New Approaches to Egyptian Grammar

Overview

Organizer: Dr. Marwan Kilani

Dates: 4–5 May 2026

Location: University of Basel

Format: In person (with the possibility of online participation if sufficient demand)

Fee: Free of charge

Registration

As workshop materials will be distributed in advance, participants are kindly asked to register beforehand.

Registration deadline: 20 April 2026

Register here

Description

This workshop presents the results of the four-year Ambizione LCDE project on Egyptian-Coptic linguistics. Initially focused on dialectal variation in Late Egyptian, the project developed into a broader reassessment of linguistic reconstruction, leading to a new model of Proto-Coptic.

The proposed model introduces significant innovations, offering improved internal coherence and new insights into the historical development of Egyptian and its Afro-Asiatic context.

Themes & Contributions

The workshop is structured around four core themes of the new Proto-Coptic model and features contributions from invited specialists:

• First, the phonological proposal argues for a two-vowel system (*a, *E), with Dr. Lameen Souag providing comparative Afro-Asiatic perspectives (Berber/Chadic).


• Second, a revised account of deverbal nouns replaces traditional categories with five morphosemantic classes; this will be discussed alongside (West-)Semitic parallels by Prof. Ahmad Al-Jallad and in relation to Egyptian root nouns by Dr. Roman Gundacker.


• Third, the syntactic analysis reinterprets so-called verbal clauses as fundamentally nominal or cleft-like constructions, a view explored through Cushitic evidence by Prof. Maarten Mous and methodological considerations by Prof. Jean Winand.


• Finally, the workshop addresses the emergence of Egyptian as a contact phenomenon, with contributions from Dr. Roger Blench on Afro-Asiatic etymologies, Prof. Gaëlle Chantrain on Egyptian–Bedja semantic parallels, and Prof. Victoriy Almansa-Villatoro on multilingualism in the Old Kingdom.