Talk:Egyptian hieroglyphs

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Ancient Egypt Top‑importance

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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.

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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]