A Commentary on "How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs"
by Collier and Manley
Issue 5 August 20th, 2009
General Comments
Sign List: Collier and Manley have their own sign list at the back of the book.
Unfortunately their codes do not equate with the codes used by Gardiner which are the
codes normally used by everybody else. If you want to describe a sign in an email using a
code, please use the Gardiner code. If you do not have an AE book which contains the
sign list (eg Gardiner or Allen), it can be found at:
Chapter 1
§4. The 1-consonant signs, also known as the uniliterals.
I've noticed that folks sometimes get hung up with the four different "h" letters; as you
rarely speak in Egyptian, I'd say that the pronunciations don't really matter. Also, unless
you're British (as I am) the reference to the
T as in "tune" may be meaningless. It doesn't
really matter, but you could go for a pronunciation something like "choon" to get the
flavour of what's needed.
A more serious issue is how to write the transliterations in emails and so on, where it can
be tricky to write some nine of the transliteration characters and, even if you could,
there's no guarantee that your recipient would be able to read them. Manuel de Codage
(MdC) is a standardised system used for encoding AE transliterations and should be used
in all emails. It can be found in the Files section of GlyphStudy under Beginners Files.
To summarise for the uniliterals in Section 4.1 in Collier and Manley, below is a copy of
their table, with an extra column "MdC". When writing mails or submitting homework,
please use the characters in the "MdC" column.
Exercise 1.8. Vocabulary
The exercise on the last page of Chapter 1 presents perhaps a small problem as there is
apparently no Gardiner code for the sign used in 'spearing' (the character that looks like a
column with two arrows stuck into it E21 in C&M's sign list). If you need to quote this
sign in an email, use the C&M code, but make it clear that this is the code you are using.
Chapter 2
§11
This chapter introduces, on its very first page, a new bird, which looks very similar to a
bird just encountered in Chapter 1.
It's quite important to be able to tell them apart, as they have almost opposite meanings,
and also have quite different functions, grammatically speaking.
1)
The "bin" bird; this is Collier and Manley code B21. It is a determinative, used
with such words as "bin" and "nDs" and has a sense of "small" or "bad". It is a sparrow.
2)
The "wr" bird; this is C&M code B22; it is a two-consonant phonetic sign, and
means "great" or "important". It is a swallow, and can be distinguished from the sparrow
by a forked tail (some fonts show that better than others!).
Phonetic complements.
Two- and three-consonant signs are often accompanied by one or more one-consonant
sign(s), where each one-consonant sign repeats a consonant in the two- or three-
consonant sign.
Examples can be seen on the first page of Chapter 2, where the two-consonant sign "wr"
(as mentioned above) is written with an additional "r" underneath it. The second "r" is
referred to as a "phonetic complement", and repeats a consonant which is already in the
two-consonant sign. In §12, three-consonant signs such as "anx" are shown, followed by
both an "n" and an "x".
These phonetic complements do not need to be transliterated.
This concept is briefly explained in §12, but is easy to miss!
Honorific transposition.
This again is something which is mentioned, in almost a "throw-away" manner, and is
perhaps easy to miss.
Basically, names that include divine names, have the divine names written first within the
full name.
"Tutankhamun" appears in the cartouche as "amun tut ankh" as "amun" is a divine name.
In other names containing the element "ra", that is also, generally speaking,
"honorifically transposed" to the beginning of the cartouche. Note that transliteration of
such a name is normally done with the transposition cancelled, so you would write "twt-
anx-amn" as the transliteration (and note phonetic complement "n" after the "mn" of
"amn") and not "amn-twt-anx".
§15 Writing the Plural
This section is a bit short on detail, and has given rise to a question concerning the plural
of feminine nouns.
It is referred to in table on p149, but perhaps it's worthwhile putting it in here, also.
Masc. Singular: no particular ending - example "sn"
= "brother".
Masc. Plural:
ends in "w"
-
"snw" = "brothers".
Fem. Singular: ends in "t"
-
"snt" = "sister".
Fem. Plural:
ends in "wt"
-
"snwt" = "sisters".
NB The feminine plural is transliterated as wt even though the glyphs will show tw.
Chapter 3
I don't believe that Chapter 3 presents any real problems except for exercise 3.6 which
can be very hard to read in some editions of the book (varying even between different
copies of the same edition). Any problems with reading it can be discussed on
GlyphStudy.
§26.b
This is the first time you will encounter the use of the equal sign, as in 'di=f' (also used in
the vocabulary for exercise 3.6). We are not going to baffle the beginner by trying to
explain what the equal sign means this will be done later in the book. However, for
those of you who are not total beginners, we would point out that Allen, Hoch and
Gardiner all use a full stop instead of an equal sign (although Hoch and Gardiner use a
raised full stop).
Eg: C&M:
di=f
Allen:
di.f
This might get confusing for anyone studying both C&M and Allen or Hoch. If you get
confused and put a full stop instead of an equal sign, don't worry hopefully everyone
will now know what you mean.