- Middle Egyptian
Middle Egyptian is the typical form of the Egyptian spoken from
2000 BC to1300 BC (afterOld Egyptian and beforeLate Egyptian ).Although evolving into Late Egyptian from the 14th century, Middle Egyptian remained in use as literary
standard language until the 4th century AD. As such, it is the classical variant of Egyptian that historically attracted most attention fromEgyptology . Whilst most Middle Egyptian is seen written on monuments by Hieroglyphs, it is also written using a cursive variant, and the relatedHieratic . As it is usually the first and most used form of theAncient Egyptian language , it is frequently (incorrectly) referred to simply as "Hieroglyphs".Progress in the understanding of Middle Egyptian is due to
Adolf Erman and his "Berlin school". Erman also published the first Middle Egyptian grammar in 1894, surpassed in 1927 byAlan H. Gardiner 's monumental work. From the mid 20th century, Egyptologists considered their understanding of Middle Egyptian to be essentially complete, and began focussing on Old Egyptian, but debate on Middle Egyptian grammar was revived byHans Jakob Polotsky and his "standard theory" from 1944.Literature
* A. H. Gardiner: "Egyptian Grammar, Oxford", 1927, 3rd ed. 1957.
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