Introductons

The people in class studying Middle Egyptian are introducing themselves. Let's peek. It'll help us know who's talking later on. Maybe. Are they like us? Are they all weirdos or what? Why are they even interested? Indulge me, please. Or skip. no offense taken. I realize this is little interest to anyone. I am curious. That's all.


1) I'm an associate professor of history and the humanities at The King's College in New York City. I've been a lifelong Egyptophile and have actually taken a few graduate courses in Egyptology (Amarna Egypt, Egyptian Language and Literature, Ancient Egyptian Art). I teach a humanities course periodically on the history and culture of ancient Egypt as well as one on the Ancient Near East in general.

I worked my way thought much of C&M years ago but have forgotten everything. I'm hoping to get that back with this online class.

I've had the opportunity to audit a few Egyptology classes at NYU with likes of Ann Macy Roth and Ogden Goelet. I periodically toy with the idea of going back to grad school (for fun!) to get an MA in Ancient Near East and Egyptian Studies at NYU. We'll see!
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He forgot? I wonder how that happened. Maybe he was struck on the head, maybe he suffered amnesia. A coma, perhaps. I hope he recovers.

2) I am an American widow, who used to live in St. Petersburg, Russia (5.5 years), Keila, Estonia (3.5 years) and Luxor, Egypt (almost 7 years). I have a B.A. in Mathematics (University of Vermont) and an A.S. in a A.B.A. approved Paralegal Program from the College of the Sequoias in California. I studied Egyptology online through the University of Manchester, while I lived in Luxor, an outstanding place to live to have such a hobby. I earned both the Certificate (a 3 full year course) and the Diploma in Egyptology (a 2 year followup course) from Manchester under from a world famous Egyptologist.

I am now living back in sedate little Barre, Vermont, in the northeastern United States, a very calm place after living through both the Egyptian Revolution and the subsequent military takeover by General Al Sisi after the Muslim Brotherhood President was duly ousted. Haven't studied Egyptology since July 2014 when the Diploma course ended so this should be fun. I look forward to getting to know everyone in the Collier and Manley group.

3) I have been studying hieroglyphs since the late 1990s. I'm looking forward to getting more involved.

4) Oh, and I'm in the CM16 section. And I live in northern VA (DC area), USA.

5) I’d like to hear more about how you integrate Hoch and Allen. I bought Hoch last year at the urging of a languages friend, but soon realized that it was confusing me just as we were going deeper into Allen’s verbs.
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Hahaha, he's British. The other guy's Canadian. They have strange and unusual ways about talking about talking and writing about writing. It's odd, she's studying language but must study how English is spoken about in other English speaking places in order to approach Egyptian that nobody speaks. Keeping a window open and looking up every single English word they use to describe English words is helpful. It all turns out British usage. Or idiosyncratic.

6) Hi Carol, Thoth and Anubis are special in my household for similar reasons. I visited the Sackler Wing of the Met as I was finishing C&M and my husband could hardly drag me past anything because I stood transfixed, muttering to myself – I can read this! I can read this!
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You know, I feel the same way. I look at them in photographs as a muddled damaged blur and then realize, hey Dude, you know these things, get to it, focus, Boy, focus, so I do. And it actually makes sense and I'm all "scared a me, already."

7) I’ve picked up a few phrases here and there, and find myself seeing them all over. But, I am really looking forward to finding myself muttering translations too!

8) …and I have studied Egyptology for 14 years. I took some courses in the religion, history and language of Ancient Egypt at Glasgow University and then joined this group. I am currently studying Hoch, for the second time and have made it through Allen once. I find Hieroglyphs difficult but keep being drawn back to study with this group. I live in Scotland and would love to visit Egypt one day.

It is lovely to work with all of you. Special thanks to our moderators.

9) I am enrolled in the 2016 C&M group. For the past fourteen years, I have lived in Dallas, Texas, where I work for a federal agency. I am not a Texas native; growing up, I moved around a lot and have lived in places as varied as New England and southern California. However, I like living in Texas despite the hot summers and flat landscape. People are friendly and there are many Tex-Mex restaurants. While I do not have children, I own two sweet dogs.

I have always enjoyed both art and history. In particular, ancient cultures fascinate me. I also enjoy traveling. For the past several years, I have been a member of the North Texas ARCE group, which presents several talks a year by Egyptologists. Through these talks, I have been able to pick up some knowledge about ancient Egypt. Four years ago, I visited Egypt. I hope to go again with some of my fellow North Texas ARCE group members in the fall. In the meantime, I remain frustrated by my hieroglyphic illiteracy and would like to learn as much as I can before my next trip.

I have started reading Collier and Manley and working the first few exercises. I am reminded that memorizing is hard work; however, it is exciting to finally be able to sound out a few simple words. I look forward to learning with all of you.

10) I understand about memorizing! Tough!! I have been making flash cards and going over and over them every day. I get a few memorized then try and add more the next day, repeating the cards from the day before. Slow, but I am reminded of the joke… When violinist Jascha Heifetz was asked how to get to Carnegie Hall, he replied with ‘Practice, practice, practice.’ So Erin, and all, I’ll meet you at Carnegie Hall!
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Wanna see my cards? I got thousands of them. Not just words either, phrases, some cards are filled with tiny pictures. Come on, let me show you, then you show me yours. Drawing them is like scratching them into your skull with a dental tool, making the card means making the card useless as a flashcard. They never get looked at again. It's all old stuff by the time you're finished drawing. Flash cards are not flashy, they're boxy. Boxed up tight and never flashed. Showing you will be the only light they see. C'mon, be a sport.

11) aged 58 and live in Sydney, Australia with my husband, five dogs, and have one daughter.

I am really looking forward to participating in the course and learning along the way.

I developed my interest in Ancient Egypt in 2009, and completed a Masters of Egyptology in 2012 at Macquarie Uni. I never felt confident studying hieroglyphics while at uni and now I have the opportunity to start from the beginning and build my confidence as well as rekindle my interest in Ancient Egypt. It is one of my dreams to travel to Egypt but so far I haven't had the opportunity. One day, though!

I am currently studying at Sydney Uni - Masters of Peace and Conflict Studies, am retired, like latin american dancing, reading crime novels, dining out to mention a few things.

I use flash card to help me memorise the alphabet and have found them invaluable!
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They all sound lovely. That's only 11 people though and the list has over 50 names so a lot of people did not respond yet. I bet they will tomorrow. I should have known they'd be real language-y types. I read one page by a guy who uploaded the workbook for the class, a kid who took a Masters course in Egyptian language to get out of real work. I'm assuming.

Found it! [hoch, middle egyptian, kinkos] I think this is funny.

However, at Johns Hopkins, the academic word on the street was to never take a course where the textbook looked like it had been assembled at Kinko’s. Chances were: 

*The subject was too esoteric for a normal human-being to study, leading to:
*The professor having to write the textbook himself, leading to:
*The professor teaching the course from his own textbook, which, through several steps of logic (omitted), nullified the taking of the course altogether. 

Of course, Introduction to Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs had a textbook that looked like it had been assembled at Kinko’s, namely, James Hoch’s Middle Egyptian Grammar. The body text seemed as though it had been written on a circa 1987 word processor (I would find out later that I was lucky the textbook wasn’t hand-written), with complementary 1980s pale blue cardstock on the front cover. Whenever we found something baffling and/or unexplained in this book, we used to joke with our professor that we should “borrow” one of the JHU vans, drive to Canada, and confront Prof. Hoch about it.

He's exactly right. Man, am I ever learning stuff. This guy writes for Huffington Post. He seems to me a little too overly impressed with own academic background. Since he studied Egyptian language he says his acquaintances expect him to expound upon modern Egyptian politics and he is not qualified for that. He gives a sample of the sort of thing he is expert in. His example here at Huffington:

"Whether they see the heavens or whether they see the land, their hearts are as brave as lions," the line reads. In college, it was one of my favorites, mostly because it demonstrated a non-geminating prospective verb being used to convey conditional mood, followed shortly thereafter by a clause containing an r of comparison (I spent a lot of time in libraries as an undergraduate). Later that night, however, I remembered another line, not quite as grammatically robust, but worth revisiting because it seemed to better fit the occasion: Mk wi r nḥm '3.k sḫty ḥr wnm.f šm'.i. Translating from the Middle Egyptian, it reads: Behold! I shall take your donkey, peasant, on account of its eating my Upper Egyptian barley.

Well look at you.

That example is not esoteric. It is forefront in ancient Egyptian literature. Studied by everybody who studies Egyptian language. Studied in bits throughout beginner books by everybody. I have a card with this phrase on it. Wanna see it? I'll dig it out. Or better, just draw it again.

"Non-germinating prospective verb" He's using the language of his master and that is all. He's talking shop in such a way as to exclude us. He's already talking about something remote, he's insisting on talking about it remotely. There is something wrong with this individual and I can tell by this we will not hit it off.

Wikipedia [Conditional mood]

I'm glad he's not part of this class.

He's talking about Egyptian verbs the way Allen speaks of Egyptian verbs in his textbook that is widely studied. He writes in English, but here he is studied in German.

Google translate [Allen follows another and, in my opinion, better approach, which includes f=sDm " Perfective, Imperfective, Subjunctive, Prospective, Prospective Passive, and Passive and (the sDm.n = f) Perfect. A. nonattributive Relative Form" leg " abstract relativische " form) can form by Allen only Perfective , imperfective and Perfect . Because the " nonattributive Relative Forms " are only the form reduced (masculine singular) attributive relative forms that can take a specific function (as noun) in certain syntactic constellations ; et al as thematic verbal form for focusing an other than Rhema functioning set member (so-called. "emphatic design"). Under this approach, no "nonattributive Relative shape" for the future tense can be formed.]

That's the problem with geniuses, they make up their own ways of talking about things and we're all expected to follow their idiosyncratic ways. That's what Allen did. His way of understanding these things is to re-categorize verbs. Now Smarty Pants is writing on Huffington Post referring to Allen as if all this were a normal way of speaking about language and we're all dummkopfs for not knowing what he learned in his little class. That is not a normal way to speak about verbs.

And they hand out PHDs for this crap.

None of the new students answer simply, "So I know what I've been drawing all these years." or "To make sense of my own art I've been doing this whole time." or "I'm curious and that's all."

Through all of this I'm not encountering anyone who simply enjoys drawing them. Is nobody approaching this from art? The fun is in the art. That they convey meaning is wonderful, all well and good but once you see what they're bragging about mostly it's formulaic repetitious b.s.

See, the pictures will show in his example, "Now look: if see heavens they or if see land they hearts lion brave their." With no punctuation. That's what the pictures will show, you see little groups of ligatured signs grouped together, groups of groups, and it is Allen who found his own language in English to describe what he believes is going on and what mood and tense and sense and form and who's doing what to whom. We can understand Allen and go along with him to get through his book and accept his understanding but we needn't take it for, you know, gospel or chiseled in stone and we don't have to end up speaking like him. It's self-alienating.

My online card, not one of my real paper index flashcards: "his donkey filled their mouths with barley"  It's a line in various forms of extant bit of Egyptian literature. (They would not say "Upper Egyptian barley. "That doesn't even make sense. U.E. is added in a textbook as exercise to force students to recognize the various ways to say U.E.)