Grammaire égyptienne


Grammaire égyptienne is a grammar reference book by the French Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion, published posthumously in France in 1836. Its full title, the Grammaire égyptienne ou Principes généraux de l’écriture sacrée égyptienne appliqué à la présentation de la langue parlée means Egyptian Grammar or General Principles of Egyptian Sacred Writing Applied to the Presentation of the Spoken Language.

Origins

Champollion began writing his Grammaire on his return from Egypt to France on 5 March 1830, it contains a number of drawings reproduced in Egypt, by Champollion himself and his assistants; but he died in 1832 without being able to publish it. It was his brother, Jacques-Joseph Champollion, who would handle its publication in 1836. Marcellin Jobard, a lithographer from Brussels, whom claimed to have advised Champollion the use of lithography for the printing of the Grammaire égyptienne. The printing combines lithography and typography, with lithographic stone transfer methods improved by Jules Feuquières, used by ’s lithographic workshop in Paris, which was responsible for the lithographic printing process of the Grammaire.
Grammaire points out that the Egyptian hieroglyphs are a complex writing system combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements in one text, one phrase or even one character. This work went hand in hand with the Dictionnaire égyptien en écriture hiéroglyphique, another work by Champollion which was also published posthumously by his brother in 1841. The aim of Dictionnaire égyptien was to create a complete method of learning hieroglyphic writing. Émile Prisse d'Avennes, a French archaeologist, who became an Egyptologist after studying Grammaire égyptienne.

Hieroglyphics

Grammaire égyptienne contains many hieroglyphs in a rather particular style.

Editions

There are many editions of this work, notably: