AN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC DICTIONARY.*
Trrz industry and versatility of Sir .Ernest Budge are truly amazing. Only a few months ago two stout volumes describing his travels and adventures in quest of antiquities were engaging the attention of the reviewers ; yet here again we find him, this time challenging the verdict of the learned world with no less of an undertaking than a hieroglyphic dictionary. It must be reckoned to Dr. Budge's credit, moreover, that he knows to a nicety where the needs of his public lie, and that he never lacks the courage to take upon his own shoulders the supplying of those needs. For many years there has been no more urgent requirement in Egyptology than a handy hieroglyphic-English • An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary. By Sir E. A. Wallis Budge. With an Index of English Words, King List, and Geographical List with Indexes. List of Hieroglyphic Characters; Coptic and- Semitic Alphabets. ttc. London: John Murray. V/5 15a. net.] .
dictionary. The dictionaries of Briaptch, Simeone Levi and Pierret have long been out of data, procurable only at a high price and, except in the case of Pierret, unwieldy ; in addition to which they present to many English students the grave disadvantage of pre-supposing acquaintance with a foreign tongue. Dr. Budge is therefore to be congratulated on having carried to a successful issue, in very difficult times, a most arduous and extensive piece of work. The Egyptian dictionary with which he is first in the field among British scholars supplies so long-felt a want, that were its defects threefold what they are, his book would still remain a contribution to Egy-ptologieal literature well nigh indispensable except to the most advanced students.
Thus far we have nought but praise for Dr. Budge's magnum opus. But the price of fifteen guineas that is asked for it surely justifies us in keying up our criticism to a higher pitch, and in inquiring whether the work fully answers the requirements of modem research, and whether by a closer regard for essentials an equally valuable but more economical book could not have been compiled. The two questions are inseparable and we shall deal with them together. We cannot but feel that the total of fifteen hundred pages might have been reduced by a good half had the author shown better judgment in sifting and condensing his materials ; but the opinion to which we here give expression rests to no small extent upon our estimate of the quality of the information that he retails. The dictionary proper only covers 917 pages, and this contains a vast number of names and deities and demons of which Dr. Budge had already given us a moderately complete list in his Gods of the Egyptians. We can see but little utility in several of the supplementary sections that eke out the remaining six hundred pages. The index of English words will indeed prove useful, and so will the list of Coptic words, despite very many hazardous identifications. But we deplore the inclusion of the list of kings given by Dr. Budge already in several previous publications ; and, again, to what end serves a mere catalogue of countries, cities and towns of which only a few can be loesited and for which full references are not quoted ? The list of hieroglyphic characters claiming fifty pages of the introduction is to a considerable extent duplicated by Messrs. Harrison's list at the end of the volume ; nor has Dr. Budge made any effort to classify them on rational principles, a task in which the researches of Griffith, Moller and others might have served him in good stead. And, lastly, the Introduction itself : this covers seventy pages, and comprises a lengthy account of previous hieroglyphic dictionaries and various controversial passages on the non-Semitic character of the Egyptian language, the vocalic nature of certain alphabetic signs and other such thread- bare themes. Throughout this section of the book there runs a tacit polemic against the researches -of the so-called Berlin school, the grammatical and lexicographical discoveries of Erman, Sethe and their disciples. It must here be bluntly stated that in this respect Dr. Budge is championing a lost cause, for to-day all the world except Dr. Budge himself and two or three other Egyptological " die-hauls " is convinced of the importance of those discoveries. It is not too much to say that nine-tenths of the progress made in Egyptian philology during the last thirty years proceeds directly from the sound historical methods of study first introduced by Erman ; and it is by his omission to keep constantly in touch with the results of that method that Dr. Budge has failed to equip himself properly for the difficult task of grouping words under their right stems, of tracing the development of their meanings, of eliminating the vocea 'Walt, in fact of performing all those critical functions which constitute the essential business of the lexicographer.
In the space at our disposal we can hardly be expected to substantiate the seemingly harsh judgment that has just been pronounced. We may, however, quote a few examples selected almost' at random. On p. 36, starting with aut "rays of light," there is a series of a dozen words which, with one possible exception, either are non-existent or else have wrong meanings attached to them. On p. 147b the very common verb surviving in Coptio as mg; is treated ; its transitive meanings "to set," " plant," "place," are separated from their further extensions "to add," "increase," which appear under a distinct heading on p. 148a; the very frequent intransitive meaning "to endure," "persist," is ignored alt-Igether. On p. 184, for the verb usten no less than ten writings are enumerated, most of them so much alike that six at least are useless ballast. Similarly,
on p. 911, six writings of the name of the god Thoth are recorded, when two would have sufficed ; oddly enough, the commonest writing of all is omitted, though probably we should find it under some other letter of the alphabet. On p. 438 the word for "proximity in time" is mixed up with a late spelling of the word for "day." Here and there a sign of grace is to be found, as in the adoption of Sethe's new reading of the word for " king " ; but, as a rule, the standard of philological know- ledge displayed is such as would have been creditable enough in 1870, but is utterly behind the times in 1920. The gravest defect of all is the failure to mark any distinction between words of different periods ; thus transcriptions of Demotic groups, mostly in the erroneous forms given to them by Revillout, are found cheek by jowl with words from the most ancient religious texts. It is as though we were to find a dictionary in which foe" make" were to stand side by side with face" face" without the slightest indication that the first was a Latin imperative and the second a French noun.
To sum up : we may estimate the Hieroglyphic dictionary of Sir Ernest Budge in two very different ways, according to the angle of vision at which we place ourselves. As a courageous attempt to meet the requirements of the student, hitherto very badly served as regards convenient works of reference, the book is worthy of the highest commendation ; as a contribution to scientific knowledge it is negligible.
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