傳承不衰的古埃及語言

Life in Egypt enjoys a quite extraordinary continuity with the past，but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been huge changes.There have.

In the year 391 AD，the Roman Emperor，Theodosius，issued a decree banning all 1）pagan temples throughout the empire.Well，for the Egyptians，this was a disaster，for their temples weren’t just places of worship.They were schools and universities，they were libraries，they were medical centres，they were law courts.They were the centre of civic life.Closing them down spelt the official end of the old ways and the end of the written language.And a few centuries later，the coming of another religion，Islam，spelt the end of the spoken language.

傳統在當今埃及的生活中得到了不同尋常的延續，但這并不是說這里就不曾發生過巨大的轉變，巨變確曾發生。

公元391年，古羅馬皇帝狄奧多西頒布法令，取締羅馬帝國內所有異教徒廟宇。唉，這對埃及人可是一場災難，因為對他們來說，神廟不僅是祭拜的地方，那還是學校與大學，它們是圖書館、是醫院、是法庭，它們是城市生活的中心。關閉神廟相當于傳統習俗的正式終結和書面語言的末日。幾個世紀之后，一種新的宗教——伊斯蘭教——傳入埃及，口頭語言也繼而失傳。

However，the language of ancient Egypt was still being spoken，and it still is.For 1，600 years，despite frequent official repression，the Coptic Church and priests like Father Itsak Ramsey，have kept alive the Coptic language.

Fr.Ramsey： Coptic is a 2）derivative of the ancient Egyptian language.

Q： So you’re actually speaking the language that was spoken by the pharaohs.

Fr.Ramsey： Yes.

Of course，it may be that the way Coptic is being spoken here bears as little 3）resemblance to the way it was spoken in the ancient world as modern English does to Anglo-Saxon.But nevertheless，the Christian Coptic Church was keeping this dead language alive in the same way that the Roman Catholic Church was keeping Latin alive.

然而，古埃及的語言還是流傳了下來，至今依舊有人在說。一千六百年來，盡管屢遭官方打壓，科普特教會和像拉姆齊神父這樣的神職人員依舊把科普特語傳承下來。

拉姆齊神父：科普特語是古埃及語的衍生語言。

問：這么說，你正在使用的語言就是法老曾經使用的語言？拉姆齊神父：是的。

當然，他們如今所用的科普特語也許已跟古代所用的相去甚遠，就像當代英語跟盎格魯-撒克遜人說的英語有天壤之別一樣，但基督教科普特教會仍努力傳承這種早已不被使用的語言，如同羅馬天主教會也在努力地傳承著拉丁語。

And the world’s earliest recorded script was still being spoken.And it was this realization that was crucial to cracking the meaning of the 4）hieroglyphs.Actually the word “hieroglyph” is a bit of a 5）misnomer.You see，when the ancient Greeks first came across these mystical writings on the Egyptians’tombs and temples，well，they naturally assumed they were full of mystical significance，so they called them“hieroglyphs，” or “sacred carvings.” But，in fact，a lot of them were far from mystical，and they weren’t all just carved on temple walls.

The Egyptians invented the first paper.They used the inside of the reed，known as the 6）papyrus，and that’s where we get the name “paper” from.And this was what they used for official documents and for archiving.But，for everyday notes and messages，there was a much cheaper version at hand.They had bits of broken pottery or…or “shards” of limestone，and this is what they scribbled their messages on.But for this they developed a kind of shorthand version of the hieroglyph，which is known as 7）Hieratic.

Papyrus grew in abundance alongside the Nile，and someone worked out that，by cutting it up，rolling it out and soaking it，8）interleaving it and then pressing it，you could produce something you could write on.

The invention of writing in Ancient Egypt was，of course，a boon for the accountants and managers and 9）scribes，but it also made possible the world’s first literature.

世界上最早的手寫文字還有人會念，而這正是解讀象形文字的關鍵。其實象形文字一詞純屬誤稱。要知道，古希臘人頭一回在埃及墓地和神殿看到這些神秘的文字，自然會認為它們充滿神秘意義，所以稱它們為象形文字（hieroglyph），也就是“神圣篆刻”的意思。其實許多文字根本談不上神秘，而且它們也不只出現在神殿的墻壁上。……