I t is thus not surprising that the Egyptian language shows some similarities with both the Semitic and, to a lesser degree, the Hamitic languages. I n general semantics, it shares with the Semitic languages the peculiarity that its word-stems are combinations of consonants , as a rule three, which are theoretically unchangeable. G rammatical inflection and minor changes of meaning were either contrived by changing the internal, unwritten vowels. This, however, does not imply that all words beginning with an m denote a place.
T here are also many similarities in the vocabulary itself.
The following is a list of some similarities between Ancient Egyptian words and words in several Semitic languages. Please note, however, that the representation of the Ancient Egyptian words is but a consonantal skeleton of the words. The Ancient Egyptians didn't write any vowels. Any character in the list below that is a vowel in our language, is either added by the modern-day Egyptologist to facilitate reading of Egyptian texts, or a representation of a consonant unknown in western languages, but common in Semitic languages. Different stages and grammatical evolution T hrough its more than 3.000 year long history, it is but natural that the language of the Ancient Egyptians changed and evolved grammatically and semantically.