Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Lesson 1
8 comments
·December 18, 2025twelvechess
phatskat
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
If you're studying Chinese, maybe you realized that Chinese writing works in a very similar way.
mstngl
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.
pilaf
> 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
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
The writing of vowels also varied greatly over time so any sweeping statement somebody makes can attract a chorus of "yes but"
jameslk
Archived version:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250912055105/https://www.egypt...
(The site may be hugged to death)
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.