Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs

by James P. Allen

Middle Egyptian introduces the reader to the writing system of ancient Egypt and the language of hieroglyphic texts. It contains twenty-six lessons, exercises (with answers), a list of hieroglyphic signs, and a dictionary. It also includes a series of twenty-six essays on the most important aspects of ancient Egyptian history, society, religion, literature, and language. Grammar lessons and cultural essays allows users not only to read hieroglyphic texts but also to understand them, providing the foundation for understanding texts on monuments and reading great works of ancient Egyptian literature. This third edition is revised and reorganized, particularly in its approach to the verbal system, based on recent advances in understanding the language. Illustrations enhance the discussions, and an index of references has been added. These changes and additions provide a complete and up-to-date grammatical description of the classical language of ancient Egypt for specialists in linguistics and other fields.

Genres: Egypt, History, Egyptology, Language, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Egyptian Literature

610 pages, Hardcover

First published November 28, 1999

About the author

James P. Allen (Ph. D., Univ. of Chicago, 1981), Wilbour Prof. of Egyptology, Brown University, has published extensively on ancient Egyptian language, religion, and history.

Allen, James P., 1945-, Library of Congress Authorities

Reviews

[André]

Yay! This book was recommended to me by Thomas Goldammer, so I bought it on eBay, and it seems like a really good grammar of the Middle Egyptian language. I already read (half of) Gardiner's grammar, so I already know quite some things... I was told that this book is easier to understand and – what might be more important – it sheds a more modern light on this ancient languages. I immediately started reading it.

I just declared this book as unfinished, because I probably won't read the remaining chapters. I read most of the book (up to page 274), so I think that's okay. Great book!

[Brett]

I rated this book for its usefulness to the neophyte. Armed with a nominal knowledge of ancient Egyptian history, I was able to surpass my expectations for myself. Lessons are squarely organized and in a logical progression, no mucking about. Mastery of the basic consonant combinations is, as the book states, necessary. I made flash cards. Mind you, I did not take a class. This book got me pretty excited. Enriched my understanding of Egyptian history and my experiences in Egyptian tombs and American museums. Below is a pic of me with homegirl taking notes on heiroglyphs at Luxor Temple. Go get 'em, tiger.

[Karen Hauck]

Undoubtedly one of my favorite books! It's a text book. Not easy reading! I was a part of GlyphStudy2005; an online group who wanted to learn Middle
Egyptian hieroglyphs. It took a couple of years to get all the way through the book. (This was completely new to all of us!) but some of us made it to the end. It is very well organized, using a logical progression through the parts of speech, sentence structure, etc.
I think it is the only really comprehensive text book since Gardiner!!
I wore out my first copy!

[Michelle]

After two years of study, I've finally finished this monumental textbook of Middle Egyptian grammar. It was very comprehensive; though a little complicated at times and certainly not the last word on everything.

Certainly NOT the book to start your Hieroglyphic Egyptian adventures with, though! For that, I would suggest Collier and Manley to start, and then either this or Hoch; if you are going to do both (which I certainly plan to - I've only gotten through half of Hoch) I would actually go with Hoch first, and leave this as the third of the triumvirate. There are ~three other pretty excellent textbooks that I intend to check out and work through as revision, but these are the main ones.

I also highly recommend working through this with the online group GlyphStudy, which assigns weekly chunks of the exercises (usually ~6) to work through and submit, after which a moderator corrects them. This weekly accountability is the only way that I've been able to slog through this book, interested as I am in the language.

[Michal Paszkiewicz]

An excellent book, starting with the assumption that you know nothing about Hieroglyphs, then teaching you everything you need to know to start translating existing texts.

The book has lessons, which are understandable, but require a high degree of concentrations. It also has exercises (which are very important to complete to keep up with the lessons) and essays, which are very interesting and help you get an understanding of what we know about Egyptian culture and how we have found out about it.

A great read, I recommend this to anyone and everyone, because frankly, Hieroglyphs are so so cool.

[Ishiba Hinojosa-Balino]

Good book for consultation, not really finished it or started it. But it was super helpful during the development of my PhD

[Shandeed Wasfy]

an amazing book which helped me a lot in my studies of ancient egyptian language

[James F]

An advanced textbook of the ancient Egyptian literary language. Many popular books tell you how to read the common inscriptions; this one would let you read all the literature, if you really studied it (it was beyond my level, so I just read it to get an idea of how the language worked.) It was interesting in that Egyptian is very different from any of the languages I have studied (which are all Indo-European.) The biggest problem is that since the Egyptians didn't write vowels, most of the forms are written the same, so the whole grammar is just theories.

[Teango]

A real treasure trove of topics on Middle Egyptian language, people, and culture! This is, by far, one of the most thorough and enlightening books out there on this period of Ancient Egypt, which fills in many of the gaps (particularly cultural) left behind by other course books that teach Middle Egyptian.

[Lucy]

Superficially user-friendly, but not all that well organized. Maybe use as a supplement to Gardiner, but never as a substitute.

[Jennifer]

I find this easier to use than Gardiner and is especially good for your first year of Middle Egyptian.

[John Ledesma]

Received July 13, 2010 from Amazon.

[Leondis Jones]

It took me 3 months to finish this book, but it was worth it!

[Leah Bender]

The only reason this received four stars instead of five is that there are some egregious misprints.