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GlyphTutor is a great aid for learning Ancient Egyptian, but its function is only auxiliary and it is not an
independent course in Ancient Egyptian. For that you will require a grammar book on the subject.
For beginners, the best book by far is:
"How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphics", Mark Collier & Bill Manley, British Museum Press, London, 1998
This is a book that will get you reading actual inscriptions from the very start, and you don't need a PhD in linguistics to understand it. If it is not available at your local bookstore, you should be able to order it from a company like
Amazon.com.
If you have a reasonable knowledge of grammatical terms (i.e. you know the difference between an adverb and an adjective), the best next step would be to tackle the mother of them all:
"Egyptian Grammar", Sir Alan Gardiner, Third Edition Revised, Griffith Institute, Oxford, 1982
This is still the most complete treatment of Middle Egyptian available, and also contains a very thorough vocabulary that can double as a useful beginning dictionary. Some of it is now considered outdated (specifically the finer points of the verb in the later chapters) but it is still second to none, and if you work through this book you will know the language very, very well. But be warned that the terrain
gets pretty tough pretty soon.
WARNING: Do not, I repeat, NOT, use the grammar books of
E.A. Wallis Budge, as they were already practically outdated by the time they appeared. The only true advantage of these books is their easy availability.
James P. Allen's book, "Middle Egyptian," is probably the best modern work, even if it suffers from the same disease as most Egyptian grammars in that it tries to be both a text book and a descriptive grammar, and therefore ends up being neither.
If you cannot lay your hands on any of the above books but have access to the Internet, then all is not necessarily lost. There are some great resources for absolute beginners on the Internet.
First of all there is Serge Rosmorduc's excellent online introduction at:
http://www.iut.univ-paris8.fr/~rosmord/EgyptienE.html
The website of the Ancient Egyptian Language mailing list also contains many links that can be used as stepping stones for the beginner. AEL can be found at:
http://www.rostau.demon.co.uk/AEgyptian-L/
Egyptologica Vlaanderen has a very nice set of online lessons as well that can be found at:
http://www.fnspo.cz/mmm/egypt/hiero/11.htm
The ultimate treasure trove for those interested in Ancient Egyptian is to be found at the website of the Centre for Computer-aided Egyptological Research
(CCER). The beautiful hieroglyphs to be found in GlyphTutor for Windows are just a foretaste of the massive effort the CCER has put into bringing this amazing language into the computer age. The CCER website is located at:
http://www.ccer.nl
If you have any additional questions on the program you can contact me by e-mail at:
lventer@ananzi.co.za