Demotic (Egyptian)#Script

The Demotic script was referred to by the Egyptians as {{lang|egy|sš/sẖ n šꜥ.t}} 'document writing', which the second-century scholar Clement of Alexandria called {{lang|grc|ἐπιστολογραφική}} 'letter-writing', while early Western scholars, notably Thomas Young, formerly referred to it as "Enchorial Egyptian". The script was used for more than a thousand years, and during that time a number of developmental stages occurred. It is written and read from right to left, while earlier hieroglyphs could be written from top to bottom, left to right, or right to left. Parts of the Demotic Greek Magical Papyri were written with a cypher script.{{cite book|author=Hans Dieter Betz|url=http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo3684249.html|year=1992|title=The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, Volume 1|publisher=University of Chicago Press }}

Early Demotic (often referred to by the German term {{lang|de|Frühdemotisch}}) developed in Lower Egypt during the later part of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, particularly found on steles from the Serapeum of Saqqara. It is generally dated between 650 and 400 BC, as most texts written in Early Demotic are dated to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty and the subsequent rule as a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire, which was known as the Twenty-seventh Dynasty. After the reunification of Egypt under Psamtik I, Demotic replaced Abnormal Hieratic in Upper Egypt, particularly during the reign of Amasis II, when it became the official administrative and legal script. During this period, Demotic was used only for administrative, legal, and commercial texts, while hieroglyphs and hieratic were reserved for religious texts and literature.

Middle Demotic ({{circa|400–30 BC}}) is the stage of writing used during the Ptolemaic Kingdom. From the 4th century BC onward, Demotic held a higher status, as may be seen from its increasing use for literary and religious texts. By the end of the 3rd century BC, Koine Greek was more important, as it was the administrative language of the country; Demotic contracts lost most of their legal force unless there was a note in Greek of being registered with the authorities.

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|title=Examples of Ptolemaic Demotic

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|File:Demotic Ostrakon.jpg|Ostracon with Demotic inscription. Ptolemaic Kingdom, {{circa|305}}–30 BC. Probably from Thebes. It is a prayer to the god Amun to heal a man's blindness.

|File:Contract-IMG 6282.JPG|Contract in Demotic writing, with signature of a witness on the verso. Papyrus, Ptolemaic era.

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From the beginning of Roman rule of Egypt, Demotic was progressively less used in public life. There are, however, a number of literary texts written in Late Demotic ({{circa|30 BC}}{{snd}}452 AD), especially from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, though the quantity of all Demotic texts decreased rapidly towards the end of the second century. In contrast to the way Latin eliminated languages in the western part of the Empire, Greek did not replace Demotic entirely.{{cite book |last=Haywood |first=John |page=28

|quote=However, Greek did not take over as completely as Latin did in the west and there remained large communities of Demotic...and Aramaic speakers

|title=Historical atlas of the classical world, 500 BC–AD 600 |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-7607-1973-2 |publisher=Barnes & Noble Books}} After that, Demotic was only used for a few ostraca, subscriptions to Greek texts, mummy labels, and graffiti. The last dated example of the Demotic script is a graffito on the walls of the temple of Isis at Philae, dated to December 12, 452. The text simply reads "Petise, son of Petosiris"—who Petise was is unknown.{{cite book |last=Cruz-Uribe |first=Eugene |editor-last1=Donker van Heel |editor-first1=Koenraad |editor-last2=Hoogendijk |editor-first2=Francisca A. J. |editor-last3=Marin |editor-first3=Cary J. |title=Hieratic, Demotic, and Greek Studies and Text Editions: Of Making Many Books There Is No End. Festschrift in Honour of Sven P. Vleeming |publisher=Leiden |date=2018 |pages=6–8 |chapter=The Last Demotic Inscription |isbn=978-9-0043-4571-3}}

Like its hieroglyphic predecessor script, Demotic possessed a set of "uniliteral" or "alphabetical" signs that could be used to represent individual phonemes. These are the most common signs in Demotic, making up between one third and one half of all signs in any given text; foreign words are also almost exclusively written with these signs.Clarysse, Willy (1994) Demotic for Papyrologists: A First Acquaintance, pages 96–98. Later (Roman Period) texts used these signs even more frequently.{{cite book |author=Johnson, Janet H. |author-link=Janet Johnson (Egyptologist) |year=1986 |title=Thus Wrote ꜥOnchsheshonqy: An Introductory Grammar of Demotic |publisher=The Oriental Institute |series=Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, No. 45 |location=Chicago |pages=2–4}}

The table below gives a list of such uniliteral signs along with their conventional transcription, their hieroglyphic origin, the Coptic letters derived from them, and notes on usage.[http://demotischdemotisch.de The Demotic Palaeographical Database Project], accessed 11 November 2020.

{{notelist}}

The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799. It is inscribed with a proclamation, written in three scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and the Greek alphabet. There are 32 lines of Demotic, which is the middle of the three scripts on the stone. The Demotic was deciphered before the hieroglyphs, starting with the efforts of Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy. Scholars were eventually able to translate the hieroglyphs by comparing them with the Greek words, which could be readily translated, and fortifying that process by applying knowledge of Coptic (the Coptic language being descended from earlier forms of Egyptian represented in hieroglyphic writing). Egyptologists, linguists and papyrologists who specialize in the study of the Demotic stage of Egyptian script are known as Demotists.

• Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |author=Betrò, Maria Carmela |year=1996 |title=Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt |publisher=Abbeville Press (English); Arnoldo Mondadori (Italian) |location=New York; Milan |pages=[https://archive.org/details/michelangelovati00deve/page/34 34]–239 |isbn=978-0-7892-0232-1 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/michelangelovati00deve }}
• {{cite book |author=Depauw, Mark |year=1997 |title=A Companion to Demotic Studies |publisher=Fondation égyptologique reine Élisabeth |series=Papyrologica Bruxellensia, No. 28 |location=Bruxelles }}
• {{cite book |author=Johnson, Janet H. |author-link=Janet Johnson (Egyptologist) |year=1986 |title=Thus Wrote ꜥOnchsheshonqy: An Introductory Grammar of Demotic |publisher=The Oriental Institute |series=Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, No. 45 |location=Chicago}}
• {{cite book |last1=Hoffmann | first1=Friedhelm |last2=Quack |first2=Joachim Friedrich | authorlink2=Joachim Friedrich Quack |year=2018 |title=Anthologie der demotischen Literatur |edition=2 |publisher=Lit |series=Einführungen und Quellentexte zur Ägyptologie | volume=4|location=Berlin}}

{{Commons category|Demotic}}

• [http://www.trismegistos.org/daht Demotic and Abnormal Hieratic Texts]
• [https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/chicago-demotic-dictionary-cdd-0 Chicago Demotic Dictionary]
• [http://www.papyrology.org/ The American Society of Papyrologists]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070205040220/http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/DEM/Demotic_Directory.html Directory of Institutions and Scholars Involved in Demotic Studies]
• [https://isac.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-45-thus-wrote-onchsheshonqy-introductory-grammar-demotic Thus Wrote 'Onchsheshonqy: An Introductory Grammar of Demotic by Janet H. Johnson] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131221004627/http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/saoc/saoc45.html |date=2013-12-21 }}
• [https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990121142160107026 Demotische Grammatik] by Wilhelm Spiegelberg {{in lang|de}}
• [https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uy1two8sy3o41kh/AAC4EKfQP1gvauf3FoPcxzuWa?dl=0 Hieratic/Demotic Fonts]

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Category:Ancient Egyptian language

Demotic

Demotic

Category:Writing systems of Africa

Category:Obsolete writing systems

Category:Languages attested from the 7th century BC

Category:Languages extinct in the 5th century

Category:Rosetta Stone