SECTION I.

PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF EGYPTIAN GRAMMAR:

THE

PLACE OF KHAMISM AS REGARDS THE FORMATION OF WORDS AND SYLLABLES.

THE background of the Egyptian language, the state through which it has passed, is the pure particle-language; but it is of that nature which bears already strong impress of the struggle towards polarisation. The original antithesis, which appears in its progress towards the separation of parts of speech, is the antithesis of noun and verb: these two represent the essential parts of a sentence. The noun and verb, therefore, are the two poles, towards one of which every particle specifically tends, without thereby losing the faculty of bearing the opposite signification when in another position. The verb frequently serves for a noun, the noun for a verbal stem. The formative syllables which are joined on to one or other of them (consequently originally words) very soon exhibit the pervading distinction between noun and verb. At the same time syllabic words, which are only used and considered as particles, lose their full meanings as adverbs, and all the parts of speech of the new languages come into existence and take their proper places.

The formative words in Egyptian mark the transition from Sinism to Khamism, from the particle language to the language of parts of speech.

There is no known language of the civilised world which shows us so clearly, so intellectually, and so logically, this transition.

We will notice first the history of the expression of

a proposition, i. e. of the pronouncing of a judgment, by which subject and predicate are brought into the unity of a thought: that is the indication of composition, the copula. We will next give the history of forms which constitute the conjugation of the verb, and then consider what are usually called in our languages, in the widest sense, particles. And first, the verbal determinative words and the relative words. The former are adverbs. Prepositions or postpositions stand on a similar footing with them. They are the determinatives of substantives according to their relations, for the purpose of expressing the possible interrelation between nouns, or their relation to a verb. In the last place come the words which serve to mark the relation between sentence and sentence, or conjunctions.

A.

EXPRESSION OF THE COPULA.

(Compare Vol. I. p. 291. seqq.)

ORIGINALLY every word was a sentence; and the meaning of every word purely objective, yet undistinguished. The particular meaning in a phrase depended on its relative position. The Relation itself was not specifically expressed; for it is the Non-objective, that which the mind supplies to Things. But a time arrived when the mind became conscious of possessing this power. It then coined words as the special expression of that creative act by which it became, in the earliest times, lord of the objective world, and a speaking man. The ex

pression of the copula may tend towards the nominal pole, in which case it will become the primitive pronoun; or it may tend towards the verbal polc, in which case it forms the absolute verb (verbum substantivum).

In Egyptian, subject and predicate may exist independently without any connecting word. Yet from the very outset that language displays a remarkable facility in expressing the copula. The following particles are used for it:

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AR, prefixed: the third person of the verb to be, is, are. AR, in Coptic ale, means to rise up, to approach; therefore to appear to be (comp. UN). It is also found in Semitic in the word 'hal, as a preposition, in the sense of towards (versus): stem of the root 'halah, to rise up. AU, prefixed: unchangeable, or it may be more specifically defined by pronominal suffixes. It means a hook, and thus is used as a conjunctive particle, just as vav in Hebrew properly means a peg or nail. The meaning of this phonetic hieroglyph is to hook, to fasten. PA, prefixed, and PU after the subject, unchangeable. A pronominal and adverbial root, the original meaning is man: it is used in the demonstrative sense of this; and in its weakened form PE, as an article.

UN(Birch reads ÃN') is regularly declined like the verbs, and forms consequently the transition towards flexion it means to shine, to appear.

So that we have three verbal particles and two nominal particles (pronominal roots); the latter (PA, PU), and one of the former (AR), are pure root-particles; the two other verbal particles may also have suffixes annexed to them. In all of them the meaning of the root is known, and the first at least (AR) is clearly traceable in the Arian ar, to go, and the Hebr. 'halah.

B.

CONJUGATION.

THE following facts in the history of language result from conjugation in connexion with the purpose we

have in view:

I. The pure root of every verb (the verbal particle) is unchanged in all its persons, numbers, tenses, and moods: its meaning is conveyed by a pronoun, or even by the subject.

II. The verbal particle receives pronominal suffixes, but without being affected by them in the slightest degree.

III. Tense-particles (past and future) and mood-particles (the optative and imperative) are put between the verbal and personal particles. The tenseparticles are:

1. The past particle N (pronounced en), the weakened form of UN (see above). The idea of appearing is expressed by appearance: thus,

iri. a = facere. ego

feci.

iri. en. a facere. manifestum. ego = 2. Imperfect past particle HER, over, on the point: thus, au. her, on the point of doing, "was." 3. Future particle: a compound, AU. Rau. ar= conjunctio versus: AU is prefixed to the subject (pronominal particle) and R to the verb. au. a. r. iri = conjunctio. ego. versus . facere = faciam (Italian, sono per fare).

IV. Mood-particles.

1. Optative form: MAI, prefixed: in the original sense, come! Its sign is the hieroglyph of a man or woman beckoning with the hand: thus, mai. rem. i = veni. flere. ego I would weep.

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2. Imperative form: MA, also prefixed: not derived

from ma, to give, to do. It is an abbreviation of MAI, which is also used in an imperative

sense.

mai. fai. fai. bai. i = veni. volare, volare.
anima . mea = vola (voles), vola, anima mea.
In point of meaning it is precisely the same as the
optative. For instance in the common particle
for to come (i):

ma. = -
i veni venire veni! venias!

mai . i . nan = veni-venire-nos = veniamus.

V. Participle-particles (see p. 296. Vol. I.):

1. Active: IU and AT (an abbreviation of ET). 2. Passive: UT.

IU signifies as a full root, to come: consequently aperire. venire is qui venit

un . iu =
ut aperiat = aperiens.

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ædificare, and erigere (sc.

AT means erigere
aures) = auscultare :

UT means exire, dividere (discerpere, exire facere): consequently,

aa. ut = adorare. exire adoratus;

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aa. ut. f adorare. exire. ille adoratur.

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The Negation-particle (p. 292.), the hieroglyph of which is two arms stretched out in the attitude of repulsion, is the letter N, as it is in all the Iranian languages; its original pronunciation was probably, as in Coptic, a short initial sound: eN (not with the terminal sound, Ne). But it is entirely distinct from the verb, and comes at the beginning of the sentence, whereas in Coptic the constant negative conjugation grows out of it, as a secondary formation, which is so natural in the Turanian.