Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/480

 472 EGYPT (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) order in which the hieroglyphs are written .is not uniform. When used in isolated words explanatory of persons and objects represent- ed, they are distributed promiscuously, either in horizontal or vertical groups, or both. More careful inscriptions have them in vertical or horizontal lines, the columns separated by a broad straight line. Except in a few in- stances, all the animals and other objects be- longing to a certain group, or a sentence, face in one direction, and are to be read in the opposite direction. The signs face generally to the right, whether written in vertical or in horizontal columns, and are read accordingly from right to left ; but sometimes the reading is from left to right, although the characters face the other way. Another arrangement is to have half a sentence in vertical and the re- mainder in horizontal lines, and in some in- stances the hieroglyphs are without any ar- rangement whatever, distributed within the limited area of the field of a picture. The Egyptian language retains always the verbal root of a noun unchanged, the numbers being formed by suffixes and the cases by prefixes. The singular number has the root only ; the dual is expressed by repeating it if an ideo- graph, or by doubling the initial sign of sylla- bics if a phonetic ; and the plural by repeating three times the ideograph, syllabic, or pho- netic, or by affixing three vertical bars to a masculine noun, and the half circle and three bars to a feminine. The phonetic mode of forming the plural was to affix "V (u), to which the three bars were usually added. The indefinite article ua scarcely ever occurs, and the definite article only occasionally. In the singular the masculine article is pa or pui, the feminine ta ; in the plural, masculine or femi- nine, na, naiu, or nn, prefixed to the noun. There are only the masculine and feminine genders. Though the masculine is generally expressed by the verbal root of the noun alone, the single bar, i (ua, one), was sometimes affixed. The verbal root received a + (f), and at a later period * (ts when feminine. The genitive case is formed in the singular by pre- fixing a noun of different signification before another, but this form is only elliptical, and during the old empire it was formed by pre- fixing A* (ri), or by its homophones ^/ and genitive plural is formed at all periods by formed by James500 (talk)* or ^/ (ri) when in the sense of possession, and by <=z> (r) in the sense of di- rection. The accusative is like the nominative, and the vocative and ablative are formed by or = (m and other prepositions. Simple adjectives are always placed after the noun which they qualify, compound adjectives before ; and they form the masculine, feminine, and plural like the noun. The comparative is formed by adding  (er), the superlative by making the noun in the genitive precede, or by trebling the adjective, or by affixing * (ti). The phonetic names of the numerals are : ud, one. sen, two. Ichemt, three. i, ft, four. .seb, five. .ses, six. I' o sefkh, seven. j I Jl "^p W sesennu, eight. 2 put, nine., left a, a thousand. .ash, many. The general mode of expressing them was by repeating the vertical bar as often as required until 10; after which the characters are as follows : n tens, hundreds -1 thousands. tens of thou- sands. hundreds of thousands. millions. billions. . . . infinity. . . zero. Ordinals are formed by prefixing c<x (meh) or affixing <t (ri) to the cardinals. The pre- fix or isolated pronouns are placed at the beginning of sentences and before substan- tives and verbs, and are used emphatically; they are analc, anuk, nulc, I ; ntelc, net, thou ; ntef, su, ntes, his ; nen anen, me ; nteten, ye ; ntesen, natsen, sen, they. The affix pronouns either express relation or form the paradigms of verbs; they are a, my; Tc, masc., t, fern., thou; /, u, su, masc., s, st, fern., he, him, she, her ; n, nu, we, our ; ten, ye, your ; u, su, st, they, them, their. "When the affix pronouns are found combined with the article, the latter indicates the number and gender of
 * during the 20th and 21st dynasties. The
 * (nu), following the noun. The dative is