Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian

Template:Short description As used for Egyptology, transliteration of Ancient Egyptian is the process of converting (or mapping) texts written as Egyptian language symbols to alphabetic symbols representing uniliteral hieroglyphs or their hieratic and demotic counterparts. This process facilitates the publication of texts where the inclusion of photographs or drawings of an actual Egyptian document is impractical.

Transliteration is not the same as transcription. Transliteration is the representation of written symbols in a consistent way in a different writing system, while transcription indicates the pronunciation of a text. For the case of Ancient Egyptian, precise details of the phonology are not known completely. Transcription systems for Ancient Egyptian do exist, but they rely on linguistic reconstruction (depending on evidence from the Coptic language and other details) and are thus theoretical in nature. Egyptologists rely on transliteration in scientific publications. Egyptologists also call the process of converting hieratic texts to hieroglyphic text as "transcription."

Standards

Template:IPA notice Important as transliteration is for Egyptology, there is no one standard scheme in use for hieroglyphic and hieratic texts. However, there are a few closely related systems that can be regarded as conventional. Many non-German-speaking Egyptologists use the system described in Gardiner 1954, whereas many German-speaking scholars opt for that used in the Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache (Dictionary of the Egyptian Language), 1926 and 1961 editions by Adolf Erman and Hermann Grapow, the standard dictionary of the ancient Egyptian language. However, there is a growing trend, even among English-speaking scholars, to adopt a modified version of the method used in the Wörterbuch (e.g., Allen 2000).

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

Table of transliteration schemes

Template:SpecialChars Although the system of Egyptian hieroglyphs is very complicated, there are only 24 consonantal phonemes distinguished, according to Edel (1955) transliterated and ordered alphabetically in the sequence:

Template:Font

A number of variant conventions are used interchangeably depending on the author.

The following table shows several transliteration schemes. The first column shows the uniliteral hieroglyph (see #Uniliteral signs below) corresponding to the sound.

Conventional Transliteration Schemes

Glyph	Brugsch	Erman	Budge	Erman & Grapow	Gardiner	Edel	Manuel de Codage	Hodge	Schenkel	Allen	Hoch	Schneider	Leiden Unified	Conventional Egyptological pronunciation
	1889	1894	1910	1926–1953	1957	1955	1988	1990	1991	2000	1997	2003	2023
Template:Font	ꜣ	ꜣ	a	ꜣ	ꜣ	ꜣ	A	ꜣ	ꜣ	ꜣ	ꜣ	ɹ	ꜣ
Template:Font	ʾ	ı͗	ȧ	ı͗	ı͗	j	i	ʔ	ı͗	j	ı͗	ı͗	ı͗
Template:Font	"	ï	i	j	y	(n.a.)	y	y	ı͗	j	y	ı͗	ï
Template:Font	ʾʾ	y	i	j	y	j	y, i*i	y	y	y	y	y	y
Template:Font	ꜥ	ꜥ	ā	ꜥ	ꜥ	ꜥ	a	ꜥ	ꜥ	ꜥ	ꜥ	ɗ	ꜥ
Template:Font	w	w	u	w	w	w	w	w	w	w	w	w	w
Template:Font	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b
Template:Font	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p
Template:Font	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f
Template:Font	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m
Template:Font	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n
Template:Font	r, l	r	r, l	r	r	r	r	r	r	r	r	l	r
Template:Font	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h
Template:Font	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	H	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ	ḥ
Template:Font	ḫ	ḫ	χ, kh	ḫ	ḫ	ḫ	x	x	ḫ	ḫ	ḫ	ḫ	ḫ
Template:Font	ḫ	ḫ	χ, kh	ẖ	ẖ	ẖ	X	x̯	ẖ	ẖ	ẖ	ẖ	ẖ
Template:Font	s	s	s	s	s (z)	z	z	z	s	z	s	s	z
Template:Font	s	s	s	ś	s (ś)	s	s	s	ś	s	s	ś	s
Template:Font	š	š	ś, sh	š	š	š	S	š	š	š	š	š	š
Template:Font	ḳ	ḳ	q	ḳ	ḳ	q	q	q	ḳ	q	q	ḳ	q
Template:Font	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k
Template:Font	g	g	ḳ	g	g	g	g	g	g	g	g	g	g
Template:Font	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t
Template:Font	ṯ	ṯ	θ, th	ṯ	ṯ	ṯ	T	č	č	ṯ	ṯ	c	ṯ
Template:Font	d	d	ṭ	d	d	d	d	d	ṭ	d	d	ḍ	d
Template:Font	ḏ	ḏ	t', tch	ḏ	ḏ	ḏ	D	ǧ	č̣	ḏ	ḏ	c̣	ḏ

The vowel Template:IPAslink is conventionally inserted between consonants to make Egyptian words pronounceable in English.

Examples

The following text is transliterated below in some of the more common schemes. Note that most of the hieroglyphs in this text are not uniliteral signs, but can be found in the List of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

<hiero>M23-X1:R4-X8-Q2:D4-W17-R14-G4-R8-O29:V30-U23-N26-D58-O49:Z1-F13:N31-Z2ss-V30:N16:N21*Z1-D45:N25</hiero> Unicode:

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

Erman and Grapow 1926–1953

Gardiner 1953

Buurman, Grimal, et al. 1988

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

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

Schenkel 1991

Allen 2000

Schneider 2003

Leiden 2023

Demotic

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

Encoding

In 1984 a standard, ASCII-based transliteration system was proposed by an international group of Egyptologists at the first and published in 1988 (see Buurman, Grimal, et al., 1988). This has come to be known as the (or MdC) system, based on the title of the publication, . It is widely used in e-mail discussion lists and internet forums catering to professional Egyptologists and the interested public.

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

The IETF language tag list establishes the code egy-mdctrans and egy-Latn-mdctrans for transliteration of Ancient Egyptian encoded according to the .

Unicode

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

Transcription characters in Unicode

Minuscule	ꜣ (Egyptological Alef)	ʾ (Egyptological Secondary Alef)	ꞽ (Egyptological Yod)	i̯	ï	ꜥ (Egyptological Aijn)	u̯	ḥ	ḫ	ẖ	h̭
Unicode	U+A723	U+02BE	U+A7BD	U+0069 U+032F	U+00EF	U+A725	U+0075 U+032F	U+1E25	U+1E2B	U+1E96	U+0068 U+032D
Majuscule	Ꜣ		Ꞽ (Capital Egyptological Aijn)			Ꜥ		Ḥ	Ḫ	H̱	H̭
Unicode	U+A722		U+A7BC			U+A724		U+1E24	U+1E2A	U+0048 U+0331	U+0048 U+032D
Minuscule	ś	š	ḳ	č	ṯ	ṭ	ṱ	č̣	ḏ
Unicode	U+015B	U+0161	U+1E33	U+010D	U+1E6F	U+1E6D	U+1E71	U+010D U+0323	U+1E0F
Majuscule	Ś	Š	Ḳ	Č	Ṯ	Ṭ	Ṱ	Č̣	Ḏ
Unicode	U+015A	U+0160	U+1E32	U+010C	U+1E6E	U+1E6C	U+1E70	U+010C U+0323	U+1E0E
Brackets/ interpunction	⸗	⟨	⟩	⸢	⸣
Unicode	U+2E17	U+27E8	U+27E9	U+2E22	U+2E23

Egyptological alef, ayin, and yod

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

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

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

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

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

Egyptological workarounds

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

Uniliteral signs

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

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

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

Uniliteral signs

Sign			Egyptological transliteration and pronunciation			Phonetic values (IPA)
Hieroglyph	Sign Colour	Depiction	Transliteration	Say (modern)	Notes	Old Egyptian	Middle Egyptian
Template:Font	Polychrome	Egyptian vulture	ꜣ	ah	Called alef/aleph or hamza, a glottal stop	some form of liquid; proposed values include , , ,	variously , , and
Template:Font	Green	Flowering reed	ꞽ or j	ee	Called yod	or (?)
Template:Font		Pair of reeds	y or j	y or ee	Called yod or y
Template:Font	Blue	Pair of strokes	y or ꞽ or j or ï			not used	or (?)
Template:Font	Red	Forearm	ꜥ	ah	Called ayin	Template:IPAslink, or debatably	; perhaps retained in some words and dialects
Template:Font	Yellow	Quail chick or its hieratic abbreviation	w	w or oo	Called wau/waw
Template:Font
Template:Font	Red	Lower leg	b
Template:Font	Green	Reed mat or stool	p
Template:Font	Yellow	Horned viper	f
Template:Font		Owl	m
Template:Font	Black	Ripple of water	n
Template:Font	Red	red crown
Template:Font		Human mouth	r			, sometimes (dialectally always )	variously , , , ∅ (dialectally , , ∅)
Template:Font	Blue	Reed shelter	h	h
Template:Font	Green	Twisted wick	ḥ		An emphatic h, a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, called second H, dotted H
Template:Font		Sieve or placenta	ḫ	kh	Voiceless velar fricative, called third H	~ , or speculatively (?)
Template:Font	Attested in multiple colors	Animal belly and tail	ẖ	kh; hy as in human	A softer sound, a voiceless palatal fricative, called fourth H	, or speculatively (?)
Template:Font	Red	Door bolt	z or s	z/s		very unclear; proposed values include , , ,
Template:Font		Folded cloth	s or ś	s
Template:Font	Blue	Garden pool	š	sh	Called shin
Template:Font
Template:Font
Template:Font
Template:Font		Hill slope	ḳ or q	q	An emphatic k, a voiceless uvular plosive, called Q or dotted k	or (?) (exact phonetic distinction from ⟨g⟩ unclear)
Template:Font	Green	Basket with handle	k
Template:Font
Template:Font	Red	Jar stand	g			or (?) (exact phonetic distinction from ⟨q⟩ unclear)
Template:Font
Template:Font	Blue	Bread loaf	t				~ ∅
Template:Font	Green	Tethering rope or hobble	ṯ or č	ch	Called second T		~ ~ ∅
Template:Font	Red	Hand	d or ṭ	d
Template:Font	Yellow	Cobra	ḏ or č̣	j	Called second D		~

See also

• Template:Anl
• Template:Anl
• List of Egyptian hieroglyphs

External links

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