Customer Reviews

Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs

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2 star:		(1)
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First, a couple of admissions. #1: I'm not an expert on Egypt, nor am I an academic, so I have no professional qualifications to judge this book. But I enjoy learning languages, and I know what works for me. #2: I'm only on lesson 7; I have not worked through the whole book.

This is one of the finest teaching grammars I have ever seen. It consists of 26 lessons, with exercises at the end of each. (The answers to the exercises are given in the back of the book.) The early lessons cover the sounds and the script, and Professor Allen moves on to the grammar beginning with lesson 4. The author does not assume ANY grammatical knowledge on the part of the learner; before getting into the Egyptian forms he explains, for example, what an adjective or an adverb is, and how they are used in English.

Each lesson introduces several related points of grammar, and there are plenty of examples given (Almost all the examples are given in hieroglyphs, with the transcription and a translation.). The short sample sentences at the end of each lesson illustrate and reinforce the grammar from the current lesson, as well as previous ones. And as I said, the answers to the exercises, and translations of all sample sentences are given so you can gauge your progress and understanding. Each lesson ends with a short essay about one aspect or another of the culture of Ancient Egypt. At the rear of the book there is a sign list modelled after Gardiner, and a dictionary of most of the words introduced in the lessons.

This is not "Hieroglyphs for Dummies"; you're going to need a lot of stamina and determination to work through this entire book. (It's a large book; I figure it's going to take me over six months of hard work to get through it, and I'm no slouch.) But if you're seriously interested in the language and culture of Ancient Egypt, and are willing to invest the time and energy, this is the textbook you want.

Allen's grammar of Middle Egyptian is greatly to be commended. Based on a life of scholarship and teaching, his book has much to offer to students, specialists, and anyone who is fascinated -as I am - by the language and culture of Ancient Egypt.

Beginning students will appreciate his explanation of basic grammar, which is much more understandable and thorough than most other textbooks. The exercises, at the end of each chapter, are the best that I have ever seen. Scholars, and advanced students, will be grateful for the detail and completeness of Allen's work.

As one who has read through the book and worked all the exercises, I can recommend it without hesitation as a reference book for scholars, and as a textbook for university students. My only reservation is that the information presented is very detailed and complex, and likely to be overwhelming to a beginner. So, if you are a beginner, I would recommend that you read through an easier book, such as Collier and Manley ("How To Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs"), before you tackle Allen.

Finally, here is a book to replace Gardiner's Grammar as a teaching resource. Dr. Allen presents the current grammatical theories on Egyptian grammar in a logical fashion. His explanations are easy to follow, and he not only includes exercises, but also the answers at the back, a dictionary, and the all-important sign-list. Each chapter features an essay on one facet of the culture of Ancient Egypt which sets the language in context. The importance of this should not be underestimated, for attempting to read another culture's literature, without having a background in their religion, politics, and general world-view is generally futile.

This is however for the serious student of Egyptian, which is not an easy language to learn, particularly on one's own. There are other works available for those who just wish to be able to recognize common expressions on monuments while visiting Egypt. But this will quite likely prove to be the new standard in teaching and learning Middle Egyptian for the specialist and non-specialist alike. The tone is friendly and inviting, and will hopefully introduce many new readers to the wealth of Egyptian texts.

This is the best introduction to Middle Egyptian Available. Written well and easy to follow. this book is for the serious student as well as the amateur. This Book has been waited on by Egyptologists as a source to teach students and is being used to that end. I have Gardiner's work Middle Egyptian Grammar, it is so much more difficult to get a grasp on Hieroglyphs than James P. Allen's Work that it isn't even comparable! Anyone wanting to learn Middle Egyptian, This Is THE Book! don't let anybody tell you differently. Hieroglyphs aren't easy to learn. this is a fact because of so many signs etc. It isn't going to be a walk through the park. that's a fact! there isn't an easy way to learn Hieroglyphs! but this book makes it as easy as it has ever been using any book presently published! The writers insight is wonderful and informative, as well as modern! using all present archeology and conclusions to introduce the student to the exciting world of the Egyptians. i can't recommend this book highly enough! enjoy! and thank you James P. Allen! your efforts are appreciated! this book beats all others. if you want one book to teach you Hieroglyphs, this is it! don't waste your time or money on any other! note: this refers to the paperback version. although this book is good enough to buy the Hardback.

I am writing this review simply to clarify and answer a few of the questions and comments that the previous reviewer had about the textbook.

1) This is a textbook intended for college students and self-study and assumes no previous encounter with English or Middle Egyptian grammar; therefore, as one might expect, the book presents descriptions of nouns, as well as more complicated aspects of grammar such as prospective, subjunctive and relative forms. However, if one is privy to the definitions, than one can simply skip over the descriptions of these grammatical aspects and continue learning Middle Egyptian.

2) Rare usages or unusual translations are covered in the book and although they do not appear in an appendix, they do contain astericks or other diacritics or concise descriptions.

3) Enough examples are provided so that an intelligent person can build upon previous examples and construct the answer to the exercise, similar to a math book that provides some examples and then offers more complicated, but solvable exercises.

4) Although the book does lack grammatical paradigms (mostly since no one really knows what inflections Middle Egyptian contained) and vocabulary lists, it does provide references, a sign list, a dictionary, the answers to the exercises, and an index.

5) The paperback binding is actually quite good. I have used it for a while and, although borrowed from the local library (most of those books are usually mistreated or handled periodically), it has shown little signs of deterioration. More importantly, there is at least a half inch spacial blank gap between any word or hieroglyph at the inner edge any page, making the inner edges easy to read.

6) Although the chapter four essay argues that the "Western notion of religion [...] has seperated religion from spheres of [...] government, social behavior, intellectual pursuits, and science" p.43, it never states that this is how the western notion of religion always viewed and continues to view these concepts. The Egyptian religion embraced most things as the Gods themselves. For example, two people falling in love in Greek and Roman religion was an act of Eros, and love making a gift from Aphrodite; however, an ancient Egypian might argue that two people falling in love and making love is the personification of the love between Osiris and Isis.

That said, this is a wonderful textbook that will leave any serious student or amateur the craving for more since, unfortunately, it does not cover all there is to know about Middle Egyptian. A second step would be to purchase Sir Alan Gardiner's "Egyptian Grammar" a little outdated but unmatched in depth and coverage of Middle Egyptian. His book remains the "BIBLE" of Middle Egyptian of and for most egyptologists.

The main problem with Gardiner is that it presents information but makes little attempt to *teach* it. Data is shown context-free, with no awareness of the common errors likely to be made by students. It's a brilliant piece of work, and it is possible to learn to read hieroglyphs from it, but while it's a fabulous reference work, it's simply not a *teaching* book. It's a magnificent piece of work, but in such need of a pedagogical update as to render it as much a daunting obstacle as a real asset. Granted that learning to read Egyptian hieroglyphs will never be easy, a good teacher can certainly make it easiER.

Allen does it, without sacrificing one scrap of rigor. Allen is the Gardiner grammar written with a desire to actually meet the dedicated, intelligent student halfway. It presents the information with a real sense of ... stepping back first and examining what is about to be presented, for want of a better way of putting it. It places the grammatical rules that it demonstrates in context, and relates them to one another, thus enabling the student to learn the *language* as a coherent, related thing and not simply a list of unrelated rules to be memorized. Most valuably, it also anticipates common errors and corrects them before they have become engrained as habit to the student.

Granted, if the student happens to be gifted with languages and able to contextualize the grammatical and phonological rules themselves, Gardiner is quite adequate. But even a gifted student will appreciate Allen's desire to teach hieroglyphs as a derived whole as opposed to a disjoint set of rules presented rapid-fire like baseballs out of a pitching machine.

Allen is the sort of book that people learn from. Gardiner is the book they buy and use constantly *after* they've learned from Allen.

This superb massive book includes 25 grammar lessons, each alternating with an essay on history, society, chronology, poetry, geography, religion, Maat, literature and much more. Grammatical topics discussed are articles, nouns, pronouns, numbers, adverbs, prepositions, plural, adjective, clauses, participles and several other subjects. The answers to the exercises are provided after the sign list and dictionary. Highly recommended for any serious person interested in reading Egyptian hieroglyphs.

This is a good reference work that contains just about anything you would like to know about Middle Egyptian grammar. The problem is that the book isn't written in a way that is easy for beginners, or even experienced language learners, to follow. The explanations are very dense, and several pages of explanation are usually given before the reader has any chance to practice the concepts. Also, the book is organized in a very traditional, structuralist fashion, with separate lessons devoted to the noun, the adjective, etc. It would be easier to learn the language if the grammatical system were taught in context, i.e., combining vocabulary and grammar in a way that prepares the reader to deal with specific (and hopefully real) ancient Egyptian texts. In short, I'm glad I bought the book because it's a good reference work, but it leaves me wanting much, much more.

Having just finished a year of Middle Egyptian using this book, I can safely say that this book is utterly confusing. I agree with a classmate that Gardiner's Grammar is actually better organized and easier to understand, albeit somewhat outdated in places. I generally found Allen's text to be confusing in almost every chapter. The comparison/contrast of Egyptian and English seems out of place since the two languages are so different. They need to come up with a way to teach this language like a modern language. I can say that my first semester teacher tried to do this with very good results, but not because of this book. Allen's text lacks a vocabulary list in each chapter and the dictionary part needs to be edited to include all parts of speech for the words, and expanded.

My advice is get Collier & Manley's book, a good Coptic book like Coptic in 20 Lessons, and study them before attempting to learn the ancient language using this book. Also, when you do start I would suggest trying out Gardiner's Grammar and Hannig's Worterbuch (dictionary) as the Allen Grammar/Faulkner Dictionary combination can be quite maddening.

Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs (Egyptology: Griffith Institute)

How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-by-Step Guide to Teach Yourself, Revised Edition

Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic with Exercises and Vocabularies

Ägyptisches Wörterbuch 1. Altes Reich und Erste Zwischenzeit.

This book is remarkably thorough and has enough practice exercises to keep a budding egyptologist busy for years. Well-grounded in linguistic theory and including many essays on Egyptian culture and history, this is THE book to buy if you wish to start learning to read Egyptian.