2. Language system

2.1. Expression systems

2.1.1. Phonology

The phonology may be reconstructed only very imperfectly for a variety of reasons:

• The Ancient Egyptian scripts render the consonants imperfectly and the vowels not at all.
• The writing systems remained constant over very long periods, during which the phonological system changed considerably.
• In Coptic writing, the vowels are represented to some extent; but that allows no conclusions for Old and Middle Egyptian, across a distance of more than 1600 years.

Reconstruction of Egyptian phonology uses the following methods:

• Afro-Asiatic genetic comparison
• spelling of Egyptian words in contemporaneous languages (esp. Greek)
• spelling of foreign (esp. Greek) words in Egyptian

Most Egyptologists remain agnostic about vocalism. In pronouncing Egyptian, they therefore just regularly add the vowel /e/ after each consonant; e.g. nfrt ‘beautiful:F’ is pronounced [neferet]. Since a bit more is known about the vowels of proper names, there is more variation in these. Thus, there is Amenhotep, Amenhetep, Amunhotpe etc. Many pharao names have been transmitted in Greek and are commonly quoted in that form, e.g. Amenophis. The queen whose name is spelt nfr.t-jy.tj and who is called Nefertiti in English (Nofretete in German) may have been called Nafteta in Egyptian.

2.1.1.1. Inventory