The Science of Secrecy

Hieroglyphs were used to record the language of the ancient Egyptians - a language that turned out to be closely related to Coptic, which only survives in the liturgy of the Coptic Christian Church. Once Jean-François Champollion had realised this, he deciphered hieroglyphic inscriptions at a prolific rate.

Hieroglyphs are a complex form of writing, employing various methods for conveying meaning. A few are pictographic. For example, a picture of the sun represents the sun. Others are phonetic, but not necessarily alphabetic.

Some hieroglyphs are more or less equivalent to letters of the alphabet, and it is possible to spell out words using groups of these letters. Other hieroglyphs represent combinations of two or three letters and are therefore closer to syllables.

Curiously, the Egyptians did not generally employ vowels, but this is the case with many modern Middle Eastern scripts. Readers of hieroglyphs have to fill in the vowels from the context, using their familiarity with the language. To help avoid misinterpretation from the incorrect insertion of vowels, scribes would employ determinatives - hieroglyphs that indicate what type of word is being written. For example, one determinative might indicate that the word is the name of a man, another might indicate that the word is the name of a town or a type of food or drink.

The hieroglyphic script also employs a cross between phonetics and picture-writing known as the rebus principle. One could write the word 'khaki' alphabetically or one could write it pictographically by painting a small patch of khaki. However, if the scribe used the rebus principle he would write it as follows:

Drawing of a car and a key

The pictures have nothing to do with the concept of the colour khaki, but if you pronounce both pictograms together then you achieve the required sound.

With so many underlying principles it is not surprising that it took so long to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. However, in general, hieroglyphs have much in common with most modern writing systems. As Champollion put it, 'Phonetics is the soul of hieroglyphic writing.'


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			Hieroglyphs were used to record the language of the ancient Egyptians - a language that turned out to be closely related to Coptic, which only survives in the liturgy of the Coptic Christian Church. Once Jean-François Champollion had realised this, he deciphered hieroglyphic inscriptions at a prolific rate. Hieroglyphs are a complex form of writing, employing various methods for conveying meaning. A few are pictographic. For example, a picture of the sun represents the sun. Others are phonetic, but not necessarily alphabetic. Some hieroglyphs are more or less equivalent to letters of the alphabet, and it is possible to spell out words using groups of these letters. Other hieroglyphs represent combinations of two or three letters and are therefore closer to syllables. Curiously, the Egyptians did not generally employ vowels, but this is the case with many modern Middle Eastern scripts. Readers of hieroglyphs have to fill in the vowels from the context, using their familiarity with the language. To help avoid misinterpretation from the incorrect insertion of vowels, scribes would employ determinatives - hieroglyphs that indicate what type of word is being written. For example, one determinative might indicate that the word is the name of a man, another might indicate that the word is the name of a town or a type of food or drink. The hieroglyphic script also employs a cross between phonetics and picture-writing known as the rebus principle. One could write the word 'khaki' alphabetically or one could write it pictographically by painting a small patch of khaki. However, if the scribe used the rebus principle he would write it as follows: The pictures have nothing to do with the concept of the colour khaki, but if you pronounce both pictograms together then you achieve the required sound. With so many underlying principles it is not surprising that it took so long to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. However, in general, hieroglyphs have much in common with most modern writing systems. As Champollion put it, 'Phonetics is the soul of hieroglyphic writing.' Top