Teaching Ancient Egyptian. Between Linguistics and Philology
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Teaching Egyptian in the beginning of the 21st century can seem a real challenge. The very first question is perhaps not how one can do it, but whyone should do it. In this respect, a comparison between the teaching of the classical languages (Latin and Greek) and that of ancient Egyptian is not without interest. The fact that Egyptology is a relative newcomer when compared to Classical Studies has often be seen as a disadvantage, but it also means more freedom, and less stress. For instance, Egyptology does not have a problem of legitimacy in the cursus studiorumas faced nowadays by Classical Studies. As regards the (basic) teaching of Egyptian, the main issue faced by Egyptologists is probably the lack of a consensus on the mechanisms underlying the grammar of Egyptian, a problem that seems inextricable so far for Classical Egyptian. Whatever the grammatical school one belongs to, one cannot overemphasize the needs of building bridges with what is happening in general linguistics, and of keeping the grammatical terminology under control.