E. A. Wallis Budge - First Steps in Egyptian Hieroglyphics: A Book for Beginners

A BOOK FOR BEGINNERS. E. A. WALLIS BUDGE DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
MINEOLA, NEW YORK Bibliographical Note This Dover edition, first published in 2003, is an unabridged republication of First Steps in Egyptian: A Book for Beginners, originally published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trbner & Co., Ltd., London, in 1895. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Budge, E. A.

Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis), Sir, 18571934. First steps in Egyptian hieroglyphics : a book for beginners / E.A. Wallis Budge. p. cm. Originally published: First steps in Egyptian : a book for beginners.

London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trbner & Co., 1895. eISBN 13: 978-0-486-14657-7 1. Egyptian languageGrammar. 2. Egyptian languageReaders. 3.

Egyptian languageWriting, Hieroglyphic. I. Title. PJ1135.B83 2003
493'.182421dc22 2003062552 Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501 I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK TO SIR FRANCIS W. C. M. M.

G., SOLDIER AND ARCHAEOLOGIST, AS A MARK OF SINCERE GRATITUDE AND ESTEEM.

Thus there has grown up around the subject a large and scattered literature which the beginner cannot penetrate alone without loss of time. The following pages have been drawn up with the view of helping the beginner to take his first steps in Egyptian. In brief, they contain a sketch of the commonest and most useful facts connected with the writing and grammar, short lists of the signs and determinatives which occur most frequently, a short vocabulary of about five hundred common words, a series of thirty-one texts and extracts, with interlinear transliteration and word for word translation, which belong to the period that lies between B.C. 4200 and 200, and a few untransliterated and untranslated texts, with glossary, to be worked out independently. The Introduction is intended to enable the beginner to use with advantage and with little loss of time any of the grammars which he will find in English, French and German, and it is hoped that the frequent examples of words in it will make him familiar with the use of the alphabetic and syllabic signs and determinatives. The hieroglyphic texts which follow the Introduction include examples of the chief divisions of Egyptian literature, historical, funeral, religious, moral, mythological, etc., and the aim has been to give passages which are at once interesting and complete in themselves.

The translations have been made as literal as possible. To learn the hieroglyphic characters and words the beginner is recommended to write them out frequently. Nothing will help him so much in this direction as copying inscriptions, and nothing will teach him the values of the signs and the meanings of determinatives and words so well as constant practice in writing and reading texts. He should note, too, that a few new words learnt correctly each day will, in a short time, enable him to read new texts. E. A.

WALLIS BUDGE. London, August 31, 1895.

THE first decipherer who succeeded in assigning correct values to any of the Egyptian picture signs or hieroglyphics was Dr. Thomas Young, who already in 1818 had given to six Egyptian decipherment modified them in such a way that their original forms had disappeared some thousands of years before Christ, the Egyptians preserved the original forms of their picture signs from the time of the first historical king Men to the period of the rule of the Roman Emperors, that is to say for a space of about five thousand years. Great antiquity of picture writing. Permanence of hieroglyphic characters.