Writing in Hieroglyphs

 
Papyrus 20kb 
Pyramids 16kb 
Painting 37kb 
Hieroglyph Photo 274kb 
Cartouche 30kb 

 
Message Creator 

 
Ancient Egyptian Language  
Scribes  
Jean F. Champollion 
Papyrus  
Timeline  
Language  
Communication 

 
Nom en hieroglyphes 
This page, in English and French, will automatically translate your name into Hieroglyphs 
Egyptian Language and Script 
An in-depth tutorial  
Letter to hieroglyph encoder 
Simple and colourful

In most cases, each picture does not stand for a word. There were too many words to write pictures for all of them, and besides: how would you represent the verb "to see"? If you used a picture of an eye It could mean "eye" or "look" or any number of things. That's why we, as well as the Egyptians, decided to spell out the sounds of words. 

There are 24 hieroglyphs in the ancient Egyptian alphabet, and they cover all the sounds in the language (but unfortunately they don't cover all the sounds of ours). Here's an example: 

N, not "water" 
V, not "snake" 

Sometimes, English letters and Egyptian hieroglyphs are interchangeable, but not always. These two languages are very different. There are some sounds in ancient Egyptian that don't exist in English, and there are some sounds in English that don't exist in ancient Egyptian (such as the symbol c. It is like the German "ch" but the closed English sound is "h"). Plus, there are some English letters that sound the same, such as the "c" in "car" and the "k" in "kick." There are English sounds not used in Egyptian. Ancient Egyptians did not hear the difference between F and V, or R and L. So we use F for v and f, and we use R for l and r. There is also no th sound in Egyptian. You can use the characters for t + h, or you can use k for the th sound in this and c for the th sound in three.  

More things to know  You don't have to write from left to right. The ancient Egyptians wrote from right to left, left to right (like we do), and down in columns. But if you're writing "backwards," don't forget to reverse the symbols!  Another thing is that you don't have to write one word after another. You can arrange them however you want, as long as you can read the letters on top first. For example:  ADRIAN becomes    Another way to make your messages less cumbersome is to leave out unnecessary vowels. Alexander = Alxandr.  And finally, now that you know how to write your name, put it in a cartouche, (kar-TOOSH) or "royal ring," which is a double loop of rope tied at one end. The Pharaohs used to put their names inside cartouches.  If you want to print a larger version of this cartouche, click on "cartouche" on the left under "pictures."  Alphabet  All this may sound complicated, but once you see our chart, it's actually quite simple. We've put together a list of all the sounds in the English Language and the hieroglyphs that fit these sounds. When you're spelling your words, remember that the sound is more important than the spelling. Spell your words phonetically  — xylophone becomes zilofon.  How to use the chart: find the sound you want to make (an example of how the sound is used appears under the letter). Then move your mouse over the letters. The corresponding hieroglyph will appear. If you click, you'll be told what the hieroglyph is supposed to be. Then you can copy the symbol down on paper, and write your note.  If you don't want to write all the hieroglyphs by hand, you can download a shareware hieroglyph font for your computer here.  To use the chart, click on "Message Creator" at the left under "Animations."  Can you read this message?    Click here to continue with numbers.

Papyrus  Papyrus, a sort of paper, is what the ancient Egyptians used to write on.     Pyramids  The pyramids of Egypt, the last of the 7 wonders of the world, are decorated in heiroglyphs.     Paintings  Hieroglyphs were often used to decorate   tombs, walls, and other important buildings.  ...  A larger, more detailed version of this picture is available by clicking on "hieroglyph photo" on the left under "pictures."