In Three Kinds of Signs you saw that most signs write sounds. Here is the surprise: they write only consonants. Egyptian had vowels, of course, but the hieroglyphic script did not write them.
Key idea
The word for “good” is written with signs for n, f and r. Egyptologists say it “nefer”, but the e is a modern helper, not part of the writing. Hebrew and Arabic writing also leave out most vowels, and native readers fill them in from knowledge of the language. For Egyptian, no native speakers are left to ask.
Where do we learn about vowels?
- Coptic (from about AD 200) wrote vowels with Greek letters. It shows the late form of many words: nfr became ⲛⲟⲩϥⲉ (noufe), rn “name” became ⲣⲁⲛ (ran).
- Foreign writings: cuneiform letters of the Amarna age and Greek historians wrote Egyptian names and words with vowels.
- Patterns in the grammar and in loanwords let scholars reconstruct some older vowels, with care and much debate.
Why it works
Common mistake
This is why a transliteration has no vowels either. The letters ꜣ, j, ꜥ and w look like vowels to an English reader, but in Egyptian they are consonants: a glottal sound, a yod (y or a glottal stop), a sound made deep in the throat, and w. You will learn each of them in the alphabet unit.
Worked example: Counting consonants
- Every letter of a transliteration is a consonant: ḥ, t, p.
Answer: 3
Worked example: What Coptic tells us
- The consonants r and n are the same.
- Coptic adds the vowel a, as the word sounded late in its history.
Answer: a vowel