The Two Egyptian Idioms and the “Emphatic” Consonants. by Helmut Satzinger
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1 The two Egyptian idioms and the “emphatic” consonants. By Helmut Satzinger Does Egyptian have emphatic obstruents T and Ç ? General opinion is negative, as may be seen in the following quotations. “All branches except Egyptian exhibit a special set of consonants, besides voiced and voiceless pairs, the 'emphatic' series, realised as pharyngealised (velarised) in Arabic and Berber, glottalised (ejective, explosive) in South Arabian, Ethiopian and Cushitic and glottalised (explosive or implosive) in Chadic; Egyptian, incidentally, also lacked voiced consonants (d stands for /t/, t for /th/, in the standard transliteration) ...” (Comrie Major Languages 548). Or, in the eyes of a more specialised author, viz. Allan R. Bomhard: 1. The earliest Egyptian inherited the triple contrast voiceless aspirated ~ voiced ~ glottalized from Proto-Afrasian. 2. First, the voiced consonants became devoiced. The resulting system had the contrast voiceless aspirated ~ voiceless unaspirated ~ glottalized. 3. Next, the emphatics other than *k’ became deglottalized and merged with the voiceless unaspirated stops ... (Bomhard “Proto-Afrasian Phonology” p. 81; my highlighting.) “First, the voiced consonants became devoiced”: This is against all evidence. Proto- Egyptian *b, *d, *g did not become p, t, k. Rather, Egyptian p, t, k go back to Proto- Egyptian *p, *t, *k. What is true is that Main Stream Egyptian doesn‘t have any voiced stops. But not because they had become devoiced stops, but rather, because they had become voiced continuants: *b > B, *d > ÷, *g > ƒ (?), j.1 Another statement in this context — Petr Zemánek,2 on the emphatic T : “... For Egyptian it is reconstructed in the proto system only by Rössler 1971, whose reconstruction is nevertheless motivated by an obvious effort to postulate a clearly symmetrical system. ... No other analysis of Egyptian phonology includes emphatic T.” When leading Egyptologists used the transcription symbol T around 1860, they did not, however, intend to indicate any “emphatic” articulation, but rather something like “not quite normal t”: … Je ne propose pas de transcrire ` par le d et M. Brugsch y renonce volontiers. Les coptes ont écarté le d grec de leurs radicaux et, d’un autre coté, quand les hiérogrammates 1 Satzinger “Voiced Consonants”. 2 Zemánek Pharyngealization 9. 2 ont voulu transcrire plus exactement l’articulation d, qu’ils rencontraient dans les noms étrangers, ils se sont servis du groupe nt 3. Je préférerais donc ici un T avec le signe d’affaiblissement, en avouant complètement mon impuissance quant a une appréciation plus exacte de la nuance que pouvait représenter le signe `. (de Rougé « Note sur la transcription » 72; my highlighting.) Or Lepsius: Es läßt sich aber in vielen Fällen eine Neigung zur Erweichung des ` nicht verkennen, worauf auch der koptische Name der Hand selbst èiè,4 neben tot5 hinweist. Es scheint daher ganz zweckmäßig zu sein, ` durch T wiederzugeben. [Remarkable the following, H. S.:] Dagegen scheint d dafür zu setzen nicht räthlich, da das koptische Alphabet nie dafür das aus dem Griechischen aufgenommene d gebraucht, und die Schreibung oder für d in fremden Namen wie Darius, Dacicus darauf hinweist, daß die Aegypter diesen einfachen Laut nicht besaßen, sonst würden sie nicht noch das erweichende n vorgeschoben haben. (Lepsius „Über die Umschrift“ 79.) Actually it was until ca. 1900 that Egyptologists transcribed the ` graphemes by T, and even in the third edition of his Ägyptische Grammatik, of 1911, Erman writes (p. 69, § 122): „`, das in den Umschreibungen des n(euen) R(eiches) sowohl f als d wiedergibt, tritt im Kopt. als t auf. Da dieses aus ` entstandene t… vor den betonten Vokalen des Boh(airischen) nicht aspiriert wird, so wird es ein emphatischer Laut, also f, sein.“ Nevertheless, he transcribes it as d. Not long after, it was forgotten that d does not denote a voiced stop in this case. It was only in 1971 that Otto Rössler, as mentioned by Zemánek, revived the old knowledge, by showing that the phoneme in question is emphatic, rather than voiced.6 The voiced counterpart, on the other side, had mutated to a laryngeal, ‘. This phonetic 3 In the fotnote: « Il parait en effet, par des exemples, tels que Mendes et Zbendetes, que l’n, précédant t, l’a- doucissait en d. » 4 Today we can safely state that this Coptic word for “hand” has no etymological connection with any word with d; the first consonant, q [kj], of its Upper Egyptian form qiè, points unequivocally to an original velar plosive that was later palatalised. 5 Bohairic tot_, Upper Egyptian toot_ (pre-pronominal state), from Egyptian Dr.t (čá’t- < čárt-). 6 Rössler „Das Ägyptische.“ 3 value is evidenced by Egyptian renderings of Canaanite words and names, like ki-n-‘anV “Canaan” /unk; ‘a-ga-r-tV “wagon” hlgu > aqolte,). In respect to the Egyptian t graphemes, evidence is not so clear: they are used to render both d and T of Semitic words and names. The Egyptian language of the 3rd millennium BC and later existed in two idioms (if not more): one conservative, one progressive. An exemplary distinguishing feature are two phonetic developments, or sound shifts, that affected one of them (let’s call it “the Progressive”), though not the other one (hence, “the Conservative”): 1. In the Progressive Idiom, an R/L sound became a glottal stop [ʔ], or similar; written with the <A> graphemes (implicit also in 2-consonant signs like Aw, Ab, Ax, etc.; aA, bA, pA, fA, etc.). NB. Another /r/ phoneme, rendered by , transcribed as r, was preserved in both idioms, though it became a glottal stop in syllable-final position, as did also /t/: nåçVr > nåtV’ > Coptic n¨t® “god”, though naçårat > natåra’ > Coptic ntør® “goddess”. 2. In the Progressive Idiom, a d sound (in which had merged Afroasiatic *d, *(d)z, *(d)ð, *(d)l, according to Rössler) became a voiced laryngeal [ʕ], or similar; written with the <‘> graphemes (as implicit also in 2-consonant signs like aA, an, aH, etc.; wa, Ha, xa, etc.): transcribing Semitic a in the IInd millennium. What is rendered by <d> is basically an emphatic sound [tÚ] (Rössler, and Schenkel and colleagues following him, consequently transcribe it as T). A number of phonetic root doublets testify to this, like the following. Some are words with A as one of their consonants that have a variant root with n in the place of A. And there are words with a as one of their consonants that have a variant root with d in the place of a. In many cases, the A root is attested earlier In many cases, the a root is attested earlier than the n root. than the d root. 4 HAw “increase” (since Pyr7); var. Hnw,8 aA (since MK), var. an (NK royal tombs); dj variant/doublet of HAw (MK). “here” (< *dA ? — since Amarna).14. bAAw.t “virility” (Pyr & later), of a root bAA aAa “to spew; to ejaculate” (Pyr); dAdA “to “to beget”; bnn “to beget; to become ejaculate” (BD)15; dn “to soak” (OK), “to erect (penis)” (NK); bnnw.t “virility” refill (with water)” (math). (MK). ab (OK), Coptic B àvp “horn”; db (med), Devine name MA-HA≠f, “he who looks Coptic tap “horn”. 16 behind himself” (Pyr), variant - Mn HA≠f abb “to knock (on door)” (since MK); cf. (CT).9 dbdb “to pound (of the heart) (since bAbA (BD; bibi CT) “ to overflow; to be med.)”; base root *db “push”. agitated”; bnbn “to make flow (of the xfa (since Pyr), Sfd “to touch (with Nile); to swell, become erect (Gr); to fingers)”17 (since CT).18 beget; to ejaculate (Gr)”. a, or aj, “arm”, inter alia in m-a “at”, lit. “in gwA “to pull tight” (since Pyr); LEg. gwn(t?), the hand of…”; dj *“hand”, in LEg. m-dj Copt. qooyne “bag”.10 “at”, lit. “in the hand of…”; cf. “gift” gwA (since CT) "to push off (falcon), to set dj (since MR); “five” (since Pyr).19 sail"; cf. Copt. B èvoyn zu SL qvoy dj "push; to (make) set sail".11 DfA “food” (since Pyr),12 and cf. Dfn “provider of food” (Gr) jdAt-HA≠k (since OK), jdnt-HA≠k (since MK), a kind of bread.13 7 Abbreviations: Amarna = Amarna Period (Dyn. 18, NK); BD = Book of the Dead (from NK on); CT = Coffin Texts (Middle Kingdom); Dyn(asty); Gr = Greek Period; LEg = Late Egyptian (from Dyn. 19 on); math = mathematical papyri (from MK on); med = medical papyri (from MK on); MEg = Middle Egyptian (from before MK on) MK = Middle Kingdom; NK = New Kingdom; OK = Old Kingdom; Pyr = Pyramid Texts (OK); ramess = ramesside (Dyn. 19 & 20). 8 Stela Louvre C 167. Cf. Baines “Shipwrecked Sailor” 59 n. 25. 9 Satzinger “Aleph” 200. 10 Osing Nominalbildung II, 778 /A. 964. 11 Osing Nominalbildung II, 778 /A. 964. 12 A probable doublet is xfA.t “meal” (since Pyr; Schenkel „Verschluß- und Reibelaute“ 144). 13 Osing Nominalbildung II, 778 /A. 964. 14 Zeidler, review “Petráček Altägyptisch” 208; Schenkel „Verschluß- und Reibelaute“ 140. 15 Zeidler, review “Petráček Altägyptisch” 208. 5 In other cases, both variants are attested In other cases, both variants are attested at approximately the same period. at approximately the same period. Awr, Awj “to tremble” (since Pyr) (*lwr > aAb (kind of tree; Pyr); dAb “fig”, “fig tree” lwj); nwr “to tremble” (since Pyr).20 (since Pyr)21 znS “to open”, and cf. zAS “to unstop (the Hab in CT II 203 is probably a synonym of ears)” (both in Pyr). Twn, “to gore; to attack”; cf. Hdb “to dAng, dAg (PT), otherwise dng(since OK), overthrow, subdue” (since MK) "dwarf". Aab.t “oppression; damage, impairment” snm “be sad” (since CT); sAm, (since Dyn. 18); cf. ndb “to injure” (Dyn.