Egyptian hieroglyphs (pronounced /ˈhaɪ(ə)rəɡlɪf/ was a formal writing system Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that one must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to comprehend the text. By contrast, other possible symbolic systems such as information signs, painting, maps and mathematics often do not require prior knowledge of a spoken language used by the ancient Egyptians Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next three millennia. Its history that contained a combination of logographic A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes (speech sounds) or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories and alphabetic An alphabet is a standardized set of letters — basic written symbols or graphemes — each of which roughly represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit, and syllabaries, in which elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphics for religious literature Ancient Egyptian literature is literature written in the Egyptian language from Ancient Egypt's pharaonic period until the end of Roman domination. It represents the oldest corpus of Egyptian literature. Along with Sumerian literature, it is considered the world's earliest literature on papyrus Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt and wood. Less formal variations of the script, called hieratic Hieratic is a cursive writing system that was used in the provenance of the pharaohs in Egypt and Nubia that developed alongside the hieroglyphic system, to which it is intimately related. It was primarily written in ink with a reed brush on papyrus, allowing scribes to write quickly without resorting to the time-consuming hieroglyphs. The word and demotic, are technically not hieroglyphs The characters that are relatively old seem to originate from Sumer or Elam in Mesopotamia[citation needed]. The hieroglyphs that were originally used for recording agricultural products and handicrafts led to the birth of linear and cuneiform script, widely used by the Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians. 5000 years ago, Ancient Egyptians had.

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Etymology

The word hieroglyphic comes from the Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of adjective ἱερογλυφικός (hieroglyphikos),[1] a compound of ἱερός (hierós 'sacred')[2] and γλύφω (glýphō 'Ι carve, engrave'; see glyph A glyph is an element of writing. It is a slightly vague term, but a more precise definition might be an individual mark on paper or another written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written there. A grapheme is made up of one or more glyphs)[3]. The glyphs themselves were called τὰ ἱερογλυφικὰ γράμματα (tà hieroglyphikà grámmata, 'the sacred engraved letters'). The word hieroglyph has become a noun in English, standing for an individual hieroglyphic character. As used in the previous sentence, the word "hieroglyphic" is an adjective, but is often erroneously used as a noun in place of "hieroglyph".

History and evolution

Hieroglyphs The characters that are relatively old seem to originate from Sumer or Elam in Mesopotamia[citation needed]. The hieroglyphs that were originally used for recording agricultural products and handicrafts led to the birth of linear and cuneiform script, widely used by the Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians. 5000 years ago, Ancient Egyptians had emerged from the preliterate artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from circa 4000 BC resemble hieroglyphic writing. For many years the earliest known hieroglyphic inscription was the Narmer Palette The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great Hierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, containing some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. It is thought by some to depict the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the king Narmer. On one, found during excavations at Hierakonpolis Nekhen, was the religious and political capital of Upper Egypt at the end of the Predynastic period (c. 3200–3100 BC) and probably, also during the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3100–2686 BC). Some authors suggest occupation dates that should begin thousands of years earlier (modern Kawm al-Ahmar) in the 1890s, which has been dated to circa 3200 BC. However, in 1998 a German archaeological team under Günter Dreyer excavating at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) uncovered tomb U-j of a Predynastic The Predynastic Period of Ancient Egypt is traditionally the period between the Early Neolithic and the beginning of the Pharaonic monarchy starting with King Menes. However, the dates of the Predynastic period were first defined before widespread archaeological excavation of Egypt had taken place, and recent finds which show the course of ruler, and recovered three hundred clay labels inscribed with proto-hieroglyphs, dating to the Naqada IIIA period of the 33rd century BC.[4][5] The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qa'ab, which dates from the Second Dynasty The Second Dynasty of ancient Egypt is often combined with the First dynasty under the group title, Early Dynastic Period of Egypt. The capital at that time was Thinis. In the era of the Old Kingdom Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to the period in the 3rd millennium B.C.E. when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley, the Middle Kingdom The Middle Kingdom is the period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty, between 2080 BC and 1640 BC and the New Kingdom The New Kingdom of Egypt, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period. It was, about 800 hieroglyphs existed. By the Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman , when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries who culturally (and so historically) were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government and religion of the ancient period, they numbered more than 5,000.[6]

Scholars generally believe that Egyptian hieroglyphs “came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably [were], invented under the influence of the latter ...” [7] For example, it has been stated that it is "probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia.” [8] [9] On the other hand, it has been stated that “the evidence for such direct influence remains flimsy” and that “a very credible argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt...” [10] Given the lack of direct evidence, “no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt.” [11]

Hieroglyphs consist of three kinds of glyphs: phonetic glyphs, including single-consonant characters that function like an alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of letters — basic written symbols or graphemes — each of which roughly represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit, and syllabaries, in which; logographs A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes (speech sounds) or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories, representing morphemes In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes (the smallest units of written language); and determinatives, which narrow down the meaning Semantics is the study of meaning, usually in language. The word "semantics" itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical. It is often used in ordinary language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation. This problem of understanding has been the subject of many of logographic or phonetic words.

Hieroglyphs on an Egyptian funerary stela

As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic Hieratic is a cursive writing system that was used in the provenance of the pharaohs in Egypt and Nubia that developed alongside the hieroglyphic system, to which it is intimately related. It was primarily written in ink with a reed brush on papyrus, allowing scribes to write quickly without resorting to the time-consuming hieroglyphs. The word (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts. These variants were also more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental and other formal writing. The Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text made up of three translations of a single passage: two in Egyptian language scripts and one in classical Greek. It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the contains three parallel scripts - hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek.

Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule (intermittent in the 6th and 5th centuries BC), and after Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Macedonian The Ptolemaic dynasty, was a Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC and Roman Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world periods. It appears that the misleading quality of comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part, as a response to the changed political situation. Some believe that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish 'true Egyptians Egyptians is the name of the nationality and the Mediterranean North African ethnic group native to Egypt' from some of the foreign conquerors. Another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally. Having learned that hieroglyphs were sacred writing, Greco-Roman authors imagined the complex but rational system as an allegorical, even magical, system transmitting secret, mystical knowledge.

By the 4th century, few Egyptians were capable of reading hieroglyphs, and the myth of allegorical hieroglyphs was ascendant. Monumental use of hieroglyphs ceased after the closing of all non-Christian temples in AD 391 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I Flavius Theodosius , also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the Great (Greek: Θεοδόσιος Α΄ and Θεοδόσιος ο Μέγας), was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the empire, Theodosius was the last emperor of both the Eastern and Western Roman Empire. After his death, the two parts split; the last known inscription is from Philae Philae is an island in the Nile River and the previous site of an Egyptian temple complex in southern Egypt. The complex was dismantled and relocated to a nearby island in connection to the UNESCO project started because of the construction of the High Dam, after being partly flooded by the first Aswan Dam for half a century, known as the The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, from AD 396.[12]

Decipherment of hieroglyphic writing

Main article: Decipherment of hieroglyphic writing

As active knowledge of the hieroglyphs and the related scripts disappeared, numerous attempts were made to decipher the hidden meaning of the ubiquitous inscriptions. The best known example from Antiquity are the "Hieroglyphica" by Horapollo, which offer an explanation of almost 200 glyphs. Horapollo seems to have had access to some genuine knowledge about the hieroglyphs as some words are identified correctly, although the explanations given are invariably wrong (the goose character used to write the word for 'son', z3, for example, is identified correctly, but explained wrongly to have been chosen because the goose loves his offspring the most while the real reason seems to have been purely phonetic). The Hieroglyphica do thus represent the start of more than a millenium of (mis)interpreting the hieroglyphs as symbolic rather than phonetic writing.

In the 9th and 10th century, Arab historians The historiography of early Islam refers to the study of the early origins of Islam based on a critical analysis, evaluation, and examination of authentic primary sources materials and the organization of these sources into a narrative timeline Dhul-Nun al-Misri Dhul-Nun al-Misri was an Egyptian Sufi saint. He was considered the Patron Saint of the Physicians in the early Islamic era of Egypt, and is credited with having introduced the concept of Gnosis into Islam. Full name is; Dhul-Nun Abu Faid Thawban ibn Ibrahim أبوالفيض ثوبان بن إبراهيم and Ibn Wahshiyya Ibn Wahshiyah (Arabic: أبو بكر أحمد بن وحشية Abu Bakr Ahmed ibn 'Ali ibn Qays al-Wahshiyah al-Kasdani al-Qusayni al-Nabati al-Sufi‎) was a Nabataean Arab writer, alchemist, agriculturalist, Egyptologist and historian born at Qusayn near Kufa in Iraq. He was known in early modern Europe as Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih offered their interpretation of the hieroglyphs. In his English translation of Ibn Wahshiyya's work[13], Joseph Hammer points out that Athanasius Kirchner used this among several other Arabic works in his own attempts at decipherment.

Kirchner's interpretation of the hieroglyphs is probably the best known early modern European attempt at 'decipherment' (others include the works of Johannes Goropius Becanus), not least for the fantasticness of his claims. Like other interpretations before, Kirchner's 'translations' were hampered by the fundamental notion that hieroglyphs recorded ideas and not the sounds of the language. As no bilingual texts were available, any such symbolic 'translation' could be proposed without the possibility of falsification.

The Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text made up of three translations of a single passage: two in Egyptian language scripts and one in classical Greek. It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the in the British Museum The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present.[a]

The real breakthrough in decipherment began with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text made up of three translations of a single passage: two in Egyptian language scripts and one in classical Greek. It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the by Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte , was a military and political leader of France and Emperor of the French as Napoleon I, whose actions shaped European politics in the early 19th century's troops in 1799 (during Napoleon's Egyptian invasion). As the stone presented a hieroglyphic and a hieratic version of the same text in parallel with a Greek translation, plenty of material for falsifiable studies in translation was suddenly available. In the early 1800s scholars such as Silvestre de Sacy, Johan David Åkerblad, and Thomas Young Thomas Young was an English genius and polymath, admired by among others Herschel and Einstein. He is famous with the public for having partly deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs before Champollion did studied the inscriptions on the stone, and were able to make some headway. Finally, Jean-François Champollion Jean-François Champollion was a French classical scholar, philologist and orientalist, decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs made the complete decipherment by the 1820s:

“ It is a complex system, writing figurative, symbolic, and phonetic all at once, in the same text, the same phrase, I would almost say in the same word.[14] ”

This was a major triumph for the young discipline of Egyptology Egyptology is a major field of archaeology, the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century. A practitioner of the discipline is an Egyptologist.

Hieroglyphs survive today in two forms: Directly, through half a dozen Demotic glyphs added to the Greek alphabet when writing Coptic The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Demotic and is the first Alphabetic Script used for the Egyptian Language. There are in fact several Coptic alphabets as the Coptic writing system may vary greatly among the various; and indirectly, as the inspiration for the original alphabet The Proto-Sinaitic script, also known as Proto-Canaanite, is the alphabetic script of a number of Middle Bronze Age inscriptions in the Sinai, Middle Egypt, and Canaan. It is ancestral to the Semitic abjads as they developed by the Early Iron Age, and via Phoenician and Aramaic also to nearly all modern alphabets that was ancestral to nearly every other alphabet ever used, including the Roman alphabet.

Writing system

This article contains IPA The International Phonetic Alphabet [note 1] is a system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language. The IPA is used by foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech pathologists and therapists, singers, phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols Mojibake , from the Japanese 文字 (moji) "character" + 化け (bake) "change", is the happenstance of incorrect, unreadable characters shown when computer software fails to render text correctly according to its associated character encoding instead of Unicode Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. Developed in conjunction with the Universal Character Set standard and published in book form as The Unicode Standard, the latest version of Unicode consists of a repertoire of more than 107,000 characters.

Visually hieroglyphs are all more or less figurative: they represent real or illusional elements, sometimes stylized and simplified, but all generally perfectly recognizable in form. However, the same sign can, according to context, be interpreted in diverse ways: as a phonogram (phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones): their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status. Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with abstract, grammatical reading), as a logogram A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes (speech sounds) or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories, or as an ideogram An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms (semagram; "determinative A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may derive historically from glyphs for real words, and functionally they resemble classifiers in East") (semantic reading). The determinative was not read as a phonetic constituent, but facilitated understanding by differentiating the word from its homophones.

Phonetic reading

Hieroglyphs typical of the Graeco-Roman period

Most hieroglyphic signs are phonetic in nature, meaning the sign is read independent of its visual characteristics (according to the rebus principle where, for example, the picture of an eye could stand for the English words eye and I [the first person pronoun]). This picture of an eye is called a phonogram of word, 'I'.

Phonograms formed with one consonant are called mono- or uniliteral signs; with two consonants, biliteral signs; with three triliteral signs.

Twenty-four uniliteral signs make up the so-called hieroglyphic alphabet. Egyptian hieroglyphic writing does not normally indicate vowels, unlike cuneiform, and for that reason has been labelled by some an abjad alphabet, ie, an alphabet without vowels.

Thus, hieroglyphic writing representing a Pintail Duck is read in Egyptian as sȝ, derived from the main consonants of the Egyptian word for this duck: 's', '3' and 't' (note that the numeral '3' is how we, nowadays in our own alphabet, often represent the similar looking Egyptian alef (, two half-rings opening to the left.)

It is also possible to use the hieroglyph of the Pintail Duck without a link to its meaning in order to represent the two phonemes s and ȝ, independently of any vowels which could accompany these consonants, and in this way write the word: sȝ, "son," or when complemented by the context other signs detailed further in the text, sȝ, "keep, watch"; and sȝṯ.w, "hard ground". For example:

– the characters sȝ;

– the same character used only in order to signify, according to the context, "Pintail Duck" or, with the appropriate determinative, "son", two words having the same or similar consonants; the meaning of the little vertical stroke will be explained further on:

– the character sȝ as used in the word sȝw, "keep, watch"[clarification needed]

As in the Arabic script, not all vowels were written in Egyptian hieroglyphs; it is debatable whether vowels were written at all. Possibly, as with Arabic, the semivowels /w/ and /j/ (as in English W and Y) doubled as the vowels /u/ and /i/. In modern transcriptions, an e is added between consonants to aid in their pronunciation. For example, nfr "good" is typically written nefer. This does not reflect Egyptian vowels, which are obscure, but is merely a modern convention. Likewise, the ȝ and ʾ are commonly transliterated as a, as in Ra.

Hieroglyphs are written from right to left, from left to right, or from top to bottom, the usual direction being from left to right. The reader must consider the direction in which the asymmetrical hieroglyphs are turned in order to determine the proper reading order. For example, when human and animal hieroglyphs face to the left (i.e., they look left), they must be read from left to right, and vice versa, the idea being that the hieroglyphs face the beginning of the line.

Like many ancient writing systems, words are not separated by blanks or by punctuation marks. However, certain hieroglyphs appear particularly common only at the end of words making it possible to readily distinguish words.

Uniliteral signs

Main article: Egyptian uniliteral signs

The Egyptian hieroglyphic script contained 24 uniliterals (symbols that stood for single consonants, much like English letters). It would have been possible to write all Egyptian words in the manner of these signs, but the Egyptians never did so and never simplified their complex writing into a true alphabet.[15]

Each uniliteral glyph once had a unique reading, but several of these fell together as Old Egyptian developed into Middle Egyptian. For example, the folded-cloth glyph seems to have been originally an /s/ and the door-bolt glyph a /θ/ sound, but these both came to be pronounced /s/, as the /θ/ sound was lost. A few uniliterals first appear in Middle Egyptian texts.

Besides the uniliteral glyphs, there are also the biliteral and triliteral signs, to represent a specific sequence of two or three consonants, consonants and vowels, and a few as vowel combinations only, in the language.

Phonetic complements

Egyptian writing is often redundant: in fact, it happens very frequently that a word might follow several characters writing the same sounds, in order to guide the reader. For example, the word nfr, "beautiful, good, perfect", was written with a unique triliteral which was read as nfr :

However, it is considerably more common to add, to that triliteral, the uniliterals for f and r. The word can thus be written as nfr+f+r but one reads it merely as nfr. The two alphabetic characters are adding clarity to the spelling of the preceding triliteral hieroglyph.

Redundant characters accompanying biliteral or triliteral signs are called phonetic complements (or complementaries). They can be placed in front of the sign (rarely), after the sign (as a general rule), or even framing it (appearing both before and after). Ancient Egyptian scribes consistently avoided leaving large areas of blank space in their writing, and might add additional phonetic complements or sometimes even invert the order of signs if this would result in a more aesthetically pleasing appearance (good scribes attended to the artistic (and even religious) aspects of the hieroglyphs, and would not simply view them as a communication tool). Various examples of the use of phonetic complements can be seen below:
— md +d +w (the complementary d is placed after the sign) → it reads mdw, meaning "tongue";
— ḫ +p +ḫpr +r +j (the 4 complementaries frame the triliteral sign of the scarab/beetle) → it reads ḫpr.j, meaning the name "Khepri", with the final glyph being the determinative for 'ruler or god'.

Notably, phonetic complements were also used to allow the reader to differentiate between signs which are homophones, or which don't always have a unique reading. For example, the symbol of "the seat" (or chair):
— This can be read st, ws and ḥtm, according to the word in which it is found. The presence of phonetic complements—and of the suitable determinative—allows the reader to know which reading to choose, of the 3 readings:
  • 1st Reading: st —
    — st, written st+t ; the last character is the determinative of "the house" or that which is found there, meaning "seat, throne, place";
— st (written st+t ; the "egg" determinative is used for female personal names in some periods), meaning "Isis";
  • 2nd Reading: ws —
    — wsjr (written ws+jr, with, as a phonetic complement, "the eye", which is read jr, following the determinative of "god"), meaning "Osiris";
  • 3rd Reading: ḥtm —
    — ḥtm.t (written ḥ+ḥtm+m+t, with the determinative of "Anubis" or "the jackal"), meaning a kind of wild animal,
— ḥtm (written ḥ+ḥtm+t, with the determinative of the flying bird), meaning "to disappear".

Finally, it sometimes happens that the pronunciation of words might be changed because of their connection to Ancient Egyptian: in this case, it is not rare for writing to adopt a compromise in notation, the two readings being indicated jointly. For example, the adjective bnj, "sweet" became bnr. In Middle Egyptian, one can write:
— bnrj (written b+n+r+i, with determinative)

which is fully read as bnr, the j not being pronounced but retained in order to keep a written connection with the ancient word (in the same fashion as the English language words through, knife, or victuals, which are no longer pronounced the way they are written.)

Semantic reading

Besides a phonetic interpretation, characters can also be read for their meaning: in this instance logograms are being spoken (or ideograms) and semagrams (the latter are also called determinative).[16]

Logograms

A hieroglyph used as a logogram defines the object of which it is an image. Logograms are therefore the most frequently used common nouns; they are always accompanied by a mute vertical stroke indicating their status as a logogram (the usage of a vertical stroke is further explained below); in theory, all hieroglyphs would have the ability to be used as logograms. Logograms can be accompanied by phonetic complements. Here are some examples:

  		•
    — rˁ, meaning "sun";
  		•
    — pr, meaning "house";
  		•
    — swt (sw+t), meaning "reed";
  		•
    — ḏw, meaning "mountain".

In some cases, the semantic connection is indirect (metonymic or metaphoric):

  		•
    — nṯr, meaning "god"; the character in fact represents a temple flag (standard);
  		•
    — bȝ, meaning "Bâ" (soul); the character is the traditional representation of a "bâ" (a bird with a human head);
  		•
    — dšr, meaning "flamingo"; the corresponding phonogram means "red" and the bird is associated by metonymy with this colour.

Those are just a few examples from the nearly 5000 hieroglyphic symbols.

Determinatives

Determinatives or semagrams (semantic symbols specifying meaning) are placed at the end of a word. These mute characters serve to clarify what the word is about, as homophonic glyphs are common. If a similar procedure existed in English, words with the same spelling would be followed by an indicator which would not be read but which would fine-tune the meaning: "retort [chemistry]" and "retort [rhetoric]" would thus be distinguished.

A number of determinatives exist: divinities, humans, parts of the human body, animals, plants, etc. Certain determinatives possess a literal meaning and a figurative meaning. For example, a roll of papyrus,
is used to define "books" but also abstract ideas. The determinative of the plural is a shortcut to signal three occurrences of the word, that is to say, its plural (since the Egyptian language had a dual, sometimes indicated by two strokes). This special character is explained below.

Here are several examples of the use of determinatives borrowed from the book, Je lis les hiéroglyphes ("I am reading hieroglyphics") by Jean Capart, which illustrate their importance:

All these words have a meliorative connotation: "good, beautiful, perfect." A recent dictionary, the Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian by Raymond A. Faulkner, gives some twenty words which are read nfr or which are formed from this word.

Additional signs

Cartouche

Rarely, the names of gods are placed within a cartouche; the two last names of the sitting king are always placed within a cartouche:

jmn-rˁ, "Amon-Rê " ;

qrwjwȝpdrȝ.t, "Cleopatra " ;

J10 o S60

ljˁȝkȝ.t, "Lioka."

Filling stroke

A filling stroke is a character indicating the end of a quadrant which would otherwise be incomplete.

Signs joined together

Some signs are the contraction of several others. These signs have, however, a function and existence of their own: for example, a forearm where the hand holds a scepter is used as a determinative for words meaning "to direct, to drive" and their derivatives.

Doubling

The doubling of a sign indicates its dual; the tripling of a sign indicates its plural.

Grammatical signs

Spelling

The idea of standardized orthography—"correct" spelling—in Egyptian is much looser than in modern languages. In fact, one or several variants exist for almost every word. One finds:

However, many of these apparent spelling errors are more of an issue of chronology. Spelling and standards varied over time, so the given writing of a word during the Old Kingdom might be considerably different during the New Kingdom. Furthermore, the Egyptians were perfectly content to include older orthography ("historical spelling") alongside newer practices, as if it were acceptable in English to use the spelling of a given word from 1600 in a text written today. Most often ancient spelling errors are more of an issue of modern misunderstandings of the specific context of a given text. Today, hieroglyphicists make use of a number of catologuing systems (notably the Manuel de Codage and Gardiner's Sign List) in order to clarify the presence of determinatives, ideograms and other ambiguous signs in transliteration.

Simple examples

Ptolemy in hieroglyphs

The glyphs in this cartouche are transliterated as:

p t wꜣ l m i i s

Ptolmiis

or

m n

Min

though ii is considered a single letter and transliterated i or y.

Another way in which hieroglyphs work is illustrated by the two Egyptian words pronounced pr (usually vocalised as per). One word is 'house', and its hieroglyphic representation is straightforward:

Here the 'house' hieroglyph works as a logogram: it represents the word with a single sign. The vertical stroke below the hieroglyph is a common way of indicating that a glyph is working as a logogram.

Another word pr is the verb 'to go out, leave'. When this word is written, the 'house' hieroglyph is used as a phonetic symbol:

Here the 'house' glyph stands for the consonants pr. The 'mouth' glyph below it is a phonetic complement: it is read as r, reinforcing the phonetic reading of pr. The third hieroglyph is a determinative: it is an ideogram for verbs of motion that gives the reader an idea of the meaning of the word.

Hieroglyphs in Unicode

Unicode 5.2 encodes Egyptian Hieroglyphs in the range U+13000 - U+1342F. As of December, 2009, only one font, "Aegyptus", supports this range.

Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Unicode.org chart (PDF)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
1300x 𓀀 𓀁 𓀂 𓀃 𓀄 𓀅 𓀆 𓀇 𓀈 𓀉 𓀊 𓀋 𓀌 𓀍 𓀎 𓀏
1301x 𓀐 𓀑 𓀒 𓀓 𓀔 𓀕 𓀖 𓀗 𓀘 𓀙 𓀚 𓀛 𓀜 𓀝 𓀞 𓀟
1302x 𓀠 𓀡 𓀢 𓀣 𓀤 𓀥 𓀦 𓀧 𓀨 𓀩 𓀪 𓀫 𓀬 𓀭 𓀮 𓀯
1303x 𓀰 𓀱 𓀲 𓀳 𓀴 𓀵 𓀶 𓀷 𓀸 𓀹 𓀺 𓀻 𓀼 𓀽 𓀾 𓀿
1304x 𓁀 𓁁 𓁂 𓁃 𓁄 𓁅 𓁆 𓁇 𓁈 𓁉 𓁊 𓁋 𓁌 𓁍 𓁎 𓁏
1305x 𓁐 𓁑 𓁒 𓁓 𓁔 𓁕 𓁖 𓁗 𓁘 𓁙 𓁚 𓁛 𓁜 𓁝 𓁞 𓁟
1306x 𓁠 𓁡 𓁢 𓁣 𓁤 𓁥 𓁦 𓁧 𓁨 𓁩 𓁪 𓁫 𓁬 𓁭 𓁮 𓁯
1307x 𓁰 𓁱 𓁲 𓁳 𓁴 𓁵 𓁶 𓁷 𓁸 𓁹 𓁺 𓁻 𓁼 𓁽 𓁾 𓁿
1308x 𓂀 𓂁 𓂂 𓂃 𓂄 𓂅 𓂆 𓂇 𓂈 𓂉 𓂊 𓂋 𓂌 𓂍 𓂎 𓂏
1309x 𓂐 𓂑 𓂒 𓂓 𓂔 𓂕 𓂖 𓂗 𓂘 𓂙 𓂚 𓂛 𓂜 𓂝 𓂞 𓂟
130Ax 𓂠 𓂡 𓂢 𓂣 𓂤 𓂥 𓂦 𓂧 𓂨 𓂩 𓂪 𓂫 𓂬 𓂭 𓂮 𓂯
130Bx 𓂰 𓂱 𓂲 𓂳 𓂴 𓂵 𓂶 𓂷 𓂸 𓂹 𓂺 𓂻 𓂼 𓂽 𓂾 𓂿
130Cx 𓃀 𓃁 𓃂 𓃃 𓃄 𓃅 𓃆 𓃇 𓃈 𓃉 𓃊 𓃋 𓃌 𓃍 𓃎 𓃏
130Dx 𓃐 𓃑 𓃒 𓃓 𓃔 𓃕 𓃖 𓃗 𓃘 𓃙 𓃚 𓃛 𓃜 𓃝 𓃞 𓃟
130Ex 𓃠 𓃡 𓃢 𓃣 𓃤 𓃥 𓃦 𓃧 𓃨 𓃩 𓃪 𓃫 𓃬 𓃭 𓃮 𓃯
130Fx 𓃰 𓃱 𓃲 𓃳 𓃴 𓃵 𓃶 𓃷 𓃸 𓃹 𓃺 𓃻 𓃼 𓃽 𓃾 𓃿
1310x 𓄀 𓄁 𓄂 𓄃 𓄄 𓄅 𓄆 𓄇 𓄈 𓄉 𓄊 𓄋 𓄌 𓄍 𓄎 𓄏
1311x 𓄐 𓄑 𓄒 𓄓 𓄔 𓄕 𓄖 𓄗 𓄘 𓄙 𓄚 𓄛 𓄜 𓄝 𓄞 𓄟
1312x 𓄠 𓄡 𓄢 𓄣 𓄤 𓄥 𓄦 𓄧 𓄨 𓄩 𓄪 𓄫 𓄬 𓄭 𓄮 𓄯
1313x 𓄰 𓄱 𓄲 𓄳 𓄴 𓄵 𓄶 𓄷 𓄸 𓄹 𓄺 𓄻 𓄼 𓄽 𓄾 𓄿
1314x 𓅀 𓅁 𓅂 𓅃 𓅄 𓅅 𓅆 𓅇 𓅈 𓅉 𓅊 𓅋 𓅌 𓅍 𓅎 𓅏
1315x 𓅐 𓅑 𓅒 𓅓 𓅔 𓅕 𓅖 𓅗 𓅘 𓅙 𓅚 𓅛 𓅜 𓅝 𓅞 𓅟
1316x 𓅠 𓅡 𓅢 𓅣 𓅤 𓅥 𓅦 𓅧 𓅨 𓅩 𓅪 𓅫 𓅬 𓅭 𓅮 𓅯
1317x 𓅰 𓅱 𓅲 𓅳 𓅴 𓅵 𓅶 𓅷 𓅸 𓅹 𓅺 𓅻 𓅼 𓅽 𓅾 𓅿
1318x 𓆀 𓆁 𓆂 𓆃 𓆄 𓆅 𓆆 𓆇 𓆈 𓆉 𓆊 𓆋 𓆌 𓆍 𓆎 𓆏
1319x 𓆐 𓆑 𓆒 𓆓 𓆔 𓆕 𓆖 𓆗 𓆘 𓆙 𓆚 𓆛 𓆜 𓆝 𓆞 𓆟
131Ax 𓆠 𓆡 𓆢 𓆣 𓆤 𓆥 𓆦 𓆧 𓆨 𓆩 𓆪 𓆫 𓆬 𓆭 𓆮 𓆯
131Bx 𓆰 𓆱 𓆲 𓆳 𓆴 𓆵 𓆶 𓆷 𓆸 𓆹 𓆺 𓆻 𓆼 𓆽 𓆾 𓆿
131Cx 𓇀 𓇁 𓇂 𓇃 𓇄 𓇅 𓇆 𓇇 𓇈 𓇉 𓇊 𓇋 𓇌 𓇍 𓇎 𓇏
131Dx 𓇐 𓇑 𓇒 𓇓 𓇔 𓇕 𓇖 𓇗 𓇘 𓇙 𓇚 𓇛 𓇜 𓇝 𓇞 𓇟
131Ex 𓇠 𓇡 𓇢 𓇣 𓇤 𓇥 𓇦 𓇧 𓇨 𓇩 𓇪 𓇫 𓇬 𓇭 𓇮 𓇯
131Fx 𓇰 𓇱 𓇲 𓇳 𓇴 𓇵 𓇶 𓇷 𓇸 𓇹 𓇺 𓇻 𓇼 𓇽 𓇾 𓇿
1320x 𓈀 𓈁 𓈂 𓈃 𓈄 𓈅 𓈆 𓈇 𓈈 𓈉 𓈊 𓈋 𓈌 𓈍 𓈎 𓈏
1321x 𓈐 𓈑 𓈒 𓈓 𓈔 𓈕 𓈖 𓈗 𓈘 𓈙 𓈚 𓈛 𓈜 𓈝 𓈞 𓈟
1322x 𓈠 𓈡 𓈢 𓈣 𓈤 𓈥 𓈦 𓈧 𓈨 𓈩 𓈪 𓈫 𓈬 𓈭 𓈮 𓈯
1323x 𓈰 𓈱 𓈲 𓈳 𓈴 𓈵 𓈶 𓈷 𓈸 𓈹 𓈺 𓈻 𓈼 𓈽 𓈾 𓈿
1324x 𓉀 𓉁 𓉂 𓉃 𓉄 𓉅 𓉆 𓉇 𓉈 𓉉 𓉊 𓉋 𓉌 𓉍 𓉎 𓉏
1325x 𓉐 𓉑 𓉒 𓉓 𓉔 𓉕 𓉖 𓉗 𓉘 𓉙 𓉚 𓉛 𓉜 𓉝 𓉞 𓉟
1326x 𓉠 𓉡 𓉢 𓉣 𓉤 𓉥 𓉦 𓉧 𓉨 𓉩 𓉪 𓉫 𓉬 𓉭 𓉮 𓉯
1327x 𓉰 𓉱 𓉲 𓉳 𓉴 𓉵 𓉶 𓉷 𓉸 𓉹 𓉺 𓉻 𓉼 𓉽 𓉾 𓉿
1328x 𓊀 𓊁 𓊂 𓊃 𓊄 𓊅 𓊆 𓊇 𓊈 𓊉 𓊊 𓊋 𓊌 𓊍 𓊎 𓊏
1329x 𓊐 𓊑 𓊒 𓊓 𓊔 𓊕 𓊖 𓊗 𓊘 𓊙 𓊚 𓊛 𓊜 𓊝 𓊞 𓊟
132Ax 𓊠 𓊡 𓊢 𓊣 𓊤 𓊥 𓊦 𓊧 𓊨 𓊩 𓊪 𓊫 𓊬 𓊭 𓊮 𓊯
132Bx 𓊰 𓊱 𓊲 𓊳 𓊴 𓊵 𓊶 𓊷 𓊸 𓊹 𓊺 𓊻 𓊼 𓊽 𓊾 𓊿
132Cx 𓋀 𓋁 𓋂 𓋃 𓋄 𓋅 𓋆 𓋇 𓋈 𓋉 𓋊 𓋋 𓋌 𓋍 𓋎 𓋏
132Dx 𓋐 𓋑 𓋒 𓋓 𓋔 𓋕 𓋖 𓋗 𓋘 𓋙 𓋚 𓋛 𓋜 𓋝 𓋞 𓋟
132Ex 𓋠 𓋡 𓋢 𓋣 𓋤 𓋥 𓋦 𓋧 𓋨 𓋩 𓋪 𓋫 𓋬 𓋭 𓋮 𓋯
132Fx 𓋰 𓋱 𓋲 𓋳 𓋴 𓋵 𓋶 𓋷 𓋸 𓋹 𓋺 𓋻 𓋼 𓋽 𓋾 𓋿
1330x 𓌀 𓌁 𓌂 𓌃 𓌄 𓌅 𓌆 𓌇 𓌈 𓌉 𓌊 𓌋 𓌌 𓌍 𓌎 𓌏
1331x 𓌐 𓌑 𓌒 𓌓 𓌔 𓌕 𓌖 𓌗 𓌘 𓌙 𓌚 𓌛 𓌜 𓌝 𓌞 𓌟
1332x 𓌠 𓌡 𓌢 𓌣 𓌤 𓌥 𓌦 𓌧 𓌨 𓌩 𓌪 𓌫 𓌬 𓌭 𓌮 𓌯
1333x 𓌰 𓌱 𓌲 𓌳 𓌴 𓌵 𓌶 𓌷 𓌸 𓌹 𓌺 𓌻 𓌼 𓌽 𓌾 𓌿
1334x 𓍀 𓍁 𓍂 𓍃 𓍄 𓍅 𓍆 𓍇 𓍈 𓍉 𓍊 𓍋 𓍌 𓍍 𓍎 𓍏
1335x 𓍐 𓍑 𓍒 𓍓 𓍔 𓍕 𓍖 𓍗 𓍘 𓍙 𓍚 𓍛 𓍜 𓍝 𓍞 𓍟
1336x 𓍠 𓍡 𓍢 𓍣 𓍤 𓍥 𓍦 𓍧 𓍨 𓍩 𓍪 𓍫 𓍬 𓍭 𓍮 𓍯
1337x 𓍰 𓍱 𓍲 𓍳 𓍴 𓍵 𓍶 𓍷 𓍸 𓍹 𓍺 𓍻 𓍼 𓍽 𓍾 𓍿
1338x 𓎀 𓎁 𓎂 𓎃 𓎄 𓎅 𓎆 𓎇 𓎈 𓎉 𓎊 𓎋 𓎌 𓎍 𓎎 𓎏
1339x 𓎐 𓎑 𓎒 𓎓 𓎔 𓎕 𓎖 𓎗 𓎘 𓎙 𓎚 𓎛 𓎜 𓎝 𓎞 𓎟
133Ax 𓎠 𓎡 𓎢 𓎣 𓎤 𓎥 𓎦 𓎧 𓎨 𓎩 𓎪 𓎫 𓎬 𓎭 𓎮 𓎯
133Bx 𓎰 𓎱 𓎲 𓎳 𓎴 𓎵 𓎶 𓎷 𓎸 𓎹 𓎺 𓎻 𓎼 𓎽 𓎾 𓎿
133Cx 𓏀 𓏁 𓏂 𓏃 𓏄 𓏅 𓏆 𓏇 𓏈 𓏉 𓏊 𓏋 𓏌 𓏍 𓏎 𓏏
133Dx 𓏐 𓏑 𓏒 𓏓 𓏔 𓏕 𓏖 𓏗 𓏘 𓏙 𓏚 𓏛 𓏜 𓏝 𓏞 𓏟
133Ex 𓏠 𓏡 𓏢 𓏣 𓏤 𓏥 𓏦 𓏧 𓏨 𓏩 𓏪 𓏫 𓏬 𓏭 𓏮 𓏯
133Fx 𓏰 𓏱 𓏲 𓏳 𓏴 𓏵 𓏶 𓏷 𓏸 𓏹 𓏺 𓏻 𓏼 𓏽 𓏾 𓏿
1340x 𓐀 𓐁 𓐂 𓐃 𓐄 𓐅 𓐆 𓐇 𓐈 𓐉 𓐊 𓐋 𓐌 𓐍 𓐎 𓐏
1341x 𓐐 𓐑 𓐒 𓐓 𓐔 𓐕 𓐖 𓐗 𓐘 𓐙 𓐚 𓐛 𓐜 𓐝 𓐞 𓐟
1342x 𓐠 𓐡 𓐢 𓐣 𓐤 𓐥 𓐦 𓐧 𓐨 𓐩 𓐪 𓐫 𓐬 𓐭 𓐮

See also

Ancient Egypt portal

Notes and references

  1. ^ ἱερογλυφικός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
  2. ^ ἱερός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
  3. ^ γλύφω, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
  4. ^ The origins of writing, Discovery Channel (1998-12-15)
  5. ^ Richard Mattessich (Jun 2002) The oldest writings, and inventory tags of Egypt, The Accounting Historians Journal.
  6. ^ Antoni Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian; A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press 1995 p.12
  7. ^ Geoffrey Sampson, Writing Systems: a Linguistic Introduction, Stanford University Press, 1990, p. 78.
  8. ^ Geoffrey W. Bromley, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995, p. 1150.
  9. ^ Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards, et al., The Cambridge Ancient History (3d ed. 1970) pp. 43-44.
  10. ^ Simson Najovits, Egypt, Trunk of the Tree: A Modern Survey of an Ancient Land, Algora Publishing, 2004, pp. 55-56.
  11. ^ Robert E. & Carolyn Krebs, Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and Discoveries of the Ancient World, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, p. 91
  12. ^ The latest presently known hieroglyphic inscription date: Birthday of Osiris, year 110 [of Diocletian], dated to August 24, 396
  13. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=MKvYqEEboTYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false
  14. ^ Jean-François Champollion,Letter to M. Dacier, September 27, 1822
  15. ^ Gardiner, Sir Alan H. (1973). Egyptian Grammar. Griffith Institute. ISBN 0-900416-35-1.
  16. ^ Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian, A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press (1995), p. 13

Further reading

External links

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Lists Writing systems · Languages by writing system / by first written account · Undeciphered writing systems · Inventors of writing systems
Types Featural alphabets · Alphabets · Abjads · Alphasyllabaries / Abugidas · Syllabaries · Ideogrammic · Pictographic · Logographic · Numeral

Categories: Scripts with ISO 15924 four-letter codes | Ancient languages | Bronze Age writing systems | Egyptian languages | Egyptian hieroglyphs | Writing systems of Africa

 

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