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Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

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Re: Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

#21

Post by posterboy »

raoulduke wrote: post #12

I don't understand what this article is. There appears to be no cogent hypothesis or evidence. In the end it seems to be suggesting not (any) linguistic influence on Eurasian languages but rather aesthetic influence of hieroglyphs. That's well established given that the alphabet evolved from a single source and that it's well-established that that source was at least partly* influenced by hieroglyphs; and the earlies…

> rather aesthetic influence of hieroglyphs

rather, the hieroglyphic influence on the aesthetics of the (written) language.

Re: Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

#22

Post by raoulduke »

posterboy wrote: post #21
raoulduke wrote: post #12

I don't understand what this article is. There appears to be no cogent hypothesis or evidence. In the end it seems to be suggesting not (any) linguistic influence on Eurasian languages but rather aesthetic influence of hieroglyphs. That's well established given that the alphabet evolved from a single source and that it's well-established that that source was at least partly* influenced by hieroglyphs; and the earlies…

> rather aesthetic influence of hieroglyphs rather, the hieroglyphic influence on the aesthetics of the (written) language.

I don't understand (?).

Re: Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

#23

Post by raoulduke »

posterboy wrote: post #15
jdmichal wrote: post #8

Some of this is mistaking just how much we know of Egyptian phonology, which is actually very little. For some proper names, we have more context into how they may have actually sounded based on transscriptions into Greek and Latin. But for every other word, we flat out have no idea on vowel sounds, because they were not written. Because of this, a couple sounds known as semivowels are sometimes transcribed as if the…

I think you are making the mistake of assuming that the phonetics would be one if not the most important feature. The article points out: "Here we investigate how deeply the roots go and how the system, its cosmology and language are intertwined with our own:". The symbolism is important and the table presented in TFA is amazing at that. > I think it's also interesting that they are using mother and father, consideri…

There's an enormous difference between aesthetic features of writing and actual language relation. The original hypothesis that this inadvertently plagiarizes from is a 1912 William Flinders Petrie monogram. Wow... when I first started looking into this stuff 8 or 9 years ago, archive didn't have this/exist in this form:

https://archive.org/details/formationofalpha00petr

Petrie's tables are better... but they're still at best interesting and inconclusive.

(Also, although people cited /it/ above, Thesuarus Linguae Aegyptiae transliterates it /jtj/ (yty - long vowels rather than glottals); and claiming that's similar to pit is pretty ridiculous... If there's a genetic intra-Afroasiatic relation with that root (which I'm not sure there is...) it'd make a lot more sense to connect it with Ugaritic 'ad... Which I don't think it makes sense to do... And in support of that... not even the out-there Starling database makes that connection (http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basen... // http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basen... )).

Re: Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

#24

Post by posterboy »

raoulduke wrote: post #12

I don't understand what this article is. There appears to be no cogent hypothesis or evidence. In the end it seems to be suggesting not (any) linguistic influence on Eurasian languages but rather aesthetic influence of hieroglyphs. That's well established given that the alphabet evolved from a single source and that it's well-established that that source was at least partly* influenced by hieroglyphs; and the earlies…

house, lord, protector are all synonymous in some sense. Hor is a proper noun, but that must derive from common words. Just as temples were actually serving common goods often enough.

I agree, the presentation is loose and wild. At least, I don't see it creating any specific context. And there is no motivation given for the proposed translation. But as words go, the translation speaks for itself. Hor meaning observer is Proto-Afro-Asiatic [1], that relates to Hüter (protector). Hr is also being connected to xal face, surface, upon; which is, at least today, a common metaphor. The hyroglyph is a head on-face. "Head of state, family", etc. has the same connotation. In the sense of the sky, which is the roof and surface of the world, hor has a divine aspect, the falcon being king of the sky, figuratively. And the roof is "on" the house protecting the inhabitants. xal meaning ruler is very productive (if I say so myself), and as it stands a ruler is nothing without an army, an order. Further, face and sky can be linked to vision and light respectively, as in over-see-r. While the falcon is know for good eyesight and vision is a very common metaphor for knowledge. So Hor is a spiritual guide.

J/K: Hor was probably into (H)ornithology, too. And Order (whence Horde). And Oration (which can be heared - eye and ear being close). And Orthography (which you can see). Half of these words are of uncertain origin.

For symbols it doesn't hurt to be ambiguous. So Hathor might just be the house of the house of the houses.

Obviously the article resonates well with me. I have a hunch that hwt-ke-ptah (house, soul, ptah) was the old school of architecture - hence Pythagoras. The word calculate is from a word for stone, which is pt (egy. stone), too. And in terms of counting, a kind of bank would be another civil service. But the service of a temple was likely variable. The identifaction of the god as well. Ptah - pater is just too inviting a link to make, so I think ptah is the deified founding father, the temple having been in Memphis, central to the unification of egypt.

Also, memphis was called "white walls", so much for the racism.

[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Afro-Asi...

Re: Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

#25

Post by posterboy »

raoulduke wrote: post #22
posterboy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather aesthetic influence of hieroglyphs rather, the hieroglyphic influence on the aesthetics of the (written) language.

I don't understand (?).

There is no difference, really. I just tried to point out that aesthetics can have a influence on language, because you were basically saying the writing system wasn't linguistic, which is really painful to read.

Re: Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

#26

Post by posterboy »

raoulduke wrote: post #23
posterboy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are making the mistake of assuming that the phonetics would be one if not the most important feature. The article points out: "Here we investigate how deeply the roots go and how the system, its cosmology and language are intertwined with our own:". The symbolism is important and the table presented in TFA is amazing at that. > I think it's also interesting that they are using mother and father, consideri…

There's an enormous difference between aesthetic features of writing and actual language relation. The original hypothesis that this inadvertently plagiarizes from is a 1912 William Flinders Petrie monogram. Wow... when I first started looking into this stuff 8 or 9 years ago, archive didn't have this/exist in this form: https://archive.org/details/formationofalpha00petr Petrie's tables are better... but they're stil…

I'm sorry, you keep throwing the word ridiculous around as if it was a jocular matter and I'm completely fine with that, but I don't welcome being mocked without a proper argument. Yes, jt>pit is a loose thread made without much information. But not because I am too lazy to meticulously collect evidence, but because it is downright impossible for me to study this at a day job level. Rather, I assumed this would be an obvious connection to already have been investigated and would hope for corrections or confirmation. And baring any evidence in my comment I would have thought it was obvious to be taken with a heap of salt for what it's worth.

So it was a bit dry, and you were amused anyway. That leaves me confused.

Re: Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

#27

Post by raoulduke »

posterboy wrote: post #26
raoulduke wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an enormous difference between aesthetic features of writing and actual language relation. The original hypothesis that this inadvertently plagiarizes from is a 1912 William Flinders Petrie monogram. Wow... when I first started looking into this stuff 8 or 9 years ago, archive didn't have this/exist in this form: https://archive.org/details/formationofalpha00petr Petrie's tables are better... but they're stil…

I'm sorry, you keep throwing the word ridiculous around as if it was a jocular matter and I'm completely fine with that, but I don't welcome being mocked without a proper argument. Yes, jt>pit is a loose thread made without much information. But not because I am too lazy to meticulously collect evidence, but because it is downright impossible for me to study this at a day job level. Rather, I assumed this would be an…

I can't think of any other concordances between Egyptian /j/ and /p/ in other languages. To be honest I've never seen the word jtj before today. There's a longstanding and known relation broadly with /p/ or /b/ and father and /m/ and mother. And as far as I'm aware there's no consensus on the meaning of that relation. But jtj isn't the root related to those; and Egyptian doesn't seem to have a strong example of /b/ (http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basen... ).

Re: Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

#28

Post by raoulduke »

posterboy wrote: post #25
raoulduke wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand (?).

There is no difference, really. I just tried to point out that aesthetics can have a influence on language, because you were basically saying the writing system wasn't linguistic, which is really painful to read.

It's also painfully correct. The Egyptian hieroglyph pr, also monosyllabic /h/, was adapted for /b/ in the Semitic creation of the alphabet. The scribe took the common Semitic word for house be(y)t and used it to supplant the original linguistic meaning attached to the grapheme. Thus the linguistic content was destroyed while the aesthetic content was essentially unchanged (and remains so today, most notably in Cyrillic, I think).

Re: Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

#29

Post by dogma1138 »

posterboy wrote: post #17
dogma1138 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically old Egyptian. Demotic and Coptic Egyptian is much better understood with the latter being still in use today. What most people think of Egypt is actually fairly recent history people tend to refer to events which usually happened during or around the Ptolemaic Kingdom period, by that time the Egyptians have already lost the ability to read or speak the language of the old kingdom and today we are closer…

Perhaps the old egyptain was never a coherent language. The pharaohs of the first dynasties are known to have united egypt, perhaps only then having created the opportunity for a united language to begin with, because it's reasonable to assume fragmented language beforehand. This means slow diffusion and many substrata of dialects and mutually almost incomprehensible variants as we still have (I don't know how bad it…

Egypt went though several desertification periods some of which caused the collapse of the old kingdom this isn’t exactly a new discovery.

When the pyramids were built the Sahara has already existed but it didn’t creep that far up north as it did today.

Re: Traces of Old Egyptian in Eurasian languages?

#30

Post by posterboy »

raoulduke wrote: post #28
posterboy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no difference, really. I just tried to point out that aesthetics can have a influence on language, because you were basically saying the writing system wasn't linguistic, which is really painful to read.

It's also painfully correct. The Egyptian hieroglyph pr, also monosyllabic /h/, was adapted for /b/ in the Semitic creation of the alphabet. The scribe took the common Semitic word for house be(y)t and used it to supplant the original linguistic meaning attached to the grapheme. Thus the linguistic content was destroyed while the aesthetic content was essentially unchanged (and remains so today, most notably in Cyril…

So you have pt (sky), pr (house) and bt (house), and you are suggesting that there can be no obvious link? pt~bt perhaps? I don't know what's up with the /h/. It doesn't really matter because drawn glyphs pass the test of time better than phonemes by virtue of being homoiconic. Certainly, written language is a linguistic matter, not just merely aesthetic.

If you look at the pt hieroglyph, the lower form might be a roof I think. Of course, my confusion of pt and pr in the previous post shows an aptitude to jump to conclusions. But when PeterAlso, your claim is evidently wrong. The Bet glyph looks very different to the pr glyph.

I was initially trying to formulate a thought about writing, because it can show patterns of language on a deeper level or at least from a different perspective. After all, verbal communication involves more than phonetics. There are definitely words that have been read incorrectly and proliferated -- e.g. reading gamma for ypsilon, omega for digamma; although I have no evidence at hand this shouldn't be hard to believe.

This was constructive for me, as I hadn't made the connection from pr to beta, before. Thank you.

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