Die Urheimat des Sahidischen

“The homeland of Sahidic”: Almost every region of Egypt has already been suspected to be the original homeland of the Sahidic dialect of Coptic. This paper reviews the various proposals and provides new support for a location in Middle Egypt around Hermopolis. This support comes from localized prosopographical and (to a lesser degree) topographical data, as well as from the hitherto much neglected field of lexical isoglosses or word geography. It is also explained why the evidence of the Sahidic vowel system, which seemed to contradict a Middle Egyptian location, has been misinterpreted in the past.

Egyptian Epigraphic Genres and Their Relation with Nonepigraphic Ones

Given fundamental differences between the inscriptional and noninscriptional realms of written performance in ancient Egypt, several major textual genres are specifically inscriptional in origins and functions (e.g., the nonroyal autobiography and the royal wḏ, “decree” or authoritative pronouncement). This did not preclude productive interactions between the two realms, manifest in secondary epigraphic genres (e.g., “funerary literature,” hymns and prayers, administrative and judicial texts); relations between epigraphic genres and Middle Egyptian literature are productive in both directions. Lapidary inscriptions are defined by their out-of-the-ordinary register, authoritative nature, resultative aspect, and sacralizing force. Characteristic of various epigraphic genres are their relation to the place of inscription, their focus on the (royal or nonroyal) name, and their integration with pictorial representations.

Zur Genese des präteritalen sḏm=f des Neuägyptischen

“Discussions to the Genesis of the Late Egyptian Past sḏm=f” - This article deals with the not finally solved problem of the morphological genesis of the Late Egyptian sḏm=f with past meaning. In part one it is shown that the previous favorite of a coming out from the Middle Egyptian sḏm.n=f, as it was again voted in a specific article by M. el-Hamrawi some years ago, is not very probable. In part two it is suggested that Middle Egyptian past sḏm=f was the antecedent of the Late Egyptian form, but that it was a long time enduring and very complicated process which lead to a withdrawing of the sḏm.n=f, based on an increasing importance of the so-called pseudo-verbal constructions jw=f ḥr sḏm and jw=f r sḏm, on expulsion and merging of several Middle Egyptian sḏm=f forms, phonological change and economical selection, and also that these factors in general were the engine for the change from the Middle Egyptian verbal system to the Late Egyptian system.