Grammars

Recommended Grammar:

Collier, Mark & Manley, Bill: How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs, University of California Press, 1998, beautiful hardcover, 179 pages, pen-and-ink drawings and black-and-white photos.
Unless you are studying Egyptian at a school that requires another textbook, this is the book to use. It is small, simple, and inexpensive -- yet elegant and up-to-date. Its goal is to teach you to read simple Egyptian as you would find on the walls of a museum. It is never distracted from this end and it attains it with good scholarship and an accessible style. Imagine how much fun you will have reading off the walls to your friends!

Contents:

Introduction
Chapter 1 Hieroglyphs
Chapter 2 More uses of hieroglyphs
Chapter 3 Special writings
Chapter 4 Scenes and captions
Chapter 5 Description
Chapter 6 Further aspects of description
Chapter 7 Characterization
Chapter 8 The future
Hieroglyphic sign-lists for the exercises
Reference tables
Egyptian-English vocabulary
Key to the exercises
Bibliography and further reading
Index

Other Grammars: (in alphabetical order)

Budge, E. A. Wallis: Egyptian Language: Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Dover paperback, 1983 reprint of a book originally published in 1889, 246 pages.
This book was written in 1889, over one hundred years ago and only 50 years after Champollion's tentative identification of the Egyptian alphabet. Budge's knowledge of the language, while good for his time, is incomplete. He mixes forms from different periods, incorrectly identifies some signs, and uses a system of transliteration so obsolete that he himself abandonned it a few years later. There are no exercises and all the texts are written with interlinear translations. Do not buy this book.

Contents:

Chapter I.	Hieroglyphic Writing
Chapter II.	The Rosetta Stone and the Decipherment of hieroglyphics
Chapter III.	Hieroglyphic as Ideographs, Phonetics and Determinatives
Chapter IV.	A Selection of hierogyphic characters with their phonetic values, etc.
Chapter V.	Pronouns and pronominal suffixes
Chapter VI.	Nouns
Chapter VII.	The Article
Chapter VIII.	Adjectives, Numerals, Time, the Year, etc.
Chapter IX.	The Verb
Chapter X.	Adverbs, Prepositions (simple and compound), etc.
Chapter XI.	Conjunctions and Particles
Chapter XII.	Extracts for Reader: 1. Inscription of Pepi I 2. General Stele of Panehesi 3. Inscription of Anebni 4. Text from the CXXVth Chapter of the Book of the Dead


Gardiner, Sir Alan: Egyptian Grammar, Oxford University Press, hardcover, Third Edition, 1957, 646 pages.

Long the preferred college textbook, this is a masterpiece of scholarship, against which all other books are still measured. Gardiner developed the standard sign-list, hieroglyphic font, and transliteration which are now used universally. It has become a bit out-of-date as knowledge about use of the Egyptian verb has developed over the years. It is also pricey, so I'd suggest serious students wait for an equally-commendable replacement. If you have one or can get one second-hand, by all means use it! Otherwise, go with Collier & Manley for now.

Summary of contents:

Introduction
Lessons 1 - 7
Excursus A: The Titulary and other Designations of the King
Lessons 8 - 17
Excursus B: The Formula of Offering employed in the Funerary Cult
Lessons 18 - 20
Excursus C: The Divisions of Time and Method of Dating
Lessons 21 - 33
Appendix A: The vocalization of Middle Egyptian
Appendix B: The transcription of Egyptian proper names
List of Hieroglyphic Signs (the famous Gardiner sign-list)
Index to the Sign-list
A selection of signs grouped according to shape
Egyptian-English vocabulary
English-Egyptian vocabulary
Indexes


Hoch, James E.: Middle Egyptian Grammar, Benben Publications, spiral-bound, 1996, 380 pages.

Touted by its many supporters as the replacement for Gardiner, this book is used in many college courses. I personally am not impressed by Hoch's teaching style, and some of the points in this book are already becoming out of date. At this time, the book is missing a sign list, has to be ordered specially, and is a bit expensive. So, unless you need it for a class, I'd suggest you wait to see if it's published in a revised edition or if a better alternative comes along.

Contents:

Lessons 1 - 16
Key to some of the exercises
Egyptian-English Vocabulary
Grammatical and General Index
Verb Charts


Loprieno, Antonio: Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press, paperback, 1995.

Unlike the other books in this section, this one is not divided into lessons, doesn't try to teach the language, and doesn't include hieroglyphs. Rather, it is an exhaustive, very modern description of all stages of the language from archaic Egyptian to Coptic. It is difficult to read since it assumes university training in linguistics, but is packed with information. My favorite part is the description of the actual sounds of the language, with vowels reconstituted where possible.

Contents:

1 The language of Ancient Egypt
2 Egyptian graphemes
3 Egyptian phonology
4 Elements of historical morphology
5 Nominal syntax
6 Adverbial and pseudoverbal syntax
7 Verbal syntax
Epilog
Notes
References
Index of passages
Index of morphemes
Indes of lexemes
Index of topics


Mercer, Samuel A.: Egyptian Hieroglyphic Grammar, Ares Publishers, paperback reprint of the 1926 edition, 184 pages.

A pleasant little book, too sparse to actually teach much, but containing a nice selection of reading passages (with the words separated) and a vocabulary. The low price makes it worth buying for that alone. Uses Budge's hieroglyphic font but is otherwise generally modern.

Contents:

Introduction
Grammar - Chapters 1 to 15
Syntax - Chapters 16 -17
Chrestomathy (reading selections) :
Some Short Pieces from Various Sources
Extracts from the Pyramid Texts
Khufu and the Magicians
From the Precepts of Ptah-Hotep
From the Eloquent Peasant
From the Memoirs of Sinuhe
The Tale of Two Brothers
Sign List
Glossary