Learn Hieroglyphs

Introduction The Hieroglyphic writing Numbers Nouns Grammatical uses of the noun Adjectives and Comparison Demonstratives Personal Pronouns Titles in Ancient Egypt The Offering Formula Infinitive Possessive Adjectives Verbs in Ancient Egyptian language Relative in Ancient Egyptian Language Attribution Adjectives Comparative and Superlative Fractions Measures Interrogative pronouns Enclitic particles Non-Enclitic particles Prepositions Anticipation in the Ancient Egyptian Language Stative (Old Perfective) Active participles Passive participle The Passive Voice Verbal Sentence in Ancient Egyptian language Non-verbal Sentence in Ancient Egyptian language

Phonetic Complement

Sound signs can be used as sound complements (or phonetic complements) indicating the sound conveyed by other phonograms. In the  sign, it is added to flesh out the r of pr and in  the one-consonant sign  and are used to flesh out fr of nfr. In , the  is added to flesh out the r in Hr.

Sound complement can be added in three ways:

1. Before the phonograms

Many such cases are well documented in Old Kingdom texts. This phoneme was used in Middle Kingdom texts.

Example

tm (tsound complement + tmphonogram)

2. Sound Complement added after the phonograms

This usage is a common feature in the inscriptions of the Old and Middle Kingdoms.

Examples

pA (pA phonogram + A sound complement).

mn (mn phonogram + n sound complement).

3. Sound Complement added before and after the phonograms

This is a rare way in which Egyptians tried to flesh out consonants in bilateral or triliteral signs.

Example

in

(i sound complement + in phonogram + sound)

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