Overview

(Im)politeness in Ancient Egypt is the first book-length study of (im)politeness in ancient Egyptian texts. Leading experts in their respective corpora examine a range of textual sources spanning approximately 2,000 years, using the latest frameworks for analyzing language in usage. This edited volume asks how ancient Egyptians adapted and modified their language to persuade, complain, or mock, and how they assessed the risks and benefits of communicating with those above or below them in the social hierarchy. The papers explore whether ancient Egyptians used politeness freely and strategically, or were constrained by mandatory social rules. The documents presented, translated, and analyzed in this book include personal letters, ritual utterances, fictional stories, dialogue captions in tomb scenes, and messages to dead relatives.

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M. Victoria Almansa-Villatoro, Ph.D. (2022), Brown University, is Assistant Professor of Egyptology at Yale University. She has published on Egyptian language, society, and religion and is co-editor of Ancient Egyptian and Afroasiatic: Rethinking the Origins (Eisenbrauns, 2023). Aurore Motte, Ph.D. (2018), University of Liège, is a postdoctoral researcher of the F.R.S.-FNRS (Belgium). She has published on ancient Egyptian language, literature, and paratext and co-edited Looking Beyond the Text: New Approaches to Scribal Culture and Practices in Ancient Egypt (Brill, 2025).

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