26.1 Rules and exceptions

In order to read and understand texts in any foreign language you need two basic tools, a dictionary and a grammar. A dictionary tells you what the words of a language mean and something about how they are used, and a grammar shows you how the words are put together into actual sentences. The purpose of this book has been to give you a solid grounding in the grammar of Middle Egyptian.

Human languages defy neat and orderly classification. Although all languages obey fundamental rules for the formation of words and sentences, they are also notoriously fluid about how those rules are applied. To appreciate this in English, you have only to look at the works of Lewis Carroll, James Joyce, or Dr. Seuss. Middle Egyptian is no different in this respect than any other language. Although we can approach its grammar in an orderly fashion—as the content and arrangement of the lessons in this book have tried to do—we are often puzzled and even frustrated by the continual appearance of what seem to be exceptions to the rules. Middle Egyptian can be especially difficult in this regard, as you have seen throughout the course of these lessons. There are a number of reasons why this is so.