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Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Lesson 1

https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/egyptian-hieroglyphs/lesson-1/
52•jameslk•4h ago

Comments

twelvechess•2h ago
My 10 year old self would be all over those lessons. Currently I am studying Chinese, but I am wondering how much time does it take to finish the lessons. Also on the technical side, some parts of the website take a lot of time to load and clicking begin lessons on the home page gave me a "Failed to open page". I don't know if its because I am on Safari.
phatskat•1h ago
Might be getting hugged - some of the answers in the first chapter failed to load images, and then the second page failed to load.

This is a really neat page and, while I doubt I’ll ever get far into learning any of it, it’s really cool! For some reason I never stopped to wonder just how much we knew about hieroglyphs and assumed it wasn’t much, and I’m happily surprised!

closetkantian•1h ago
If you're studying Chinese, maybe you realized that Chinese writing works in a very similar way.
jameslk•1h ago
Archived version:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250912055105/https://www.egypt...

(The site may be hugged to death)

pilaf•1h ago
> You might have noticed that there aren’t any vowels in the alphabet

Then in the next table:

> 𓄿 is pronounced “ah” as in “yacht”

> 𓇋 is pronounced “ee” as in “feet”

> 𓅱 𓏲 is pronounced “oo” as in “blue”

Are those vowel-sounding hieroglyphs only used in special occasions?

Also, does anyone know what the reason for omitting vowels altogether may have been?

junon•1h ago
It's a class of script. A language with a script that omits vowels is called a "(pure) abjad(ic)" language. Egyptian (arguably, I'm not a linguist) and Arabic are examples of "impure abjad" languages. Usually they have diacritics that hint at vowel sounds but are otherwise devoid of explicit vowel glyphs, so I'm not sure if Egyptian strictly fits that bill - maybe someone else does. Point is, it's perhaps a bit foreign to latin-language speakers but there's a whole class of languages that do this, or something similar.

There are a few purely abjadic languages, one that comes to mind I believe is Phonician.

bandrami•56m ago
The writing of vowels also varied greatly over time so any sweeping statement somebody makes can attract a chorus of "yes but"
mstngl•58m ago
𓇋𓅓 𓋴𓂋𓊪𓂋𓇋𓊃𓂧 𓊃𓄿𓏏 𓄿𓂋 𓊃 𓉔𓇋𓂋𓅱𓎼𓂋𓇋𓆑𓋴 𓄿𓂋 𓎡𓄿𓆑𓂋𓂧 𓃀𓄿𓇋 𓇌𓈖𓇋𓎡𓅱𓂧.

Even such rather exotic glyphs, like the biliteral 𓏞, which is U+133DE [1]. But I assume that the coverage by webfonts is somewhat bad.

P.S.: Sorry for such intended misuse of the principles of hieroglyphic writing.

[1] https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+133DE

milchek•24m ago
Thanks for sharing, interesting they have both left to right and right to left writing form and that it’s so simple and intuitive to tell which way - but I guess now I want to know why they went with this dynamic system? Guessing it’s due to the form/medium and need for fitting things - perhaps like if you enter a room and are reading the wall as you walk through on your right side your are reading right to left as opposed to if the glyphs were on the left wall?
rwmj•20m ago
Typically in Egyptian tombs, around a doorway the writing faces (literally) the door, so on the left side you read right to left and on the right side you read left to right. I've also seen them written in columns to look like actual columns. I think it's best to think of hieroglyphs as an extension of art / drawing.

(I learned some hieroglyphs at school so this link takes me back! The school's textbook was Barbara Watterson - Introducing Egyptian Hieroglyphs.)

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Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Lesson 1

https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/egyptian-hieroglyphs/lesson-1/
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