Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/77

* HIEROGLYPHICS. 61 HIEROGLYPHICS. (listiiij,'ui;sli between the ditrerent values of the ])iilviihuiiuiis liieroglyphs. The sigii "star,' lor example, may Lie read sb or dw ; if the latter reading be intended a it follows as phonetie eom- plenient, while for the former reading an s is prefixed. Word-signs having several synonymous values do not always have phonetic complements. 'I'lie reader, for example, may be left to discover from the context whether the sign 'horse' is to be read nvmin, 'horse,' sesmct, "maic." iiofcr, 'colt,' etc. The sign O ( the sun ) may be understood as 'day' {lirair), or as 'sun' {re). The aljihabet developed from signs for tory short words containing only one firm consonant. The opinion of the first decipherers, that the alphabet was aerophonic — that is, that the pho- netii' value of each letter was taken from the initial sound of the word represented by its sign — has not been confirmed. The alphabetic signs ouglit. of course, to be the latest element of the system, iiut we find them fully establislied on the earliest moiuinients, so that they certainly go l)acl< to the fifth millennium B.C. The Egyptian aljiluibet is as follows:* (1) The Semitic Aleph ('), i.e. the general indication of a vowel beginning a syl- lable; later treated as a vowel. (■2)1 (A reed leaf) y, as a consonant; at a very early period confounded with the pre- ceding letter, and later distinguished from it by doubling. Thus in the later orthograp.iy a single reed-leaf stood for Aleph, a double reed- icaf for the consonant ;/. (.3), -< fl (An arm, c), the Semitic giittural Ain. (4) Vx' w or secondarily u; later variant (® frnni about 1500 B.C. (r,) J .. (6) Q or more elaborately H P (representing a mat?). (7) *t=-,^ / (representing a viper or snail). (8) ^^; ni (an owl) ; later variant (il) vwww^ " (water) : later variant (10) .^^^ r (ro, 'a mouth'). (11) rU /( (/'",'/. 'a hall'). (12) { h; (a rough h ; the lighter sound of Hebrew Kheth. lieth). (l.'i) ® hh: (the Scotch and (ierman guttural ch). (14) .^er> h (similar in sound to the pre- ceding, but somewhat softer). The sign original- ly stood for Ik'I. 'a belly.' and represented an animal cut open; the form here given is partially conventionalized. (l.')l II .« (originally different from the •Thp arraiifft'inent is, of course, modern ; explanations are added only where they are quite certain. following, but .soon after .3000 B.C. confounded with it). The sign represented a door-bolt. (sharp s; early confused with the (16) p preceding). (17) I vv I sh; a conventional representation of a lake (Shei). (18) /^' (J. Hebrew Koph, Qoph, a guttural /.-. The sign represents a hill Ujoy). It represents a working-basket Perhaps another kind of basket, t, a sibilant dental which is usual- ly assumed to have been th or ;•, but seems to have been quite a peculiar sound. It was later commonlv pronounced ;. (23) '<=> d. (24) z, or more correctly the Hebrew emphatic s ( Sade ). In later times the variants increased consid- erably, as the scribes were continually inventing new and playful forms of the letters; in Konian times hundreds of signs were in use for the alphabet, but several of the original sounds were lost or confused in later pronunciation. How- ever, down to B.C. 1000 the variants enumerated above were the only ones, and all these sprang up after B.C. 1600. It will be observed that originally the letters expressed only the conso- nants, and the vowels were, with the exception of a few vague indications, left for the reader to fill in, exactly as in unpointed Hebrew or Arabic. The group hbn, for example, may be read hohs. IiIkjs, lichosi, etc. Later orthography attempted to express the vowels in certain cases, especially in foreign names which demanded a more exact notation, but neither consistently nor success- fully. All this adds greatly to the difficulties of the Egj'ptologists. They have not only to supply ihe vowels from Greek and other tradi- tions, from the corresponding (optic words, from variants, etc., but they must also reckon with the tendency of the Egyptian scribes to abbrevi- ate and to omit consonants, where they were sup- ])oscd to be readily supplied by the reader. For example, henqet. 'beer.' is always spelled hqt. See, however, below on the present degree of certainty of reading. Foreign names and words were, in the time of Dynasties 18-22. written in a strange orthography called the syllabic system. The vowels were copiously expressed by placing syllabic signs for every consonant, even where no vowel followed. For example, the Palestin- ian name of a city. S/m?fm. was spelled: S/ia-rn- ma, the word markabt. 'chariot.' t)ia-{i) ra-ka- hii-ti, etc. This wild heaping of vowels is of little advantage to the reader, and has led to many errors. The hieroglyphics were commonly written from the right to left: more rarely from left to right. On early monuments they are frequently written from above downward, like the earliest Babylo- nian and Chinese writing; the arrangement called briustrnnhedon by the Greeks is never met with. The number of signs is. in a certain sense, unlimited, as the artist could vary the de-