the history & development stages of ancient Egypt language.

origin of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
      Like most ancient scripts, the origin of Egyptian hieroglyphs is poorly understood. There are, however, several hypotheses that are put forth. one among the foremost convincing views claims that they derive from rock pictures produced by prehistoric hunting communities living within the desert west of the Nile, who were apparently conversant in the concept of communicating by means of visual imagery. a number of the motifs depicted on these rock images also are found on pottery vessels of early Pre-dynastic cultures in Egypt. this is often specially marked during the Naqada II period (c. 3500-3200 BCE). The vessels were buried in tombs, and it's also in tombs of the Naqada III/Dynasty 0 period (c. 3200-3000 BCE) that the earliest securely dated samples of Egyptian hieroglyphs are found.

In Abydos' cemetery U, tomb j, a member of the local elite were buried around 3100 BCE. He was a man of means, probably a ruler, and he was buried with several goods, including many jars, an ivory scepter, and other items. Many of those objects were looted and that we realize them thanks to the approximately 150 surviving labels, which contain the earliest known writing in Egypt.

Material form & use of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The labels found within the Abydos U-j tomb were carved on small rectangles made from wood or ivory with a hole in their corner in order that they might be attached to different goods. Other inscribed surfaces like ceramic, metal, and stone (both flakes and stelae) also are known from early royal tombs.

Papyrus, the chief portable writing medium in Egypt, appears during the primary dynasty (c. 3000-2890 BCE): the earliest surviving example we all know of comes from a blank roll found within the Tomb of Hemaka, a politician of King Den. Egyptian scribes used papyrus and other alternative writing surfaces, including writing boards, generally made from wood. Until the top of the Eighteenth dynasty (1550-1295 BCE), these boards were covered with a layer of white plaster that might be washed and replastered, providing a convenient reusable surface. samples of clay tablets, a well-liked medium in Mesopotamia, dating to the late Old Kingdom (2686-2160 BCE) were found within the Dakhla Oasis, a neighborhood distant from the varied locations where papyrus was produced. Bone, metal, and leather were other sorts of materials used for writing. Surviving inscriptions on leather dating back to the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BCE) have also been found, but the preservation of leather is poor compared to papyrus, so there's no certainty about how extensively leather was used.

The inscriptions found at Abydos display different types of information: a number of them are numbered, others are believed to point the origin of the products, and therefore the most complex show administrative information associated with economic activities controlled by the ruler. In tombs from Dynasty 0, the signs found on pottery and stone vessels (and also on the labels attached to them) were wont to indicate ownership of their content, probably connected with taxation and other data. The signs on pottery vessels become increasingly standardized and since these pot-marks are believed to precise information about the contents of the vessels (including their provenance), this tendency may reflect growth within the complexity of record keeping and administrative control.

Towards the Late Pre-dynastic/Early dynastic transition (c. 3000 BCE), we discover samples of writing within the context of royal art to commemorate royal achievements. during this case, writing is found on ceremonial maceheads, funerary stone stelae, and votive palettes: the function of those items was to honor the memory of the rulers both in terms of the ruler’s achievements during their life and his relationship with the varied gods and goddesses. Around 2500 BCE we discover the oldest known samples of Egyptian literature, the “Pyramid Texts”, engraved on pyramids’ walls, and later, around 2000 BCE, there emerged a replacement sort of text referred to as the Coffin Texts, a group of magical and liturgical spells inscribed on coffins.

development of ancient hieroglyphs.
As Egyptian writing evolved during its long history, different versions of the Egyptian hieroglyphic script were developed. additionally, to the normal hieroglyphs, there have been also two cursive equivalents: hieratic and demotic.

Hieroglyphic
This was the oldest version of the script, characterized by its elegant pictorial appearance. These signs are typically found in monument inscriptions and funerary contexts.

Hieratic

Encouraged by priests and temple scribes who wanted to simplify the method of writing, hieroglyphs became gradually stylized and derived into the hieratic ‘priestly’ script. it's believed that hieratic was invented and developed more or less simultaneously with the hieroglyphic script. a number of the hieroglyphs found in tombs dated to the c. 3200-3000 BCE period were within the sort of royal serekhs, a stylized format of the king’s name. Some serekhs written on pottery vessels had hieroglyphs in cursive format, possibly a premature stage of hieratic. Hieratic was always written from right to left, totally on ostraca (pottery sherds) and papyrus, and it had been used not just for religious purposes, but also for the public, commercial and personal documents.

Demotic.

An even more abbreviated script lacking any pictorial trace referred to as demotic ‘popular’ came in use around the 7th century BCE. The Egyptians called it sekh shat, "writing for documents". With the exception of spiritual and funerary inscriptions, demotic gradually replaced hieratic. While hieratic still carries some traces of the pictorial hieroglyphic appearance, demotic has no pictorial trace and it's difficult to link demotic signs with its equivalent hieroglyph.

legends On the origin of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

According to Egyptian tradition, the god Thoth created writing to form the Egyptians wiser and to strengthen their memory. The god Re, however, disagreed: he said that delivering the hieroglyphs to humanity would cause them to contemplate their memory and history through written documents instead of counting on their actual memories passed down through generations. Writing, in Re’s view, would weaken people's memory and wisdom. Despite the desire of Re, Thoth gave the techniques of writing to a get number of Egyptians, the scribes. In ancient Egypt, scribes were highly respected for his or her knowledge and skill in using this gift of the gods and this position was a vehicle of upward social mobility.

DECIPHERING hieroglyphs.

For many years hieroglyphs weren't understood in the least. In 1798 CE Napoleon visited Egypt with many researchers and that they copied several Egyptian texts and pictures. One year later, the Rosetta stone was found, a decree of Ptolemy V, with an equivalent text written in Greek, demotic and hieroglyphic.

Finally, Jean-François Champollion unraveled the mystery. He identified the name of Ptolemy V written on the Rosetta stone, by comparing the hieroglyphs with the Greek translation. Then, he continued to review the names, using an obelisk from Philae (now in Dorset, England). The obelisk had the name of Ptolemy and Cleopatra written thereon. This made it possible to conclude that the traditional Egyptian hieroglyphic writing was a mix of signals representing sounds, ideas and words, not a standard alphabet. Champollion's achievement in deciphering the Rosetta stone unlocked the key of the traditional Egyptian orthography and allowed the planet to finally read into Egyptian history.

DECLINE OF EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS.

During the Ptolemaic (332-30 BCE) and therefore the Roman Period (30 BCE-395 CE) in Egypt, Greek, and Roman culture became increasingly influential. Towards the 2nd century CE, Christianity began to displace a number of the normal Egyptian cults. Christianized Egyptians developed the Coptic alphabet (an offshoot of the Greek uncial alphabet), the ultimate stage within the development of the Egyptian language, employed to represent their language.

Examples of the complete 32-letter Coptic alphabet are recorded as early because of the 2nd century CE. Its use not only reflects the expansion of Christianity in Egypt but it also represents a serious cultural breakup: Coptic was the primary alphabetic writing utilized in the Egyptian language. Eventually, Egyptian hieroglyphs were replaced by the Coptic script. Only a couple of signs from the demotic script survived within the Coptic alphabet. The written communication of the old gods plunged into oblivion for nearly two millennia, until Champollion’s great discovery