Editing Egyptian language (section)

{{Short description|Extinct language in ancient Egypt}}
{{About|the languages spoken in ancient Egypt|the language spoken in modern Egypt|Egyptian Arabic}}
{{Redirect|Egyptian grammar|the book by Alan Gardiner|Egyptian Grammar (book){{!}}''Egyptian Grammar'' (book)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Egyptian
| nativename       = {{center|<hiero>r:Z1-n-km-m-t:O49</hiero>}} {{transliteration|egy|r n km.t}}<span class="nowrap" style="padding-left:{{Italics correction/calc|t}}"></span>{{sfn|Erman|Grapow|1926–1961}}{{NoteTag|Whence the designation Kemic for Egypto-Coptic with {{Transliteration|egy|km.t}} */kū́m˘t/ "black land, Egypt", as opposed to {{Transliteration|egy|ṭšr.t}} "red land, desert". Proposed by {{Harvcoltxt|Schenkel|1990|p=1}}. Note that the name ''[[wikt:r n kmt|r n km.t]]'' is only attested in versions of the ''[[Story of Sinuhe]]'' and appears to have been a literary invention.}}
| image            = G. Ebers (ed.), Papyros Ebers, 1875 Wellcome L0016592.jpg
| imagecaption     = ''[[Ebers Papyrus]]'' detailing treatment of [[asthma]] (written in [[hieratic]])
| region           = Originally, throughout [[Ancient Egypt]] and parts of [[Nubia]] (especially during the times of the [[Nubian kingdoms]])<ref name="ancientsudan">{{cite web |title=Ancient Sudan~ Nubia: Writing: The Basic Languages of Christian Nubia: Greek, Coptic, Old Nubian, and Arabic |website=ancientsudan.org |access-date=2017-03-09 |url=https://www.ancientsudan.org/writing_03_old_nubian_&_arabic.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090105185615/https://ancientsudan.org/writing_03_old_nubian_%26_arabic.htm |url-status=usurped |archive-date=5 January 2009}}</ref>
| ethnicity        = [[Ancient Egypt]]ians
| era              = Late fourth millennium BC – 19th century AD{{NoteTag|name=extinct}} (with the extinction of [[Coptic language|Coptic]]); still used as the [[liturgical language]] of the [[Coptic Orthodox Church|Coptic Orthodox]] and [[Coptic Catholic Church]]es
| familycolor      = Afro-Asiatic
| dia1             = ?Upper{{sfn|Allen|2000|p=2}}{{sfn|Loprieno|1995|p=8}} {{extinct}}
| dia2             = ?Lower{{sfn|Allen|2000|p=2}}{{sfn|Loprieno|1995|p=8}} {{extinct}}
| dia3             = [[Coptic language#Dialects|Coptic dialects]] {{extinct}}
| script           = [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|Hieroglyphs]], [[cursive hieroglyphs]], [[Hieratic]], [[Demotic (Egyptian)|Demotic]] and [[Coptic alphabet|Coptic]] (later, occasionally, [[Arabic script]] in government translations and [[Latin alphabet|Latin script]] in scholars' transliterations and several hieroglyphic dictionaries<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary |year=1920 |last=Budge |first= E. A. Wallis |publisher=Harrison and sons |location=London |url=https://www.um.es/cepoat/egipcio/wp-content/uploads/egyptianhierogly.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171212031453/http://www.um.es/cepoat/egipcio/wp-content/uploads/egyptianhierogly.pdf |archive-date=2017-12-12 |url-status=live}}</ref>)
| iso2             = egy
| iso3             = egy
| iso3comment      = (also [[iso639-3:cop|cop]] for [[Coptic language|Coptic]])
| lingua           = 11-AAA-a
| iso2comment      = (also {{ISO 639-2|cop}} for [[Coptic language|Coptic]])
| glotto           = egyp1246
| glottorefname    = Egyptian (Ancient)
}}
{{Contains special characters|Coptic}}

The '''Egyptian language''', or '''Ancient Egyptian''' ({{transliteration|egy|[[wikt:r n kmt|r n kmt]]}};{{sfn|Erman|Grapow|1926–1961}}{{NoteTag|The name ''r n km.t'' is only attested in versions of the ''[[Story of Sinuhe]]'' and appears to have been a literary invention.}} {{gloss|speech of Egypt}}), is an [[Extinct language|extinct branch]] of the [[Afroasiatic languages|Afro-Asiatic languages]] that was spoken in [[ancient Egypt]]. It is known today from a large [[Text corpus|corpus]] of surviving texts, which were made accessible to the modern world following the [[decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts|decipherment of the ancient Egyptian scripts]] in the early 19th century.

Egyptian is one of the [[List of languages by first written accounts|earliest known written languages]], first recorded in the [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|hieroglyphic script]] in the late [[4th millennium BC]]. It is also the longest-attested human language, with a written record spanning over 4,000 years.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Grossman |first1=Eitan |last2=Richter |first2=Tonio Sebastian |date=2015 |title=Egyptian-Coptic Linguistics in Typological Perspective |chapter=The Egyptian-Coptic language: its setting in space, time and culture |quote=The Egyptian-Coptic language is attested in a vast corpus of written texts that almost uninterruptedly document its lifetime over more than 4,000 years, from the invention of the hieroglyphic writing system in the late 4th millennium BCE, up to the 14th century CE. Egyptian is thus likely to be the longest-attested human language known. |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |page=70 |isbn=9783110346510 |doi=10.1515/9783110346510.69}}</ref> Its [[classical language|classical]] form, known as "[[Middle Egyptian]]," served as the [[vernacular]] of the [[Middle Kingdom of Egypt]] and remained the literary language of Egypt until the [[Egypt (Roman province)|Roman period]].

By the time of [[classical antiquity]], the spoken language had evolved into [[Demotic Egyptian language|Demotic]], and by the [[Roman Egypt|Roman era]], diversified into various [[Coptic language|Coptic dialects]]. These were eventually supplanted by [[Arabic]] after the [[Muslim conquest of Egypt]], although Bohairic Coptic remains in use as the [[liturgical language]] of the [[Coptic Orthodox Church|Coptic Church]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Layton |first=Benjamin |title=Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic with Exercises & Vocabularies |publisher=Peeters Publishers |date=2007 |page=1 |isbn=9789042918108 |quote=The liturgy of the present day Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt is written in a mixture of Arabic, Greek, and Bohairic Coptic, the ancient dialect of the Delta and the great monasteries of the Wadi Natrun. Coptic is no longer a living language. |url={{google books URL|Y83UUpkdOMMC}}}}</ref>{{NoteTag|name=extinct|The language may have survived in isolated pockets in [[Upper Egypt]] as late as the 19th century, according to {{cite journal |first=James Edward |last=Quibell |title=When did Coptic become extinct? |journal=Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde |volume=39 |year=1901 |page=87}} In the village of Pi-Solsel (Az-Zayniyyah, El Zenya or Al Zeniya north of [[Luxor]]), [[Passive speaker (language)|passive speakers]] were recorded as late as the 1930s, and traces of traditional vernacular Coptic reported to exist in other places such as [[Abydos, Egypt|Abydos]] and [[Dendera]], see {{cite journal |first=Werner |last=Vycichl |title=Pi-Solsel, ein Dorf mit koptischer Überlieferung |trans-title=Pi-Solsel, a village with Coptic tradition |journal=Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo |volume=6 |year=1936 |pages=169–175 |language=de |url=https://copticsounds.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/pi-solsel-ein-dorf-mit-koptischer-uberlieferung1.pdf}}}}