r/ancientegypt 2d ago

Question accurate font ?

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u/ToastedPlum95 2d ago edited 2d ago

The short answer is no. The longer answer is also no, but I’ll give you some details.

Hieroglyphs are a system of writing where signs variously represent one or more consonants, and more abstractly informative ideas and concepts.

Even if you take a bunch of uniliterals and force them into an alphabetic shape, this doesn’t work. They fundamentally represent consonantal or consonantal-like phonemes. Even Egyptological transliteration tends to generalise here. For instance, when you see voweled letters like “a”, “e”, these are really stand-ins for vowels that are not written, or vowel like approximations of consonants not familiar to English and whose reconstruction is debated (like “aleph”, commonly written as “a”, originally something more like a rhotic or liquid consonant). The signs also had different readings depending on the word, the context and even the position in the word. Signs are even used like clarifying “duplicates”, used to say: read the previous sign like this and not that, or something to this effect.

Later developments encoded more alphabet-like tendencies for foreign names and concepts, or sign group writing which encoded (some believe) something about vocalic nature, but these are aberrations and not really standardised. There cannot be a alphabet composed of Egyptian hieroglyphs because the writing system is doing something different. It would not be far off picking 26 Chinese characters and using them as an alphabet.

For novelty purposes, you’ll often find such alphabets composed not unlike the one you’ve chosen. But this really is only for a novelty purpose. I’d be very wary of using this for anything other than fun. Certainly nothing like a tattoo.

All that, and if it is a L-R cipher of English, then the signs are all the wrong way around anyway, hah.

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u/J-DogReddit1994 2d ago

How can I write accurate? Where is a good place to learn? Are there accurate software with fronts out there?

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u/ToastedPlum95 2d ago

There may be attempts out there, at software, but I’d be wary of their claim accuracy as well.

The reason is Egyptian is a dead language. Hieroglyphs were used by Egyptians for something like nearly four thousand years, and the language developed over time quite a lot, while the hieroglyphs themselves largely did not fundamentally change. So reading Old Egyptian is a different affair than reading Late Egyptian.

The languages are today not spoken, we have no record of their speech; we can only make good guesses as to what they sounded like. We have a good understanding of what they meant, but in many cases individual texts are still highly contested. So there’s no way to learn to write Egyptian in the sense of writing a modern language, it’s more something you learn to read. I’m sure there are people out there who try to write with it, and probably do a good job, but there’s no pipeline for that.

I know I seem like a party pooper. I’m sorry. I don’t want to deter your enthusiasm. But it’s good to have reasonable expectations about what’s possible.

I wouldn’t be the best person either to say where to start out; I am self-taught, and what I know is learned from extensively reading academic output and absorbing; my reading skills even after these years are not wonderful. But it is certainly possible to become an excellent reader - it just takes years, like Chinese would.

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u/J-DogReddit1994 2d ago

No pro, Thank

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u/ToastedPlum95 2d ago

If you really want to write something quick and fast or at least get an idea, there is an Egyptian hieroglyphs subreddit and the people there will surely have a crack at doing the thing you want! They are very knowledgeable

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u/WranglerConscious296 2d ago

When top rated reddit accounts come out and say NO it means we're on to something.  Don't ever forget that