The hieroglyphic alphabet
Twenty-four signs, each carrying a single sound — the ones a name is written with.
If you read Arabic you already own half of this: Egyptian works like unvocalised Arabic — it writes the consonants and leaves the vowels to the reader. Arabic «كتب» can be kataba, kutiba or kutub, and only the context decides. Egyptian did exactly the same thing; the difference is that nobody carries that context any more, which is why we are not sure how their words sounded.
Words in this table you may not know — press any of them: TransliterationWriting the sounds of one language in another's letters. “nfr” is a transliteration, not a translation: it tells you how to write the consonants, not what they mean. · Uniliteral signA sign carrying a single sound, like one of our letters. There are 24, the closest Egyptian came to an alphabet — though they used them alongside two- and three-consonant signs. · The Gardiner listAn ordering set out by Alan Gardiner in 1927 that files signs by what they depict: A for people, G for birds, N for sky and earth. A code like “G17” means bird number 17. · The Unicode standardThe worldwide table that gives every character in every language a fixed number, so computers agree on what it is. Hieroglyphs joined in 2009, which is why the signs here are real characters and not pictures.
| Sign | Approximate sound | Transliteration | Depicts | Gardiner code | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 𓄿 | a (glottal, as in 'ah') | ꜣ | Egyptian vultureCalled aleph. Not the vowel 'a' — a consonant we approximate with it. | G1 | |
| 𓇋 | i / y | j | Flowering reed | M17 | |
| 𓏭 | y | y | Two diagonal strokesOften replaces the doubled reed 𓇋𓇋 for the same sound. | Z4 | |
| 𓂝 | ayin | ꜥ | ForearmCorresponds closely to Arabic ع. | D36 | |
| 𓅱 | w / u | w | Quail chick | G43 | |
| 𓃀 | b | b | Foot and lower leg | D58 | |
| 𓊪 | p | p | Reed mat or stoolArabic has no /p/; names with P use this sign. | Q3 | |
| 𓆑 | f | f | Horned viper | I9 | |
| 𓅓 | m | m | Owl | G17 | |
| 𓈖 | n | n | Ripple of water | N35 | |
| 𓂋 | r | r | Mouth | D21 | |
| 𓉔 | h (soft) | h | Reed shelter | O4 | |
| 𓎛 | emphatic h | ḥ | Wick of twisted flaxCorresponds to Arabic ح, distinct from ه. | V28 | |
| 𓐍 | kh, as in Scottish 'loch' | ḫ | Placenta (uncertain)What this sign actually pictures is disputed. | Aa1 | |
| 𓄡 | softer kh | ẖ | Animal belly with teats | F32 | |
| 𓋴 | s | s | Folded cloth | S29 | |
| 𓈙 | sh | š | Pool or basin | N37 | |
| 𓈎 | emphatic q | q | Hill slope | N29 | |
| 𓎡 | k | k | Basket with handle | V31 | |
| 𓎼 | hard g | g | Jar stand | W11 | |
| 𓏏 | t | t | Loaf of bread | X1 | |
| 𓍿 | tj, as in 'church' | ṯ | Tethering rope | V13 | |
| 𓂧 | d | d | Hand | D46 | |
| 𓆓 | dj | ḏ | Cobra | I10 |
The 'Gardiner code' is the standard catalogue reference used in scholarly works to identify each sign precisely.
The button beside each sound reads it in the Egyptological convention — a scholarly reading aid, not ancient speech. Egyptian wrote no vowels, so the real sounds are unknown; the convention inserts a short vowel between consonants so a word can be said at all.