Academic literature on the topic 'Egyptian language – Writing'
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Journal articles on the topic "Egyptian language – Writing"
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Takács, Gábor. "Towards the Afro-Asiatic etymology of Egyptian zš ‘to write’." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 63, no. 2 (January 2000): 261–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x00007229.
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It is not necessary to emphasize the importance of writing in the culture of Ancient Egypt. The ancient Nile Valley dwellers' cult of writing is famous, while the Egyptian language has the longest written continuity known in history. At the same time, however, we linguists know painfully little about the origin of the Egyptian verb zš ‘to write’ because of the apparent lack of reliable Afro-Asiatic cognates.
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Ahmed, Abdelhamid, and Salah Troudi. "Exploring EFL Writing Assessment in an Egyptian University Context: Teachers and Students’ Perspectives." Journal of Language Teaching and Research 9, no. 6 (November 1, 2018): 1229. http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/jltr.0906.12.
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The study identified the assessment practices used in an Egyptian EFL writing course at university and explored teachers and students’ perspectives of these assessment practices. The focus was on the assessment practices to inform and propose appropriate implications. This study is informed by social constructivism where knowledge is constructed socially through the perceptions of different participants. Eight students and eight EFL writing teachers were interviewed, and three EFL writing classes were observed. Findings revealed that writing assessment is important to both teachers and students. Diagnosing students’ writing was done rarely and superficially, using a non-standardised assessment. Reported formative assessment practices include attendance, homework, samples of students’ writing, class participation, assignments, and oral presentation. Stereotypical final exams were reported as the only summative assessment practice. Finally, the assessment criteria and the analytical scoring method were not communicated to students. Observed EFL writing classes mostly confirmed students’ perspectives about the reported practices. Implications and suggestions are provided.
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Wilmsen, David. "Dialects of Written Arabic: Syntactic differences in the treatment of object pronouns in Egyptian and Levantine newspapers." Arabica 57, no. 1 (2010): 99–128. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/057053910x12625688929228.
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AbstractDespite the notion that written Arabic is invariable across the Arab world, a few researchers, using large corpora to discover patterns of usage, have demonstrated regional differences in Arabic writing. While most such research has focussed upon the lexicon, this corpus-based study examines a syntactic difference between Egyptian and Levantine writing: the treatment of object pronouns. A search of an entire year of writing in regional newspapers found that Levantine writers tend to use the free object pronoun iyyā-, placing the direct object after the indirect, about twice as often as Egyptian writers do, who for their part prefer to place the direct object before the indirect. A proposed reason for this is that the free object pronoun is used to mark the direct object in spoken Levantine vernaculars but not in Egyptian. This seems to indicate that local spoken vernaculars exert a fundamental influence on writing.
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Pabbajah, M. Taufiq Hidayat, and Mustaqim Pabbajah. "Orientalist Construction on the Existence of Ammiyah Arabic in Egypt in the 20th Century." Langkawi: Journal of The Association for Arabic and English 6, no. 2 (December 26, 2020): 218. http://dx.doi.org/10.31332/lkw.v6i2.1962.
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This study aims to explorehow the Ammiyah language came about in Egypt in the 20th century. It adopted an observational research design. To gather the data, the books and journals covering Orientalism were examined.The study details three of the findings. First, the Ammiyah language differs from the Arabic Fusha in terms of syntax, lexical and phonological characteristics. Second, Ammiyah has often been used in Egypt in familial and social communication. Third, the construction carried out by Orientalists in popularizing the Ammiyah language in order to shift the role of the Arabic Fusha as the language of state administration in Egypt through two aspects. The government orders the writing of books and newspapers in the Ammiyah language using Latin letters, and prohibits the teaching of Fusha language in the school and all activities. Although the Orientalist effort failed because of the opposition from Arab literary groups both Muslim and Christian Arabs, as well as the Al-Azhar and Majma 'Lughah Universities which protected the purity of the Arabic language, there was still a social impact on Egyptian society. The Egyptian society utilizes a number of Ammiyah languages in day-to-day contact.
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Štubňová, Silvia. "Where Syntax and Semantics Meet: A Typological Investigation of Old Egyptian Causatives." Lingua Aegyptia - Journal of Egyptian Language Studies 27 (2019): 183–213. http://dx.doi.org/10.37011/lingaeg.27.09.
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The earliest stage of the ancient Egyptian language attested in writing, i.e., Old Egyptian, had two productive causative mechanisms that increase the valency of verbs: morphological (mono-clausal) and periphrastic (bi-clausal). The former is characterized by the prefix s-, while the latter employs the lexical causative verb rḏj ‘give’ followed by a complement clause. Despite the fact that both causative strategies have been known to scholars since the inception of the study of the ancient Egyptian language, any systematic or comprehensive study of Egyptian causative verbs is lacking. This paper thus aims to provide a new insight into the Old Egyptian morphological and periphrastic causatives by examining their syntactic as well as semantic properties. The results of this analysis show which types of verbs have a preference for which of the two causative strategies and demonstrate the semantic differences between the morphological and periphrastic causative types. Furthermore, this paper clarifies the peculiar nature of the morphological causatives of transitive verbs, whose valency does not increase. I suggest a possible solution to this issue that lies in the function of the n-prefix in Old Egyptian.
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Landgráfová, Renata. "The Classical art of memory as immaterial writing." Pragmatics and Cognition 21, no. 3 (December 31, 2013): 505–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pc.21.3.05lan.
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The Classical art of memory is analyzed as a form of mental writing. The ancient authors of works on the art of memory often likened their art to a sort of writing, and a careful analysis of the methods of formation of agent images — the signs of the art of memory — shows that it very closely parallels the methods of sign formation in logophonetic writing systems (such as ancient Egyptian or Chinese). Thus the Classical art of memory can be viewed as an immaterial (and personalized) writing system.
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Miller, Elizabeth. "Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Egyptian Modern Art." ARTMargins 5, no. 1 (February 2016): 59–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/artm_a_00141.
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Art in Egypt during the first half of the twentieth century has frequently been understood as closely tied to Egyptian nationalism, emerging suddenly in 1908 with the founding of the Cairo School of Fine Arts to provide the nation with visual representations. I look at art writing during the first half of the twentieth century in both the Arabic and French-language Egyptian press to show instead that a public discourse surrounding the fine arts emerged slowly over the course of several decades to constitute a locus for the negotiation of mutually constitutive cosmopolitan and national subject positions. Through their work, artists and critics positioned themselves, often ambivalently, in relation to the manifold claims of Egyptian, Arab, and European identity jostling for recognition within the context of the British occupation and the struggle for independence.
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Nanda, Fitra, Rika Astari, and Haji Mohammad Bin Seman. "The Pronunciation of Egyptian Arabic and Its Aspect of Sociolinguistic." Jurnal Al Bayan: Jurnal Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa Arab 12, no. 2 (September 2, 2020): 340–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.24042/albayan.v12i2.5784.
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The purpose of this research is to provide insight into the characteristics of the Amiyah Egyptian language from a sociolinguistic point of view. This research was conducted by examining a variety of literature relating to the object of study and also the deepening of the material regarding sociolinguistics itself. The research method used is note taking, which takes data from YouTube consisting of 10 video objects whose results are presented in descriptive form. The procedures of the research are as 1) listening to every phrase which is spoken by the speaker, 2) writing the vocabulary that has phonological differences with Arabic Fusha, 3) classifying data according to sound change prepositions, 4) analyzing data related to phonological and morphological aspects, 5) doing further analysis related to the sociolinguistic point of view, 6) presents the results of the study. The results of this study, Amiyah Arabic is not included as a language but as a dialect that emerges from a basic language, namely Fusha Arabic. However, amiyah language has different phonological and morphological aspects that have become characteristic of being another language. This was explained by the social conditions of the Egyptian community who held that the language variations formed were higher social classes than the existing basic language namely fusha language.
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Dorman, Peter F. "Writing Late Egyptian Hieratic: A Beginner's Primer. Sheldon Lee Gosline." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 60, no. 4 (October 2001): 305–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/468963.
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POLIS, STÉPHANE, and VINCENT RAZANAJAO. "ANCIENT EGYPTIAN TEXTS IN CONTEXT. TOWARDS A CONCEPTUAL DATA MODEL (THE THOT DATA MODEL - TDM)." Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 59, no. 2 (December 1, 2016): 24–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2016.12036.x.
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Abstract In this paper, we propose a conceptual data model which could be the basis for future implementations of databases and digital corpuses of Ancient Egyptian texts that fully integrate the material dimensions of writing. The types of metadata that can be used for documenting the elements and relationships of this model are discussed and the resources (URIs) available for its online implementation (in the perspective of the ‘linked open data’ movement) are examined.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Egyptian language – Writing"
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Van, Essche Eric. "Du lisible au visible: l'écriture figurative dans les temples de l'époque ramesside." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/212509.
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Gimbel, David Nelson. "The evolution of visual representation : the elite art of early dynastic Lagas and its antecedents in late Uruk period Sumer and predynastic Egypt." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2002. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:209a8832-9e13-494d-946e-016ba9aa215c.
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The corpus of artifacts from the Lagas state constitutes what is arguably the single largest cohesive body of elite representational display forms thus far discovered to have come from Early Dynastic (ED) Sumer. Unlike the equally extraordinary finds from ED levels of Ur, which consist primarily of grave goods and small finds (Woolley 1934; Woolley 1956), what is unique about the finds from Lagas is that the majority of them are programmatic artifacts that were intended to be displayed to specific audiences. Specifically, many of them are relief carvings or, to a lesser degree, statues that were carefully composed and executed in order to encode and transmit carefully constructed messages on the part of individual rulers, or the religious establishment. As such, the ED Lagas corpus is a particularly important record of how one particular group of Sumerian rulers viewed themselves and how the wished to be viewed by others.
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Angenot, Valérie. "La formule m) ("regarder") dans les tombes privées de la dix-huitième dynastie: approche sémiotique et herméneutique." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/211365.
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Louant, Emmanuel. "Le dieu-fils Harsomtous dans les temples égyptiens d'époque tardive : étude de sa relation avec le dieu-patron du sanctuaire pour définir sa personne et ses fonctions spécifiques en tant que dieu-fils dans et hors du temple d'Edfou." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/211729.
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Ray, Corey Carpenter. "Understanding the ancient Egyptians : an examination of living creature hieroglyphs." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/51538.
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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 1999.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis an exploration is made into whether or not hieroglyphs reflect ideas of the ancient Egyptians themselves. By examining "living creature" hieroglyphs one may contemplate why the ancient Egyptian chose a particular manner of depiction. The manner of depiction can then be examined insofar as what ideas they may reflect. In this way study into other groups of signs such as those of the environment may be used to further illuminate the lives and our understanding of the ancient Egyptian(s). This thesis begins with an examination of both the problem inherent in such a task and an overview of some of the "processes" involved. By understanding that a reconstructed reality, that of the hieroglyph, reflects both real and perceived characteristics represented in glyphic form, one may seek out the mental impressions considered relevant to the people themselves. Next the role literacy played and still plays is discussed. This discussion includes a brief historical overview of both the history of decipherment and the "language" of the ancient Egyptians. The importance of "writing", artistic in nature in Egypt in regards to hieroglyphs, is then discussed as it relates to its use as symbol. Hieroglyphs are then discussed in their role as art, communication, and language emphasizing the multitudinous role(s) which they served. The importance is thus reiterated that hieroglyphs served as a communication of ideas to both the literate and the "illiterate" in at least a menial manner. After providing a "background" context of both the world and time of hieroglyphs and their subsequent "understanding" and interpretation, there is an analysis of the hieroglyphs for living creatures including the following Gardiner groupings: (1) mammals, (2) birds, (3) amphibians and reptiles, (4) fish, (5) invertebrates and lesser animals. The signs are examined in regards to their function and variations followed by some observations and comments related to the "structure" and perspective of the sign itself. Summary observations and comments are then made about each group. The thesis is then brought full circle by examining the implications of what hieroglyphs can tell us about the ancient Egyptians, via the perceptive and communicative role which they played. By understanding hieroglyphs as "fingerprints" of/from the mind of the people and subsequently their culture, this framework may provide a new mechanism into understanding the Egyptian via their own visualization and perceptive nature. A case is then proposed that this new "mechanism", if it is indeed considered feasible, can be applied to not only the physical world consisting of nature such as the environment, but also to groups which depict manmade objects.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie tesis is die moontlikheid ondersoek dat hierogliewe iets van die ideewereld van die antieke Egiptenare reflekteer. In die bestudering van "lewende wese" hierogliewe kom vrae op soos waarom die antieke Egiptenare juis 'n spesifieke vorm van voorsteIIing verkies het. Die vorm van voorsteIIing kan dan bestudeer word vir die idees wat dit moontlik mag reflekteer. Ander groepe/velde van tekens, soos die van die breër omgewing, kan gebruik word om verdere lig te werp op die lewe van die antieke Egiptenaar(e) en ons verstaan daarvan. Die tesis begin met 'n bestudering van die inherente probleme in die aanpak van so 'n taak en 'n oorsig oor sommige van die "prosesse" daarby betrokke. By die verstaan van die hieroglief as 'n gekonstrueerde realiteit, wat weklike sowel as afgeleide eienskappe reflekteer, ontdek die ondersoeker daarvan iets van die persoonlike/kulturele indrukke wat deur hierdie groep mense as relevant ervaar is. In die volgende afdeling kom die rol van geletterdheid aan die beurt. Hierdie bespreking sluit 'n bondige historiese oorsig oor die geskiedenis van ontsyfering asook die taal van die Egiptenare in. Die belang van die "skryfkuns" en veral die kunsaard daarvan in die Egiptiese hierogliewe word vervolgens bespreek. Dit is veraI waar soos dit in verhouding staan met die gebruik daarvan as simbool. Die veelsydige rol(le) en belang van hierogliewe in die kuns, kommunikasie en taal word dan ondersoek en bespreek. Die klem word daarop gelê dat hierogliewe as die kommunikasie van idees aan beide die geletterde en "ongeletterde" dien. Nadat 'n agtergrondkonteks van die wereld en tyd van die hierogliewe en die daaruitvloeiende "verstaan" en interpretasie daarvan gegee is, word 'n analise van die "lewende wese" hierogliewe gedoen. Dit sluit die volgende groeperinge van Gardiner in: (1) soogdiere, (2) voels, (3) amfibiee en reptiele, (4) visse, (5) invertebrata en kleiner diere. Hierdie hierogliewe word ondersoek in terme van hulle funksie en variasies, gevolg deur waarnemings en opmerkings aangaande die "struktuur" en die perspektief van die teken. Opsommende observasies en enkele opmerkings oor elke groep volg daarna. Die tesis word afgerond met 'n ondersoek na die implikasies van wat ons kan wys word uit die hierogliewe aangaande die antieke Egiptenare, via die perspektiwiese en kommunikatiewe rol wat dit vervuI. Deur hierogliewe te verstaan as die "vingerafdrukke" van die begrip van hierdie mense kan hierdie raamwerk 'n nuwe meganisme in die verstaan van die Egiptenaar via die visualisasie en waarneembare aard daarvan, vorm. 'n Voorstel word gemaak dat hierdie nuwe "meganisme", indien dit uitvoerbaar is, toegepas kan word, nie net op die hierogliewe van die fisiese wereld bestaande uit die natuur en die omgewing nie, maar ook op hierogliewe wat mensgemaakte voorwerpe voorstel.
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Geffroy, Cyril. "Paradoxes et silences : étude des statuts de l'écriture chez Albert Cossery." Thesis, Versailles-St Quentin en Yvelines, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015VERS009S.
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Cette étude de l’œuvre d’Albert Cossery interroge les relations entre parole et silence qui la gouvernent. Sous cet angle, le paradoxe s’impose comme une clé de lecture essentielle. Il permet de questionner le statut d’une écriture suspendue à la menace de son extinction. Dans un premier temps, la thèse envisage la dimension existentielle de la création littéraire pour Cossery, ce qui soulève une triple problématique touchant l’autobiographie, le rapport au temps et l’inscription dans l’espace. A chaque fois, un même constat s’impose : écrire est aussi vital que subsidiaire, car le dandy Cossery entend faire de sa vie une œuvre, sublimer le monde tangible, et y affirmer sa liberté. En toute cohérence, ses huit récits principaux, que la deuxième partie analyse dans leur épaisseur diégétique, s’accordent à révéler l’imposture universelle, à promouvoir une résistance active à son règne avant de plaider pour une résistance passive. C’est une révolution solitaire qui se trouve proposée et qui redéfinit le rapport de l’individu au réel. Un tel parcours de création, orienté vers la paix intérieure et le silence littéraire, vise à l’épure. Dans la dernière partie, l’écriture de Cossery, examinée dans ses aspects historiques, génériques et stylistiques, apparaît promise à une esthétique de la faute, au risque de passer pour une faute d’esthétique. Sa finalité est, là encore, méta-discursive. Son but n’est plus de se multiplier en livres ni de se constituer en œuvre, mais de se taire et de se laisser vivre dans la réception. L’écriture fonde un pacte de lecture qui se résorbe dans sa propre finalité. En foi de quoi, elle dessine, dans sa progression, un mouvement spiralaire. Le silence qui suit l’écriture est celui d’un bonheur de vivre enfin réaliséTo wonder about the writing status of Albert Cossery’s literary work and understand the connection between the words and the silence leads to three directions (autobiography, time, space) which come down to the same conclusion: it is as essential to write as it is to stop writing. The dandy Cossery turns his life into an art and transcends the world. Therefore, his eight main novels bring to light a universal deception, followed by an active resistance to face it and finally a passive resistance driving to freedom. It is an individual revolution that will help oneself to relocate within the world. This path to inner peace and literary silence is an outline. From a linguistic point of view (literary movement, genre and stylistic), Cossery’s writing includes deliberate errors that make it aesthetic. Its ending is here again outside literature. His intention is not only to build a literary work but to keep silent and live it the way it is perceived. In the end, three approaches of the writing have been presented and three similar and paradoxal conclusions have been found out: writing claims the end of its own writing. The overall theme of this thesis shapes it into a spiral. The silence that follows the writing enables the happiness of living
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Honeš, Daniel. "Produkční, percepční a fonologické aspekty řeči v povědomí starověkých Egypťanů." Master's thesis, 2020. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-415187.
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The topic of this master's thesis is the analyzis of a general conception of linguistics in ancient Egypt, with a narrow focus on the ancient Egyptians' knowledge of phonetics and phonology as well as language production and perception. These findings are compared with the information with which non-egyptological disciplines work. We analyse the ancient Egyptian material culture. This analysis also focuses on primary written records provided with the author's own translation and linguistic annotation using the Leipzig Glossing Rules. This study has a potential to help the fields outside of Egyptology better to understand the notions of ancient people's phonetic/phonological knowledge. It is clear from the sources discussed that the Egyptians considered the heart to be the seat of the speech center in today's conception, although there is evidence that they saw the connection between speech and the brain. Written sources also provide information on the categorization of hieroglyphic characters according to phonetic value, which points to the existence of segmental perception of the ancient Egyptians. However, there are no explicit mentions of vocal folds and voice formation, the essence of speech and language was seen by the Egyptians in the magical-religious sphere. Part of the thesis is a summary...
Books on the topic "Egyptian language – Writing"
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McDermott, Bridget. Decoding Egyptian hieroglyphs. London: Duncan Baird Publishers, 2003.
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Budge, E. A. Wallis. Egyptian language: Easy lessons in Egyptian hieroglyphics, with sign list. London: Routledge, 1989.
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Davies, W. V. Egyptian hieroglyphs. London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Publications, 1987.
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Language and writing in ancient Egypt. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 1990.
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Watterson, Barbara. Introducing Egyptian hieroglyphs. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1993.
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Gosline, Sheldon Lee. Introductory late Egyptian. Warren Center, Pa: Shangri-la Publications, 1999.
Find full textBook chapters on the topic "Egyptian language – Writing"
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"Hieroglyphic Writing." In Egyptian Language (Routledge Revivals), 13–24. Routledge, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203071267-8.
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Haring, Ben. "Marking and Writing in an Egyptian Workmen’s Community." In The Hidden Language of Graphic Signs, 159–72. Cambridge University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781108886505.011.
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Nail, Thomas. "Writing II." In Being and Motion, 258–68. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190908904.003.0025.
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This chapter argues that the fourth major kinographic operation in the ancient world finally occurred when the graphisms created by tablets and the phonisms of speech entered into a mutual subordination to an abstract meaning or idea. In other words, once graphism was liberated from its concrete tokens, it could create abstract signs for anything, including the discrete sounds made in human speech called phonemes. The practice of connecting written graphisms to speech first emerged in Sumer around 3500–3390 BCE with the use of cuneiform, a written means of representing the Sumerian language. Egyptian hieroglyphics connected to language emerged around 3300 BCE. The earliest alphabet is traced to proto-Sinaitic inscriptions (c. 1850 BCE).
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Dobson, Eleanor. "‘The master-key that opens every door’: Hieroglyphs, Translations and Palimpsests." In Writing the Sphinx, 97–146. Edinburgh University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474476249.003.0004.
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This chapter considers the translation of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs along with advancements in printing technologies across the nineteenth century, which led to an increased hieroglyphic presence in modern media. It focuses, in particular, in the use of hieroglyphs by authors of fiction, including H. Rider Haggard and E. Nesbit. In some cases, Egyptologists lent their expertise; alternatively, authors and designers consulted these experts’ grammars and dictionaries to construct their own (sometimes erroneous) meanings. Analysing the use of hieroglyphs in a variety of fiction and other cultural forms not only reveals networks of consultation between those with a professional and an amateur interest in ancient Egypt, but the wealth of connotations that the hieroglyphs suggested: from a magical language (often in children’s or supernatural fiction) to a romantic script suitable for love letters and secret correspondence (suited to romance, mystery, and detective genres). Meanwhile, increased tourism in Egypt resulted in the proliferation of palimpsestic chiselling of names onto temples and pyramids, while ankhs obelisks were incorporated into European and American grave designs. Ultimately, these uses of hieroglyphs reveal a bid for immortality, whether that of the individual or even the literary works that contemporary authors were inscribing with ancient Egyptian script.
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Phillips, Christina. "Mystical Dimensions." In Religion in the Egyptian Novel, 189–218. Edinburgh University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417068.003.0007.
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This chapter explores Sufi dialogues in works by Najib Mahfuz. It begins by revisiting Mahfuz’s trilogy, rereading Kamal’s infatuation with ʿAyda in terms of the Sufi’s love affair with God. It explains the turn to Sufism post-1967 in terms of Sufism’s symbolism and identity as marginalised discourse and of certain overlaps in Sufi vision and the new literary sensibility before exploring in detail the mystical content of two further works by Mahfuz. Hikayat Haratina (1975) is read as an inversion of the Sufi path and exploration of mysticism as a solution to social ills and metaphysical angst, and Asdaʾ al-Sirat al-Dhatiyya (1995) is read as a reimagining of spiritual autobiography and embodiment of the limits and possibilities of Islamic mysticism. The structure, language and intertextual dialogue with Sufi writing in these two works are considered as ways of challenging unitary discourse and communicating postmodern themes.
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Mazur, Joseph. "Curious Beginnings." In Enlightening Symbols. Princeton University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691173375.003.0001.
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This chapter traces the beginnings of mathematical notation. For tens of thousands of years, humans had been leaving signification marks in their surroundings, gouges on trees, footprints in hard mud, scratches in skin, and even pigments on rocks. A simple mark can represent a thought, indicate a plan, or record a historical event. Yet the most significant thing about human language and writing is that speakers and writers can produce a virtually infinite set of sounds, declarations, notions, and ideas from a finite set of marks and characters. The chapter discusses the emergence of the alphabet, counting, and mathematical writing. It also considers the discovery of traces of Sumerian number writing on clay tablets in caves from Europe to Asia, the use of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and algebra problems in the Rhind (or Ahmes) papyrus that presented simple equations without any symbols other than those used to indicate numbers.
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Fournet, Jean-Luc. "Why Was Greek." In The Rise of Coptic, 40–75. Princeton University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691198347.003.0002.
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This chapter examines the absence of Coptic in legal texts. One explanation for the absence of legal acts could be the fact that there was no court operating in Egyptian and therefore capable of settling the disputes related to these acts. The use of Coptic in legal acts must have appeared to be perfectly useless—especially since these acts were written by professionals who were accomplished in Greek and who had mastered the intricacies of Roman law, in a state context confined to the exclusive use of Greek. The chapter then assesses the obstacles related to multidialecticism and the diglossic situation of Egypt, which were reinforced by the authoritative role of Greek. Egyptian was not only hindered by the competition of Greek, the language of the conquerors, but it was also the victim of a genuine policy implemented by Greek-speaking authorities (whether Ptolemaic or Roman) to restrict the field of action of Egyptian and to exclude it from the sphere of regulated writing. Completely absent from the government, which was strictly Greek-speaking, and increasingly limited to unregulated private communication, written Demotic ended up dying out in the company of the decline of the temples that ensured its teaching.
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"Egyptian Writing For Non-Egyptian Languages And Vice Versa: A Short Overview." In The Idea of Writing, 315–25. BRILL, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004174467.i-396.95.
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Idris, Murad. "Colonial hesitation, appropriation, and citation: Qāsim Amīn, empire, and saying ‘no’." In Colonial Exchanges. Manchester University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9781526105646.003.0009.
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This chapter examines the complex and ambiguous thought of Egyptian jurist Qāsim Amīn. Amīn’s work is fraught with issues of gender and freedom, which are occasioned by ideas about the sociological conditions of modernity that include the premise of natural selection in the competition between societies. Amīn worried that Egypt had made itself unable to compete fully in the evolutionary conflict between societies and linked the competition to normative questions about individual freedom and, especially, the position of women in society. At the same time, Amīn also sought to counter the universalist claims of certain interpreters and critics of Islam. Thus he sought to navigate unsteady terrain in describing the meaning of a progressive society without simply reproducing European ideas. Idris’s chapter demonstrates the difficulty of writing in ambiguous and profoundly asymmetric colonial circumstances. Seeking both to defend and reform Islamic societies – and both admiring and fearing colonial power – Amīn wrote divergent texts for different audiences: in French, he made defensive arguments; in Arabic, reformist. The conclusion of the chapter powerfully illustrates the ways in which the strategy would misfire: European commentators would in the end deploy Amīn’s Arabic language work as support for further imperial entrenchment.
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Johnson, Rebecca C. "Introduction." In Stranger Fictions, 1–24. Cornell University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501753060.003.0001.
Full textAbstract:
This chapter discusses the history of translations in Arabic literature. The book begins with the first translations performed by Lebanese and Egyptian translators under the auspices of British missionary societies in Malta in the 1830s and ends in the first decade of the twentieth century with the translations of British and French sentimental and crime novels published in Cairo. Each connects the purportedly marginal enterprise of translating foreign fiction, performed by well-known and forgotten translators, to the concerns of canonical nahḍa thinkers and the literary and cultural debates in which they participated. These authors developed translation techniques and writing styles that cultivated a new mode of reading that the book calls reading in translation, which required the reader to move comparatively within and among languages and with the awareness of the diverging interpretive frameworks that animated the investments of multiple audiences. Far from being mere bad translators, these authors appear as translation theorists and informed commentators on literary history. Presenting their own work as occurring within an ongoing history of translation rather than deviating from it, these translators contend that the Arabic novel takes translation and cultural transfer as its foundation, as does the European novel. This book takes the implications of these translators' claims seriously, counterpoising them to standard accounts of the novel's supposed travels in translation.