First Steps in Egyptian: a Book for Beginners

Abstract

A REVIEW of a book dealing with the laws and structure of language may perhaps at first sight appear out of place in a journal devoted to science. A moment's consideration, however, will convince the reader that the book, the title of which stands at the head of this column, may be regarded as an exception to the rule. Very little was known of ancient Egypt until, at the beginning of the present century, the genius of Young and of Champollion led to the decipherment of the native inscriptions. Since that time, however, Egyptology has attracted many workers, and to the results that have followed the first decipherment the student of anthropology is perhaps even more indebted than the philologist; for while the language in itself proved unattractive in conquence of its somewhat chaotic structure, the subject-matter revealed was of the very highest importance. The key to the hieroglyphics, in fact, admitted the anthropologist and man of science to the study of the legends and beliefs, the daily life and customs of a people, whose history commences more than four thousand years before our era.

First Steps in Egyptian: a Book for Beginners.

By E. A. Wallis Budge, Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, and Co., 1895.)