Discovering Writing: Learning Egyptian Hieroglyphs

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:

cha cha

, (old) sa

sha sha

tha tha

dja 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 sha is read as sha, not shaa. (shaa would be written as sha !) 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 sha :

, , , , tha and dja .

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 cha 'a thousand', sa stroke determinative man determinative sa 'son', bak bak 'servant' and kat man carrying basket determinative 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		y	1, me, my
also feminine
kings sometimes use	, ,
Singular 2, masculine		k	Thou, thee, thy
Singular 2, feminine		tsh	Thou, thee, thy
later on, also		t
Singular 3, masculine		f	He, him, his, it, its
Singular 3, feminine		s	She, her, hers, its
later on, also		s
Plural 1		n	We, us, our
Plural 2	,	tshn	You, your
or	,	tn
Plural 3	, ; ,	sn< /i>	They, them, their
or	, ;	sn
Plural 3		w	They, them, their
later on		w
Dual 1	1	ny	We two, us two, our
Dual 2	1	tshny	You two, your
Dual 3	1	sny	They two, their

1 These became obsolete.

Chief Uses of Suffix Pronouns

As genitive after nouns, with the sense of our possessive adjectives.

Eg. prf 'his house' ('house of him'/'a house of his'); nywtsn 'their town' ('town of them')

After prepositions.
Eg. ny 'to me'; hn`s 'together with her'

As nominative with the simple tenses of the verb.
Eg. djdk 'thou sayest'; sdjmmtsh 'thou (fem) hast heard'

'Myself', 'Thyself', Etc

In Egyptian there are no special reflexive pronouns. This means that djdf nf 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` djsf 'Ra (in person) himself'

To strengthen a suffix when used as a genitive, eg. rny djsy 'my own name'

Adverbially, with the meaning 'by ones own effort', eg. sn nk qrwt djssn 'the bolts open to thee by themselves'

In later times, 'myself', 'thyself', etc, are regularly paraphrased by h`wy or h`wk (literally 'my (thy) members').

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Discovering Writing: Learning Egyptian Hieroglyphs - Lesson 3 (Part I)

Learning Egyptian Hieroglyphs - Lesson 3 (Part I)

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