In the field of Egyptology, transliteration of Ancient Egyptian is the process of converting texts written in the Egyptian language to alphabetic symbols representing uniliteral hieroglyphs or their hieratic and Demotic counterparts. This process facilitates the publication of texts where the inclusion of photographs or drawings of an actual Egyptian document is impractical. Transliteration is not the same as transcription. Transcription seeks to reproduce the pronunciation of a text. For example, the name of the founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty is transliterated as ššnq but transcribed Shoshenq in English, Chéchanq in French, Sjesjonk in Dutch, and Scheschonk or Scheschonq in German. Because exact details regarding the phonetics of Egyptian are not completely known, most transcriptions depend on Coptic for linguistic reconstruction or are theoretical in nature. Egyptologists, therefore, rely on transliteration in scientific publications.
Standards
Important as transliteration is to the field of Egyptology, there is no one standard scheme in use for hieroglyphic and hieratic texts. Some might even argue that there are as many systems of transliteration as there are Egyptologists. However, there are a few closely related systems that can be regarded as conventional. Many non-German-speaking Egyptologists use the system described in Gardiner 1954, whereas many German-speaking scholars tend to opt for that used in the Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, the standard dictionary of the ancient Egyptian language. However, there is a growing trend, even among English-speaking scholars, to adopt a modified version of the method used in the Wörterbuch. Although these conventional approaches to transliteration have been followed since most of the second half of the nineteenth century to the present day, there have been some attempts to adopt a modified system that seeks to utilise the International Phonetic Alphabet to a certain degree. The most successful of these is that developed by Wolfgang Schenkel, and it is being used fairly widely in Germany and other German-speaking countries. More recent is a proposal by Thomas Schneider that is even closer to the IPA, but its usage is not presently common. The major criticism leveled against both of these systems is that they give an impression of being much more scientifically accurate with regard to the pronunciation of Egyptian. Unfortunately this perceived accuracy is debatable. Moreover, the systems reflect only the theoretical pronunciation of Middle Egyptian and not the older and later phases of the language, which are themselves to be transliterated with the same system.
Table of transliteration schemes
There are 24 consonantal phonemes distinguished in Egyptian writing, following Edel transliterated and ordered alphabetically in the sequence: ꜣ j ꜥ w b p f m n r h ḥ ḫ ẖ z s š q k g t ṯ d ḏ. A number of variant conventions are used interchangeably depending on the author: The vowel is conventionally inserted between consonants to make Egyptian words pronounceable in English.
Examples
The following text is transliterated below in some of the more common schemes. M23-X1:R4-X8-Q2:D4-W17-R14-G4-R8-O29:V30-U23-N26-D58-O49:Z1-F13:N31-Z2ss-V30:N16:N21*Z1-D45:N25 Unicode: Erman and Grapow 1926–1953
ḥtp-dỉ-nśwt wśỉr ḫntj ỉmntjw nṯr ꜥꜣ nb ꜣbḏw wp-wꜣwt nb tꜣ ḏśr
Gardiner 1953
ḥtp-dỉ-nswt wsỉr ḫnty ỉmntỉw nṯr ꜥꜣ nb ꜣbḏw wp-wꜣwt nb tꜣ ḏsr
Buurman, Grimal, et al. 1988
Htp-di-nswt wsir xnty imntiw nTr aA nb AbDw wp-wAwt nb tA Dsr
Schenkel 1991
ḥtp-dỉ-nswt wsỉr ḫnty ỉmntjw nčr ꜥꜣ nb ꜣbč̣w wp-wꜣwt nb tꜣ č̣sr
Allen 2000
ḥtp-dj-nswt wsjr ḫntj jmntjw nṯr ꜥꜣ nb ꜣbḏw wp-wꜣwt nb tꜣ ḏsr
Schneider 2003
ḥtp-ḍỉ-nśwt wśỉr ḫnty ỉmntjw ncr ɗɹ nb ɹbc̣w wp-wɹwt nb tɹ c̣śr
Demotic
As the latest stage of pre-Coptic Egyptian, Demotic texts have long been transliterated using the same system used for hieroglyphic and hieratic texts. However, in 1980, Demotists adopted a single, uniform, international standard based on the traditional system used for hieroglyphic, but with the addition of some extra symbols for vowels and other letters that were written in the Demotic script. The Demotic Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago utilises this method. As this system is likely only of interest to specialists, for details see the references below.
Encoding
In 1984 a standard, ASCII-based transliteration system was proposed by an international group of Egyptologists at the first Table ronde informatique et égyptologie and published in 1988. This has come to be known as the Manuel de Codage system, based on the title of the publication, Inventaire des signes hiéroglyphiques en vue de leur saisie informatique: Manuel de codage des textes hiéroglyphiques en vue de leur saisie sur ordinateur. It is widely used in e-mail discussion lists and internet forums catering to professional Egyptologists and the interested public. Although the Manuel de codage system allows for simple "alphabetic" transliterations, it also specifies a complex method for electronically encoding complete ancient Egyptian texts, indicating features such as the placement, orientation, and even size of individual hieroglyphs. This system is used by various software packages developed for typesetting hieroglyphic texts.
With the introduction of the Latin Extended Additional block to Unicode version 1.1, the addition of Egyptological alef and ayin to Unicode version 5.1 and the addition of Glottal I alias Egyptological yod to Unicode version 12.0, it is now possible to fully transliterate Egyptian texts using a Unicode typeface. The following table only lists the special characters used in various transliteration schemes.
Egyptological alef, ayin, and yod
Three characters that are specific to the discipline are required for transliterating Egyptian:
Alef ;
Ayin ;
Yod.
Although three Egyptological and Ugariticist letters were proposed in August 2000, it was not until 2008 two of the three letters were encoded: aleph and ayin. Another two proposals were made regarding the Egyptological yod, the eventual result of which was to accept the use of the Cyrillic psili pneumata as one of several possible diacritics for this purpose. The other options use the superscript comma and the right half ring above. A new attempt for a sign called LETTER I WITH SPIRITUS LENIS was made in 2017. Within the Egyptological community objection were raised concerning this name. The proposed name was changed to EGYPTOLOGICAL YOD before finally becoming GLOTTAL I. The sign was added in March 2019 with the release of Unicode 12.0. One of the first fonts that implemented the full set of signs is New Athena Unicode.
Designation
Lowercase
Capital
Egyptological alef
ꜣ U+A723
Ꜣ U+A722
Egyptological ayin
ꜥ U+A725
Ꜥ U+A724
Egyptological yod
ꞽ U+A7BD
Ꞽ U+A7BC
Before the usage of the above-mentioned Unicode signs, various workarounds were in practice, e.g.
is reconstructed as having had 24 consonantal phonemes. There is at least one hieroglyph with a phonetic value corresponding to each of these phonemes. The table below gives a list of such "uniliteral signs" along with their conventional transcription and their conventional "Egyptological pronunciation" and probable phonetic value. Many hieroglyphs are coloured, though the paint has worn off most stone inscriptions. Colors vary, but many glyphs are predominantly one colour or another, or a particular combination. In some cases, two graphically similar glyphs may be distinguished solely by colour, though in other cases it's not known if the choice of colour had any meaning.
