http://www.egyptology-uk.com/bloomsbury/This may sound like a ruthless plug for the Bloomsbury Summer School in London, which runs a number of week-long courses during the University's summer vacation. And actually, it probably is, because it is a brilliant and much admired series of courses which make Egyptology accessible to anyone who wants to participate. However, beyond wanting to support this excellent institution, I thought that it might be of interest to those considering taking a hieroglyph course to hear what one week's intensive learning experience is actually like.
There were two groups - those who were beginners and those who wanted to take the next steps. I was in the latter group. Days start at 10am and end at 1715. There are tea and lunch breaks, with coffee/tea/juice and biscuits in a comfortable common room, but the rest of the day consists of solid learning. Mark Collier and Bill Manley take the two groups in shifts. This year the lecture rooms were in the sparklingly new School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies (SSEES -prounounced "cease"), and they were excellent. The room where everyone congregated for breaks was in the History Department building, where tea, coffe and really rather nice biscuits were served. There was also a huge study-room allocated to us in SSEES for those who wished to sit and study in break times.
The five day course that I attended was called Hieroglyphs - The Next Steps and was headed by Bill Manley and Mark Collier. I was terribly worried that I might have bitten off more than I could chew and would either hold up the class or find myself lost, but as soon as we all gave our little "my name is x and I have this experience with hieroglyphs" speeches (at Bill's request) it became clear that there were hugely different levels of ability and knowledge. The course, fortunately, has been structured to cope with that situation.
Our expert tutors were, as I have already mentioned, Mark Collier and Bill Manley - authors of the fabulous and best selling self-teaching book How To Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs. They ran the course with the very able assistance of Glen Godenho, who is doing a PhD on the First Intermediate Period, brave soul that he is (have you seen First Intermediate inscriptions??). Jose Perez Accino was originally penned in for the week (my first ever hieroglyph tutor), but was unable to attend for reasons completely beyond his control. The three of them make a great team, with completely different teaching styles that complement each other perfectly, and helped with our own very different levels of knowledge and learning abilities. Because they were working in shifts, the different teaching styles also offered a very welcome way of breaking up the day and keeping attention focused. The three of them are articulate, never lost for a new way of explaining a difficult concept, and they never leave you feeling that even your most stupid error is unacceptable - they emphasize that difficulties are all just part of the learning curve.
The course is a mixture of lectures and closely supervised reading. The lectures are used to target notorious areas of difficulty, unpack them (or break them down) and then rebuild them slowly and carefully with numerous examples until they are understood. The supervised reading consists of texts provided in photocopies of texts (or those in the Collier and Manley book if the student prefers) which the student works on individually (or with the collaboration of neighbours), while the teaching team work their way around the room spending considerable amounts of time addressing difficulties and queries.
The activity of the very first morning of the first day initially seemed very strange to me. I was expecting a lecture, but we were instructed to read texts that were provided, and that we would be assisted when required. It turned out to be a very good idea. The exercise forced us back into the read-transliterate-translate mode that you simply must get into if you are going to make any headway at all. I was astonished at how poorly I began and how quickly I progressed, using my own forgotten knowledge and Glen's much-needed assistance when I came unstuck. The reading sessions were truly valuable to me because I could yell for help when I was struggling with a concept or specific phrase. When I couldn't go any further, there was always someone to tell me where I was missing the essential point.
The lectures were excellent. To give you an example of the scope of them, tenses, participles, relative forms and pronouns were all dealt with. No-one pretends that they are not confusing, but we are encouraged to grapple with the difficulties, we revisit them many times, and learn to tell the difference between different grammatical forms. On one day Bill Manley gave us the friendly version of participles in the morning, and in the afternoon Mark Collier gave us the harsh version. The one reinforced the other brilliantly.
We were also encouraged by both Bill and Mark not only to look at the grammar and vocabulary, but to look behind the words to the lives (and afterlives) of the people who left their texts for us to read. This provided us with the idea that the concepts of death and the afterlifew are very different, and that phrases like "travelling to the west" are, when read in the context of funerary texts, not about going to make a new life in America, but about going into the underworld. The language is explored in terms of the exact words and phrases used to build up an empirical view of the religous and social context. I began to feel as though I was getting into the minds of some of the people who left stelae at Abydos.
We were encouraged to interrupt to ask questions, and we are expected to help out the lecturers by participating with answers to their questions.
By Thursday I was completely exhausted, but in a very satisfying way, having felt that I had achieved something very worthwhile.
By the end of the day on Friday I was uncertain if I could actually articulate anything in any language ever again for the rest of my life - my brain had completely turned to mush. Last night I actually woke up muttering in ancient Egyptian - the first words of a text that I had been reading yesterday. I am not sure what that says about the week, but I suppose it could be argued that I am thinking of ancient Egyptian as just another foreign language, rather than the alien and inaccessible code from another time and place that it once seemed.
We all came away with photocopies of texts which we should be able to tackle now, and I am looking forward to continuing to torture ancient Egyptian grammar as I have all week - but certainly with fewer mistakes than in the past. I am also conscious now, thanks to comparisons by Mark between ancient Egyptian and English expressions, that my modern English grammar is really not up to scratch, but I am far too tired and old to tackle it right now, so please accept my apologies for a very scrappy post!
I cannot believe how much I have learned. I had reached a certain level of competence by myself, but in this week I have made huge leaps beyond a point beyond which I was simply unable to reach without assistance. Mark Collier took us through two texts on the last day of the course, which we tackled as a group, "chanting" the translation together, and I was staggered at how much we could all could translate without effort. It was a big contrast to the beginning of the week.
More than anything, I came away with the idea, drilled into us by Mark, that if there is a part of a word that does not resemble its standard dictionary format because it includes an extra hieroglph, then that hieroglyph needs to be accounted for. Never avoid an extra sign - if it is there, it has a purpose and is doing something useful which will give a huge amount of information about the sense of the sentence and what it means. The idea that Egyptian grammar is a window into the subtleties of the Egyptian mind is very powerful and seductive, and whenever I see an extra hieroglyph in a word, I now feel interested rather than daunted.
It is quite clear that many people who did either this or the beginners' course in 2006 have not touched a hieroglyph since then. It is also clear from all the comments that this is a source of considerable regret to them, but that people have not devised a way of comforatably fitting hieroglyph revision into their lives. Jose Perez Accino told my beginner class a few years ago that hieroglyphs are like Tefal - non-stick. He was so right. If you don't have a plan to keep going with the language, to revise and reinforce your learning, it will fade from your mind. Part of the value of the course is that it gives you the entire tree-trunk (Mark's term) from which you can branch off and learn more. But you need to keep reinforcing that basic tree-trunk of knowledge. I am going to work through the Collier and Manley book again to reinforce knowlege that seems to wax and wane on a daily basis, but I am worrying about how to ensure that what I have learned this week will stay with me - that is something that needs to be resolved.
Looking beyond the hieroglph course itself, the organizers of the Summer School, (Christopher Coleman, Lucia Gahlin and Jan Picton) are authorities in their own right, and are committed to making things work. They are helpful, friendly and informative, and their genuine enthusiasm is contagious. The students who attend the courses are from many different backgrounds and nations. The social receptions and parties are not obligatory, but they offer genuinely undemanding relaxation, together with (Hna) a good opportunity to meet people who share a basic set of interests.
Serious thanks to the Summer School for the great party to mark the end of the course yesterday night - it was lovely. There was wine, there were strawberries the size of tennis balls, a roof terrace with a great view, and it was super to exchange notes with people with whom I had sat, but not exchanged conversation, for the last five days. One of the really nice things about the Summer School turns out to be that one meets some absolutely lovely people, both new and familiar, so here are a few personal hellos. A quick hello to Amanda, who was sitting in front of me, is infinitely more hieroglyphically capable than me, and reads this blog! Bob, if you read this, I loved the shirt - the last time I saw you (at Highclere) you were in a very posh suit. Francis - more beers are required and I promise to fix your poor laptop this weekend. Christopher, Lucia and Jan - such a pleasure to meet you at long last. And wishing all the best for Mark on his potentially traumatic journey via Virgin trains to Chester - his story did make me smile, because I have to do the Euston to Chester route so often myself. I could tell some hair raising stories about Virgin trains, but I'll spare you.
I hope that this offers just a little insight into what it is like to take a hieroglyph course in general, and at Bloomsbury in particular.
Finally, to anyone who is wondering why I only updated the blog ridiculously late last night and why I haven't answered emails in my usual quick-fire style - you need to blame Mark Collier, Bill Manley and Glen Godenho. By the time I've arrived home every night this week all I have wanted to do is float in the bath with a large glass of wine before falling face down on my bed until the alarm gate-crashes my dreams. All email replies, website updates and other responsibilities will be actioned this weekend. Plan A was actually to spend the entire weekend asleep, but life must go on, even post-hieroglyphs!
For anyone interested in reading some of the classic texts, check out the Ancient Egyptian Language website, which has the texts and some transliterations for a number of famous stories including Sinuhe, the Shipwrecked Sailor and the Eloquent Peasant. The texts are freely available with no registration required.
For anyone intersted in revising and keeping up their skills, have a look at the GlyphStudy group, which is an email list of people working through Allen and offering a lot of very strong mutual support by both the moderator, Karen, and its voluminous membership - again, it is free of charge, but you will need to register. I've also thrown together a page on hieroglyph resources for those who want to keep up with their revision on an ongoing basis.
Apologies for the multiple postings of this commentary - I have had the usual problems with the formatting and line spacing. I will be a much happier and saner person when the guys who run the Blogger service actually get this issue resolved.
No comments:
Post a Comment