Customer Reviews

Egyptian Hieroglyphic Reading Book for Beginners

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This book has only one good thing: it gives original texts in hieroglyphics from various periods of Egypt. But, many scholars have found that Budge's system is outdated and unreliable. So, if you can't decipher hieroglyphics, I wouldn't reccomend buying this book. Most of all, he doesn't even give translations for all the texts! He gives 8 out of the 20 scripts in english. Heck, the guy's been dead for 100 years, and we've made new discoveries in deciphering Ancient Egyptian. There are many other authors on hieroglyphics that are much more accurate in their translations. Don't be like me and waste your money on this horrible book.

E.A. Budge was considered a great writer in his day but lately scholars are tending to lean away from his work due to more recent translations that are more accurate that his old ones. If you are looking for a book to learn hieroglyphics from I would try one of the many other ones.

Budge's work is great. Yes, his style of English is out of date and his tranliterations are different. For example, modern writers prefer to transliterate "ntr" as: NEJER or NECHER. Budge uses NETER. Many points of Egyptian grammar remain unclear and much of what passes for "modern translations" are more guess work than actual translations.
The real reason Budge is trashed so often has nothing to do with his translations at all!
After many years of study Budge abandoned the pure assertion that ancient Egypt was a "Oriental" or "Eastern culture".
Years of objective study of the language, religion and customs of the ancient Egyptians led Budge screaming and kicking, I might add, to the realization that the religion of the Egyptians was BLACK AFRICAN, the language was a BLACK AFRICAN language and the customs were purely African. The ancient Egyptians were "African negroes" wrote Budge in several of his later works. In spite of the anti-African racism that we find in his earlier and even his later works, Budge rose above his prejudices and followed where the facts led him: to Black Africa!! Not Asia.
Many modern African scholars have confirmed that the language of ancient Egypt was a "typical Black African language. For example Dr. Theophile Obenga has proven the genetic linguistic relationship between the language spoken by the ancient Egyptians and modern Black African languages. No competent linguist can demonstrate that the language of ancient Egypt has any genetic relationship to the Semitic languages....it can not be done!!!
When you study the language of ancient Egypt you study an ancient Black African language, like it or not!!
In a nutshell, that is the real reason that Budge is so often trashed. His works are old, but his works are very useful and if studied seriously, one can learn to read the language. It is not easy, if you have a talent for languages that will help, in any case, it will be a long hard grind. But well worth it!!!!