Ancient Egyptian Forum

[Kiya]

Originally posted by Sekhmet

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[Sekhmet]

Hi Kiya, i am glad you found the site helpful
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[img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:ygpdGun0X_wJ:www.temoata.org/temoata/lotus.jpg[/img]
how beautiful the lotus flower is! selected 4-4-04

[Goddess~Maat]

I love Maat. But I'm not exactly sure how her name is pronounced. Is it like Mat, Mot or what? (I feel so stupid )

[Ramsekh]

I've always pronounced it as MOT or I sometimes say MA-OT
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[Osiris II]

The a-a connection is pronounced Ma-at (May-at), using a gutteral sound between the two "a"s.

[Dark_Meryetamun_28]

YES! I was right. I didn't want to say anything just in case I was wrong...o.o But you know the Cockney version of "Bottle?" sounds like "Boh ul." That's the thing he's talking about. So "Mah-at."
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[Si-amun]

I always said it a lot more fluidly, more like maht.
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Thou dost appear beautiful on the horizon of heaven, oh living Amun, he who was the first to live.

[Ramsekh]

Now what about Mut. It's Moot right?
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[Dark_Meryetamun_28]

yes, that's correct
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[Goddess~Maat]

I usually say it Mot.

[Osiris II]

Really, both have been used. But it is more correct to say "Moot".

[Psusennes I]

When I spoke with some Egytologists at the British Museum (real live ones!) a while ago, one of the first things that I asked them was how to pronounce the names of the gods. This is what they told me:

Thoth is pronounced 'Thoath' to rhyme with 'oath' and 'both'. The first syllable can be pronounced either as T or Th.

Maat is variously pronounced as 'Mart', 'Maht', and finally most correctly as 'Mar-art', in two steps sounds, as the two a's in Maat are are different transliteration symbols. Where all this 'Mooart' rubbish has come from I don't know. I just say 'Maht'.

Hathor is the other tricky one, I always used to say 'haythorr', but I was told that is more usually pronounced as 'Hart-horr'.

Nut is pronounced more as 'noot', to avoid sounding silly, and the Egyptologists said that an arabic inflection is preferable with names, as it makes the words sound more traditional.

One should remember though that the pronunciation of Egyptian is hugely debateable and there is no right or wrong answer. It is just that some pronunciations have become more widely accepted.

I should warn you that Helethices will probably try to say that I am wrong. He is a 'friend' of mine from school and is trying to annoy me. Believe nothing that he says. He isn't learning hieroglyphs and is barely interested in Egypt. He is just trying to imitate me!
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[Ramsekh]

Thoth is one syllable.
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[Osiris II]

Check with your Egyptologist friends again. There is NO sound of an "r" in Ma'at. The "rubbish" concerning the CORRECT pronunciation has a gutteral pause, or stop between the two "a"s.
We do not really know how the ancient Egyptians pronounced their words. In our attempts to understand how they were pronounced, we've come to apply rules from our own languages to help us understand how they would sound. Many of the Egyptian names of both gods and people use the Arabic rules of pronunciation. This applies to the gutteral sound, which is so prevailant in Arabic. Of course, Arabic was not spoken by the ancient Egyptians, but the use of rules from Arabic help us. Basically, the Egyptians used no vowels in writing. The godess Mut could be spelt Mt, Amut, Met, Meto--etc.etc. But understanding the rules from Arabic, we know that it is pronounced Mut. (Moot)
I know that my saying that vowels were not used will start a correction from our hieroglyph expert, but I have no desire at this point to argue about "hidden" vowels or other subjects from Egyptian writing, only that which we use today in our conversations.

[Neb-Ma'at-Re]

Psuennes, may I ask who is 'they'?

I have never heard of some of these pronunciation.

First let's analyze the sources from where these names derive.

Thoth - Greek which original derives from the Kemtic "Djehuty" pronounced something like "je-how-tee" or "je-how-tee". Now look at the word Thoth. Break up each letter and say them phonetically(example: make the 't' sound then the 'h' sound...). T-h-o-t-h. See the resemblence from the original Djehuty.

Ma'at- This is a true Kemetian word (not greek). The hieroglyph for this deity is general a seated woman with an ostrich feather upon her head, however, there are a number of variations on its phonetic spelling in hieroglyphs, all of which include either [U2], [U4] or [U5] (gardiner's sign list), and give a sound that can be compared to the arabic "aleph' which is a bit more gutteral than the english'ah'sound that our doctor's ask us to do when looking at our throat. By the way none of these variations include an 'R'.

Hathor- yet another Greek version of an Egyptian deities name. The original Kemetian name "ht-hr.t" or "ht.hr" and pronounced Het-her (literally meaning the house of Horus). So we can see where the greek spelling comes from . When pronounced as it looks we add the 'th' sound, however, no where can the 'R' sound be found .

Nut- well, Nut is 'noot'.

I am curious to know if the pronunciation by these Egyptologist don't include some kind of English dialect or accent. Example: A native New Yorker might cal a Tuna sandwchich a tuner sandwhich. Just a thought.
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