In Three Kinds of Signs you met word signs, or logograms: signs that write a whole word by showing it. Many biliterals from Biliteral Signs began as word signs and still work as them. The question is how a reader knows when a sign means what it shows.
Key idea
| Spelling | Reads | Means |
|---|---|---|
| 𓉐𓏤 | pr | house |
| 𓅭𓏤 | zꜣ | son (the duck is a sound-alike, not a picture of a son) |
| 𓇾𓏤 | tꜣ | land, earth |
| 𓄣𓏤 | jb | heart |
| 𓂓𓏤 | kꜣ | ka, life force |
| 𓇳𓏤 | rꜥ | sun, Ra |
| 𓊖𓏏𓏤 | njwt | town |
Look at zꜣ “son”. The pintail duck is not a picture of a son. The word for the duck sounded like the word for son, and the stroke still marks it as standing for the whole word. So the stroke really means “read this sign as a complete word”, even when the picture is a pun.
Where the stroke goes
A low, wide sign takes the stroke underneath (𓉐𓏤, 𓇾𓏤); a tall sign takes it beside (𓅭𓏤). Feminine words put the ending first: njwt “town” is the village sign with the loaf t and the stroke side by side under it.
Why it works
Common mistake
Worked example: Read it
- The flat land with grains of sand, with a stroke: a word sign.
- It writes the word tꜣ.
Answer: tꜣ “land”
Worked example: Word sign or sound sign?
- There is no stroke; the duck is followed by the ending t and a determinative.
- Here it writes the sounds zꜣ.
Answer: a sound sign