Acknowledgments Notes on Transliteration, Abbreviations and Conventions Map of Egyptian Sites and Settlements 1 Introduction 1 The Pyramid Texts 2 Language Variation 3 Language Variation in Egyptian 4 Language Variation in the Pyramid Texts 5 Structure2 Markers of Temporal, Geographic, and Social Setting 1 Temporal Markers 2 Geographic Markers 3 Social Criteria3 Variation in the Pronouns 1 The Demonstratives and Their Uses 2 Personal Pronouns 3 Reanalysis of Pronouns in the Presentative Particle mk 4 Palatalization 1 Palatalization k 2 The Alternation s ~ 5 Liquid and Sonorant Consonant Alternations 1 Variation in the Expression of /l/ 2 Lenition of Word-Final r and Other r ~ i Alternation 3 ~ r Alternation 4 Summary of the Liquids and Sonorants6 Other Cases of Phonological Variation 1 Merger of s and z 2 Metathesis 3 Rare Phonological Alternations 4 Synthesis7 Socio-Historical Context for Linguistic Diversity in the Pyramid Texts 1 Components of Ritual 2 Authenticity of a Text 3 Authenticity through Temporality 4 Authenticity through Locality 5 Integration of Provincial Religion with the Court Religion 6 Synthesis8 Summary and Conclusions 1 The Linguistic Variants of the Pyramid Texts 2 Different Source Lects 3 Late Old Kingdom Royal Program of Religious Integration 4 Pyramid Texts, Linguistics, the Old Kingdom, and Beyond Appendix: List of Utterances and Their Features Bibliography Index.