Hieroglyphic Sign Types

Introduction

The word “hieroglyph” comes from Greek: (hierós) “sacred” + (glýphō) “I carve” — that is, “sacred carving.” The Egyptians themselves called their script mdw nṯr “the words of [the] god.”

There are three main types of hieroglyphic signs:

• Phonogram (sound sign) — a sign that represents one, two or three consonants.

• Logogram (ideogram, picture sign) — a sign that represents a whole word.

• Determinative (classifier) — a sign with no sound value that indicates the semantic domain of the word.

The hieroglyphic script is based on the phonetic value of the sign, with additional information conveyed by signs that function as logograms and determinatives. However, the same hieroglyphic sign can serve as a logogram, a phonogram or a determinative — depending on the context.

The convention in translating is to “transliterate” (convert the hieroglyphs into their phonetic values) and then to confirm the meaning with the help of the word’s non-phonetic components (determinatives and logograms). This sounds very complicated, but you will quickly get used to it if you persevere, and it makes learning vocabulary much easier.

When reading a word, ask: how does this sign function here?

Reading Direction

Hieroglyphs were written in four directions: in horizontal rows — right to left or left to right — and in vertical columns — right to left or left to right. The Egyptians exploited this flexibility to create symmetrical inscriptions.

Reading rule: signs that have “faces” — humans, animals and birds — face the beginning of the inscription. One therefore reads “into” the signs: toward their faces. In a few religious inscriptions the rule is reversed (retrograde writing).

Sign groups: the signs are not written one after another like letters, but arranged in square or rectangular groups. Within a group, the upper sign is read before the lower. There are no spaces between words and no punctuation marks.

Phonogram

A phonogram indicates one or more sounds. Phonograms are uniliteral, biliteral or triliteral.

Sign	Sound represented	Description	Type
The “mouth” sign	“r” r	Represents a single consonant only	Uniliteral
The “house” sign	“per” p+r	Represents two consonants	Biliteral
The “scarab beetle” sign	“kheper” ḫ+p+r	Represents three consonants	Triliteral

The order of the signs in transliteration is determined by the order in which the consonants are read, not by the physical order of writing (see below, “Graphic Transposition”).

Uniliteral Signs (Alphabetic Signs)

The alphabetic signs are some twenty-five uniliteral signs (including jj, plus a few alternative forms) — each represents one consonant only. They are the basic building blocks of the hieroglyphic script and should be memorized at once, since their order determines the order of words in the dictionary and the way words are transliterated. Note that the Egyptians did not use these signs as a pure alphabet alone, but combined them with multiliteral signs and determinatives.

Sign	Transliteration	Description	Sound
	ꜣ	Egyptian vulture	a glottal stop, conventionally pronounced a as in “father”
	j (i/j)	Reed leaf	i as in “it” (short i)
,	jj	Double reed leaf	ee as in “see,” or y as in “yes”
	ꜥ	Forearm	a guttural sound like Arabic “ʿayn” (conventionally pronounced a)
,	w	Quail chick or coil of rope	w as in “water” at the beginning of a word; u as in “rule” in the middle or at the end of a word
	b	Foot	b as in “bed”
	p	Stool	p as in “pen”
	f	Horned viper	f as in “fish”
	m	Owl	m as in “man”
	n	Water	n as in “net”
	r	Mouth	r as in “red”
	h	Reed shelter (courtyard)	h as in “hat”
	ḥ	Twisted wick	a strong h, like Arabic ḥ
	ḫ	Placenta (?)	ch as in Scottish “loch”
	ẖ	Animal belly with tail	a softer ch with a y-like quality (like ch in German ich)
	s (z)	Door bolt	s as in “sun”
	s (ś)	Folded/hanging cloth	s as in “sun”
	š	Pool	sh as in “ship”
	q (ḳ)	Hill	a k pronounced deep in the throat, like Arabic qāf
	k	Basket with handle	k as in “king”
	g	Jar stand	g as in “go”
	t	Loaf of bread	t as in “ten”
	ṯ	Tethering rope	ch as in “chip” (tj)
	d	Hand	d as in “dog”
	ḏ	Cobra	j as in “jam”

Transliteration

Transliteration is the conversion of each consonant written in hieroglyphs into an agreed Latin letter. Unlike the transliteration of familiar languages, Egyptian transliteration does not reflect pronunciation — the vowels were not written and the exact pronunciation is unknown — but only the written consonants.

In studying Middle Egyptian, the student will encounter different transliterations for the signs , and . The problem arises because the exact phonetic value of several signs is not known with certainty, and so different scholars have chosen different conventions.

In the British system (e.g., Gardiner) the reed leaf is transliterated ỉ, and in the European/German system j. The double reed leaf, and the two oblique strokes when they serve as a phonogram, are transliterated y in both systems. Some scholars transliterate it ii or jj.

A period “.” is used to separate the verb stem from a grammatical ending — for example in the verb form sḏm.n=f, where “.n” is the grammatical ending.

The equals sign “=” is used to attach a suffix pronoun to a verb, a noun or a preposition — for example in sḏm.n=f, where =f is the pronoun “he” attached to the verb.

The period also appears before the feminine ending t and before the plural endings w and wt — for example mw.t “mother.”

Capital letters are used at the beginning of a word that is the name of a person, a god or a land (including a city); for example, the name of the land of Egypt is transliterated Km.t, not km.t.

Weak consonants: the consonants j and jj are often missing in the writing, but are always written in transliteration. For example, the verb prj “to go out” is usually written without the j.

Conventional Pronunciation

The hieroglyphic script indicates consonants only — the vowels were not written at all. This means that we do not know for certain how Egyptian actually sounded.

To allow scholars and students to pronounce words aloud — for purposes of study and discussion only — a modern convention has been adopted: inserting the sound “e” between consonants. Thus, for example, the verb sḏm is pronounced “sedjem” — not because it originally sounded that way, but so that it can be said.

The conventional pronunciation of the special consonants:

• ꜣ and ꜥ are pronounced a.

• j is pronounced i.

• jj is pronounced i or y.

• w is pronounced w at the beginning of a word, and u elsewhere.

• The e is added only between the other consonants.

For example: mꜣꜣ “to see” is pronounced “maa,” and wj “me” is pronounced “wi.”

Logogram (Ideogram)

A logogram (or ideogram) represents a whole word. Many logograms are also phonograms (that is, they have a sound value instead of representing a whole word). If the sign is meant to serve as a logogram, a vertical stroke (linear stroke) will usually appear beneath it. For example, the sign for the letter “r” — becomes the sign for the word “mouth” when it is written with a stroke (indicating that it is a logogram).

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	Sign type	Meaning
	r	Phonogram	The consonant r
	r	Logogram	The word “mouth”
	ḥr	Phonogram	The biliteral ḥr
	ḥr	Logogram	The word “face”

The Linear Stroke

A short vertical stroke appearing beneath or beside a sign means: “read the sign as what it looks like” — that is, the sign represents the thing it depicts. For example:

• pr + stroke beneath it → “house”

• jb + stroke beneath it → “heart”

Logogram with a feminine ending: when the word is feminine, the ending t is written beside the stroke — for example njw.t “city” and ꜣḫ.t “horizon.”

The Rebus Principle

The basic principle of the hieroglyphic script: a sign representing one word can be used to write another word with an identical or similar sound, even if there is no connection in meaning between them.

Just as in English — if we wanted to write the word “belief” in pictures, we could draw a bee + a leaf — not because bees have anything to do with believing, but because the sounds match.

An example from Classical Egyptian:

The dung beetle was called ḫprr in Egyptian (Faulkner). Its sign was borrowed to write the verb ḫpr “to be, to come into being” — not because the beetle is connected with existence, but because the two words share the consonants ḫpr.

Another example: the sign pr (house plan) represents the word pr “house”, and by sound borrowing it is also used to write the verb prj “to go out”, which has nothing to do with a house.

Note: the rebus principle is the reason many phonograms look “unrelated” to the meaning they express — the link is one of sound, not of picture.

One sign, two words:

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	What the sign depicts	What the sign writes
	pr	House plan	“house”
	prj	The same house plan	“to go out”
	ḫprr	Dung beetle	“dung beetle”
	ḫpr	The same beetle	“to come into being”

The rebus creates ambiguity: if the same sign writes both pr “house” and prj “to go out”, how will the reader know which word is meant? Two mechanisms were developed for this, discussed in the following sections — the phonetic complement, which confirms the reading, and the determinative, which marks the semantic field the word belongs to. This can be seen in the table itself: in prj the mouth and the walking legs were added, and in ḫpr ḫ and p were added around the beetle; whereas when the sign writes precisely what it depicts, the stroke appears beside it.

Phonetic Complement

A phonetic complement is a uniliteral sign added to a multiliteral sign in order to confirm the reading. It can appear before the multiliteral sign, after it, or on both sides of it.

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	Position	Explanation	Meaning
	nḏm	After a triliteral	- nḏm → n+ḏ+m - m	“sweet” Adjective
	tm	Before and after	- t - tm → t+m - m	Negative command “do not do” Verb
	jmj.wtj	Two cases: Before a triliteral Before and after a triliteral	- j - jmj → j+m+j - w - t - tj → t+j	“between” Preposition

Semantic Determinative (Classifier)

The determinative has no phonetic value and is therefore not transliterated. It marks the end of the word and supplies additional information about its meaning. The determinative can be essential for translation, since hieroglyphic writing has no vowels, and a given sequence of consonants may therefore carry more than one meaning.

Examples:

Sign	Category	Description
	Seated man	Marks a man's name or a male role
	Man with hand to mouth	Marks a word connected with the mouth (speaking, eating, etc.)
,	Rolled papyrus	Marks an abstract concept or writing
	Walking legs	Marks actions of motion
	Sun	Marks time, light, actions connected with the sun
,	Three vertical strokes	Marks the plural (more than two)

Different determinatives for identical words — the same sequence of consonants, with a different meaning according to the determinative:

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	Meaning	Determinative
	hnw	“jar”	Jar
	hnw	“praise”	Man with raised arms
	hnw	“family”	People + three strokes
	hnw	“waves”	Water
	ḥḏ	“silver” (the metal)	Bead collar
	ḥḏ.t	“white linen”	Cloth
	ḥḏj	“to harm, to destroy”	Bad bird (sparrow)
	ḥḏ	“white, bright”	Sun

Honorific Transposition

Honorific transposition is a feature of hieroglyphic writing in which an honored word — such as the name of a god or of a king — is written before another word out of respect, although it is actually read last. In Middle Egyptian, in a direct genitive of nouns (noun compound), the usual order is: the “thing possessed” first, followed by the “possessor”.

For example: pr sn.t — “[the] sister's house” (the house first, the sister after — the house “belongs” to the sister)

But when the “possessor” is a god's name, a king's name, or an honorific title, the scribe usually reversed the order out of respect and wrote the honored name first.

Examples (the thing possessed in red, the possessor in blue):

Hieroglyphs (as written)		Transliteration	English
	nṯr ḥw.t	ḥw.t-nṯr	“Estate [of the] god” (Temple)
	nsw.t sꜣ	sꜣ-nsw.t	“Son [of the] king” (Prince)
	nsw.t ḥm.t	ḥm.t-nsw.t	“Wife [of the] king” (Queen)

Further common examples (Allen 4.15; Selden 3.2): ḥm-nṯr “priest” (literally: “servant of the god”), mdw-nṯr “words of the god” (a name for hieroglyphic writing), ḥtp-nṯr “offering of the god”. Honorific transposition is also common in personal and royal names, e.g. sꜣ-Ptḥ “son of Ptah” (Siptah), in which the god’s name Ptah is written first.

Graphic Transposition

Graphic transposition is a phenomenon similar to honorific transposition, but different in its purpose.

Here the scribe reversed the order of the signs not out of respect, but for visual reasons — to avoid an empty space in the line of hieroglyphs, or to create an aesthetic arrangement of the signs.

The main difference from honorific transposition:

• Honorific transposition: concerns whole nouns within a phrase.

• Graphic transposition: concerns two individual signs within a single word.

The practical rule:

Graphic transposition does not affect the reading, transliteration, or translation — it is a change in spelling only.

Common examples:

Hieroglyphs	Actual order of the signs	Correct order for transliteration and reading
	tw	wt
	ḥꜣ.t	ꜣḥ.t
	swtn	nsw.t

Not every order that looks odd is a graphic transposition. In most words the order of the signs is the reading order, and transposition is a feature of individual words — you learn it from the glossary; you do not deduce it.

The transliteration always reflects the reading order, not the order of the signs; the middle column exists only to show what one sees on the stone. If you have identified a word by its signs and cannot find it in the glossary — try swapping the first two signs.

Note: nsw.t appears both here and in the section on honorific transposition. There it is a whole name placed first out of respect; here it is the order of the signs within the word itself.

Chapter Vocabulary

Hieroglyphs	Transliteration	Type	English
	ꜣḥ.t	Noun	Arable land, field
	ꜣḫ.t	Noun	Horizon
	jb	Noun	Heart
	jmj.wtj	Preposition	Between
	wt	Noun	Mummy wrapping
	pr	Noun	House
	prj	Verb	To go out, come forth
	Ptḥ	Proper noun	Ptah
	mꜣꜣ	Verb	To see, look at
	mw.t	Noun	Mother
	mdw-nṯr	Noun phrase	Divine words (the hieroglyphic script)
	njw.t	Noun	Town, city
,	nb	Noun	Lord, master
	nsw.t	Noun	King
,	nṯr	Noun	God
	nḏm	Adjective	Sweet
	r	Noun	Mouth
	hnw	Noun	Jar
	hnw	Noun	Praise, jubilation
	hnw	Noun	Family, household
	hnw	Noun	Waves
	ḥw.t-nṯr	Noun phrase	Temple (“god’s estate”)
	ḥm-nṯr	Noun phrase	Priest (“god’s servant”)
	ḥm.t-nsw.t	Noun phrase	Queen (“king’s wife”)
	ḥr	Noun	Face
	ḥr	Preposition	On, upon
	ḥtp-nṯr	Noun phrase	Divine offering
	ḥḏ	Noun	Silver
	ḥḏ	Adjective	White, bright
	ḥḏj	Verb	To damage, destroy
	ḥḏ.t	Noun	White linen cloth
	ḫpr	Verb	To become, come into being
	ḫprr	Noun	Dung-beetle
,	sꜣ	Noun	Son
	sꜣ-Ptḥ	Proper noun	Sa-Ptah (personal name)
	sꜣ-nsw.t	Noun phrase	Prince (“king’s son”)
	sn.t	Noun	Sister
	sḏm	Verb	To hear
	Km.t	Proper noun	Egypt (“the Black Land”)
	tm	Verb	To not do, cease (negative verb)