Learning Egyptian Hieroglyphs - Lesson 3 (Part I)
Biliteral Signs
Combinations of two consonants (biliteral signs) are of great importance in Egyptian writing. Here are some signs with a as the second consonant:
`a
pa
cha
,
(old) sa
ta
wa
ma
ha
sha
tha
ba
ha
sa
ka
dja
Phonetic Complements
The biliteral signs (and triliteral signs) are almost always accompanied by alphabetic signs that express part or the whole of their sound value.
This means that is read as sha, not shaa. (shaa would be written as
!) These alphabetic signs, used in that way, are called Phonetic Complements.
The way of combining these signs varies, but from our list above, these signs follow the pattern used by :
,
,
,
,
and
.
The others, apart from , have a pattern where the two consonants surround the biliteral (the first consonant before the biliteral, the second after), as in
ba (not bbaa).
uses this pattern:
is also used).
These patterns come through intuitive practise of Egyptian writing.
Although uncommon, there are some words with an absence of the phonetic complements, seen in such words as cha 'a thousand',
sa 'son',
bak 'servant' and
Suffix pronouns Dependant pronouns Independent pronouns These will be explained further on and in another lesson. Suffix Pronouns Suffixes must follow a preceding word. Here are the ones we will be learning in this lesson:
(though kat 'work, construction'.
Personal Pronouns
Personal Pronouns appear in several different forms:
Suffix pronouns
Dependant pronouns
Independent pronouns
These will be explained further on and in another lesson.
Suffix Pronouns
Suffixes must follow a preceding word. Here are the ones we will be learning in this lesson:
Suffix |
Hieroglyph |
Sound |
Meanings |
Singular 1 |
|
|
1, me, my |
also feminine |
|
||
kings sometimes use |
|
||
Singular 2, masculine |
|
|
Thou, thee, thy |
Singular 2, feminine |
|
|
Thou, thee, thy |
later on, also |
|
|
|
Singular 3, masculine |
|
|
He, him, his, it, its |
Singular 3, feminine |
|
|
She, her, hers, its |
later on, also |
|
|
|
Plural 1 |
|
|
We, us, our |
Plural 2 |
|
|
You, your |
or |
|
|
|
Plural 3 |
|
|
They, them, their |
or |
|
|
|
Plural 3 |
|
|
They, them, their |
later on |
|
|
|
Dual 1 |
|
|
We two, us two, our |
Dual 2 |
|
|
You two, your |
Dual 3 |
|
|
They two, their |
1 These became obsolete.
Chief Uses of Suffix Pronouns
As genitive after nouns, with the sense of our possessive adjectives.
Eg. pr
f 'his house' ('house of him'/'a house of his');
nywt
sn 'their town' ('town of them')
After prepositions.
Eg. n
y 'to me';
hn`
s 'together with her'
As nominative with the simple tenses of the verb.
Eg. djd
k 'thou sayest';
sdjm
m
tsh 'thou (fem) hast heard'
'Myself', 'Thyself', Etc
In Egyptian there are no special reflexive pronouns. This means that djd
f n
f could mean 'he says to himself'.
For emphatic 'myself', 'thyself', etc, we can use djs
, later on written as
with the appended suffix.
This is found:
After nouns, as in R` djs
f 'Ra (in person) himself'
To strengthen a suffix when used as a genitive, eg. rn
y djs
y 'my own name'
Adverbially, with the meaning 'by ones own effort', eg. sn n
k qrwt djs
sn 'the bolts open to thee by themselves'
In later times, 'myself', 'thyself', etc, are regularly paraphrased by h`w
y or
h`w
k (literally 'my (thy) members').