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Towards the Afro-Asiatic etymology of Egyptian zš ‘to write’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Gábor Takács
Gábor Takács
Affiliation:
Székesfehérvár, Hungary
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Extract

It is not necessary to emphasize the importance of writing in the culture of Ancient Egypt. The ancient Nile Valley dwellers' cult of writing is famous, while the Egyptian language has the longest written continuity known in history. At the same time, however, we linguists know painfully little about the origin of the Egyptian verb zš ‘to write’ because of the apparent lack of reliable Afro-Asiatic cognates.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , January 2000 , pp. 261 - 273
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 2000

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