The Three Kinds of Signs

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The Three Kinds of Signs

To speak broadly, hieroglyphs are of three kinds: phonetic signs, ideograms, and determinatives. The first are used for writing sounds (actually consonants); for example, the sign $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca L/1/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ is used for the sound ``kheper'' because the scarab is called so; the sign $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca G/19/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ is used for the consonant ``m'' because the word owl starts with an ``m'', and so on... Ideograms are used to write the thing or the idea represented by their drawing. So $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca E/1/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ is used for writing the word ``bull'', and $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca Y/3/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ , the slate of a scribe, is used for writing the word ``scribe.''

As Egyptian doesn't use space between the words, and doesn't write vowels, this writing would have been very ambiguous, if it hadn't used determinatives. These are signs used as a word-ending, to specify the semantic category of a word. For example, the signs $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca E/10/}\Hrp \Hunh{\Aca G/46/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ read ``iew''. But that might be the verb ``to lament'', or the substantives ``dog'' or ``wrongdoing''. So three different determinatives are used: $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca A/2/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ , which designates any action of the mouth, $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca E/18/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ for dogs, and $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca G/40/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ , a sign used for small and evil things alike. So the word $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca E/10/}\Hrp \Hunh{\Aca G/46/}\Hrp \Hunh{\Aca A/2/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ means ``to lament,'' whereas $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca E/10/}\Hrp \Hunh{\Aca G/46/}\Hrp \Hunh{\Aca E/18/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ means ``dog'' and $\htimage {\begin{hieroglyph} {\leavevmode \Hunh{\Aca E/10/}\Hrp \Hunh{\Aca G/46/}\Hrp \Hunh{\Aca G/40/}}\end{hieroglyph}}$ means ``wrongdoing''.

Next: The Phonetic Signs Up: The Writing System Previous: The Writing System

Serge Rosmorduc
2/26/1998