[raoulduke]

I don't understand what this article is. There appears to be no cogent hypothesis or evidence. In the end it seems to be suggesting not (any) linguistic influence on Eurasian languages but rather aesthetic influence of hieroglyphs. That's well established given that the alphabet evolved from a single source and that it's well-established that that source was at least partly* influenced by hieroglyphs; and the earliest evidence for it is at Serabit el-Khadem in Sinai interspersed with hieroglyphic inscriptions (including a bilingual inscription on a sphinx [Sinai 345]).

As I look back I do see a like half-paragraph ridiculous suggestion of apparently genetic connection between Egyptian and European. Before it was commonly known that Egyptian is an Afroasiatic language, there were attempts (usually with racial undertones) attempting to link the glorious and regal Egyptian with Eurasian languages. It's a worthless hypothesis.

It also looks like people may have been looking for and having trouble finding solid Egyptian lexicons: aaew.bbaw.de/tla/

(The one that really bothered me was the (obviously incoherent) "Hathor = hut+hor Hüter of Herds"... Hathor means "House/Estate/Temple of Horus"). The whole thing is just ridiculous.)

*There's at least secondary cuneiform influence by Wadi el-Hol (which I think was more likely 15th or 14th century).

[posterboy]

house, lord, protector are all synonymous in some sense. Hor is a proper noun, but that must derive from common words. Just as temples were actually serving common goods often enough.

I agree, the presentation is loose and wild. At least, I don't see it creating any specific context. And there is no motivation given for the proposed translation. But as words go, the translation speaks for itself. Hor meaning observer is Proto-Afro-Asiatic [1], that relates to Hüter (protector). Hr is also being connected to xal face, surface, upon; which is, at least today, a common metaphor. The hyroglyph is a head on-face. "Head of state, family", etc. has the same connotation. In the sense of the sky, which is the roof and surface of the world, hor has a divine aspect, the falcon being king of the sky, figuratively. And the roof is "on" the house protecting the inhabitants. xal meaning ruler is very productive (if I say so myself), and as it stands a ruler is nothing without an army, an order. Further, face and sky can be linked to vision and light respectively, as in over-see-r. While the falcon is know for good eyesight and vision is a very common metaphor for knowledge. So Hor is a spiritual guide.

J/K: Hor was probably into (H)ornithology, too. And Order (whence Horde). And Oration (which can be heared - eye and ear being close). And Orthography (which you can see). Half of these words are of uncertain origin.

For symbols it doesn't hurt to be ambiguous. So Hathor might just be the house of the house of the houses.

Obviously the article resonates well with me. I have a hunch that hwt-ke-ptah (house, soul, ptah) was the old school of architecture - hence Pythagoras. The word calculate is from a word for stone, which is pt (egy. stone), too. And in terms of counting, a kind of bank would be another civil service. But the service of a temple was likely variable. The identifaction of the god as well. Ptah - pater is just too inviting a link to make, so I think ptah is the deified founding father, the temple having been in Memphis, central to the unification of egypt.

Also, memphis was called "white walls", so much for the racism.

[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Afro-Asi...

[posterboy]

> rather aesthetic influence of hieroglyphs

rather, the hieroglyphic influence on the aesthetics of the (written) language.

[raoulduke]

I don't understand (?).

[posterboy]

There is no difference, really. I just tried to point out that aesthetics can have a influence on language, because you were basically saying the writing system wasn't linguistic, which is really painful to read.

[raoulduke]

It's also painfully correct. The Egyptian hieroglyph pr, also monosyllabic /h/, was adapted for /b/ in the Semitic creation of the alphabet. The scribe took the common Semitic word for house be(y)t and used it to supplant the original linguistic meaning attached to the grapheme. Thus the linguistic content was destroyed while the aesthetic content was essentially unchanged (and remains so today, most notably in Cyrillic, I think).

[posterboy]

So you have pt (sky), pr (house) and bt (house), and you are suggesting that there can be no obvious link? pt~bt perhaps? I don't know what's up with the /h/. It doesn't really matter because drawn glyphs pass the test of time better than phonemes by virtue of being homoiconic. Certainly, written language is a linguistic matter, not just merely aesthetic.

If you look at the pt hieroglyph, the lower form might be a roof I think. Of course, my confusion of pt and pr in the previous post shows an aptitude to jump to conclusions. But when Peter<Petrus<??? has no certain etymology, leaps of faith are inevitable. And while I understand that research is always careful to be skeptical, so am I when you say the hypothesis couldn't be. I'm not necessarily defending the theory from the featured article, because a common ancestor can come through a variety of origins. Anyway, the Egyptians are famous anyway, so they are the first go to for a theory.

Also, your claim is evidently wrong. The Bet glyph looks very different to the pr glyph.

I was initially trying to formulate a thought about writing, because it can show patterns of language on a deeper level or at least from a different perspective. After all, verbal communication involves more than phonetics. There are definitely words that have been read incorrectly and proliferated -- e.g. reading gamma for ypsilon, omega for digamma; although I have no evidence at hand this shouldn't be hard to believe.

This was constructive for me, as I hadn't made the connection from pr to beta, before. Thank you.

[raoulduke]

Correct. There can be no obvious link. Particularly in that Old Kingdom /r/ would reflect a Semitic /'/, if memory serves. So /pr/ would be the equivalent of /p'/ which would mean "mouth."

I likely compounded your confusion by referring to the grapheme as pr; whereas it is in fact Gardiner's O4, the monosyllabic /h/ (http://msheflin.blogspot.com/search/label/Early%20Alphabet - take the chart beyond /b/ with a grain of salt; I haven't updated it in years). This isn't my theory... this is basically the only consensus view on Proto-Sinaitic. Please stop wading into a crazy complex and insular, highly esoteric academic subject and then getting mad at me when you misunderstand my comments and attempt to construct a new orthodoxy around them...

The only connection between pr and b(y)t is semantic. Once you move from pure ideograms to logograms or abjads that wholly breaks down.