Exercises for Lesson 6

Question 1: Regarding the two glyphs ๐“…จ and ๐“…ช:

  1. What are the two birds depicted?
  2. What is the detail which can tell them apart?
  3. What is the significance of each bird as a hieroglyph?
  4. We provided several mnemonics to remember which one has which meaning. Give any of those.
Answer 1
  1. A swallow and a sparrow.
  2. The swallow has a forked tail, while the sparrow has a rounded one.
  3. The swallow is the biliteral wr in the word “great”, while the sparrow is a determinative for words indicating that something is small, insignificant, or bad.
  4. We suggested several mnemonics to choose from:
    • The swallow’s tail has two points and is thus “twice as good”.
    • The sparrow is described as not very important in the Bible.

Question 2: What does the glyph ๐“Š– depict, and what is its significance?

Answer 2

It is an overhead view of a crossroads, and it indicates that the word it’s part of is a settlement like a village, town, or city.

Question 3: How many determinatives are there in this word: ๐“Ž›๐“‡ฌ๐“ฐ๐“ˆ–๐“๐“€”๐“ ? Give the significance of each one, however many or few there are.

Answer 3

Two. The first is a child sucking its finger, representing youth; the second is a seated woman, representing a female human being; together, they indicate a young woman.

Question 4: The words for “illness” and “pyramid” are both transliterated mr. Write the two words.

Answer 4

“illness” is ๐“‹๐“…“๐“‚‹๐“ฐ๐“…ช, and “pyramid” is ๐“‹๐“…“๐“‚‹๐“‰ด.

Be sure that the bird you drew for the determinative of “illness” is a sparrow, with a rounded tail, and not a swallow, with a forked tail!