10
votes
Why are the phonemes of Tutankhamun's throne name transliterated out of order?
The throne name (praenomen) has the following four hieroglyphs, listed by Gardiner number as:
𓎟 V30 (basket)
𓏥 Z2 (three strokes)
𓆣 L1 (dung beetle)
𓇳 N5 (sun)
I think the issue ...
- 7,291
9
votes
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A Lesson in Transcribing Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Short answer: Gardiner's classification system. It's what Unicode (and every major dictionary I know of) uses, and is quite comprehensive; pretty much anything you come across in everyday Egyptology ...
- 64.1k
9
votes
Why are the Egyptian and Hittite versions of Tutankhamun's name different?
It's important to remember that hieroglyphic Egyptian usually makes the consonants clear, but not the vowels. Tutankhamun's praenomen is thus transcribed nb-ḫpr-(w)-rꜥ (or nb-xpr-(w)-rꜥ, depending on ...
- 64.1k
8
votes
How do Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs differ?
The biggest difference, as you mention, is that the oldest forms of hieroglyphic writing don't indicate vowels at all and the oldest forms of cuneiform writing do. (By "oldest forms" here I ...
- 64.1k
7
votes
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How consistent are the Egyptian Hieroglyph carvings orthographically?
Like with all writing systems, a certain amount of variation is natural and expected. What's important is that the sign not be confused with any other.
Here's the beginning of Gardiner's sign list ...
- 64.1k
7
votes
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Could the Ancient Egyptian Ka be pronounced Ki?
As Arnaud Fournet said, the modern "Egyptological" pronunciation has really very little to do with how the actual Egyptians pronounced the words. Hieroglyphic writing seldom if ever indicates vowels, ...
- 64.1k
7
votes
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Phonetic reconstruction of "Haremhab"
Egyptian hieroglyphs, in general, only record consonants, not vowels. The hieroglyphic name of the pharaoh Horemheb records the consonants ħr-m-ħb with no indication of the vowels to be used.
This, of ...
- 64.1k
6
votes
Accepted
'm' of predication vs. nominal sentence in Middle Egyptian
The nominal construction without the m of predication is attested in Old Kingdom texts, even with professions. E.g. Hatnub 11, Anthes (pl.14,5):
ink sš iqr
I am an excellent scribe.
Hatnub 14,...
- 7,291
5
votes
Accepted
Why is this 𓏭 Egyptian hieroglyph associated with the Hebrew letter ז [Zayin] and not the word וָו [VaV]?
You're comparing glyphs from very different time periods.
The word wāw (or vāv) looks like two vertical lines in the square script (ktav ashuri). However, scholars have a pretty good idea where this ...
- 64.1k
5
votes
Accepted
How do Egyptologists layout hieroglyphs in print?
Do they lay it out pretty much exactly like it appears in the stone?
Somewhat! The one exception is that "line wrapping" is sometimes redone: if the original text consists of multiple lines or ...
- 64.1k
5
votes
Accepted
How to transliterate/transcribe/romanize Ancient Egyptian
(Foreword: if you want to be pedantic, this will be a transcription or a bound transcription, representing the phonemes as best we can, but not necessarily representing the orthography.)
The list you'...
- 64.1k
4
votes
Chinese writing system as a universal writing system
Chinese characters work very well for Chinese – but that is a tautology because they evolved as a way to represent Chinese and can thus be said to be designed for Chinese. This not necessarily applies ...
- 1,160
4
votes
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Egyptian Hieroglyphics: where are Champollion's proofs?
More detail on how the early stages of Champollion's process can be found in the Lettre à M. Dacier relative à l'alphabet des hiéroglyphes phonétiques, completed on the 22nd September 1822. There were ...
- 7,291
4
votes
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Middle Egyptian name for Seshat: Sšꜣt or Zẖꜣt?
It's still debated.
As you mention, "scribe" was written with the door bolt and the pool of water (z-š) in the earliest inscriptions. As a result, Budge proposed the reading zš for the "...
- 64.1k
3
votes
Accepted
Does anyone know what the name Peter translates to in Egyptian?
"Peter" is originally a Greek name, popularized by the spread of Christianity. And the form of the Egyptian language spoken when Christianity became widespread is generally referred to as &...
- 64.1k
3
votes
Accepted
Are names of dishes more prone to name change due to power / language shift?
A lot of the names of Egyptian dishes (as opposed to raw materials like fūl) are borrowed from Ottoman Turkish and are found also in Levantine Arabic, Greek, Serbian and other languages. This is ...
- 23.8k
3
votes
Where can one find reconstructed vocalizations for (any stage of) Egyptian?
You say 'if such a work exists for a different stage of the language, that's also good to know about!'. Well Coptic (the last stage of Egyptian) is plentifully written with vowels, because the ...
- 586
3
votes
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How to transcribe Egyptian Hieroglyphs
It's a non-trivial process!
First, break the text into units. In this case, the units are the rows, with nice gaps between them.
Then you have to determine the overall direction of each unit. This ...
- 64.1k
2
votes
A Lesson in Transcribing Egyptian Hieroglyphics
(Meta; to be removed once the question edited) This post has a seed of a good question, but it is a bit wordy, meaning it contains useless information (all letterforms), subjective/open-ended parts (...
- 8,599
2
votes
Accepted
Where can one find reconstructed vocalizations for (any stage of) Egyptian?
As of 2020, the Madùwwe Project has released ThotBank, a database of information on Egyptian words including reconstructed vocalizations from a few different sources. For example, searching for rmṯ ...
- 64.1k
2
votes
Is there a collection of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic transliterations of foreign names/words?
Just a collection? I have one, here we go!
The language is Ptolemaic Demotic Egyptian.
The rightmost column is Coptic, that's the latest Egyptian.
The page is taken from Demotic Egyptian Guide - ...
- 17.7k
2
votes
How do Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs differ?
I don't think much is known about the early stages of Egyptian writing. We get either a few objects with Hieroglyphic labels in the first few centuries or full blown passages in the pyramid texts a ...
- 797
2
votes
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What is "H5" in Egyptian?
"H5" or "fifth H" is generally transcribed either "h̭" or "ḫ₂", and represents what's very likely a phonemic split in later Egyptian.
At a certain point, ...
- 64.1k
2
votes
Accepted
What was a general called in ancient Egypt?
Faulkner uses the word "general" to translate jmj-r mšꜥ (later jmy-r mšꜥ), literally "overseer of soldiers". This title is common from the Old Kingdom onwards, and can also mean &...
- 64.1k
2
votes
Clear introductory sources on Egyptian group-writing
The best introduction I've found is Hoch's Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period, specifically chapter 6, The Development of Group Writing. This chapter ...
- 64.1k
2
votes
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What are the principles of Middle Egyptian spelling?
Native words* are written in one of two ways. Either they're written with a single logogram, which represents the entire word, plus a stroke (Z1) that marks it as a logogram. Or they're written with a ...
- 64.1k
1
vote
Clear introductory sources on Egyptian group-writing
I was recently pointed to Kilani's 2019 Vocalisation in Group Writing: A New Proposal, which is significantly more modern than Hoch and focuses on the principles underlying group-writing rather than ...
- 64.1k
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