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In addition to spelling out the basics for a generation of teachers who missed (or were forbidden to use) them, this book details the horror that Mr. Honig felt after seeing ideas meant to improve an already existing and workable system egregiously misapplied by the buzzword harpies of the midlevels of the educational establishment fluttering from one new idea to another without a sense of continuity or connection, in a rush to appear intellectually modish and to appear to bring their districts "into compliance with" state educational standards, but who had gotten their information not from the source, but from diluted summaries, memos, and seminars. Under what Whole Language came to be after this trickling down of misinformation, we saw principals entering classrooms and seizing the old grade-level spellers that teachers hid like contraband in the bottoms of their desk drawers. Hopefully this book will bring awareness of the balance between phonics and contextual cues that make up reading skills by warning those who read it of the dangers of shrieking "Out with the old! In with the new!" and do something to now help retain the good that is to be found in Whole Language while reinstituting the basic skills that precede the ability to make guesses about the text, which then precedes the ability to draw meaning from and make inferences about the text.
The question remaining is: Are there now enough people out there with the ability to read and understand the book
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Actually, the information blurb from the Library Journal linked to the book's entry here states: 'Reference collections desiring more complete coverage will want Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar (1957. 3d ed.) despite some obsolescence in the treatment of the verbal system.'
I actually learned hieroglyphs using that text at the University of London in the 1980s. But I have assembled a collection of more accessible books on how to learn hieroglyphs as refreshers and for sharing. I have four texts, and this was the first of the lot.
If you are truly interested in learning Egyptian hieroglyphs for an upcoming trip to Egypt or to visit a museum with a collection (I amazed a friend once by being able to read an inscription at the museum; I confessed that of the hundreds of 'paragraphs' of hieroglyphs in the collection, that that was one of only two I could decipher without my notebook), Collier and Manley's 'How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs' is a good choice for learning.
It begins with a basic description of the way in which hieroglyphs are used (some signs are words, but actually very few, and others are sound-meaning symbols). Collier and Manley introduce a transliteration system to ease your way into pronunciation (and pronunciation is very sketchy, given the fact there are no recordings from ancient Egypt). Symbols can vary occasionally for sound, meaning, and determinative value.
The pattern of hieroglyphs is also variable. Generally, you always want to 'read into the face', i.e., the picto-glyphs will be facing the direction from which to start -- more often right to left than left to right, and columns go top to bottom. There are no punctuation marks and no word breaks -- this can make meanings hard to decipher.
Consider the example:
IAMNOWHERE
which could be broken into
I AM NOW HERE
or
I AM NOWHERE
and in this case, context might not help provide which meaning is the true one. Or perhaps the author is poetical and sees the trouble of distinction and means that trouble to be present.
No wonder hieroglyphs are hard!
Collier and Manley's book is excellent in basic vocabulary building and basic grammar. And, if you're like me and will make flash cards, you'll become a better draw-er too.
There are exercises, and pictures of inscriptions to practice on, and a key to the exercises in the back of the book.
Written at the British Museum, this is a textbook for learning to read hieroglyphs such as you find on the walls of a museum. It is not a complete grammar and won't teach you how to read complex literture, but will give you a complete enough command of the language to read most common material.
The book is well-printed and nicely bound, and is small enough to take to the museum with you! It contains a wealth of material, a glossary, king lists, and information about Egyptian gods.
Many of the exercises are drawings or pictures of wall paintings or carvings, making the book fun to use. Answers to exercises are given at the back.
If you don't know which hieroglyphic book to pick, this is the one!
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