The ancient Egyptian language was spoken for more than 4,000 years, longer than almost any other recorded language. It was written in hieroglyphs and in faster scripts, and it survives today in the Coptic language used in Egypt’s churches.
The scripts
Hieroglyphs, which appeared around 3200 BC, combine signs for sounds and signs for ideas. They were used on temple walls and monuments. Scribes writing on papyrus used hieratic, a cursive form of the same signs. From about 650 BC an even faster script, demotic, was used for everyday documents. Finally Coptic, written with the Greek alphabet plus a few extra letters, took over in the Christian period.
Forgotten and rediscovered
The last known hieroglyphic inscription was carved at Philae Temple in 394 AD, and soon after nobody could read the script. The key to understanding it was the Rosetta Stone, found by French soldiers in 1799, which carries the same decree in hieroglyphs, demotic and Greek. Using it, and his knowledge of Coptic, the French scholar Jean-François Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs in 1822.
The language today
Egyptians now speak Arabic, but Coptic is still used in the liturgy of the Coptic Church, and some Egyptian Arabic words come from the ancient language. In Khan el-Khalili you can buy a cartouche with your name in hieroglyphs. Read about ancient Egyptian symbols.
