OELP

  1. Parts of Speech
  2. Non-Verbal Sentences
  3. Verbal Forms
  4. Verbal Sentences
  5. Subordinate Clauses
  6. Supplementary Topics
  7. Appendices

However, in a few words, there will be one phonetic glyph at the end right next to Z1, and that will be X1, the hemispherical loaf of bread, uniliteral t.

𓁹𓏏𓏤jrteye
𓆤‌𓏏𓏤bjtbee
𓏛𓏏𓏤mḏꜣtscroll, book

The last three have that extra t glyph; the first three do not. Why would the sound t be written when no other sound is written when writing a word with an ideogram? You’ll find out in a few lessons when we discuss nouns in depth.

The “Two Consonants Together” Rule

Since the vowels weren’t written, we don’t know for sure how Egyptian words were pronounced, but we have some pretty good ideas, thanks to reconstruction from Coptic and information we can get from other languages writing how Egyptian names were pronounced. As we noted on the page about phonemes, linguists usually put an asterisk in front of a reconstructed pronunciation to make it clear that it’s uncertain, like reconstructed *qabab for written qbb.

From these reconstructions, we’ve been able to determine that if two copies of the same consonant come together in a word, and are not separated by vowels, they are usually written only once in the hieroglyphs. For example, the word 𓃹𓈖𓈖 wnn was probably pronounced something like *wanan. But if the suffix 𓆑 f was attached to it, it would be pronounced *wannaf, with the two Ns coming together. And so in hieroglyphs, it would usually be written 𓃹𓈖𓆑, with only one copy of the N, and an Egyptologist will transliterate it as written: wnf or wn.f.

When a grammatical form causes this rule to apply fairly consistently, these lessons will refer to it.