From a comparative point of view, the Egyptian language presents similarities with the Hamitic languages (Berber and Cushite) and with the Semitic ones. With the former, known to us only in their recent forms, the comparisons are still general and vague, because it is necessary to overcome the very serious chronological disparity of the sources; with the latter, on the other hand, more detailed and safe. The etymology shows that the Egyptian possessed these consonants (according to the transcription of the Semitists): ‘, j, ‛, w, b, p, f, m, n, r, h, ḥ, ḫ, ġ, Z (also derived from D), ¶ (also ⟨ T), š, q, k, g, t, s, t (also ⟨ d), S (also ⟨ D, Z). It is basically Canaanite-Hebrew phoneticism; however in the rotation of the teeth to the ś of the primitive Semitic corresponds the eg. š, as in Arabic, Ethiopian, Akkadian; alla š the eg. ś, alla ṯ the eg. ś. Numerous items appear identical in the two groups, such as: eg. ‘ bj “crave” sem. ‘ bj “want”; ‘ fr “to boil” Arabic’ fr ; jqr “precious”, sem. wqr ; ‛ B ‘ ” shine “, sem. ‛ Bb (‛ bw); w ṣ j “order, leave”, sem. w ṣ j ; mwt “to die”, sem. mwt ; nhzj “rise from sleep”, ar. nhz ; rmj “cry”, Akkadian rmm “shout”; ḫb ś “to dress”, sem. ḫ b š ; ḫ tm “close”, sem. ḫ tm ; ġ nw “residence”, ar. ġ nj “abide”; z’b“jackal”, sem. ḏ ‘b ; š wj “become dry”, ar. š wj “to roast”; sp ḥ.t ” wellspring “, sem. sf ḥ “pour out”. In other voices, however, the consonants vary in degree and quality. l), j, w, which are also very unstable in historical Egyptian. Let’s give some examples, without mentioning the complex reasons: eg. jzj “go; get lost”, sem. ‘ zl “go, become worn out”; jbj “heart”, sem. lbb ; eg. j’k “become long-lived” (j) rk. w “time”, sem. ‘ rk “to live long”; bk ‘”the making of the day, tomorrow”, sem. bkr ; jtj. w “re”, jtr. t “palace” sem. jtr “excel”; j.zkn “elder”, sem. ḏ qn ; j. m ‘ ḫ “vertebrae”, sem. m ḫḫ ; nhpj “mourn”, ar. lhf ” hurt, moan”; nm ś “to dress”, sem. lb š ; ś nb “to become healthy”, sem. š lm.
Vowels do not appear in hieroglyphic writing; but they can be roughly returned when the words survive in Coptic or we find them transcribed in Babylonian-Assyrian, in Hebrew, in Aramaic, in Greek. Perhaps already in the period of the Egyptian empire quality and quantity were combined as follows: ă open (sometimes tinted with palatalization, ä), ě, ŏ open (> å velarized); ē, ī, o, ū closed and a very short vowel ə (with various colors). In the cuneiform transcriptions (14th-13th century BC), as is usually the case with foreign names (Delitzsch, Assyrische Grammatik, 2nd ed., § 40) in place of eg. ō we find ā or ū ; ex. am ā na and am ū na for am ō n, as we find m ū ‘aba and m ā ‘ aba for m ō ‘ab ; similarly in the Middle Babylonian ā na“Heliopolis” the ā stands only for ō, cf. Assyrian (VIII-VII century BC) ū nu, Greek ō n, Coptic ō n. There is a lack of data to establish when the variations of the three primitive Semitic sounds a, i, u occurred in Egyptian.
Of the comparisons that can be established between the morphology of the two Egyptian and Semitic groups we will mention the most important. The personal pronouns are identical; instead of the 2nd pers. female sing. – ki and pl. – kun – kina, the eg. ha – s, – sn, because the notch of the velar has resulted in an assimilation (cf. eg. * e ś k q̂ j “smell”> * e ś s q̂ j, Coptic stoj). Even the pronounced pronominal forms in – t of the Egyptian have the equivalent in – tu, – ti Akkadian and Southern Arabic. In the separate pronouns the formation is analogous. In demonstrative pronouns the masculine stem eg. p – corresponds to the adverb can.-hebr. pû “here”; the femm. t – and the neu. n – are found as formative elements; the pronoun jmj“this” and the strengthened form pl. f. jm. wt – nn “these here” (Pir. 550) is the acc. ammû “this” and sim. Among the questions, mj, jzj are the same as sem. m ǎ, ‘ ē z ē. Capital is also the dominant triliterism in the two groups. As for the nominal formations, the comparison must proceed cautiously, because the accent and the extension of the open syllable introduces varieties in eg. For example the sem. ḥŭ rr “hawk” passes into eg. ḥ ûrew, sem. r ă bb “sir” eg. nêbew, the form of the abstract qatalat becomes eg. q ḡ tlet. If you compare eg. gb q̂ j “arm” with Ethiop. * gabaw, it could be assumed that limb names such as eg. ḥ q̂ r “face, ejn q̂ h “eyebrows”, ejn q̂ m “skin”, zn q̂ f “blood” and the like derive from a qatál form. The word eg. j. enb q̂ “mute” metathesis of ‘ lm, corresponds to sem. ‘ af ‛ ḡ l ; we ‘ ṣ – ṣ. et “green (of plants)” to the qatlal type for colors; ‛ Š ‛ š “throat”, ‛ n ‛ n “throat”, ‘ ṣ is “head” to that qulqul. Sometimes the eg. augment the stem with an ending, jor w that was j q̂ zrej “tamarisk” sem. ă ṯ l ; j q̂ hje. w “tent”, sem. ă hl: j q̂ ‛ ḥ e.j ” moon “, sem. j ă r ḫ ; and ‛ ġ ôme. w “eagle”, sem. r ăḥ m ; and ‛ iô ‘. ew “donkey”, sem. ‛ Ă jr ; ġ nûme. w “ram”, sem. ġ anam. Nominal forms in m -, relative adjective in – j, diminutive in – j, abstract nouns in – ôwet, sem. – ū t, are also common. As in Semitic, they are distinct in eg. two genders and three numbers, with identical endings.
