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The Meroitic Initial a Sign as Griffith's Initial Aleph

Rowan, Kirsty

The Meroitic Initial a Sign as Griffith's Initial Aleph Thumbnail


Authors

Kirsty Rowan



Abstract

This paper reassesses the sound value of the Meroitic sign traditionally defined as 'initial a'. This sign is termed 'initial a' due to its non-occurrence anywhere other than word-initially in the Meroitic script. A re-evaluation of the evidence for its representation indicates that this sign should be considered as a syllable sign comprised of a glottal stop and the inherent unmarked 'a' vowel. Therefore, this sign is likely to be representative of a CV sign, which was one of Griffith's (1916) proposals, rather than a sign representing only a vowel of varying quality as is currently assumed. As previous proposals for the sound value of this sign have heavily relied upon Egyptian transcriptions, this paper reviews the discussions on the Egyptian transcriptions along with the relevant Egyptian phonemic values, and includes a proposal for a sound change process which contributes to the possible revision for the value of this sign.

Citation

Rowan, K. (2015). The Meroitic Initial a Sign as Griffith's Initial Aleph. Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (Internet), 142(1), 70-84. https://doi.org/10.1515/zaes-2015-0007

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jun 1, 2015
Deposit Date Nov 4, 2014
Publicly Available Date Jun 17, 2019
Journal Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde
Print ISSN 0044-216X
Electronic ISSN 2196-713X
Publisher De Gruyter
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 142
Issue 1
Pages 70-84
DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/zaes-2015-0007
Related Public URLs http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/zaes

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Copyright Statement
© 2015 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston. This is the published version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.






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