 72Languages.com The Original Language The Original Language Introduction to the Original Language Early Alphabet Equivalencies Original Language Numbers Dictionary of the Original Language Gathering the Pieces of the Original Language Assyrian, Akkadian, and Sumerian Cuneiform Hebrew Linear B Etruscan Hindustani Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic Early Egyptian Language Egyptian Hieroglyphic Hieratic Hieratic Roots of Arabic Coptic The Pyramids The Four Sons of Horus The Hall of Judgment Joseph Smith's Contributions to Egyptology Ancient American Archaeology and Linguistics Los Lunas Decalogue Jaredites: The First Americans The Jaredites were Black The Kinderhook Plates North America’s Lost Archaeology Ancient Scripture Hebrew Ten Commandments Phoenician Ten Commandments Greek Beatitudes A New Translation of Isaiah Commentary Honesty in Translations The Origin of Nations Chronology of the Scriptures The Seventy Nephi's Psalm Units of Time Linguistic Hoaxes The Michigan Tablets Burrows Cave Wisconsin Cuneiform Voynich Manuscript |
Egyptian Hieroglyphics David Grant Stewart, Sr. © 2006-2008 Shortfalls
of Egyptology In
their earliest forms, Sumerian, Egyptian, and Phoenician are all the same
language, which I will demonstrate in future installments. Yet the modern fields of Egyptian
hieroglyphics and Sumerian cuneiform need an overhaul. Here’s why: 1. In 1930, L.A. Waddell observed:
"Egyptian hieroglyphs are a slightly modified conventional form of the
Sumerian diagrammatic picture-writing which came into use during the rule of
Menes and the 1st dynasty pharaohs; they have the same phonetic values as
their parent picture-signs in the Sumerian." [L.A. Waddell, Egyptian Civilization Its
Sumerian Origin And Real Chronology, Luzac & Company, 1930, preface]. Mapping
early hieroglyphics back onto Sumerian is essential to restore the correct sounds
and meaning to the earliest form of Egyptian. Yet little has been done on
this foundational task. Cyrus Gordon lamented: "…
even among the senior citizens of academia it is exceedingly hard to find
anyone well-versed in both cuneiform and Egyptian. Since those two fields
remain the cornerstones of our topic, the limitation is serious." [Forgotten
Scripts, Cyrus H. Gordon, 1987, page x.]
Sixty-seven years earlier, the noted Egyptologist E.A. Wallis Budge
had observed that “the Semitic scholars who have written about it have lacked
the Egyptological knowledge necessary....and the Egyptologists, with the
exception of the lamented Burchardt, have no adequate knowledge of Semitic
languages and literature” (Sir E.A.
Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, Dover reprint, 1978
[original 1920] Vol. I, p. lxv). The German Egyptologist Erman “pointed out
in a systematic manner the details of Egyptian grammar that have their
counterparts in the Semitic languages” as well as vocabulary (op cit., p. lxvii),
although Erman’s work was highly incomplete.
Budge attempted to further comment on this relationship, although he
acknowledges that his own knowledge of the Semitic languages is limited. From Budge’s time to Gordon’s, few steps
had been taken to remedy this deficiency. As Cyrus Gordon came very close
to saying, knowledge of Sumerian (the earliest cuneiform language,
non-Semitic) and Akkadian cuneiform (Semitic) are necessary to understand
Egyptian, and vice versa. Yet as both Gordon and Budge
acknowledged, practically no one in the world is simultaneously skilled in these
languages. Knowledge of a great many
languages is essential to the restoration of the earliest forms of both
Egyptian and Sumerian. I noted this once again as I was
recently perusing an Egyptologist’s analysis of Facsimile Nº 2. He stated
that the four baboons were lifting up their hands basking in the radiance of
the sunlight. I have yet to find a single Egyptologist over the last two
hundred years who has a clue as to the correct meaning of this hieroglyph.
The upraised hands in any hieroglyph, e.g. ed etc., always
means some form of the verb “pray.” This illustrates the truth of what Cyrus
Gordon lamented as a serious limitation, that Sumerologists do not know
Egyptian, and Egyptologists do not know Sumerian. This would be perfectly
obvious to any Sumerologist (provided of course that he discovered that
Sumerian and Egyptian in their earliest forms were the same language, which
none of them have), because the Sumerian expression for “pray” is < -
wouldn’t you know it; the second character is not in any of my fonts. Let’s
see if I can synthesize it: @B// but with
the B on the other side of the /, B/, so that the
full expression is roughly <@B//, which is
pronounced 2. Essentially the whole structure of Egyptology is built
upon what the great scholar Cyrus Gordon himself calls the "impoverished
Coptic language," which is correct. Scholars
simply do not know that the much richer language, Sanskrit, is the direct
descendant of ancient Egyptian hieratic, let alone becoming familiar with
what it has to contribute. I will prove this assertion with countless worked
examples as we go along. The Devanagari script is nothing more or less
than hieratic rotated 90° with a line written over it. Sanskrit is the direct
descendent and closest language on the earth to ancient
Egyptian. Furthermore, knowledge of Arabic is essential to understanding
Egyptian hieratic and hieroglyphic.
Many of the rules are the same. For example, I could not
have discovered the name Japheth unless I had known that the final H in
Arabic is identical to TH. 3. Languages change over
time. Egyptologists extrapolate the
sounds and meanings of hieroglyphs of late Ptolemaic Egyptian onto writings
dating nearly 2000 years earlier without accounting for linguistic
change. For instance, the quail chick
hieroglyph E is
read by all scholars as having a U or W sound. This is correct for Ptolemaic
Egyptian. Yet in earlier times, this
hieroglyph had an “M” sound. Many
characters originally had a matrix of sounds and meanings, the expression of
which depended on grammatical rules.
Late Egyptian took only one sound and meaning for each hieroglyph,
losing much of the richness and power of the early language. Egyptologists fail to account for the
existence of linguistic changes in sound and meaning over time, much less
understand what the changes consist of. In the introduction to his hieroglyphic dictionary, E.A.
Wallis Budge noted: “In the transliterations of the Egyptian words in this
dictionary, I have followed the order of the letters of the Egyptian words,
but I cannot think that these transliterations always represent the true
pronunciation of the words” [p.lvii].
He then provides many examples of likely inadequacies in the
pronunciation of hieroglyphs based on Coptic equivalents, but does not even
attempt to address the much more substantial issue of change in sound and
meaning of some hieroglyphs between early hieroglyphic writing (2200 BC) and
the late Ptolemaic era (1st century BC). With the knowledge that the earliest forms of Egyptian and
old cuneiform are closely related but that late Egyptian and late Semitic
languages bear far less resemblance, can you see the fallacy of failing to
account for changes in the pronunciation and meaning of hieroglyphs over a
period of two millennia? 4.
Lack of original scholarship and attribution.
The older Egyptologists, especially E.A.
Wallis Budge, were better translators of Egyptian hieroglyphics than any of
the academic Egyptologists in the second half of the twentieth century. I
have cited Budge’s translations and those of more recent, highly respected Egyptologists
and followed them by my own translations so that you can judge for yourself
(see http://72languages.com/hallofjudgment.php). Later Egyptologists often take earlier ones
word for word, perpetuating earlier misidentifications while often failing to
translate the original characters for themselves (see “The Four Sons
of Horus” and other examples below).
Egyptologists often fail to follow their own rules. Cowpathing, or mindless repetition of the
pronouncements of predecessors (all the while criticizing the same as
obsolete!) is widespread, and unforgivable blunders are perpetuated, as I
will demonstrate. I own
several grammars of the Coptic language. One of them is modestly entitled
"Sketch of Coptic Grammar" by William B. MacDonald, 5. The
most comprehensive dictionary ever made of Egyptian hieroglyphics (Wörterbuch
der Ägyptischen Sprache, by Adolf Erman) is now out of print. This does
not speak well of the present state of the field of Egyptology. 6. All Egyptologists and
Sumerologists labor under the fundamentally backward assumptions of the
religion of Darwinian evolution. They do not find the ancient languages to be
highly advanced because they are trained not to expect it, let alone look for
it. Coptic has been and extrapolated backwards beyond justification, exactly
as The boring documents - sheep
counts and inventories of sacrifices to idols and divinations from animal
entrails - are the only things scholars can read correctly. The really
interesting scientific and historical records are so poorly translated that
they read like fairy tales. There are
countless ancient records which reveal a great deal of information which the
world has not had for thousands of years because they have not been
translated correctly. I have found Joseph's tomb in Champollion: obsolete or simply forgotten? Almost
all Egyptologists mention Champollion, but given the cowpathing I have seen,
I find myself wondering who has actually read his work. It is commonly
mentioned that Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs in the 1820s and published
his book in 1830. My copy says it was finished (after his decease) by his
brother in 1836 but the book itself states that the printing of it was not
completed until 1841. Surely someone
must have translated Champollion’s landmark book into English, but I have not
been able to confirm the existence of an English edition in print. The two
complaints I have against it are (1) he ought to have given Thomas Young the
due credit for convincing him of the 180-degree error of his views prior to
Young’s discoveries (as Sir Alan Gardiner noted above), and (2) he ought to
have transliterated the Coptic he uses to save the reader that trouble.
Notwithstanding, I found his book to be perhaps the most interesting of any
Egyptian grammar ever written in any language, so it is a great surprise to
me that it is not used by anyone today that I am aware of. As
an example of this, I have not seen any Egyptian grammars that do more than
mention in passing the color coding of Egyptian hieroglyphs, whereas Champollion
does an exhaustive job of it. From
Grammaire Egyptienne, ou Principes Généraux de l’écriture sacrée égyptienne
appliquée a la représentation de la langue parlée, par Champollion le jeune;
publiée sur le manuscrit autographe, par l’ordre de M. Guizot, ministre de
l’instruction publique, Paris, typographie de firmin Didot frères,
MDCCCXXXVI, pp. 7-8. My translation into English: "Here are the general notions we have picked up by
observation, on the use of colors in hieroglyphic writing. Their application
to the sacred characters took place according to two slightly differing
systems: according to whether it involved painting or large scale sculptures
in public monuments, or even small scale hieroglyphs, which were drawn only
as sketches, and with black or red ink, on the sarcophagi, stelae, and other
monuments of this lower relief kind.
In the first system, applicable only to large scale sculptured
characters, it was sought, by flat tints, to recall more nearly the natural
color of the objects represented: thus, the characters representing the sky
were painted blue (1); the ground in red (2); the moon in yellow (3); the sun
in red (4); water in blue (5) or in green (6). The figures of men standing
are painted on the large monuments according to rather constant rules: the
skin is more or less dark red; the hair is generally blue, and the tunic
white, the folds of the drapes being indicated by red lines. Yellow skin is
ordinarily given to female figures, and their clothes vary from white, to
green, and red. The same rules are followed in the coloring of hieroglyphs
drawn small on the stelae, the sarcophagi and coffins; but the clothes are
all green. In all cases, if the hieroglyphic signs recall the forms of
different members of the human body, they are always painted in a red color,
as well as certain members of animals, such as the head of a calf, the thigh
of an ox, and the sides of one or the other of these quadrupeds presented as
an offering." He further observed: "Wood objects are painted
yellow." "Bronze tools are painted
green." “On small monuments the color
code is not always strictly observed.” "The color blue is
particularly reserved to geometric shapes and to building plans." [The original blueprints!] "Pictures of buildings sculpted
on a large scale, are almost always of a white color, as if to indicate the
pale tint of sandstone and limestone." "Various colors are given to
vases, the series of which is quite numerous among the sacred characters; the
different tints indicate the material of each kind of vase." "Those whose purpose was to
contain solid matter, such as bread, meat, fruit, etc., were of terra cotta
and are consequently painted red." “Vases of bronze are painted
green; objects of iron are painted red, such as war chariots, sabers,
etc." "Finally, vases of glass, of enamel, or of enameled
earthenware, suitable for containing liquids, have their upper part painted
blue, the color of the glass or of the enamel, and the lower part of red, to
indicate either the liquid or the transparency of the vase." Champollion observed that this is not a matter of taste in
decor, but each color has actual linguistic significance according to a code
which is strictly observed in all cases.
Champollion also pointed out that all Egyptian hieroglyphs are graphic
representations of actual objects existing in nature. You can consult or download your
own copy of Champollion’s landmark masterpiece at this website: http://efts.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/eos/eos_title.pl?callnum=PJ1135.C45
. It is of
course in early nineteenth century French. More
Errors in Egyptology Egyptology seems to have been at
its peak at about 1875, as a comparison of historical
translations suggests. It is fashionable among Egyptologists to pooh-pooh
the work of Sir E. A. Wallis Budge as obsolete, but I have found his
translations more accurate and honest than anything done since his time. Errors and absurdities occur repeatedly in
the way Egyptian is taught. For example, Gardiner says that the Egyptian word
for "thirst" [d is pronounced IB
[Egyptian Grammar, Sir Alan Gardiner, editions 1927, 1950, 1957, 1964, 1966,
1969, 1973, Griffith Institute, London. p. 50]. This is a little bit absurd,
seeing that the following three wavy line hieroglyph d for "water"
is ignored. IB [refers
to the heart and actions of the heart - love, wish, desire, want. The correct
expression is [d IB-MU, "want-water." That’s
thirst. Gardiner also says that the three
hieroglyphs for “south wind” should be pronounced “RSW” [op. cit., p. 61] yet
this is nothing more than the plural [-W] of “south” [RS].* The hieroglyph for
wind is ignored in the transliteration accepted by Egyptologists. Somebody
needs to ask, How, then, did the Egyptians distinguish between “south” and
“south wind” in the spoken language? It would require incredible sophistry to
answer that without admitting that, gee whiz, maybe we ought to pronounce the
hieroglyph for “wind” also, just like the one for “water” in “thirst,” and
the N in SATAN [that is not, and never was, SET or SETH]. *This is by the way the ancestor
of the Romance word for south, SUR [Spanish], complete with its alternate
dialectical reading in Egyptian, SUL [Portuguese]. RS or Res (south) is the
same root that is translated by Budge as Restau in the Book of the Dead and
which I have corrected as “the land south” (RES = south, TA or TAU = land). Gardiner shows the two
hieroglyphs for “man” with an unjustified infixed M [op. cit., p.61] and
selects the wrong sound for the first hieroglyph, reading as REMETH, “man”,
what should in fact be read as LUDHI, Mankind, people (see also the discussion
of the Egyptian R-L transformation). I have already demonstrated hat this is
the ancestor of the Russian, German, and Anglo-Saxon word for people or
mankind, with its singular LU being the language of Adam word for person. The correct reading for Gardiner’s
"IAH (‘yaeh’)" [in loc. cit.] is - well, I’ll give that later, but
it refers to the earth, not the moon, as I will demonstrate. Joseph in Now I’m going to explain a fundamental problem with
Egyptology with a very simple example. Here is a color photograph taken
inside what every scholar in the world calls the tomb of Zoser (Dzoser,
Joser) at Saqqarah on the West Bank of the Nile in Now look carefully at the hieroglyphs going down each
door post of the false door. You should be able to make out these four
hieroglyphs repeated in succession going down both sides: ZKO|||| Every Egyptologist in the world will tell you that this
is the tomb of King Zoser or Dzoser. Every Egyptologist in the world will tell you that this
tomb is the oldest tomb in Every Egyptologist in the world will tell you that these
four hieroglyphs are pronounced NETERIKHEBIT or something close to that. Every Egyptologist in the world will tell you that this
is the "Horus" name of King Zoser. No Egyptologist will assign any translated meaning to the
Horus name. After all, what’s in a name? A rose by any other ... Every Egyptologist in the world will tell you that this
pyramid was built in the year 2660 B.C. All of which tells you precisely nothing. The first hieroglyph Z, which
is sometimes called an axe by Egyptologists, can be transliterated NETER
[they get that right] but may also be read in the opposite direction, as can
many characters. In this sense it
carries the idea of saving and is preserved in the German RETTEN, "to
save," and Ukrainian ратунек
(“ratunek”), salvation. The second hieroglyph, the mouth K, which Egyptologists
incorrectly render transliterate as R, is pronounced “PHA” and means “King,”
just as in the word Pharoah. The third hieroglyph O, usually represented by a guttural sound, should be
transliterated HAMET and means “The The fourth hieroglyph, |||| (four
vertical lines) which again, no Egyptologist transliterates or translates
correctly, is correctly read JOSEPH [Egyptologists read it BIT, BATAU or some
variant with those consonants]. This is the same fellow we meet up with in
the so-called "Tale of Two Brothers" which is in fact [when
translated correctly] the account of Joseph and Potiphar. The tomb was built after all of the great Pyramids. The tomb was built in the year 1544 B.C. So what is wrong with Egyptology? Nothing -- as long as
you stick with the Ptolemaic period from which it was derived from Coptic. To read hieroglyphs correctly from the period of this
tomb, however, requires a little more homework. In future installments, I
will demonstrate the corrections that need to be made and provide worked
examples in addition to indicating the etymologies of these corrections
throughout the languages of the world. The earliest “names of pharaohs” in rectangles found in
the hieroglyphs such as “Neterkhebit” for “Zoser” are not names at all. They
are statements of the most distinguished accomplishments of the king in
question, as for “Zoser” [Joseph], “the king who saved When I was in high school, the pyramid of “Zoser” was
claimed to have been built approximately 4000 BC. Now, archaeologists claim that the pyramid
was built in approximately 2600 B.C.
They have come approximately two-thirds of the way to a correct
dating: their beliefs have changed, and mine have not. Some scholars, such as Herman L. Hoeh, have
been astute enough to date Zoser and Joseph as contemporaries. The pyramid of
Zoser (Joseph) is the only stepped pyramid in The discovery of Joseph’s tomb at Saqqara also provides a
link between the pyramids of the The Coptic Foundation of Egyptology Here is the Coptic alphabet and
its equivalents that we recognize. These are from Champollion, p.34, except
where noted otherwise. Upper case Lower case Name Pronunciation American English equivalent Numeral* A a Alva Alpha a 1 B b Bida Bhda** Vida, Beta* b, v v between 2 vowels** 2 G g Gamma Gamma g, gh 3 D d Dalda Delta** Dalda, Delta* d 4 E e Ei Ei e, short a 5 G** g** Go** So** s** 6 Z z Zida Zhta* Zida, Zeta* z 7 H h Hida |hta** Hida Heta** i, ai, ei 8 Q q Qida Qhta* Thida Theta th 9 I i Iauda Iauda i 10 K k Kappa* Kabha k 20 L l Laula Lauda** Laula Lauda** l 30 M M Mi Mi m 40 N n Ni Ni n 50 { [ {i Xi x, ks 60 O o O O short o 70 P p Pi Pi p, b 80 R r Ro Ro r 100 C c Cima Sima s 200 |
