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Talk:Egyptian hieroglyphs/Archive 1

Topic: learning hieroglyphs, the "preposition"
I just came to this talk page, no expectations. A preview, my training was to reproduce the 26 lines of Hieroglyphs on the Stone of Canopus(in 3 months). (I also worked on the page Decree of Memphis (Ptolemy IV).) I then redid what I had started on the Rosetta Stone, trying to fill in the missing portion, of lines Ros 1 thru Ros 14. The summation is that I, aligned the Greek with the E. hieroglyphs, in 1/2 lines. 28 pages for the 14 lines. (And the Demotic was an immense aid to the hieroglyphs & Greek (the story).)(And the Demotic story displays the town insurgents on "woodenn stakes" to "show the example".)

From Wikipedia, I now, know (from Text corpus), this is POS-tagging Part-of-speech tagging, and a "Corpus aligning". At any rate, I came to the talk page to, see a discussion of the hieroglyphs, as prepositions. Obviously, many of the consonants, are used as consonants.. But..

But, ... I think it would be informative, to uninitiated people that the prepositions are very important. (And they can be used interchangeably.)

 * Horemheb's cartouche is missing the of: In Horemheb's tomb at Thebes, Egypt, standing before Isis, are his two Cartouches. The vertical cartouche has the "Crown of the Delta" (for N,(=of)) to the left of Horus, the Hawk.  Instead, from E. A. Wallis Budge's 2- volume Dict., a horizontal wavy water line- N (for of) could be used to keep the cartouche "logical", but not technically accurate. (Pictographically accurate.).

Anyway, maybe some cogent discussions of prepositions could be introduced ''into the Egyp. hieroglyph page.'' In running sentences, either horizontal, or vertical, (on any "object"), break points ( Lemma's ) are cool. I have not read what
 * Prepositions: M, m, N(crown), n, r, (f, but is also " -his")

Ptolmees
The example Ptolmees is annoying. Double EE is never double yodh. It was just a transcription from Greek to Egyptian. How would you explain the hieroglyph writing for Amenophis? It is totally different. Please try to explain the difference between original egyptian and transcriptions like in Manetho's work.
 * You make a good point 172.177.78.152 (I'm afraid that's how we must refer to anonymous users). I don't think that Ptolomees is the best word to use to give an example of how hieroglyphs work. Manetho's transcription of Egyptian names is a complicated issue: Egyptian pronunciation probably changed more quickly than hieroglyphic writing, so that some phonetic elements of hieroglyphics may not have had real phonetic effect. No one claims that scientific transliteration of hieroglyphs is a true phonetic record; that is not its purpose. If you would like to contribute to Wikipedia articles, you might find it useful to create an account: it's free, enables access to more editing features and gives you a presence in the Wikipedia creative community. Gareth Hughes 21:11, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oldest hieroglyph is not from 4240 BC
- "The earliest known hieroglyphic inscription has been dated to 4240 BC. The first appearance of hieroglyphs is found before the writing of the Sumerian cuneiform was developed."

What is the evidence for this? Probably the earliest accepted usage of hieroglyphs are labels containing royal names from Dynasty 0 which would be at earliest 3200 BC. This is still a bit later than the earliest Sumerian cuneiform tablets.

 * The date 4240 BC for the earliest known hieroglyphic inscriptions is wrong on several points:
 * This date appears to be based on the Sothic cycle, which was used by some of its earliest advocates to show that the Egyptian calendar was created in 4241 BC. One error.
 * While I believe that the Sothic cycle is still useful in fixing in absolute terms dates in Egyptian chronology, it isn't useful this far back in Egyptian history. Further, the major argument for stating that the Egyptian calendar started in 4241 BC was that the calendar was established at the beginning of Egyptian kingship, & the next earliest possible date was 2780 BC -- which was too late & would conflict with other chronological calculations. Since then, a number of these chronologies have been adjusted down, & 2780 BC is now considered by almost all Egyptologists to fall either at the beginning or before the Old Kingdom.
 * Lastly, I know of no recorded inscription in hieroglyphs that has been associated with this date. The earliest known use of Egyptian hieroglyphs are from tomb U-j in Abydos (discovered in 1988), which have been dated to the Naqada IIIA period -- which converts to c.3300 BC.
 * Had I known of this claim before this, when I had access to some more detailed sources, I would have changed this. As soon as I find the time to properly research this issue (very early Egyptian history is not too interesting to me), I'll add the proper corrected info. -- llywrch 19:15, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've inserted a table of uniliteral signs into the article to give a little more of the flavour of the signs. The notes column could either be expanded, or, probably better, removed. The details are based on Collier/Manley (1998). Gareth Hughes 01:16, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Heading
Why is the heading of this article "Egyptian hieroglyph" and not "Egyptian hieroglyphs"? I can't think of any other encyclopaedia or dictionary that uses such a term for labelling this writing system. Should this be changed? —Nefertum17 09:55, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I just took a look at the various non-English Wiki pages linked to this one. With the exception of Danish, they are all the equivilant of "Hieroglyph" (i.e., no reference in the article name to "Egyptian", but clearly, and appropriately, singular) or "Egyptian Hieroglyphic" (which uses the adjective as the noun). In books, however, the plural is used. I just can't see anyone coming here for information on a single hieroglyph, but rather hieroglyphs. —Nefertum17 10:03, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree with you: an article on Egyptian hieroglyph is about one Egyptian sign, whereas an article about Egyptian hieroglyphs is about the entire system of signs. I much prefer the use of the plural noun hieroglyphs to the adjective hieroglyphic, or its derived plural hieroglyphics. If there is no disagreement, I suggest that this article is moved to Egyptian hieroglyphs in a few days.

 * Completely unrelated to this, I've nicked two templates from the Finnish Wikipedia: Template:Hiero and Template:Hiero/pharaoh. The first presents a unified system for displaying hieroglyphs on article pages (particularly for names of deities). The second provides two cartouches for the praenomina and nomina of pharaohs. The variables are straightforward: variable 1 is the name in 'said' transliteration, variable 2 is the praenomen/name in hieroglyphs (you have to include the tags still), and variable 3 (for the pharaoh template) is the nomen in hieroglyphs. I've changed the order of pharaoh's names from the Finnish system: it seemed to make more sense to have the praenomen first. Gareth Hughes 11:13, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Links removed
I removed the links to Coptic language and Coptic alphabet from the Related Articles section. They are only distantly related to the concept of "hieroglyph". —Nefertum17 09:39, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, but at least the alphabet contains the only surviving remnants of the hieroglyphs, so doesn't that make it of interest? I'd like to put that link back, as well as a link to the Wadi el-Hol/proto-Sinaitic scripts. kwami 00:22, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

French version
Is there anything on fr:Hiéroglyphe that should be copied here? -- ALoan (Talk) 12:34, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * The French article has a lot going for it. I don't think we want to copy it: it's better than what's here but could be better. I'll spend some time working with it. Gareth Hughes 23:35, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Is this happening? I will be looking at that too PaulDehaye 03:22, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Awfully glad to do it. Whatever is decided is fine with me but all I ask is that the article stay where it is, at least for a while; this is, even if all or some of it is merged, please don't delete it.  I will continue to monitor any changes and additions in French.  Fair enough?    NaySay 02:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Hieroglyphics Music
Some time soon I want to make an article about the CD label and rap musicians from Hieroglyphics. Unless there is already an article but it can't be found because of the redirect. When I'm done with the article, I'll change the redirect page into a disambiguation page and link to both. --Dinero 01:42, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

 * Hieroglyphics redirects here, but perhaps it should go to hieroglyph instead? I'm not sure how we should deal with the CD label: possibilities include:
 * disambiguate at hieroglyphics instead of hieroglyph, or
 * put the article on the CD label at Hieroglyphics with a "See hieroglyph for the ideographic writing system."? -- ALoan (Talk) 08:41, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't know — if someone types hieroglyphics into a search or a wikilink, they are most likely wanting to link to hieroglyph or Egyptian hieroglyph. I think the redirect should stay and some thing like For the record label Hieroglyphics, see Hieroglyphics (record label). --Gareth Hughes 17:47, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Second time removing GlyphDoctors link
Glyphdoctors (Free discussion forums and online courses in hieroglyphs) is a commercial site. The only free aspect seems to be the discussion forum, but that's not worth having a link for IMHO. The author says her link belongs here (and at the very top of the list, no less!) because there are other commercial links on the site. I don't see them. Anyway, I'm writing this because it's not obvious at first that the site is commercial, and this is the second time she's added her ad to this page. kwami 19:47, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

I totally agree it doesn't belong at the top—I moved it once too—but I'm not certain it doesn't belong at all. This isn't Cialis or shoes—Egyptian is not commonly taught, and even less commonly taught to laymen. Knowing where it's taught is useful. Could we subsection it and include links to other programs? I don't feel very strongly about this either way; let's talk it through. Lectiodifficilior 20:51, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
 * [I answered you on my talk page.] I'd feel okay putting it in a new section, Commercial links or some such.
 * However, I'm not happy about the dishonesty of Glyphdoctors: first, trying to get top billing over pure reference sites, and second, implying that the courses are free (Free ... online courses: only debating semantics would save them from the charge of false advertising, and as far as I'm concerned, intentional misrepresentation is as good as an outright lie).
 * I'd have no problem if an author of this page added the link, or even if Glyphdoctors promoted themselves in an above-the-board manner. But do we really want to reward an apparently dishonest commercial site by enshrining their link in our article? kwami 00:16, 2005 May 14 (UTC)
 * From External links What should not be linked to
 * Wikipedia disapproves strongly of links that are added for advertising purposes. Adding links to one's own page is strongly discouraged. The mass adding of links to any website is also strongly discouraged, and any such operation should be raised at the Village Pump or other such page and approved by the community before going ahead. Persistently linking to one's own site is considered Vandalism and can result in sanctions. See also External link spamming.
 * Links to a site that is selling products, unless it applies via a "do" above. --212.239.164.85 05:17, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Those seem like good rules of thumb, but I don't find them at Spam (Link now fixed [ 212.239.164.85 05:17, 15 May 2005 (UTC) ] ). Are they your own, is it from an old version of the page, or is it posted somewhere else? Lectiodifficilior 01:13, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
 * PS: Was that User:Kwamikagami?
 * Lastly, I think we should get past the term commercial. I doubt the proprietor of the site is getting rich off of people looking to learn hieroglyphs. I mean should we stop adding books to bibliographies because HarperCollins and Random House are commercial enterprises? The New York Times and CNN are commercial. Or perhaps we should delete links to official sites of rock bands, also businesses. Business and information are inextricably linked; Guttenberg and Aldus Manutius were businessmen, their importance in the dissemination of culture not dimmed thereby. Surely the criterion should be usefulness and relevance, not whether the link is "commercial." Lectiodifficilior 01:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
 * No, I didn't post the spam info (I don't know who did [ I forgot to sign; now noted; 212.239.164.85 05:17, 15 May 2005 (UTC) ] ), but I did find it when I clicked on the link. But like I said, I wouldn't mind if you were expanding the page and thought, hey, this was a useful link, and added it. What I object to is Glyphdoctors repeatedly adding their link to three Wiki pages: hieroglyphs, Egypt, and Egyptian, and always at the very top of the ref list. (I didn't remove the other links. Someone else did.) And then implying it's free. She's clearly using Wikipedia as ad space, that's all she cares about it, and she's not being upfront. How much money she expects to make I don't know, and don't really care. It would be different if the first or second or third time she got deleted, she went to the talk page and said, hey, I think I have something to offer here that's relevant, and people agreed it might be worthwhile. Or even just notified us of what she was doing. But this feels like someone slipping junk mail under my door. kwami 04:52, 2005 May 15 (UTC)
 * I apologize for the confusion noted above. I posted the wrong link (now fixed) and did not sign my message, mistakenly implying kwami added the information on link policies. This has been noted above. (I have my reasons for not signing in under a username at this time.) --212.239.164.85 05:17, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Thoughts and a proposal

 * I didn't know it was happening on Egypt and Egyptian as well. That ups it in my mind, particularly the Egypt one; it wouldn't belong on Egypt under the best of circumstances.
 * I'm very persuaded by that, by the fact it was done repeatedly, done without "talk" justification, and very inappropriately put at the top of the list each time. I'm also concerned about the "marketing" flavor of the link text, and worse if the text isn't really true.
 * I'm not persuaded that the contributor was consciously acting badly—Wikipedia newbies often do thoughtless things—but it certainly was improper and disrespectful.
 * I like how appellate judges, like the Supreme Court, try to speak on only what they have to, deciding on as narrow a grounds as possible. That's my feeling here. I think the "real" merits of including the link are pretty murky, and something others should have a say in deciding. But I'm very convinced by the way it was added.
 * Can we therefore agree, that if the link gets added again, it must be added appropriately, addressing these concerns and and with explicit Talk justification. I'm not saying this should be enough, but certainly anything else earns a swift revert. How does that feel to you?
 * Sounds good to me!
 * As for the nature of the site, I wrote them, and they said they charge for the course, but the discussion forum is free. Not sure what would be in such a forum. kwami 08:26, 2005 May 15 (UTC)

On the mystery man:

 * Without malice, I don't know if Wikipedia has a policy against it, but what are we to make of "I have my reasons for not signing in under a username at this time." Like you're banned? Your name is "Zyzygy" and your Z-key is broken?
 * Lastly, maybe it's just me but I rather dislike my talk text being edited by others, even if the edits are clear. So—special request—can we avoid that?

Response from Glyphdoctors
I am Nicole Hansen, the owner of the site Glyphdoctors. I apologize for having stepped over the bounds of Wikipedia etiquette, of which I was unaware. I'm a passive user of Wikipedia for the most part and really am not so familiar with how things work. I would like to correct some misconceptions here. First of all, I never insisted my site belonged here simply because you should allow commercial sites. But at least one of the other sites linked to is selling hieroglyphic learning materials (Great Scott), which is why I saw no reason to not link to my own site. If that is the grounds by which you judge whether a site should be included or not, then perhaps it should be that the other site should also be removed, not that my site should stay.

I made my site for one reason-to offer a service that traditional educational institutions are not interested in providing. I'm a PhD candidate in Egyptology at the University of Chicago but rather than pursue an academic career teaching Egyptology to 3 students who pay tens of thousands of dollars at some university, I have decided to start a Web site offering online courses to the general public interested in ancient Egypt for an a price much lower than a university, and will be adding courses by other Egyptologists in the future. There are very few places in the world where you can study Egyptology, most of them being too far and too expensive for people to attend, and I am going to be providing a service that is basically unavailable any other way. You won't find a non-commercial entity offering what I am offering.

As for my wording "free discussion forums and online Egyptology courses" I in no way was trying to pull the wool over anyone eyes. I meant it as "free discussion forums" AND "online Egyptology courses" and I mentioned the free discussion forums FIRST to emphasize the free forums, because I felt it would be inappropriate to stress the paid part. If you want to see the glass half empty, then I guess you could read it the way you did.

As for the accusations that I repeatedly added links after they were deleted-if I did so, it was unintentional. I'm not a spammer and if I added a link more than once it was simply because I didn't remember that I had posted it there before and so didn't realize that the link had been deleted in the first place. And as for my posting in other forums besides Egyptian hieroglyphs, the site is not simply devoted to hieroglyphs, it is devoted to Egypt and Egyptology in general. When someone emailed me objecting to my posting links, I didn't post anymore.

As for my not coming to this talk page before, that's because I didn't know it existed nor that my site was being discussed here. I was just doing a search on the internet now for something else and came across this discussion now. If you had really wished to understand what my motives were, you could have invited me here to answer your questions and I would have been happy to do so, but no one did.

For your information, I was hoping to be able to contribute something to Wikipedia in the form of improving the code of Wikihiero (at my own expense), and contributing it back here. If you go look in the talk page for Wikihiero, you will see that I posted something about that just yesterday. But after being called dishonest and disrespectful here I have to admit I am having second thoughts about that.

Response from Lectiodifficilior
Dear Ms. Hansen,

Thank you for your thoughtful response, and welcome to Wikipedia. I appreciate the time it took.

Let us all lower the temperature a bit on this one. As frequent Wikipedians, we assume that people how the system works (eg., talk pages), and what the rules are. This is a little myopic, but perhaps you understand how it comes about. Perhaps too you can also understand why Wikipedians have short fuses about link additions. Wikipedia is a valuable link, and gets "hit" all the time. That your post was anonymous, unexplained, repeated and always on top pressed all the wrong buttons here. I am glad there is an innocent explanation, and that you are no spammer; please accept my apology for thinking you one.

As stated above, my main problem was with the way it was done. Now that you have explained yourself at such length, I have no more objections to some sort of link. I said before what you said now, that you are offering a unique service, with great potential value. That you will make (small) money directly from people instead of through the mechanism of a university doesn't bother me in the least. Indeed, I find it inspiring.

So, count me on the side of adding a link. I cannot speak for others. Perhaps we can discuss the right link description here before you post it? This will also give others a chance to agree or disagree with it and the link generally.

Best, Lectiodifficilior 18:54, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Same here. Ad links in Wikipedia get to be a bit like junk mail. As I go through my mail standing over a trash can, perhaps you'll forgive my abruptness in dealing with you. I left GreatScott on for two reasons: I hadn't explored the site far enough to discover it was commercial; and it was at the bottom of the list, which seemed appropriate for the rather basic level of information it provided. But I have no objection to linking GlyphDoctors. I would like, however, for it and GreatScott (assuming we approve of GreatScott, that is) to be listed in a Commercial Links category, or maybe Commercial Education Links or some such (Professional Education Links? but that wouldn't fit GreatScott), perhaps with a clarificaton of what is offered free and what is for sale.

 * Also, if you wish to contribute to the article, either by fact checking or by filling in a few of the gaps, that would be wonderful. There's no reason it can't be much more than it is now.

 * Lectiodifficilior, I think the only other people involved in this signed in anonymously. Should we consider the two of us a consensus then? kwami 19:39, 2005 May 26 (UTC)

 * Lectiodifficilior Let's agree on the link text here first. That will give others a chance to contribute if they want. The slower we do it, the more secure the consensus, I think. I'm on this thing every day, but others have slower cycles. Second, who else offers hieroglyph classes to the masses. I distinctly recall someone else does—Chicago? If we list GD, we should list them too. I have a feeling Ms. Hansen would know.

Response from Nicole: The Oriental Institute at the U of C does from time to time offer snail mail hieroglyphs courses (I actually taught this course for them some years ago). They aren't offering any at the moment though. These courses consist of mailing in your homework by snail mail, and getting corrections back in the same manner. Part of the reason I wanted to start my online courses in hieroglyphs was due to my dissatisfaction with that method, feeling the students weren't getting a fraction of the support and interaction they should be getting for the money they were paying and they were expected to finish it in an unrealistically short amount of time. I taught an online course for the OI too in 1999 (on Egyptian folklore), but I really couldn't get them interested in doing more courses that way because the powers to be are limited in their interest in such public outreach. But the technology (especially since I am using open source solutions) has reached a point where it is financially and technologically feasible for me to start offering courses online without having to associate with an already existing institution. I am going to be teaching a classroom course for the OI on mummies and medicine though in the fall and perhaps another classroom course on the Valley of the Kings next spring, but I don't know if they have any hieroglyphs courses planned in the fall, as I haven't seen the full schedule yet.

Have you made a decision about my link yet? At the very least, could you please delete the accussations in this discussion of me as being dishonest?

 * I have reinserted the link to Glyphdoctors. It seems that Nicole Hansen has made a good and patient case, and that she is not involved in out-and-out commercialism, but is trying to make a living as an academic. I have no problem linking to the site: it could be considered as further reading for interested readers of this article. --Gareth Hughes 20:22, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Alchemist
I have an article saying that, according to Okasha el-Daly, the discovery of Arabic manuscripts from the 9th century by alchemist Abu Baqr Ahmad Ibn Wahshiyah prooves that he was capable of deciphering many of the signs. But, as he was an alchemist, his interest was in the phonetic valuews to achieve the scientific knowledge of the Egyptians. --Error 03:54, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

WP:FAC
Gosh - this has improved since my comment about the French article in March. Are the authors considering nominating it as a featured article candiadate? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:24, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

deleted section
Moving the medieval alchemist conception of hieroglyphs here. There may be something we can save, but as a summary it's just plain wrong:

 * Hieroglyphs are the effort of ancient Egyptians to represent meaning with symbols. Each one tends to embody the fundamental concept associated with the image during the period of its conception. For instance the human body hieroglyph with a bird's head represents the observer class of pharaoh's servants, whose duty was solely to watch the kingdom and alert the pharaoh of dangerous developments. The bird head was associated with the observational traits of birds. A human body with a dog's head represents the guard, due to the the guarding attribute of dogs.

In this way each hieroglyph symbol will be found to present the visual imagery needed to get across a specific concept.

This isn't "what hieroglyphs are"; hieroglyphs represented language, not meaning. Semantic determiners and pictographs were important elements, but were not the essence of the system, as this paragraph would have us believe. kwami 21:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

velar fricative, palatal fricative
just wondering, the velar/palatal-ness doesn't match with the two kh's. is that intentional? nothing more was explained. e.g. sign      - notes                       - pronunciation placenta  - voiceless velar fricative   - voiced velar fricative belly/tail - voiceless palatal fricative - voiceless velar fricative

 * The first are the traditional representations, and the second are Allen's reconstructions. kwami 01:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation
The chart Unilateral signs has a column labelled "say", that presumably has some sort of information about pronunciation. Is there any basis for it, though? It hardly makes sense, to me, that, though ayin is a voiced pharyngeal fricative, we should "say" a. What gives? EldKatt (Talk) 19:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

 * It comes as part of the traditional transcription of hieroglyphs. This is how they are usually read outloud, and often how they are written outside of a scientific context. Thus, twt-ˁnḫ-ỉmn ḥq3-ỉwnw-šmˁ is transcribed as Tut-ankh-amen Heka-iunu-shema. This latter transcription, with added es, can at least be pronounced. --Gareth Hughes 23:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

List of Heiroglyphics
Where the hell is a list of Heiroglyphics? It seems like it should be on this page, and searching for it, I can only find example lists or summaries. Wheres the list? Fresheneesz 22:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Try here . Markh 16:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Thats not exactly what i'm looking for but it definately helps, thanks. I'm looking for a list of heiroglyphs and their definitions, maybe some characters that arose from them, their progression, etc. I'll start one and add a link to it somewhere - I'll call it List of hieroglyphs. Fresheneesz 23:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

French Wiki article "Hiéroglyphe" translation and merge
I have translated the whole (featured) French Wiki article on hieroglyphs. Hieroglyph (French Wiki article) Please write me or here with questions. NaySay 23:50, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Clearly should be merged into this one. & thanks very much for translating. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:03, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Ohgoshthankyouverymuch! See my comments above . -- ALoan (Talk) 01:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Agree for merge. Please note also http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_totale_des_hiéroglyphes_selon_la_classification_Gardiner, and its German Version. --Connection 00:46, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Theres no need for a vote on this one, just merge. Fresheneesz 19:45, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Quite a lot of the french article is repeated in Egyptian language, should we merge these as well or just make sure that the information is somewhere in an article ? 86.139.189.18 10:05, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I'd say that anything that is specific to the writing of the language in hieroglyphics belongs here, even if that means refactoring; the other article can summarize and then refer here using main. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Absolutly merge - mastodon 16:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Merge done – mostly, may need further work though. Markh 20:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Usage note: hieroglyphics vs hieroglyphs
I think the usage note at the bottom of the etimology section is completely usless, and not universally true either. First of all, the word hieroglyphics is in such common usage that it should be treated as a word of its own. Second of all, it is most definately correct english to pluralize adjectives when using them as nouns (for example "the reds" or "two equals" (as in equal people) ). In any case, 3 lines is much to long for that usage note. Does anyone else think it should simply be removed? Fresheneesz 20:08, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

 * When writing a reference article, surely correct formal English should be used wherever possible. My addition of the usage note was prompted by (a) the inconsistent use of "hieroglyph" and "hieroglyphics" in the article, and (b) a belief that those who drop the noun and use the adjective with casual abandon (like the ancient Greeks, bless them!) should at least be aware they are doing so. This awareness could be helpful to students for example, who could then employ the correct word and avoid the possibility of having their history teacher correcting them and deducting a mark or marks. Please don't mind me having a bit of sly fun, but while the words "etimology" and "definately" may be popular spellings in daily use around the world, this common usage doesn't make them correct formal English either! ;-) Bezapt 10:18, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Sorry, I don't have time for spell check on these things : ) . Maybe i'll just try to condense the note then. Fresheneesz 12:18, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

 * A lovely condensation! Very succinct. (*tips hat to Fresheneesz*) Bezapt 07:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

those who drop the noun and use the adjective with casual abandon (like the ancient Greeks, bless them!) should at least be aware they are doing so. — you obviously mean the ancient greek, um, tribesmen, I take it? :oP dab (ᛏ) 16:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Merging + New Language in Wiki
I believe these documents should be merged. One page should also redirect to the other, probably hieroglyph linking to Egyptian Hieroglyph. You never know when some dimwit might come up with another hieroglyphic language. Then, the list of hieroglyphs can be displayed when you search hieroglyph. Also, the page can be displayed in the language of itself, Egyptian Hieroglyhs. Also, the page on Ancient Greek should be able to be displayed in Ancient Greek, the page on H4X0R, 1337 and common shortcuts should be able to be displayed in H4X0R (or 13375P34<) and so on. If someone bothered to translate and article and write a main page in that language it would be great. It could easily be done using tables and heaps of pictures, one huge picture full of hieroglyphs would be too big in MB's. I would be glad do it if someone sent me pictures of hieroglyphs and a translation of the page in Ancient Egyptian sounds represented with English letters. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Iamcon (talk • contribs) 23 April 2006.
 * Do you mean to have a version of Wikipedia (or at least a Main Page for it in hieroglphs? That would requre so many new words to be invented (not to mention so much work) that it would be near enough impossible. But do it on a subpage of your user page and I'll vote for it to be made real. D aniel (☎) 17:43, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Translation, please?
Could anybody tell me what the following hieroglyphs mean? and I tried to translate them and I only came up with this: wrtmXt and mwiIdrgmwg. I know my question is quite difficult to answer, but I found them on the inserts of an old album and I thought that there might be have a hidden message. Regards, Luis María Benítez 14:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

 * They are all Egyptian uniliteral signs, so it's unlikely that it actually means anything in Egyptian. It is more likely that someone is using the signs as an alphabet to transcribe some non-Egyptian language. Could you let us know the name of the album, and some other relevant names on it, as this could be a transcription of these? — Gareth Hughes 14:42, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

They were featured on the inserts of an album called Þagað í Hel, which in Icelandic means "Silenced to Death". So, after what you told me I'm starting to believe that they were used just because they looked "pretty". I will describe the inserts and mention this. Thanks. Luis María Benítez 15:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Removing redirect and requesting separate page on "hieroglyphs" generally
Writing on maya hieroglyphs I was a little suprised to see that the searching on "hieroglyphs" brought me directly to "egyptian hieroglyphs". I would very much request a page on hieroglyphs as a general concept and the etymology of the word "hieroglyph" with links to the various known hieroghlyphic scripts, many of which have separate pages on wikipedia. I cut the redirect which was maybe a little rash, but I think stsuff from the french article on hieroglyphs could and should be made into an article on general hieroglyphs not just egyptian ones.--Maunus 09:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds fair to me.. there are indeed other writing systems which have characters known as hieroglyphs. Will fix the currently dead-end 'hieroglyph' and 'hieroglyphic' pages & make them redirect to disambig article hieroglyphs. Bezapt 15:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Automatic peerreview
The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question. You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Markh 12:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:MOSDATE, months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.
 * Please alphabetize the interlanguage links.
 * There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
 * is considered
 * might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).
 * Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
 * Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “ All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
 * Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.

Format Error
Please see the following section: Writing System→Phonetic compliments. After a number of hieroglyphs (and their explanation), the paragraph says Finally, it sometimes happens that the pronunciation of words might be changed because of their connection to ... Then, there is a major grammar/structure error in the beginning of the next paragraph. It starts as follows: nouns; they are always accompanied by a mute vertical stroke indicating ... I am unsure as to how to rectify the error. My first impression is to take nouns and make it a level 4 heading, then continue as it is.—Red Baron 21:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for spotting that - it was ancient vandalism, I have replaced the missing sections and it looks a little better now. Cheers Markh 08:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

determinative=ideograph?
Is it a convention to call a determinative "ideograph" in the field of Egyptology? pls revert my edits if it is so. But I feel that the very appearance of the word "ideograph" in the article could lead the readers astray. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 04:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

a must read
http://www.magtudin.org/Origin%20I.htm —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.21.25.155 (talk) 00:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

Phonetic complements
I would be bold and change this, but I'm an amateur.

A question regarding the following passage:
 * swt, "reed" - the t is the phonetic complement.

How is the t a phonetic complement? reads sw, not swt in the first place. The t is an additional sound; it does not clarify the reading of sw. --Birdman1 talk/contribs 15:04, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree; this is not an example of a phonetic complement. I would just eliminate it. There are several other examples in the section that actually discusses phonetic complements. — Zerida 22:17, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

 * Gardiner p 588 swt (M23), Ideo., a plant perhaps sedge or scirpus reed, p73 n 10; swt old indp. pron/, 3rd singular, sw pron. compound, he, it § 124.

 * See also:
 * 14. Antonio Loprieno Rktect 22:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Which bird is that?
Greetings,

Do you happen to know which bird is that? Could it be a Shoebill? According to Encyclopedia Aarabiah the image of this bird was engraved on the walls of ancient Egyptian temples. Could you elaborate on this matter? Lior 07:42, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

 * This glyph corresponds to the mythological bennu. It is believed to be based on a type of heron. — Zerida 19:05, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * its listed as G31 Gardiner p 470 Heron, det in bnu (bynw) Phoenix, a very similar bird is det in snty Heron.Rktect 22:26, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Yogh (ȝ)
Obviously this is not the correct character to use for Egyptological alef. That character will be in Unicode 5.1. Should we keep yogh without comment until later? Evertype 07:01, 12 August 2006 (UTC) Use  Rktect 22:31, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup clarity
26-Aug-2007: I have been analyzing the text, in an effort to improve the clarity of concepts presented. I have changed some linked phrases and added phrases to improve clarity. However, I think IMO, that more simple, generalized, overview statements should be added, because too many detailed examples are presented very abruptly, with little introduction for clarity of concepts. I realize it can be difficult to write smooth and clear intro sections about complex issues, so that writing could take a while to complete. -Wikid77 08:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Typesetting hieroglyphs
26-Aug-2007: Some writers had intended the hieroglyphic symbols to appear embedded within paragraphs; however, those symbols split to separate lines on some browsers. I specifically re-typeset the hieroglyphic symbols using various techniques:

 * put text in HTML-divisions: my text
 * indented by colon (":"), each paragraph containing hieroglyphs;
 * indented by asterisk ("*") a bullet with hieroglyphs;
 * indented by colon-asterisk (":*") for hieroglyph sub-examples.

Some hieroglyphic symbols are short, fitting within the interline spacing; however, some symbols are quite tall, causing an interline gap for fitting those tall symbols. I tried to shrink tall symbols by using small-font tags ( " tiny text " ), but the symbols would not shrink with font-size. Smaller symbols would be good to have. -Wikid77 08:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Repeating redundancy
26-Aug-2007: Ironically, I have had to re-introduce redundant wording into this article explaining redundant hieroglyphic spellings, despite the issue (above) to "avoid redundancies" for concise writing. On the contrary, during the explanations of complex Egyptian symbols, it is NOT the time to be close-mouthed and discreet. Although brevity can display an aura of sophistication in writing, clear descriptions of Egyptian writing do not require proof of author sophistication. Please repeat concepts (in other words, restate key ideas) in a variety of styles at each point, in an effort to clarify concepts to a range of readers, before adding more concepts in follow-on sections. I strongly recommend: "tell 'em what you plan to say, then tell 'em, and then tell 'em what you told them." Many people will find the information fascinating, but very confusing, so by all means, explain concepts 3 times, but with the final recap shorter. Bored readers will skip the recap sections, but others will gain insights there. Do I hear, "I copy that"? -Wikid77 08:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Boustrophedon?
Was the language written boustrophedon style? Chris (talk) 12:41, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No. Direction depended on the layout of the writing surface - walls on opposite sides of a doorway might have writing in opposite directions. kwami (talk) 18:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Foreign signsets used
This article needs a warning that it uses foreign letters, signs or other annotations that do not appear in the Latin or otherwise modern languages.

How are the hyroglyphics written into the text? Rhinocerous Ranger (talk) 22:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Flamingo?
Hi there, i'm totally new to this and so may just be getting mixed up with how i'm interpreting things. However, in the 'Logograms' section, where there's a representation of the glyph meaning 'flamingo' it says "the corresponding phonogram means "red"", but i can't actually see a corresponding phonogram-just the bird glyph and the determinative telling me it's a logogram. is the "red" phonogram missing? or am i just misinterpreting what's being said? Can anybody help me on this? Thanks Greebo cat (talk) 23:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

link to polish Wikipedia
please add the link to pl.Wiki - Hieroglify Derski (talk) 22:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Cartouche artifacts
In the "Cartouche" section, I'm seeing rectangular lines around the curves at the left and right ends of the cartouches. -- Beland (talk) 19:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Link to finnish Wikipedia
It would be very nice if someone could add a link to finnish Wikipedia - Hieroglyfit DiamondClaw 19.07, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Link to spanish Wikipedia
Also, there is no link to spanish Wikipedia - Jeroglífico Fedeluis (talk) 13:54, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

 * Done, done, and done. That should've been handled by a bot. And we were missing French, which was FA. Don't know what happened. kwami (talk) 14:33, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Skara Brae
I recently came across the image of an inscription found in the Orcadian Neolithic village of Skara Brae which you can see here. The explanation provided there for its existence is speculative at best. Nonetheless the resemblance to say      is  interesting. I have not been able to find an academically credible discussion of the subject and wondered if anyone could either point me to one, or perhaps other examples of extra-Egyptian primitive hieroglyphs? Ben  Mac  Dui  16:27, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Rosetta Stone
I was rather surprised to find this text: "The real breakthrough in decipherment began in the early 1800s by scholars as Silvestre de Sacy, Akerblad and Thomas Young. Finally, Jean-François Champollion made the complete decipherment. The discovery in 1799 of the Rosetta Stone by Napoleon's troops (during Napoleon's Egyptian invasion) provided the motivation to study the script, but the text on the stone was of almost no use in decipherment."

I think it's interesting to note that the articles on these scholars who provided the breakthrough mentioned here all state that their work all revolved around the text of the Rosetta stone! To suggest that the text was unimportant is patent nonsense and I've removed it, along with revising the wording a bit to make it flow. Any discussion? EthanL (talk) 10:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I am by no means an expert, but I agree with your assessment. Ben  Mac  Dui  12:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Determinatives
The determinatives used seem to me to have pretty much exactly the same purpose as Chinese radicals, such as disambiguating homophones and reinforcing the idea of the word. The description of the "papyrus" determiner put me very much in mind of the 言 radical. Could someone elaborate? 137.205.74.230 (talk) 22:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

 * They're both determinatives. kwami (talk) 22:40, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Photoshop or Rare/Deformed Glyph?
Take a look at the image with the black hieroglyphics. 2nd Column from the left, 5 down. Is that a real animal or a photo-shopped monster? Its very un-Egyptian looking! I suspect foul play but I leave this to you experts. Let me know please as I'm very curious.

-Knowl <(Go to my user page to play WIKI RP! Its FUN and educational!) (talk) 12:30, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

 * Sure doesn't look Egyptian to me. I don't have Gardiner with me, but I doubt I'd find it there. kwami (talk) 20:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I looked around Google images for a while last night and it looks like this is part of one of the sarcophagi in the British Museum. However, the entire thing is covered in writing so unless someone had a very detailed collection of photographs from every angle it is hard to verify if this is real or not. The user who uploaded it is an anonymous IP from the Ford Motor Company. It might not be malicious; maybe just a FARK leftover that someone mistook for the real thing. Its a shame really because aside from the one suspicious glyph its a very good photo compared to the one that was previously in its place. -Knowl <(Go to my user page to play WIKI RP! Its FUN and educational!) (talk) 21:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well done for looking. Ankhnesneferibre was an obvious search argument and I think it was that one which enabled me to find firm evidence. I have preserved the amusing image in this blog posting. — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 06:12, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Ha ha! Nice! Now the only mystery left is what this thing is. Alien VS predator reference? Godzilla? The ghost of LBJ? Someone posted on my talk page claiming it was their doing, but never said what it was. -Knowl -<(I am questing for Knowledge!) (talk) 09:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * What posting on your talk page? You are not by any chance referring to this edit are you? — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 10:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Small change
Unless im mistaken the translation of the Jackel actually means 'Anubis' which is the Jackel headed god so i made a slight ajustment there

there was something else i wanted to do too but i forgot —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boves (talk • contribs) 10:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Strange wording
I'm not an expert, but I have noticed some passages that seem inconsistent, but I'm not sure how to remedy some of these instances of bad wording or internal logic.

Under "History and evolution", it is claimed that "simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts". The article Hieratic, though, emphasises (citing a scholarly source) that this script is not derived from hieroglyphs, instead being a parallel development.

Under "Decipherment of hieroglyphic writing", the article says "[...] an attempt by an Egyptian intellectual to rescue an unrecoverable past". In the face of the results of modern Egyptology, it is not very fortunate to call the Egyptian past "unrecoverable", as it has obviously been recovered to a considerable extent.

It also says that the hieroglyphs were the inspiration for the Semitic alphabets; however, according to article pointed to, strictly speaking, it was rather the hieratic, not the hieroglyphic script that provided the immediate inspiration. This imprecise statement needs fixing and the article on hieratic should mention that hieratic was the model for the alphabet.

Under "Spelling", the article says "Furthermore, the Egyptians were perfectly content to include older orthography ("historical spelling") alongside newer practices, as if it were acceptable in English to use the spelling of a given word from 1600 in a text written today." The comparison with English is the worst you could come up with, since English is famous for its historical spelling - basically, what is described there is indeed current practice in English!

I have also deleted some paragraphs from "Etymology" that, besides sounding as if they rather belonged to the Simple English Wikipedia, or had been copied from somewhere else, did not belong to the subject of the section. Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

WikiHiero syntax
I have recently noticed that the glyphs on the Rossetta stone face the right, that means that the Rossetta stone glyphs would be read from right to left, not left to right, so is there a way to "flip" the gliphs when using the WikiHiero syntax? Oh, and is it possible to manually make the gliphs smaller like pictures and thumbnails? Buɡboy52.4 (talk) 22:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It is a convention that the hieroglyphs are written left to right. Wikihiero doesn't allow right-to-left righting, as far as I know Markh (talk) 00:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

using WikiHiero
how do you use WikiHiero, like on your use page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Imperfect.dark (talk • contribs) 08:25, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Looking for some help
I'm hoping someone here might be able to point me in the right direction.

For the article Lod, a city in Israel, I'm trying to find the first recorded use of a name for the city. The first person to write about it was apparently the pharaoh Thutmose III, who, in 1465 BCE, drew up a list of towns in Caanan. I have found this page that mentions Lydda in this context (if you search for Lydda, you'll see the entry).

Does anyone know what this means? Is it saying that this was the name Thutmose III used for the town, and if so, exactly which symbols made up the name, and do we have any idea how it would have been pronounced? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 20:45, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Egyptian hieroglyphs
How egyptian hieroglyphs were finally decoded? Two explanation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.13.182.138 (talk) 06:26, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Attempts at translations in medieval Egypt
Removed the references to a (partial) decipherment 800 years before Champollion. While apparently widely reported in the media, a casual inspection of at least the translated work of Ibn Wahshiyya at google books (see reference in article) suggests that most of the 'translations' were of a similarly fantastic nature as Kirchner's later suggestions. Claims of 'cracking the code' do thus seem at least problematic and too questionable to be reported here without qualifiers. As qualifiers in the absence of a critical source constitute original research, removal seemed the only option. --Hakseng (talk) 04:42, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

merger proposal
I propose that the article Decipherment of hieroglyphic writing be merged into this one and replaced with a redirect. There are several reasons for such a move - the 'decipherment' article is thin on content and sourcing, its content is largely overlapping information already in this article, as it deals only with Egyptian hieroglyphs, and there is already a decipherment section here. The title is somewhat confusing since the article text deals exclusively with Egyptian hieroglyphs, but other historical hieroglyph systems exist and were deciphered at different times by different individuals, and finally, the 'decipherment' article seems to place undue weight on the importance of incomplete Islamic attempts at decipherment. Dialectric (talk) 00:17, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The title could be made more precise. That's hardly reason for a merger. — kwami (talk) 00:37, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * the main reason is that the content there is duplicated almost in its entirety here, rendering a second article unnecessary. Dialectric (talk) 12:24, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Usual writing direction???
is the usual writing direction for the egyptian script left to right or right to left. I have heared many times that 90 percent of writings are written right to left. I have made the change in the article but it has been reversed??? I donot understand why?? --216.249.11.195 (talk) 02:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

unicode 5.2
I upgraded my gucharmap and happened to notice the hieroglyphic range, so I made a grid template for it. See talk page for instructions.

―AoV² 14:35, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Changes to CSS
I modified the CSS so that the Aegyptus font is default across the whole table and the sans-serif font only appears in the cells it has to. Before that, only Mozilla Firefox was displaying the full array of hieroglyphs, but Google Chrome and IE were not. As of this moment, IE 9.0.7930.16406 (Beta release), Mozilla Firefox 3.6.10 and Google Chrome 6.0.472.62 display the table as intended by AoV².

--Rodrigo Lima Jaroszewski (talk) 06:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

 * Bravo and thanks. nice work to both. -- Scriber (talk) 14:16, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

great article
This is a wonderful article -- someone has put in a huge amount of work here!--75.83.69.196 (talk) 02:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Aegyptus font
I think Wikipedia should embed the Aegyptus font in order to display the characters... Simoncpu (talk) 05:50, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

The article says that the Unicode range for Egyptian hieroglyphs is U+13000 - U+1342F, but when I look inside the Aegyptus font (via my font editor "FontCreator"), it shows the hieroglyphs as having the ranges U+F3xxx and U+F4xxx. What gives? Furthermore, when one uses Microsoft Word and opens up the Insert Symbol menu and sets the font to Aegyptus, only the first range of 8-bit values (first 256 characters) is available. The hieroglyphs are not available for insertion. This seems to be quite a problem. Any suggestions? Jakob37 (talk) 07:28, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * How do you write in cartouches? I tried, but what the 𓁿, it didn't worked! 81.195.13.166 (talk) 14:39, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Is it possible to build hieroglyphs like this:  with CSS?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.79.47.237 (talk) 21:45, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the cartouche for the name "Lioka"
I noticed that the cartouche for "Lioka" seems to render improperly in the article. Specifically, the sign numbers J10 and S60 do not correspond to any signs in Gardiner, and "o" is not recognized by the sign list as corresponding to any Egyptian sound. The edits were made about a year or two ago by an anonymous user, and the name "Lioka" does not seem to show up in any literature on Egypt. Is it thus safe to delete the cartouche? Mathmagic (talk) 23:27, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 29 January 2013
There is a new book that is relevant to this page that I think would be helpful in the "Further Reading" section. The book information is as follows:

Selden, Daniel L. (2013) Hieroglyphic Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Literature of the Middle Kingdom University of California Press. ISBN: 9780520275461

Emcanespie (talk) 00:23, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done --Jnorton7558 (talk) 21:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

LOL
Parent: Cuniform Direction: Left to Right LOOOOL — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.48.175.55 (talk) 05:40, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Hieroglyphs and Hieroglyphics
Under etymology, the article states that it is erroneous to use the word hieroglyphics as a noun. However this contradicts the wikipedia article on Hieroglyphs as well as every dictionary source I've checked online. Dictionary.com, merriam-webster, and oxforddictionaries.com all list hieroglyphics as a noun and an adjective. It may be preferred to call them hieroglyphs within certain professions, but it certainly isn't wrong to call them hieroglyphics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Swansond (talk • contribs) 14:01, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Unicode section
Please add the Contains Egyptian Hieroglyphic text box to the top of that section:

This will indicate to people why they see funny squares or question marks in that section.

-- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 08:39, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Given the number of edits you are making, it would make sense for you to open an account and then (after the 10 edits and 4 days criteria have been met) you can make these edits yourself. Arjayay (talk) 14:28, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ I hope I understood your request correctly?

 * Yes, that was the edit I was talking about. -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 05:24, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Factual error, shady source, contradicts other wikipedia articles in "History and Evolution" section
1. From the History and Evolution section, I quote, "For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from circa 4000 BCE resemble hieroglyphic writing." This contradicts the dating of the Gerzean/Naqada II period to (3500-3200 BCE) in the article Gerzean, which states, that the Gerzean culture "begins circa 3500 BC lasting through circa 3200 BC or the end of the Naqada II period."

2. Furthermore, the appearance of the first hieroglyphs as assigned to the Naqada III period (3200-3000) in the article Predynastic_Egypt, stating, "the Naqada III period, from about 3200 to 3000 BC,... is notable for being the first era with hieroglyphs (though this is disputed by some), the first regular use of serekhs ..." . This is again concurred upon in the article Naqada_III.

3. The sources in the foregoing articles is a scholarly work, eg, Shaw, Ian, ed (2000). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press. p. 479. ISBN 0-19-815034-2. whereas one of the two sources for the statement that I complain about in this article, is the Discovery channel!! cf. : "^ The origins of writing, Discovery Channel  (1998-12-15)". and the other source is a journal i never heard of with a weird name.

For the foregoing 3 reasons, I recommend removal of sentence in question. But before doing so myself, i'm giving the chance for a RFC and to the editor to update or correct his editing, or contest the objections and criticism I expressed here. Cheers. -Scriber (talk) 01:14, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

 * And how is that any different from the "facts" written of in the History and Evolution section? Yes, this article is a complete a total shot in the dark, and one that does not even come close to hitting any factual target other than phantasy fiction during the time it was written. Exactly like the History and Evolution section, only what was written there was for some reason given more credit as accurate. Very little of what is written here or anywhere is factually or actually accurate except for first hand accounts of any event, and even then, only if the author is practiced at honesty AND journaling. - Dirtclustit (talk) 16:40, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Henry George Liddell
Please link. 99.238.74.216 (talk) 23:21, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. Dougweller (talk) 09:54, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

hieroglyphics = evil?
i heard that hieroglyphics were seen as evil fighting evil - that only the gods or those entrusted with them could use them.... & somehow that it protected evil by supporting it... someone verify/edit/ ?

 * Hieroglyphic (and its cursive versions, hieratic and demotic) was simply the standard writing system of the Egyptian language, and it was used for any kind of religious or civil use. The extant hieroglyphic texts include such "unmagical" things as trial records, geometry excercise books, private letters, commercial invoices... Legends about hieroglyphs being a mysterious magic writing arose in the hellenistic age, when the Egyptian language had switched to the Greek alphabet and no one in Egypt could understand hieroglyphs anymore. 194.176.201.29 08:53, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

 * Hieroglyphs are not a simple standard writing system, Hieroglyph is not a written translation of any spoken Egyptian Language. It was not, nor has it ever been used for any of the examples you have stated, with the only possible exception being their role in Egyptian Theology. It is for more accurate to explain that Hieroglyph -- as a word -- is the etymological equivalent, to flip book animation as still photographic images are to reels of film that become motion picture. What Arrogant Anthropological Linguists have done, is the exact same scenario as some Linguist, in two thousand years finds a set of drawings by William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, or Chuck Jones, then decides to assign ~said~ frames of the animated cartoon to be letters or words in our Ancient American English alphabet and or vocabulary. I don't mean to use an offensive tone, however there are a lot of Linguists today, that wouldn't be able to put two and two together even if they found the single, animation frames in correct sequential order. -Dirtclustit (talk) 09:57, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Redoing Fonts Section
The Aegyptus link is broken, Noto is still not offered, NewGardiner.ttf does not cover entire range, JSeshFont needs a review. Of course best so far is the one embedded in U13000.pdf (official). Cheers.--Connection (talk) 20:39, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

 * I don't know what you mean by "Noto is still not offered"? You can download it from https://code.google.com/p/noto/source/browse/fonts/individual/unhinted/NotoSansEgyptianHieroglyphs-Regular.ttf Thaths (talk) 06:29, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

 * Yes Noto, specifically NotoSansEgyptianHieroglyphs-Regular.ttf, todate, is an empty template. Cheers--Connection (talk) 16:53, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

mdw ntr Should be in the lead
We are using the Greek name Hieroglyphs, yet there is no mention in the lead of mdw ntr. --Inayity (talk) 19:34, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

So I was looking for the Egyptian word (KoKoB) for ścirye, Afrikaans Ster, Greek ἀστήρ or ἄστρον, Portugese Estrela, Catalan Estrella, French Étoile, to translate English Star into Old Spanish. Here I found a table which mentions 𓇼 and it led me to http://mdw-ntr.com/n-sky-earth-water  Good job. 173.14.238.114 (talk) 02:45, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Sumerian stimulus diffusion
I've deleted some of the badly ref'd claims that the Sumerian idea has been refuted. It's not just a matter of dating, since the dates are uncertain, but the fact that the precursors of writing have been found in Sumeria but not in Egypt. Has that changed? And do we have better refs than crap like the Discovery Channel? — kwami (talk) 04:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Is there any evidence that Egyptian (pre-hieroglyphic) pictographs were influenced by Mesopotamian (pre-cuneiform) pictographs? Because that would be the only evidence that writing in Mespotamia directly influenced Egyptian pictographs. In the absence of such evidence, why claim that Mesopotamian writing influenced Egyptian writing? MrSativa (talk) 03:32, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 October 2016
Under "Child systems" in the description box, "Coptic" directs to the article on the Coptic language, while it should direct to the Coptic alphabet, which was derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs. 107.77.235.40 (talk) 01:54, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out. DRMcCreedy (talk) 03:31, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

WP:ERA
This article has used the AD/BC convention throughout 2005 to 2014. If you see this kind of edit please revert it, it is not constructive. --dab (𒁳) 12:08, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I would support a general change of AD/BC to CE/BCE for Ancient Egypt articles if that were to be proposed.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:47, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Hieroglyphics - other meanings?
In Slavic and some other East European languages (perhaps influenced by Russian) the word Hieroglyph (Russian: иероглиф) is used to describe Chinese characters (in Chinese or Japanese). In fact, it's the only way to say a Chinese character in Russian. Is there this meaning in English or some other European languages? I know some people frowned when somebody referred to Hanzi/Kanji as Hieroglyphs. In my opinion, the word Hieroglyph should not be used in relation to old Egyptian language alone but in reference to any Logographic system. --Atitarev (talk) 23:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I've seen 'hieroglyphs' used to describe other similar systems, although the Egyptian sense is the most common. Actually, the Wikipedia Hieroglyph page describes other uses. YngNghymru (talk) 22:17, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Rather than "sacred writing", I would have thought that "hieroglyphics" is Greek for "hand writing". The Greek word for "hand" is just too close in spelling to be ignored. 203.214.22.116 (talk) 05:02, 14 August 2017 (UTC) Correction of spelling error. 203.214.22.116 (talk) 05:04, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Issue in "Decipherment" section
I didn't know how else to address this--there's some weird error/typo in the "Decipherment" section: " It wasn't until Athanasius Kircher in the mid 17th cent. that scholars began to might alsohat the hieroglyphs might also represent sounds."

The specific issue is the phrase "might alsohat".

This page is locked down, can someone address this?

Thank you! Luke

 * I've fixed it, based on what I'm pretty sure the editor who added this text meant to say. Thank you for pointing this out. A. Parrot (talk) 02:32, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Windows 10 does not support egyptian hieroglyphs.
The article body says that windows 10 includes a font that supports the entire range. But it does not. It's missing three symbols. 2001:56A:71BA:6800:1CBE:9C35:6017:3389 (talk) 22:30, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I've updated the article to list the three excluded code points (which are already noted by the Segoe UI Historic section of the Segoe article). DRMcCreedy (talk) 23:39, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Where did 'o' originate?
Just a question... I've heard reconstructed Egyptian on a number of occasions and there always seems to be an 'o' pronounced here and there. Since there is no 'o' in Ancient Egyptian, how do we know when to pronounce it? Such as names like Sobek or Poker (and later, Osiris), when was it decided to pronounce them this way and what was the explanation?84.250.246.42 09:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * In the New Kingdom many new glyphs were developed. It was one of the clues Champoleon used in deciphering Ptolomy and Cleopatra.Rktect 22:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

 * There must have been the 'o' sound in Ancient Egyptian they just did not write down vowels because they do not add much to the meaning of a word as you will see. Unfrtntly bth Ptlmy nd Clptr r Grk wrds so not very good examples and Osiris was written Wsir in Egyptian. I think much of the pronouciation comes from studying the Coptic language and ancient foreign languages which mention Egyptian names. Keith Hazell 22:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

 * In Egyptian there is a  "U" which comes into use as   in the  Ninth dynasty of Egypt and becomes common in the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt under Akhenaten.

 * see also the  "W" sound, but the "O" sound is Greek. See Gardiner, "Egyptian Grammar", p 27 Rktect 12:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

 * As a related question there is Egyptian  refered to on page 27 as equivalent to Greek lambda, but in the Sign list as nt. I'm not sure if the leo in Cleopatra comes forth from some variant of   as in /rw/ > rule > cruel > el Rktect 12:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

 * (Don't repeat anything I say as fact unless you don't mind being corrected. It's possible the sources I've gathered this from are outdated [Like this thread. Oooh, burn!] or that I've remembered it wrong. This unnecessary warning was brought to you by.. cATHERINE'S HORRIBLE ANXIETY!)
 * An interesting example of how the lack of certain Latin and Greek characters/sounds has affected modern Egyptology is the goddess Isis. We don't (at the time the book I read this in was published) even know what she was actually called by the Egyptians. I believe this is partly due to the lack of certain letters they used when pronouncing it and also the 'Greek bastardization' of the name. How did the language that had like 6 versions of W or H or G or whatever not have a simple O? For a civilization so obsessed with what came after death they seemingly gave little thought to... Just that.

In conclusion, add pronounciation guides when you create a hella complicated language. My nerdy descendants from 8092 AAP (After applejuiceandpeachh) give their slightly belated thanks! Applejuiceandpeachh (talk) 06:10, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Merger Proposal
Medew Netcher looks like it should be merged with Egyptian hieroglyphics. "Medew Netcher" looks like it's just a variant transcription of mdw·w-nṯr/medu-netjer/𓊹𓌃. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.176.54.26 (talk) 08:53, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I came here to second that exact idea. Especially, since what's there, seems primarily to be an advertisement for a website selling lessons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8805:A180:16A:C91A:12A7:4674:C410 (talk) 01:42, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Simplification: from what point of view?
In the article I read: "It would have been possible to write all Egyptian words in the manner of these signs, but the Egyptians never did so and never simplified their complex writing into a true alphabet."

Whether changing to uniliterals only would have constituted a simplification seems open for debate. Writing and/or reading several consonants in one go may in some respects be simpler than using uniliterals for it.

I propose: "It would have been possible to write all Egyptian words in the manner of these signs, but the Egyptians never did so." A specialist might even explain here what reason(s) the Egyptians (may) have had for sticking to their full set of hieroglyphs.Redav (talk) 23:38, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Medew Netcher
See discussion above - besides looking like advertising it seems too short to have its own article, and of course a redirect would be left. Doug Weller talk 15:45, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

 * Support. Seems like it was probably an attempt to push some kind of Afrocentrist POV, but the way it ended up, it didn't even accomplish that. No reason to have it as a separate article. A. Parrot (talk) 01:19, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Support per both - to this, to be clear. Johnbod (talk) 01:59, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

 * Merge complete. I didn't see anything at Medew Netcher that needed to be kept, so I simply redirected it here. A. Parrot (talk) 15:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Exclusion of Coptic from the infobox
Why is the Coptic alphabet presented as a child system of the Egyptian hieroglyphs in the infobox? It derives from the Greek alphabet. 89.210.59.5 (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

 * I assume it's because a few signs in Coptic are taken from the demotic script rather than Greek, and those demotic signs ultimately began as hieroglyphs. A. Parrot (talk) 14:59, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Stele
the word is spelt stele not stela

 * From dictionary.com ... "ste·la (stl)pl. steles, also ste·lae (-l) An upright stone or slab with an inscribed or sculptured surface, used as a monument or as a commemorative tablet in the face of a building."
 * unsigned, dates from >1y ago. -DePiep (talk) 09:48, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Native name of the hieroglyphics
Hello, fellow Wikipedians. I would like to express the thought of adding the native name of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, in Egyptian and Coptic, in the infobox. More specifically, and "ⲥϧⲁⲓ ⲙ̀ⲙⲉⲑⲛⲟⲩϯ" in Coptic. How about that? 89.210.100.213 (talk) 23:46, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Unsourced since 2006
This article must be a thorn in the flesh for editors going through the unreferenced articles backlog. It is too notable to delete, yet there are articles (Egyptian hieroglyphs, Hieratic, Demotic) that cover much of the same stuff. Perhaps it is best to move out content to their respective alphabets (if it is not covered there already), while merging or simply redirecting the rest to Egyptian language. - HyperGaruda (talk) 11:39, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Alternatively, this page could be turned into a disambiguation page with links to the aforementioned scripts. - HyperGaruda (talk) 12:13, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

IPA in lead
I'm sorry, I think I may have misunderstood this edit summary -- can you think of any English word that isn't a "foreign-orig word"? This is a common word that most native English speakers, at least those of my generation (the better part of a century after the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb and the first Mummy film -- neither of which had anything to do with my home city/country, so I'm assuming the same is true for most English-speaking countries) likely encountered very early in their education (maybe even knew the word before they learned to read?). The only purpose I can think of for the IPA is to tell Greek-speakers (or speakers of other languages that have the same word) with poor English that the English pronunciation is different from Greek, but (i) Greek-speakers who don't know English are not the target readership of English Wikipedia and (ii) it's debatable whether the common English pronunciation can be called the "correct" pronunciation when /i.e.ro.ɣli.f/ or some such would be obvious to any English-speaker from context and is more etymologically accurate. Given all of this, it is my belief that the IPA in the lead does not provide useful information to our target readership and is rather misleading. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:01, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, good to be here. We are talking about (your) editsummaries and, removing the IPA pronounciation. I reinstalled it, with reply/arguments in this editsummary.
 * First I hope we do agree that "[1] I've known how to read [pronounce] it since ... 8 or 9" is not eh enough.
 * You say that the word is common, and so its pronounciation is known to native English speakers. However, I think that its pronounciation is not implied by its spelling (see also lead vs. lead). Miriam-Webster defines a different IPA than the on that was/is in this article: MW: \ ˈhī-(ə-)rə-ˌglif \, enwiki: . Apparently there is confusion possible about its pron, and so IPA is warranted. (And the diff MW-enwiki is to be solved). -DePiep (talk) 06:48, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's helpful to analyse the wording used in edit summaries except insofar as they comprise policy-based rationales for edits. My initial edit summary cited WP:NOTDICT; Wretchskull undid this edit with the statement that since "hieroglyphs" is an "uncommon" word the IPA is helpful regardless of NOTDICT; I then reverted that by pointing out that it is not an especially uncommon word, to which you responded by saying that the info is useful for non-native speakers of English. Presumably you meant non-native speakers of English whose native languages have the same word but pronounce it differently, thereby explaining why such people would be reading Wikipedia but would not necessarily have a perfect grasp of English pronunciation and would therefore misread a word that no native speaker of English would misread if said native speaker could reasonably be assumed to be reading this article. But that just brings me back to NOTDICT: such people do not need that information in order to be able to read our article, they may not even need the information to be understood in conversation, and even if they did they should be getting the information from a dictionary or language textbook, not Wikipedia.
 * Your new rationale, though, seems to be based on a confusion between Webster's pronunciation guide and the IPA: there is no confusion possible about its pron but rather different ways to represent its common English pronunciation. Non-native speakers who do not know how to use MW's pronunciation key should be using another dictionary (like Wiktionary) or should learn to read MW's pronunciation key as well. It is beyond the scope of Wikipedia to provide pronunciation guides for random words just because they happen to exist in similar spellings in other European languages but are pronounced differently from their common English pronunciations.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 08:12, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 1. The editsummaries were the only arguments presented, so I referred to them in counterarguing. Then suggestin stating that my rationale here is 'new' i.e. changed, even basing this on a "seems to be"-assumption, is muddying the waters (and wrong). -DePiep (talk) 09:12, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The editsummaries were the only arguments presented, so I referred to them in counterarguing. Stop it. I presented a reasonable argument, which was misunderstood, and I clarified. Then you (deliberately?) distorted what I said in a second revert, so I politely explained to you again on the talk page. You then came onto the talk page and selectively picked pieces of my edit summaries so that you could claim that they were "not eh enough". Then suggestin stating that my rationale here is 'new' i.e. changed, even basing this on a "seems to be"-assumption, is muddying the waters (and wrong). I have no idea what you are talking about. You initially said nothing about "confusion over the pronunciation" as given in Webster here but half the text of your above comment was about this confusion. But it is your individual confusion, apparently the result of your being unfamiliar with Webster's formatting, not a general confusion that is likely to be widespread among our readers. Do you accept this? Can we now restore what was the article's status quo for a good three weeks before anyone complained? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 09:42, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I do not understand the song and dance over the IPA. Your explanation that you knew it when you were young is a very subjective argument that is refuted with the fact that not everyone is a native speaker, and even if they were, not everyone has the same experiences and upbringing; it is a difficult word and the pronounciation is not implied by its spelling, as DePiep pointed out. Wretchskull (talk) 10:13, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Non-native speakers who are reading this article either (a) do not need to know this information in order to read this article for their purposes, (b) already know this information because unless they have training in this field in English they are probably not reading this article, (c) probably are not reading this article in the first place, or (d) should not expect to get elementary/intermediate English-language training from a Wikipedia article on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. If neither of you are going to present a coherent argument as to how this is not a simple WP:NOTDICT issue of anyone interested in this information being encouraged to use the corresponding Wiktionary entry, but you will similarly not accept my arguments for ... whatever reason, then I will have to agree to disagree and let you have this one, since I've already wasted far too much time on this. Frankly I don't understand the song and dance you are engaging in over the IPA. Cheers. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 14:40, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Stop the drama. Restart please from scratch: clear argumentation only. (so far, you keep injecting personal jabs and distractions). arguments, no judgements please. . -DePiep (talk) 20:11, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Give it a break already. Geez, can't you just be content that I let you "win" this one? I could have very easily made "personal jabs" and "drama" here (I do indeed remember the time I told you that "middle ages" was not a typo, you pretended to accept that, and then did the same thing again a few weeks later...) but have thus far refrained from doing so. You just don't seem to be willing to be a graceful winner, and have insisted on pinging me back here multiple times despite the fact that I have already stated that I'm not willing to waste time trying to convince you of something you clearly are not willing to be convinced of. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 00:25, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Edits by 159.86.182.197
Removed.

Incorrect era
Ptolemy’s cartouche is labeled Old Kingdom, and I don’t know how to fix that. Could it please be updated to the Ptolemaic Kingdom, Hellenistic Period, or other appropriate designation. 2600:100B:B106:96BE:3CAF:30EA:C6B:42B8 (talk) 04:47, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Done, . Thanks for the report. -DePiep (talk) 07:08, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphs are the Egyptian writing system and their is a lot to learn about it if you are trying to write a 5 sentence paragraph with only a pencil 2600:6C50:787F:36AC:D883:9ED:33E6:1E66 (talk) 23:48, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

List of hieroglyphs: improve phonetic descriptions
has a table with 1071 signs. I am proposing to improve the phonetic descriptions of these. In short: not as a (bracketed) addition to the transliteration, but on their own. See discussion & demo's at. And have a nice festive centennial day :-) DePiep (talk) 10:35, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Merge with Hieroglyph
The article Hieroglyph is a content fork from this article. It contains no incremental information. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:23, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

 * Agree, looks like useless stub. Artem.G (talk) 21:11, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Support – It is just a useless content fork from this article and nothing more than a stub, there is no reason for it to exist. – Treetoes023 (talk) 18:56, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Unicode font support
My browser, Safari iPadOS 17 has failed to render some of the unicode characters here. Is there any way that a suitable font could be embedded or suggested? CecilWard (talk) 13:24, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Egyptian hieroglyphs/Archive 1


text:
Version Originale

Version Originale is the fourth album by Melbourne singer-songwriter Lisa Miller. It is an album of original material which followed up her previous album, Car Tape, a collection of cover versions. Thus, the name of the album. The album peaked at number 16 on the Australian heatseakers.

It was released in Australia in 2003, and earned nominations in the 2004 ARIA Awards for "Best Female Artist" and "Best Adult Contemporary Album".

Track listing

 * 1) "I Can't Tell" (with Tim Rogers)
 * 2) "New Record"
 * 3) "Pushover"
 * 4) "Don't You Say It"
 * 5) "Eleven"
 * 6) "Little Stars"
 * 7) "You Make Everybody Love You"
 * 8) "Hold On"
 * 9) "Pay Dearly"
 * 10) "I Love You A Thousand Dollars"
 * 11) "I Want To Live"

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Version Originale


text:
A High Wind in Jamaica (novel)

A High Wind in Jamaica is a 1929 novel by the Welsh writer Richard Hughes, which was made into a film of the same name in 1965. Hughes' first novel, it was set in the late nineteenth century and followed a group of children captured by pirates on a voyage from Jamaica. A critical success as well as a bestseller on its first publication in Britain, it was awarded the Prix Femina Vie-Heureuse in 1932.

Plot
The Bas-Thornton children (John, Emily, Edward, Rachel, and Laura) are raised on a plantation in Jamaica at an unspecified time after the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire (1834). It is a time of technological transformation, and sailing ships and steamers coexist on the high seas. A high wind destroys their home, and the parents decide the children must leave the island to return to their original home in England. Accompanied by two creole children from Jamaica, Margaret and Harry Fernandez, they leave on the Clorinda, a merchant ship under the command of Captain Marpole. The Clorinda is seized by pirates shortly after leaving Jamaica.

The pirates first pretend they need to seize the ship's cargo and will refund the price of the goods taken, but when the lie becomes obvious, they menace Captain Marpole by threatening to shoot the children if he does not disclose where the Clorinda's safe is kept. The ship is ransacked, and the children are brought aboard the pirate schooner to get dinner. Captain Marpole, thinking that under cover of darkness the children have been murdered, flees the scene, unknowingly abandoning the children to the pirates. Marpole writes a letter to Mr and Mrs Thornton informing them that their children have been murdered by the pirates.

The children quickly become part of life aboard the pirate ship and treat it as their new home. They are treated with some indifference, though a few crew members—José the cook and Otto the chief mate—care for them and become fond of them, and Captain Jonsen, the pirate captain himself, becomes very fond of Emily.

The pirates stop at their home base of Santa Lucia (in current-day province Pinar del Río, Cuba) to sell the seized goods. Captain Jonsen tries unsuccessfully to convince a rich woman to take care of the children. During the night, José takes John, Edward, and Margaret ashore, and John accidentally falls to his death in a warehouse. He is immediately and deliberately forgotten by his own siblings. The pirate captain seems to be the last one to forget him.

While drunk, Captain Jonsen makes a sexual overture to Emily. She bites his hand before anything happens, but she is frightened by the look in Jonsen's eye as he reaches for her. The author gives no explicit details for her fright, just a veiled description from Emily's point of view. Emily later suffers an injury to her leg, in an accident caused by Rachel, and is confined to the captain's cabin. Meanwhile, Margaret, who has become alienated from the other children, becomes Otto's lover and moves into his cabin.

Having made no further captures, the pirates quickly take the first ship they finally see, a Dutch vessel transporting some wild animals. The captain of this ship is tied up and left in the cabin with Emily. Everyone else on the pirate ship boards the Dutch vessel to watch a fight between a lion and a tiger. The Dutch captain does all he can to get Emily to free him but is unable to communicate with her. Finally seeing a knife he rolls towards it. Emily, injured and terrified, screams but no one hears. She pounces at the last second and stabs the captain several times. He soon dies. Margaret, oldest of the children, witnesses this event. When the crew returns to the ship, some of the pirates mistake Margaret for the murderer and without ceremony throw her overboard, but she is rescued by other pirates heading back to the ship.

The crew grows tired and scared of the children. Jonsen arranges for them to transfer to a passing steamer. Disguised as a British merchant vessel, the captain claims that some pirates abandoned the children on the Cuban shore and that he then picked them up to bring them to England. Before sending them on board the steamer, Otto instructs Emily not to disclose the truth about what has happened to them in the past months. He chooses Emily rather than Margaret, as the latter seems to have lost her sanity.

Once aboard the steamer, the children are delighted with the boat's luxury and the loving treatment by the passengers, who know of the story of the children told by Captain Marpole.

Despite her fondness for Captain Jonsen and the fact that she promised not to tell about what really happened, Emily quickly tells the truth to a stewardess. The pirate ship is pursued and seized by the British authorities.

Back in London, the children are reintegrated into their families. They seem completely unaffected by their traumatic experiences aboard the ship, apart from Margaret who has lost her sanity. (It is hinted that she may also be pregnant.) Emily is only half aware of the crime she has committed. The younger children have distorted and contradictory memories of the facts, and after unsuccessfully attempting to extract any information from them, the family solicitor decides that only Emily should testify at the trial against the pirate crew and then only to repeat a statement written by him.

Under the pressure of the courtroom, Emily breaks down and cries out that the Dutch captain died as she watched. She does not exactly say who performed the murder, but the trial's outcome is decided. The pirates are executed.

The book ends with Emily playing with her schoolmates. She is so similar to them that "only God", but no one else, could tell them apart.

Development and Publication History
The idea for the novel came in 1925, when a family friend introduced Hughes to an unpublished manuscript by one Jeanette Calder. This was a record of her personal experiences in 1822, off the coast of Cuba, as one of a group of children on a brig captured by pirates. Hughes was struck by the fact that the pirates, despite holding the children as hostages in an attempt to extort money from the ship’s captain, treated them with kindness and consideration. To research the historical background, he read as widely as he could on Caribbean piracy in the nineteenth century. He was also able to draw on his mother’s experience of growing up in Jamaica; at this time, Hughes himself had never been there. Finally, having no children himself, he ‘borrowed’ other people’s in order to study child psychology: these included Charlotte Williams-Ellis (daughter of Hughes’ friend and editor, the writer Amabel Williams-Ellis.

Hughes continued to work on the novel over the next three years. In 1928, he offered the first chapter to the editor of the magazine The Forum, Henry Goddard Leach. Accepting it for publication, Leach wrote to Hughes, saying that he liked his “high wind in Jamaica”. Hughes was taken by the phrase, and thus “High Wind in Jamaica” became the title of the chapter published in The Forum in December 1928.

The complete novel was first published in the U. S. (where Hughes was living at the time) on March 13, 1929, under the title The Innocent Voyage. It was while Hughes was on his way back to Britain that the novel was first published there, in a slightly abbreviated form, and now titled A High Wind in Jamaica. This was in the magazine Life and Letters, where it was introduced by the editor Desmond MacCarthy as “a work of unusual merit and originality”. The book version, published by Chatto and Windus, appeared in September 1929 under the same title, which was then used for most subsequent American editions as well.

Critical reception
A High Wind in Jamaica was received with enthusiasm on its initial British publication. It was praised by eminent writers and critics such as Arnold Bennett and Hugh Walpole, who wrote that the novel "has genius because it sees something that a million people have seen before, but sees it uniquely." Hughes' powers of description came in for particular acclaim. At the same time, however, there was some unease at Hughes' portrayal of the children and controversy about his understanding of child psychology, with critics such as Humbert Wolfe and J. E. S. Arrowsmith among those unconvinced. An extensive correspondence took place in Time and Tide; the headmistress of a school in Bath objected to the novel as "a disgusting travesty of child life."

The novel has since been described as "one of the classic novels of childhood and a completely original work." It is often given credit for influencing and paving the way for novels such as Lord of the Flies by William Golding. In 1998, A High Wind in Jamaica was included as number 71 in the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, a list of the best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Adaptations
The novel was adapted for the stage (as The Innocent Voyage) in 1943, as a play in three acts by Paul Osborn.

A High Wind in Jamaica has also been adapted several times for radio. NBC University Theatre broadcast a one-hour version by Jane Speed in 1950, while Hughes’ own six-part serial appeared on the BBC Home Service in August and September 1953. In 2000, the BBC produced a version in two parts, written by Bryony Lavery and broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

The novel was filmed in 1965, directed by Alexander Mackendrick and starring Anthony Quinn as Chavez. The cast also included a young Martin Amis, who described the original novel as "a thrillingly good book” in his autobiography.

title: A High Wind in Jamaica (novel)