarked in the ancient monuments of classical epigraphy. The Egyptians used very readily the nasalized vowel ; they some times introduced it into Semitic words which they adopted, or even iM &quot;4* J, Sasank, the dame of the king called in the Bible pK^, .Sisaq, a name apparently of Semitic origin. (Here the nasal helps to express the sound of the Hebrew p.) The Coptic possesses the two letters p and 7 ; it is difficult to ascertain if the ancient dialects of the Egyptian language knew the distinction of these two liquids, but it is certain&quot; that the hiero glyphics admitted but one type, represented by the signs &amp;lt;==&amp;gt; and SZ&, which serves indifferently to transcribe p and X Greek, and ? and &quot;i ; only at certain times we re n ark a preference given to the lioness for transcribing Z, but without regularity, and it is not until the last stage of demotic writing that the letter derived from this sign seems to attach itself regularly to the liquid I. In Egyptian words Sa is rare ; it is sometimes joined to &amp;lt;=&amp;gt;, as a doubled letter &amp;lt;=&amp;gt; .=&amp;gt;, like the groups Q &quot;^f , J &quot;^, & c. It is frequently employed in the transcription of Semitic words. In the Bible the Egyptian liquid is rendered by 1 in all the words givon, never by ? : thus the ancient articulation was r. The Coptic derived forms are divided between p and 7. See also above for the combination nr. The Bashmuric dialect is characterized only transcribed : thus they wrote ( ] above all by the exclusion of p (and use of 7 in its stead, from the influence of Arabic). This liquid approached the semi-vowels in its nature ; hence it was sometimes permissible to omit it in writing, like the nasal : thus | (. ka, for J_j &amp;lt;=&amp;gt;, kar, _ _ 01, nes, for ~&quot; HL neser, &quot; flame.&quot; By a frequent exception final r (and I in Bashmuric) is obliterated in Coptic words ; thus the particle &amp;lt;=&amp;gt;, er, has become. SIBILANT. The two signs for s are homophones. The Greek transcriptions have always a, and the Semitic render s by D or W ; an exception which is common enough makes the Egyptian s equivalent to gj, but probably this is only apparent. We know how easily the pronuncia tion varies between s and s in the Semitic languages. The celebrated story of the word shibboleth H^S^ (Judges xii. 6) shews that even among the Hebrews the pronunciation varied according to the tribes. The pronunciation of Ephraim, which doubtless followed that of the different peoples situate north of Palestine, shews why we find sometimes an Egyptian s in relation to E? Hebrew, particularly in the names of Syrian towns or nations. (This should be qualified, for Ephraim was in middle rather than northern Palestine, and it is ! possible that B&amp;gt; was always anciently sh.) The Coptic derivatives of ! the Egyptian s fall under C, but there are many exceptions to this it seems to have passed into T&quot; in -some roots. We also find the i sibilant written in Coptic MSS. by 7 ; but the instances are so few as to be unauthoritative. It has been already remarked that f was used by the Alexandrian Greeks to transcribe the combination ns. HUSIIIXG LETTER (CJtuintante). (The term M. do Rouge uses is important as distinguishing this letter from the sibilant. We can only suggest the English &quot;hushing as here equivalent.) The letter s (ch, French) having no representative in the Greek alphabet, the Copts preserved the demotic ^Jr regularized as CX) : it comes from the hieratic iM, hieroglyphic JMT The Greeks ordinarily rendered s by ff, sometimes by % and &x- The exact sound of s l a found in Persian and the Semitic languages ; it is con stantly rendered by jQlflT in the names of Persian kings ; we also find r-rc-i in the cartouches of Darius and Artaxerxes. For the Hebrew ty we find equally jYfjJ a little oftener than r-rc-i . The Coptic derivatives are very regular ; they use CL) ; some exceptions shew the ancient s passing into y, $7 and rarely p and cJ&amp;gt;. The transcriptions and derivations shew us that from a very ancient time J^f}] and rrc~i were homophones ; but perhaps we cannot affirm that it was so from the origin of Egyptian writing. Dr. Hincks conjectured that csa had the value of ox This idea rests on (1) the fact that cso presents a certain number of variants with , x ; (2) that it seems to double itself with an initial s, without change of value, so that we sometimes find L v &quot; v, instead of csa alone. On the other hand, there has not yet been noted a variant between J^JjT and. It is then possible that I-TC-I primitively marked some inter- mediate_ shade of sound of which the trace was afterwards lost in pronunciation. Perhaps we may attribute to this oscillation the most ancient orthography of sexa, &quot; to write,&quot; Coptic C^}&amp;lt;M, which in the earliest times was written iU. The sign in I M I ||o] question must, however, be classed as homophonous with J{T{T ASPIRATED GUTTURAL. The aspirated guttural, here rendered by the Greek x, is represented in the alphabet by and T. These letters sometimes interchange, and are found grouped as a double letter T, a reduplication analogous to those noted above. is a third homophone, of a little rarer use but very old. The Greek transcribed this aspirated guttural by x, this was but an approximate value, for the Copts, who adopted the for the aspiration of K in the Memphitic dialect, judged it necessary also to take their j^ from the demotic alphabet, in which the represented pj,hi hieratic of
 * rule, the ancient s sometimes becoming CXJ, and more rarely (y ,