Talk:Egyptian hieroglyphs

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Egyptian hieroglyphs article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1: 6 months

Egyptian hieroglyphs received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Writing systems High‑importance

	Writing portal This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Writing systems, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to writing systems on Wikipedia. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project’s talk page.Writing systemsWikipedia:WikiProject Writing systemsTemplate:WikiProject Writing systemsWriting system
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Ancient Egypt Top‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ancient Egypt, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Egyptological subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Ancient EgyptWikipedia:WikiProject Ancient EgyptTemplate:WikiProject Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt

Top

This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

Needed articles.

We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

Cleanup.

To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?

Standardize the Chronology.

A boring task, but the benefit of doing it is that you can set the dates !(e.g., why say Khufu lived 2589-2566? As long as you keep the length of his reign correct, or cite a respected source, you can date it 2590-2567 or 2585-2563)

Stub sorting

Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.

Egypt High‑importance

	Egypt portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Egypt, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Egypt on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EgyptWikipedia:WikiProject EgyptTemplate:WikiProject EgyptEgypt
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Africa High‑importance

	Africa portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archaeology High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Archaeology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Archaeology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchaeologyWikipedia:WikiProject ArchaeologyTemplate:WikiProject ArchaeologyArchaeology
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Obscure word example

O34-G38-G1-A47-D54 - keep, watch
This particular word does not exist in Faulkner, Vygus, Dickson, or AED(German) dictionaries, with a g38, but does exist with a g39 (wrong goose is shown). And the translation is wrong according to 3 dictionaries, and is based solely on the A47 glyph (guard determinitive).

There is no coptic equivalent of keep or watch starting with an s, or an s-s; the translation is suspect. The word has multiple determinatives(ignored glyphs), and is a bad teaching example.
O34-s [in ptolemys]
G39-Coptic smoune - goose, large duck (not gb/geb as in g38)
G1-Coptic Ahom - eagle, vulture
A47-Coptic eloiH? - shepherd (determinative?)(or guard determinitive?)
D54 - walk/move determinative or suffix?

"linger, await, creep" -- AED/Dickson/Vygus

Determinatives

Could determinatives be considered a type of pictograph? (Ancient Egyptian really doesn’t adhere to any modern category of writing which makes defining it so difficult!) Legendarycool (talk) 08:02, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It entirely depends on what definition you use: if we understand pictograph in its broadest but most fraught sense of "a graph that visually resembles something", then sometimes. If we use a narrower but more well-defined sense as "a graph that evokes the physical appearance of its referent", then usually no, as determinatives were used for semantic classes of words, and were sometimes totally abstracted, like 𓈇—could you expect any human to tell you what that should represent if they didn't already know the convention? Remsense ‥ 论 08:41, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So they’re not quite pictographs but they don’t always have phonetic values so maybe just calling them determinatives would work? It’s also kind of an issue because sometimes a character will represent a syllable, sometimes a logogram or just an idea. Legendarycool (talk) 09:31, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They're usually specifically called "determinatives" for a good reason. Remsense ‥ 论 09:41, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’ll add that to the list.

P.S thanks for responding quickly as usually it takes a day or two to get a response. Legendarycool (talk) 10:18, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Did some research, they’re called ideographs Legendarycool (talk) 10:30, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Like generally things with no phonetic component but meaning are called ideograms not that hieroglyphs that are like that aren’t determinatives. Legendarycool (talk) 10:31, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's a complicated term, it just means 'idea-writing'. That wouldn't be an accurate description of its actual function if it's being used as a phonetic determinative, since it's only representing a sound, not an idea. However, sometimes the use of determinatives is closer to 'idea-writing' than many other written symbols often called ideographs are, like Chinese characters, which never represent ideas directly, only words (hence often logographs 'word-writing')Remsense ‥ 论 10:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ambiguous Redirects

Things like Hieroglyph, Hieroglyphs, Hieroglyphic, Hieroglyphics, etc., can all refer to many different hieroglyphs. At least to me, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for these words to lead to a page about a specific one. The topic may even deserve an entire page of its own. Yes, I know Egyptian hieroglyphs are the most well known, but that still doesn't make too much sense for people who are looking for information about hieroglyphs in general. But they should at the very least lead to Hieroglyph (disambiguation). CheeseyHead (talk) 17:43, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I tend to think the contents of hieroglyph (disambiguation) should be moved to hieroglyph. But it's a change that would need discussion, and there isn't a lot of activity on this page. You might get more attention for the suggestion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems. A. Parrot (talk) 20:42, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hieroglyph is essentially a cultural term, and has no real rigorous definition or conceptual utility for scholars. It literally means 'holy writing'. If "taken literally", it is not an adequate term to characterize any writing system used throughout human history, including the Egyptian logography. Hieroglyph et al. redirect here because this is the page people are looking for when they type it in—any other writing or sign system called hieroglyphs is done so almost purely due to some surface-level similarity to Egyptian hieroglyphs, whether purely visual, sociolinguistic, or otherwise. Remsense ‥ 论 20:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]