Terms for 'children' in middle Egyptian: a sociolinguistic view

This paper briefly reports on part of a study aimed at exploring the broad interaction between language and culture in Ancient Egypt. The particular concept considered here is the sociolinguistic significance of the lexical range and variety of terms (collective, common, male or female) used to describe children, the 'semantic field,' including babies, sons and daughters in Middle Egyptian. The listed terms are briefly reviewed, certain conclusions are drawn, and their correlation with understandings drawn from more usual historical sources is examined. (OEB)