Late Egyptian language


Late Egyptian is the stage of the Egyptian language that was written by the time of the New Kingdom of Egypt around 1350 BC – the Amarna Period. Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt and later. Late Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplant Middle Egyptian as a literary language.
Late Egyptian is not descended directly from Middle Egyptian, which was based on a different dialect.

Late Egyptian literature

Late Egyptian is represented by a large body of religious and secular literature, comprising such examples as the Story of Wenamun, the love poems of the Chester–Beatty I papyrus, and the Instruction of Any. Instructions became a popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, which took the form of advice on proper behavior. Late Egyptian was also the language of New Kingdom administration.

Differences between Middle and Late Egyptian

Late Egyptian is not completely distinct from Middle Egyptian, as many "classicisms" appear in historical and literary documents of this phase. However, the difference between Middle and Late Egyptian is greater than the difference between Middle and Old Egyptian. Originally a synthetic language, Egyptian by the Late Egyptian phase had become an analytic language. The relationship between Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian has been described as being similar to that between Latin and Italian.
saw an enormous expansion of its graphemic inventory between the Late Period and the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
Middle Egyptian had a renaissance after the Third Intermediate Period, when it was often used in hieroglyphic and hieratic texts in preference to Late Egyptian.

Grammars