Egyptian Language: Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics

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Summary: egyptian language: easy lessons in egyptian hieroglyphics
Review: Fantastic material, great examples. Highly reccomend. Book was in great condition.

Rating:
Summary: egyptian language: easy lessons in egyptian hieroglyphics
Review: Fantastic material, great examples. Highly reccomend. Book was in great condition.

Rating:
Summary: A very bad book for beginners
Review: I bought this book with the hope that having a background in Latin and both Homeric and Attic Greek would help me get through any deficiencies in the text. Boy, was I wrong.

It's a very bad sign when a language text doesn't even touch upon the verb until chapter IX, only then to tell the stubborn reader who made it that far that "in the limits of this little book it is impossible to set before the reader examples of the use of the various parts of the verb, and to illustrate the forms of it which have been identified with the Infinitive and Imperative moods and with participial forms."

A paradigm of verb endings is provided (surprisingly enough), but it uses a different verb to illustrate each ending, and is rather buried in the text. The concepts are tricky, and very little is done to clarify them (for instance, citing examples of potential similarities with Hebrew doesn't help me). I like the fact that there are excerpts from actual texts to practice on, but since I never actually managed to acquire any skills, I couldn't exactly practice on the sentences provided.

I sincerely hope that students who are interested in learning ancient Egyptian by themselves won't waste their time with this book as I did.

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Summary: high culture
Review: I do not agree with the belittleling views of some academic high brows about the books of Mr. Budge. I own almost whole collection of his works. In a surprising short time, I acquired a wealth of knowledge about this mind boggling culture and also learned to read ancient egyptian scriptures.I recommend to my egyptolover friends also to buy the dictionaries of Mr.Rainer Hannig. Unfortunately one should know german to make use of it in a more handy way.

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Summary: Great Return on Investment
Review: Ninety years ago E. A. Wallis Budge produced his volume Egyptian Language: Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics with Sign List "to form an easy introduction to the study of the Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions." Budge's Egyptian Language provides a introductory overview of how the hieroglyphic system relates to major categories of Egyptian grammar. Budge's presentation can be grasped by most seventh graders. The hieroglyphic type fonts used through out the work are excellent and a great aid to the total novice. The grammatical aspects are richly illustrated with interesting samples of text passages taken from ancient Egyptian sources. If the reader pays careful attention to the material Budge presents she may be delighted at to find she has acquired some ability to cope with the reading passages provided at the end of the text.

Egyptology has made great progress over the last century, yet Budge's Egyptian Language still provides a great bang-for-the-buck for untrained readers who are interested in ancient Egyptian writing. It is an interesting example of turn-of-the-century scholarship trying to extend itself to the general public. And I think even nine decades later, the interested public can still benefit from it today.

Rating:
Summary: Great Return on Investment
Review: Ninety years ago E. A. Wallis Budge produced his volume Egyptian Language: Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics with Sign List "to form an easy introduction to the study of the Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions." Budge's Egyptian Language provides a introductory overview of how the hieroglyphic system relates to major categories of Egyptian grammar. Budge's presentation can be grasped by most seventh graders. The hieroglyphic type fonts used through out the work are excellent and a great aid to the total novice. The grammatical aspects are richly illustrated with interesting samples of text passages taken from ancient Egyptian sources. If the reader pays careful attention to the material Budge presents she may be delighted at to find she has acquired some ability to cope with the reading passages provided at the end of the text.

Egyptology has made great progress over the last century, yet Budge's Egyptian Language still provides a great bang-for-the-buck for untrained readers who are interested in ancient Egyptian writing. It is an interesting example of turn-of-the-century scholarship trying to extend itself to the general public. And I think even nine decades later, the interested public can still benefit from it today.

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Summary: This is no way to learn a language
Review: The best part of this book is the beginning, where Budge traces the history of the Egyptian language and then its decipherment. All of these chapters are very interesting and informative. If you want to get a good picture of what the state of Egyptology was in the 1930's, then this is not a bad book for that, although the historical information is rather abbreviated compared to an actual history book.

Which isn't surprising, given that this book's main purpose was allegedly to teach the ancient Egyptian language. Unfortunately, the field wasn't thoroughly developed when Budge wrote this book, so any new student would be better off reading a newer work. And, while I can't speak for others, I found the information poorly organized and impossible to learn from.

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Summary: Obsolete, incomplete, and wrong
Review: This book may have some remaining marginal utility for people who just want to learn to write their name in hieroglyphics.

However, if your interest in the Egyptian language runs deeper than that, you will want to pass this one by. Budge uses a system of transliteration that is no longer the standard, and now only found in reprints of books by Budge himself. If you learn it, you will have to unlearn it later on. His presentation of the grammar is also obsolete and incomplete.

More serious students would be better served by Gardiner's -Egyptian Grammar-, or Allen's -Introduction to Middle Egyptian-, or even Mercer's similarly priced paperbacks.

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Summary: Interesting but out of date
Review: This is an interesting introduction to the ancient Egyptian language, but the information in this book is from the early 1900s. Also, Budge has a heavy-handed style of writing that is hard to wade through sometimes. The best thing about this book is that Budge provides lots of extended samples of ancient Egyptian writing, which makes for good reading practice.