je n'ai de permission à

18:37 Sep 5, 2022 

Fascinating, thanks!

16:45 Sep 5, 2022 

Nice find!
That settles it and answers Verity's question.

15:17 Sep 5, 2022 

Here is one translated version, from Egypt: How a Lost Civilization was Rediscovered By Joyce Tyldesley



https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WG0JalrIgmUC&printsec=fr...

14:30 Sep 5, 2022 

This article tracks the introduction of double negation (ne....pas/point) in French after the classical era. Interesting!
https://www.cairn.info/revue-langue-francaise-2004-3-page-19...

Correction on my point below, they were certainly already using double negation with "point", since he uses it in the following sentence. But I think single negation with "ne" was still sufficient. Single negation by omitting "pas"/"point" no longer being in use are modern developments, I think.

14:24 Sep 5, 2022 

First, can we all stop a moment to marvel at how cool it is that Verity is translating one of Champollion's letters from Egypt?!? I'm surprised they have not yet all be translated, but cool job, Verity!!

I think all of the translations are accurate in sense, so the question is which accurately conveys the register. I don't know enough about 19th century register to weigh in. Was "don't" in common usage then? Would possessive "'s" have been used in a formal letter? Or would they have said something more like "I need not request permission from anyone, least of all the Consul..."
I don't know the answer (I'm a legal translator, and definitely not an expert in historical register), just raising the questions.

Regarding "ne" being sufficient to negate, it absolutely is. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, "pas" is a relatively modern addition to French. Latin and the Romance languages, and English for that matter, negate with the ne/no/not/etc words, and French added "pas" thereafer. It may even have been seen as colloquial in Champollion's time, hence its absence here. Again, just a thought as I can't be certain without research.

14:17 Sep 5, 2022 

"j'ai à..." is pretty much the same as the EN "I have to...'
I think here the construction is almost a deformation of 'ne...personne...'

13:51 Sep 5, 2022 

"I answer to the Pasha" - that would make him some kind of agent or employee of the Pasha.

What he is saying is "I recognise only the Pasha as the ruler of / as having authority over this territory I'm in (i.e. Egypt)", so I couldn't care less about whatever anyone else has to say - that would be irrelevant / doesn't count for zilch.

12:53 Sep 5, 2022 

He says he doesn't need anybody's permission other than the ruler of Egypt, who I think would have been Muhammad Ali Pasha at the time.

You might phrase it as something like "I require the permission of none other" or "I need ask for permission from none other" if you want to translate into 19C English.

In other words, "You aren't the boss of me, the English aren't the boss of me, I answer only to the Pasha!"

12:20 Sep 5, 2022 

Oui, je ne dois demander la permission à quiconque.
P.S. évidemment si ce n'est au Pacha

12:03 Sep 5, 2022 

« je n'ai aucune permission à demander à qui que ce soit »
« je n'ai besoin de demander la permission de personne »
et variations sur un même thème.

PS Agree with Wolf: I answered your question about ne, but the whole sentence says that "Champo" recognizes none other than...