Late Egyptian -- the vernacular idiom of the time of the Ramesside
pharaohs (14th through 12th century BCE) -- is a
distinct episode in the history of the Egyptian-Coptic language. It is a
vivid, fresh idiom, compared with the time-honored Classical Egyptian
language of the hieroglyphic texts. The vocabulary used is to a large
extent new, it is pronounced differently from the traditional language,
and it is spelled in a characteristic way. The idiom also follows new
grammatical rules. Usually it is described from a more historical
standpoint, on the background of the older language, Middle Egyptian.
Here, however, is an account of its structure that is independent of the
languages' older phases. Sufficient space is given to phonetics and
spelling, as well as morphology and syntax (on all its levels). The
books deals with clauses of all sorts, like attributive, circumstance
and noun clauses, narrative & conjunctive clauses as well as conditional
and temporal clauses. The final part is devoted to the focalizing
constructions, so characteristic of Egyptian in general.