How do I prepare for an Egyptology Major?

nefer
Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:35:09 +0000

I am no egyptologist, so take what I say below with a grain of Nile natron.
Arabic and Egyptian are members of the Afro-Asiatic language family, so both languages share certain grammatical and phonological features not found in other language families. But that’s not saying much. It’s like telling someone who wants to learn English to learn German first because it can help. (And German is far more closely related to English than Arabic is to Egyptian.) The ability to read German and French is essential to egyptology but Arabic is not. Someone who wants to be a specialist of the Egyptian language would study Coptic, a language that actually descended from Ancient Egyptian.

I agree that the book by Collier and Manley is a good suggestion for an easy introduction to hieroglyphs. Allen is difficult for beginners, but it is a standard textbook. With some effort one can go through the book and complete the lessons. I did. It’s a lot easier reading than, say, Alan Gardiner’s book, which used to be the standard textbook until recently. Another reason I recommended Allen’s book is because OP wants to transfer to Brown to study Egyptology. The OP can talk to Prof. Allen for advising and information about Brown’s egyptology department and its curriculum, and perhaps foster a relationship that can help get him/her into the program. Do you not agree?

BTW, “nefer” is an Egyptian word with "e"s standing for the unwritten vowels. No one knows how exactly any Egyptian word was spoken. This is a convention by which Egyptologists pronounce Egyptian words. (The vowel ‘e’ is a poor choice because the original vowel were more likely to have been an ‘a’, ‘u’, ‘o’, ‘i’, than ‘e’)