Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Do you speak ancient Egyptian?

You'd be surprised at how much ancient Egyptian you know. Most people know the word Ankh which is the looped cross. It's actually supposed to be a sandal strap. Then there's the names of the gods: Osiris, Isis, Anubis, Horus, Set, Thoth, and Ra. And don't forget the pharoahs, Ramesses, Akhenaten, and Tutenkhamun. You'll probably feel that I've exhausted your supply of ancient Egyptian vocabulary. Not so! The following are words in English that have the same or similar meanings in ancient Egyptian.

Ebony, road, hut, him, Mary, amen, bane, bint, puss, nature, bee, cow, emir.
Nwt is town backwards. The dead are incarcerated in a carcet (coffin), Nob is gold, which is a noble metal. The chem in chemistry and alchemy comes from the name for ancient Egypt which was Khemet. And the word for beer is Heneket, which is not that far removed from Heineken.

2 comments:

beepbeepitsme said...

Welcome to the new blogroll :)

Anonymous said...

Now this is totally cool!