Archaic Egyptian language

Archaic Egyptian
Region	Ancient Egypt
Era	Protodynastic Period and Early Dynastic Period; evolved into Old Egyptian by 2600 BC
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Egyptian Archaic Egyptian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None

Archaic Egyptian^[1] is the stage of the Egyptian language spoken during the Early Dynastic Period, which lasted up to around 2600 BC. The language is thereafter considered Old Egyptian. The first known inscriptions in Archaic Egyptian date from around 3400 BC.^[2] They are the earliest known Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, and overall predate the first pharaoh, Narmer, by at least 300 years. Sometimes, Archaic Egyptian is not considered separate from Old Egyptian at all;^[3] because of its age, we know the least about it compared to other stages of the language.

References

1. Bard, Kathryn A.; Steven Blake Shubert (1999). Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge. p. 325. ISBN 0-415-18589-0.
2. "Inscriptions Suggest Egyptians Could Have Been First to Write". The New York Times. 16 December 1998. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
3. El Aguizy, O. "Changes in Ancient Egyptian Language". OpenEdition. Retrieved 18 May 2016.