Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian

In the field of Egyptology, transliteration of Ancient Egyptian is the process of converting (or mapping) texts written in the Egyptian language to alphabetic symbols representing uniliteral hieroglyphs or their hieratic and Demotic counterparts. This process facilitates the publication of texts where the inclusion of photographs or drawings of an actual Egyptian document is impractical.

Transliteration is not the same as transcription. Transcription seeks to reproduce the pronunciation of a text. For example, the name of the founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty is transliterated as ššnq but transcribed Shoshenq in English, Chéchanq in French, Sjesjonk in Dutch, and Scheschonk or Scheschonq in German.

Because exact details regarding the phonetics of Egyptian are not completely known, most transcriptions depend on Coptic for linguistic reconstruction or are theoretical in nature. Egyptologists, therefore, rely on transliteration in scientific publications.

Standards

Important as transliteration is to the field of Egyptology, there is no one standard scheme in use for hieroglyphic and hieratic texts. Some might even argue that there are as many systems of transliteration as there are Egyptologists. However, there are a few closely related systems that can be regarded as conventional. Many non-German-speaking Egyptologists use the system described in Gardiner 1954, whereas many German-speaking scholars tend to opt for that used in the Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache (Erman and Grapow 1926–1953), the standard dictionary of the ancient Egyptian language. However, there is a growing trend, even among English-speaking scholars, to adopt a modified version of the method used in the Wörterbuch (e.g., Allen 2000).

Although these conventional approaches to transliteration have been followed since most of the second half of the nineteenth century to the present day, there have been some attempts to adopt a modified system that seeks to utilise the International Phonetic Alphabet to a certain degree. The most successful of these is that developed by Wolfgang Schenkel (1990), and it is being used fairly widely in Germany and other German-speaking countries. More recent is a proposal by Thomas Schneider (2003) that is even closer to the IPA, but its usage is not presently common. The major criticism leveled against both of these systems is that they give an impression of being much more scientifically accurate with regard to the pronunciation of Egyptian. Unfortunately this perceived accuracy is debatable. Moreover, the systems reflect only the theoretical pronunciation of Middle Egyptian and not the older and later phases of the language, which are themselves to be transliterated with the same system.

Table of transliteration schemes

There are 24 consonantal phonemes distinguished in Egyptian writing, following Edel (1955) transliterated and ordered alphabetically in the sequence: ꜣ j ꜥ w b p f m n r h ḥ ḫ ẖ z s š q k g t ṯ d ḏ. A number of variant conventions are used interchangeably depending on the author:

Conventional Transliteration Schemes
Hieroglyphs		Brugsch 1889	Erman 1894	Budge 1910	Erman & Grapow 1926–1953	Gardiner 1957	Edel 1955	Manuel de Codage 1988	Hodge 1990	Schenkel 1991	Hannig 1995, Allen 2000	Hoch 1997	Schneider 2003	Conventional Egyptological pronunciation
	𓄿	ꜣ	ꜣ	a	ꜣ	ꜣ	ꜣ	A	ꜣ	ꜣ	ꜣ	ꜣ	ɹ	/ɑ(ː)/
	𓇋	ʾ	ı͗	ȧ	ı͗, j	ı͗	j	i	ʔ	ı͗	j	ı͗	ı͗	/i(ː), j/
	𓏭	″	ï	i	j	y	j	y	y	ı͗	j	y	ı͗	/iː/
	𓇌	ʾʾ	y	i	j	y	jj, j	y	y	y	y	y	y	/iː/
	𓂝	ꜥ	ꜥ	ā	ꜥ	ꜥ	ꜥ	a	ꜥ	ꜥ	ꜥ	ꜥ	ɗ	/ɑː/
	𓅱	w	w	u	w	w	w	w	w	w	w	w	w	/w, uː/
	𓃀	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	/b/
	𓊪	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	/p/
	𓆑	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	/f/
	𓅓	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	/m/
	𓈖	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	/n/
	𓂋	r, l	r	r, l	r	r	r	r	r	r	r	r	l	/r/
	𓉔	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	/h/
	𓎛	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	H	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	/ħ, h/
	𓐍	ḫ	ḫ	χ, kh	ḫ	ḫ	ḫ	x	x	ḫ	ḫ	ḫ	ḫ	/x/
	𓄡	ḫ	ḫ	χ, kh	ẖ	ẖ	ẖ	X	x̯	ẖ	ẖ	ẖ	ẖ	/ç/
	𓊃	s	s	s	s	s	z	s, z	z	s	z	s	s	/z, s/
	𓋴	s	s	s	ś	s	s	s	s	ś	s	s	ś	/s/
	𓈙	š	š	ś, sh	š	š	š	S	š	š	š	š	š	/ʃ/
	𓈎	ḳ	ḳ	q	ḳ	ḳ	q	q	q	ḳ	q	q	ḳ	/k, q/
	𓎡	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	/k/
	𓎼	g	g	ḳ	g	g	g	g	g	g	g	g	g	/ɡ/
	𓏏	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	/t/
	𓍿	ṯ	ṯ	θ, th	ṯ	ṯ	ṯ	T	č	č	ṯ	ṯ	c	/tʃ/
	𓂧	d	d	ṭ	d	d	d	d	d	ṭ	d	d	ḍ	/d/
	𓆓	ḏ	ḏ	t’, tch	ḏ	ḏ	ḏ	D	ǧ	č̣	ḏ	ḏ	c̣	/dʒ/

The vowel /ɛ/ is conventionally inserted between consonants to make Egyptian words pronounceable in English.

Examples

The following text is transliterated below in some of the more common schemes.

Unicode: 𓇓𓏏𓊵𓏙𓊩𓁹𓏃𓋀𓅂𓊹𓉻𓎟𓍋𓈋𓃀𓊖𓏤𓄋𓈐𓏦𓎟𓇾𓈅𓏤𓂦𓈉

(This text is conventionally translated into English as "an offering that the king gives; and Osiris, Foremost of Westerners [i.e., the Dead], the Great God, Lord of Abydos; and Wepwawet, Lord of the Sacred Land [i.e., the Necropolis]." It can also be translated "a royal offering of Osiris, Foremost of the Westerners, the Great God, Lord of Abydos; and of Wepwawet, Lord of the Sacred Land" [Allen 2000:§24.10].)

Erman and Grapow 1926–1953

• ḥtp-dỉ-nśwt wśỉr ḫntj ỉmntjw nṯr ꜥꜣ nb ꜣbḏw wp-wꜣwt nb tꜣ ḏśr

Gardiner 1953

• ḥtp-dỉ-nswt wsỉr ḫnty ỉmntỉw nṯr ꜥꜣ nb ꜣbḏw wp-wꜣwt nb tꜣ ḏsr

Buurman, Grimal, et al. 1988

• Htp-di-nswt wsir xnty imntiw nTr aA nb AbDw wp-wAwt nb tA Dsr

A fully encoded, machine-readable version of the same text is:

• M23-X1:R4-X8-Q2:D4-W17-R14-G4-R8-O29:V30-U23-N26-D58-O49:Z1-F13:N31-Z2-V30:N16:N21*Z1-D45:N25

Schenkel 1991

• ḥtp-dỉ-nswt wsỉr ḫnty ỉmntjw nčr ꜥꜣ nb ꜣbč̣w wp-wꜣwt nb tꜣ č̣sr

Allen 2000

• ḥtp-dj-nswt wsjr ḫntj jmntjw nṯr ꜥꜣ nb ꜣbḏw wp-wꜣwt nb tꜣ ḏsr

Schneider 2003

• ḥtp-ḍỉ-nśwt wśỉr ḫnty ỉmntjw ncr ɗɹ nb ɹbc̣w wp-wɹwt nb tɹ c̣śr

Demotic

Further information: Demotic (Egyptian)

As the latest stage of pre-Coptic Egyptian, Demotic texts have long been transliterated using the same system(s) used for hieroglyphic and hieratic texts. However, in 1980, Demotists adopted a single, uniform, international standard based on the traditional system used for hieroglyphic, but with the addition of some extra symbols for vowels and other letters that were written in the Demotic script. The Demotic Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (or CDD) utilises this method. As this system is likely only of interest to specialists, for details see the references below.

• Cenival, Françoise de (1980). "Unification des méthodes de translittération". Enchoria. 10: 2–4.
• Johnson, Janet H (1980). "CDDP Transliteration System". Enchoria. 10: 5–6.
• Johnson, Janet (2000). Thus wrote 'Onchsheshonqy: an introductory grammar of Demotic, Third Edition. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. ISBN 978-0-918986-49-8. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
• Tait, William John (1982). "The Transliteration of Demotic". Enchoria. 11: 67–76.
• Thissen, Heinz-Josef (1980). "Zur Transkription demotischer Texte". Enchoria. 10: 7–9.

Encoding

In 1984 a standard, ASCII-based transliteration system was proposed by an international group of Egyptologists at the first Table ronde informatique et égyptologie and published in 1988 (see Buurman, Grimal, et al., 1988). This has come to be known as the Manuel de Codage (or MdC) system, based on the title of the publication, Inventaire des signes hiéroglyphiques en vue de leur saisie informatique: Manuel de codage des textes hiéroglyphiques en vue de leur saisie sur ordinateur. It is widely used in e-mail discussion lists and internet forums catering to professional Egyptologists and the interested public.

Although the Manuel de codage system allows for simple "alphabetic" transliterations, it also specifies a complex method for electronically encoding complete ancient Egyptian texts, indicating features such as the placement, orientation, and even size of individual hieroglyphs. This system is used (though frequently with modifications) by various software packages developed for typesetting hieroglyphic texts (such as SignWriter, WinGlyph, MacScribe, InScribe, Glyphotext, WikiHiero, and others).

Unicode

With the introduction of the Latin Extended Additional block to Unicode version 1.1 (1992), the addition of Egyptological alef and ayin to Unicode version 5.1 (2008) and the addition of Glottal I alias Egyptological yod to Unicode version 12.0 (2019), it is now possible to fully transliterate Egyptian texts using a Unicode typeface. The following table only lists the special characters used in various transliteration schemes (see above).

Transcription characters in Unicode

Minuscule	ꜣ ()	ʾ ()	ꞽ ()	i̯	ï	ꜥ ()	u̯	ḥ	ḫ	ẖ	h̭
Unicode	U+A723	U+02BE	U+A7BD	U+0069 U+032F	U+00EF	U+A725	U+0075 U+032F	U+1E25	U+1E2B	U+1E96	U+0068 U+032D
Majuscule	Ꜣ		Ꞽ			Ꜥ		Ḥ	Ḫ	H̱	H̭
Unicode	U+A722		U+A7BC			U+A724		U+1E24	U+1E2A	U+0048 U+0331	U+0048 U+032D
Minuscule	ś	š	ḳ	č	ṯ	ṭ	ṱ	č̣	ḏ
Unicode	U+015B	U+0161	U+1E33	U+010D	U+1E6F	U+1E6D	U+1E71	U+010D U+0323	U+1E0F
Majuscule	Ś	Š	Ḳ	Č	Ṯ	Ṭ	Ṱ	Č̣	Ḏ
Unicode	U+015A	U+0160	U+1E32	U+010C	U+1E6E	U+1E6C	U+1E70	U+010C U+0323	U+1E0E
Brackets/ interpunction	⸗	〈	〉	⸢	⸣
Unicode	U+2E17	U+2329	U+232A	U+2E22	U+2E23

Egyptological alef, ayin, and yod

Three characters that are specific to the discipline are required for transliterating Egyptian:

• Alef (, two Semitistic alephs, one set over the other (Lepsius); approximated by the digit ⟨3⟩ in ASCII);
• Ayin (, a Semitistic ayin);
• Yod (, i with a Semitistic aleph instead of the dot, both yod and alef being considered possible sound values in the 19th century).

Although three Egyptological and Ugariticist letters were proposed in August 2000, it was not until 2008 (Unicode 5.1) two of the three letters were encoded: aleph and ayin (minor and capital). Another two proposals were made regarding the Egyptological yod, the eventual result of which was to accept the use of the Cyrillic psili pneumata (U+0486 ◌҆ ) as one of several possible diacritics for this purpose. The other options use the superscript comma (U+0313) and the right half ring above (U+0357). A new attempt for a sign called LETTER I WITH SPIRITUS LENIS was made in 2017. Within the Egyptological community objection were raised concerning this name. The proposed name was changed to EGYPTOLOGICAL YOD before finally becoming GLOTTAL I. The sign was added in March 2019 with the release of Unicode 12.0. One of the first fonts that implemented the full set of signs is New Athena Unicode.

Designation	Lowercase	Capital
Egyptological alef	ꜣ U+A723	Ꜣ U+A722
Egyptological ayin	ꜥ U+A725	Ꜥ U+A724
Egyptological yod	ꞽ U+A7BD	Ꞽ U+A7BC

Before the usage of the above-mentioned Unicode signs, various workarounds were in practice, e.g.

Egyptological workarounds

Designation	Lowercase	Capital
Middle English yogh	ȝ U+021D
Reverse sicilicus	ʿ U+02BF
Right half ring above	i͗ U+0069 U+0357	I͗ U+0049 U+0357
	ı͗ U+0131 U+0357
I with hook above	ỉ U+1EC9	Ỉ U+1EC8
Cyrillic psili pneumata	i҆ U+0069 U+0486	I҆ U+0049 U+0486
Superscript comma	i̓ U+0069 U+0313	I̓ U+0049 U+0313

Uniliteral signs

Middle Egyptian is reconstructed as having had 24 consonantal phonemes. There is at least one hieroglyph with a phonetic value corresponding to each of these phonemes.

The table below gives a list of such "uniliteral signs" along with their conventional transcription and their conventional "Egyptological pronunciation" and probable phonetic value.

Many hieroglyphs are coloured, though the paint has worn off most stone inscriptions. Colors vary, but many glyphs are predominantly one colour or another, or a particular combination (such as red on the top and blue on the bottom). In some cases, two graphically similar glyphs may be distinguished solely by colour, though in other cases it's not known if the choice of colour had any meaning.

Uniliteral signs
Sign				Egyptological transliteration and pronunciation			Phonetic values (IPA)
Hieroglyph		Sign Colour	Depiction	Transliteration	Say (modern)	Notes	Old Egyptian	Middle Egyptian
	𓄿	Polychrome	Egyptian vulture	ꜣ	ah	Called alef or hamza, a glottal stop	some form of liquid; proposed values include /ʀ/, /r/, /l/, /ɫ/	variously /ʀ/, /ʔ/, and /j/
	𓇋	Green	Flowering reed	ꞽ or j	ee	Called iod	/j/ or /ʔ/ (?)
	𓇌	Green	Pair of reeds	y or j	y or ee	Called yod or y	not used	/j/
	𓏭	Blue	Pair of strokes	y or j or ï			not used	/j/ or /i/ (?)
	𓂝	Red	Forearm	ꜥ	ah	Called aayin	/ʕ/, or debatably /d/	/ʕ/; /d/ perhaps retained in some words and dialects
or	𓅱 𓏲	Yellow	quail chick or its hieratic abbreviation	w	w or oo	Called wau	/w/
	𓃀	Red	Lower leg	b	b		/b/
	𓊪	Green	Reed mat or stool	p	p		/p/
	𓆑	Yellow	horned viper	f	f		/f/
	𓅓	Yellow	owl	m	m		/m/
	𓈖	Blue	ripple of water	n	n		/n/
	𓂋	Red	Human mouth	r	r		/ɾ/, sometimes /l/ (dialectally always /l/)	variously /ɾ/, /l/, /j/, ∅ (dialectally /l/, /j/, ∅)
	𓉔	Blue	reed shelter	h	h		/h/
	𓎛	Green	twisted wick	ḥ	h	An emphatic h, a voiceless pharyngeal fricative	/ħ/
	𓐍	Green	Sieve or placenta	ḫ	kh	a voiceless velar fricative	/χ/ ~ /x/, or speculatively /​ɣ/(?)
	𓄡	Attested in multiple colors	Animal belly and tail	ẖ	kh	A softer sound, a voiceless palatal fricative	/ç/, or speculatively /x/(?)
	𓊃	Red	door bolt	z or s	z/s		very unclear; proposed values include /z/, /t͡s/, /sʼ/, /θ/	/s/
	𓋴	Red	folded cloth	s or ś	s		/s/
or or	𓈙 𓈛 𓈜	Blue	Garden pool	š	sh		/ʃ/
	𓈎	Blue	Hill slope	ḳ or q	q	An emphatic k, a voiceless uvular plosive	/kʼ/ or /qʼ/(?) (exact phonetic distinction from ⟨g⟩ unclear)
	𓎡	Green	Basket with handle	k	k		/k/
	𓎼	Red	jar stand	g	g		/kʼ/ or /g/(?) (exact phonetic distinction from ⟨q⟩ unclear)
	𓏏	Blue	bread loaf	t	t		/t/	/t/ ~ ∅
	𓍿	Green	tethering rope or hobble	ṯ or č	ch	As in English church	/c/	/c/ ~ /t/ ~ ∅
	𓂧	Red	hand	d or ṭ	d		/tʼ/
	𓆓	Yellow	Cobra	ḏ or č̣	j		/cʼ/	/cʼ/ ~ /tʼ/

See also

• List of Egyptian hieroglyphs
• Egyptian biliteral signs
• Egyptian triliteral signs

References

Bibliography

• Allen, James Paul. 2000. Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Buurman, Jan, Nicolas-Christophe Grimal, Michael Hainsworth, Jochen Hallof, and Dirk van der Plas. 1988. Inventaire des signes hiéroglyphiques en vue de leur saisie informatique: Manuel de codage des textes hiéroglyphiques en vue de leur saisie sur ordinateur. 3rd ed. Informatique et Égyptologie 2. Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belle-Lettres (Nouvelle Série) 8. Paris: Institut de France.
• Erman, Adolf, and Hermann Grapow, eds. 1926–1953. Wörterbuch der aegyptischen Sprache im Auftrage der deutschen Akademien. 6 vols. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs'schen Buchhandlungen. (Reprinted Berlin: Akademie-Verlag GmbH, 1971).
• Gardiner, Alan Henderson. 1957. Egyptian Grammar; Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs. 3rd ed. Oxford: Griffith Institute.
• Hannig, Rainer. 1995. Großes Handwörterbuch Ägyptisch–Deutsch: die Sprache der Pharaonen (2800–950 v. Chr.). Kulturgeschichte der antiken Welt 64 (Hannig-Lexica 1). Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
• Kammerzell, Frank. 2005. Old Egyptian and Pre-Old Egyptian: Tracing linguistic diversity in Archaic Egypt and the creation of the Egyptian language. In: Texte und Denkmäler des ägyptischen Alten Reiches, ed. by Stephan Johannes Seidlmayer. Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae 3. Berlin: Achet, 165–247. Online: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b4-opus-24600.
• Schenkel, Wolfgang. 1990. Einführung in die altägyptische Sprachwissenschaft. Orientalistische Einführungen. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
• Schneider, Thomas. 2003. "Etymologische Methode, die Historizität der Phoneme und das ägyptologische Transkriptionsalphabet." Lingua aegyptia: Journal of Egyptian Language Studies 11:187–199.

External links

• Manuel de Codage: technical details of electronic transliteration of Egyptian texts
• Unicode-based transliteration system adopted by the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale. Description and downloadable keyboard layouts.
• Online encoding converter for converting ASCII-based transliterations into Unicode.