An Egpytian “People’s Dictionary” in Chicago

I may have a chance to see this display next month, of papyrus in Demotic Egyptian, the basis of a new dictionary.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-trice-demotic-language-1022-20121022,0,6669532.column

While in graduate school in the 1970s, Johnson began the project using as a springboard a 700-page demotic glossary published in 1954. Her new version is an updated 4,500-page volume that is now only available free online (www.oi.uchicago.edu). She said it eventually will be published in book form by the University of Chicago Press.