ber of people who belong to this division are not reliable. A
common number oft en cited is 200,000. Two small pockets
of speakers from this speech community are found in central
Tanzania. Th e presence of these two isolated pockets, known
as Hatsa and Sandawe, has led many linguists and anthro-
pologists to hypothesize that much of southern Africa was
once populated in much larger numbers by the Khoisan. Th e
same theory claims that migrations southward by speakers
of Bantu languages absorbed the vast majority of this popu-
lation, in other words, migrations Bantuized and otherwise
marginalized them geographically.
It is popularly held that there are “thousands” of Afri-
can languages; however, this widely held impression is exag-
gerated. Early and diverse missionaries gave the languages
they came across diff erent names. Colonial administrators
repeated the diverse naming practice. Th e native speakers
of the languages themselves had their own names for their
languages. Oft en the diff erences were due to legitimate com-
munity or clan territorial imperatives. Consider the two
examples given earlier: Fula, Fulani, Pular, Pulaar, and Ful-
fulde, on the one hand, and, on the other, Mandinka, Mand-
ing, Mandingo, Madinka, and Maninka. Five names are cited
for one and the same language in each case, creating a 5 to
1 ratio. If we were to take a popularly exaggerated fi gure of
3,000 African languages and apply an admittedly unscientifi c
ratio of 5 to 1, the result would be 600. Th is may well be at
the low end of possible numbers; nevertheless, it is a more
rational number.
EGYPT
BY LEO DEPUYDT
Th e language of ancient Egypt was Egyptian. Th at language
has died out, and modern Egyptians speak Arabic. Along
with related languag es in western Asia and northern Africa,
Egyptian forms the family of Afro asiatic lan guag es. Other
branches of this family are Semitic and Berber. Among the
members of the Semitic branch are Akkadian, Arabic, and
Hebrew, but Egyptian is the only language in its branch.
Egyptian was both written and spoken for over 4,000
years, from about 3000 b.c.e. to about 1500 c.e. Th at makes
Egyptian the oldest known written language. During these
four millennia Egyptian changed greatly, just as any language
does. Th e fi ve stages usually distinguished in Egyptian, along
with approximate dates for the time periods from which writ-
ten sources exist, are Old Egyptian (2500–2100 b.c.e.), Mid-
dle Egyptian (2100–1500 b.c.e.), Late Egyptian (1500–1000
b.c.e.), Demotic (650 b.c.e.–500 c.e.), and Coptic (300–1000
c.e.). Th e word Coptic (CCpt) is another form of the word
Egyptian (gCpt). Literacy was probably always the privilege of
a small group of people. Only about 1 percent (but probably
less) of the Egyptian population had some degree of literacy
at any given time in Egyptian history.
Egyptian evolved by countless infi nitesimally small
leaps. At certain intervals the language would be fi xed in writ-
ing while the spoken language gradually changed. As time
passed, the gap between the written language and the ever-
evolving spoken language grew. Aft er some centuries the gap
was so large that the current written language was abandoned
and the language spoken at the time was committed to writ-
ing. Th is process repeated itself more than once. In principle,
there are no “stages” of Egyptian. Th e stages identifi ed by his-
torians amount to a sort of deception caused by the surviving
evidence: written testimonies providing frozen snapshots of
the evolving spoken language at certain moments in time. In
reality, language change is a continuous process.
One typically begins a study of Egyptian by focusing on
one stage. Th e stage traditionally chosen is Middle Egyptian,
which is also called Classical Egyptian, for two main reasons.
First, it is the fi rst stage of Egyptian in which great works of
literature were written. Second, when Middle Egyptian ceased
being spoken, it remained in use as a literary and liturgical
language by scribes in temples and schools. As a dead stage
of the language, Middle Egyptian coexisted with later spoken
stages. Th is written or artifi cial Middle Egyptian diff ers from
the original spoken Middle Egyptian in that the later spoken
stages infl uenced the written form, and Egyptians in later
years lacked suffi cient knowledge of Middle Egyptian to keep
the written form static.
Th e three main types of hieroglyphic writing are hiero-
glyphic proper, hieratic, and Demotic. Just as handwritten
English diff ers from printed English, hiero glyphs written
with a pen on papyrus diff er from those carved or painted
on tomb walls. Carved or painted hieroglyphs are hiero-
glyphic proper. Hieroglyph is, in fact, Greek for “holy (hiero)
carved character (glyph).” Hieroglyphs written in pen are
called hierat ic. In hieratic, the pictorial character of many hi-
eroglyphs has become unrecognizable. Hieratic is Greek for
“(script) of the priests.” Saint Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–
ca. 211 c.e.) gave it this name around 200 c.e. because hieratic
was used at the time for religious purposes only. Demotic,
which evolved from hieratic, is evident from about 650 b.c.e.
onward. Demotic is Greek for “(script) of the people (demos).”
Demotic evolved from hieratic. Th is form is even more cur-
sive than hieratic and is used to write the fourth stage of the
language, which is also called Demotic. Demotic is therefore
both a script and a stage of the language.
Hiero glyphic proper and hieratic script remained in use
alongside the Demotic script, mainly for ceremonial and reli-
gious purposes. In sum, Old and Middle Egyptian were writ-
ten in hiero glyphic proper and in hieratic. Late Egyptian was
written mainly in hieratic. Th e Demotic language was writ-
ten almost exclusively in the Demotic script. Finally, modern
Egyptologists write hieroglyphic proper with a pen. Th at is
some thing Egyptian scribes rarely did, since hieroglyphic
proper was carved with a chisel or painted with a brush. To
write hieratic, however, scribes typically used pens.
Th e last specimens of hieroglyphic writing date to about
450 c.e. Th e hieroglyphic tradition had been in strong de-
cline since about 150 c.e. Between 200 and 300 c.e. the Greeklanguage: Egypt 611