Deciphering the hieroglyphs

Danilo Anton

The first cultures that used writing in the Middle East were Mesopotamia (the symbols were marks in clay tablets, the so-called cuneiform script) and in Egypt where hieroglyphs were written with ink on papyrus (paper-like material that is obtained from the plant Cyperus papirus).

The writing system employed in Pharaonic Egypt was a complex system which over time would be used as the basis of most of the later Mediterranean and European writings. 
Egyptian hieroglyphs are logograms, consisting of signs with specific meanings and sounds and determinative characters that fulfill the role of clarifying the meanings that are sought to express. From the Egyptian hieroglyphics a simplified script was developed including cursive versions generating a diversity of scriptures.

The writing system generated by simplification of hieroglyphs was the demotic script. This in turn evolved into the coptic system (today religious language of the Egyptian Christians). This process led to the creation of simpler signs from ancient hieroglyphics. 
At first these symbols identified syllabic or consonant sounds and at a later stage additional marks were added to define vocal sounds.

Many written languages ​​based on hieroglyphics or logograms evolved from a conceptual representation (ideographic: each sign an idea) to phonetic systems (each letter represents a sound). At the beginning they were syllabic sounds where each letter was a consonant and the vowels were represented with vowel markers. Finally, in some systems (eg Greek) the independent vocal signs (alpha, epsilon, etc.) were added, approaching modern European alphabetical systems (Greek, Latin, Cyrillic).

An example of this development is observed with the evolution of the letter aleph that is derived from two hieroglyphs, a sign representing an ox and another representing a vulture. The Phoenicians took the logogram of the ox in their writing (Aramaic) as syllabic symbol (representing in this case a "glottal stop" or glottal occlusion) to which an associated vowel was added). The Greeks, in whose language there was no glottal occlusion, transformed it into the alpha vowel, and then became the Roman A. 

The symbol of the letter Beth began with a logogram representing a house, then became a consonant symbol "beth" or "beit" in Aramaic and Arabic respectively. 
In Greek it was called beta and at a later time, the letter B in Latin.

In the same way "daleth" (gate) became the Greek delta and the Roman D. "Gimel", who meant camel, was at first an ideographic image of a throwing stick. Then it became a consonant symbol. The Greeks took it back as the letter gamma and the Romans represented it with the letters C or G.

The monosyllabic word "He" (meaning "window") originally was the image of a man in front with his arms raised calling for prayer. The Greeks transformed it into epsilon and the Romans into E.

With the other letters a similar process occurred. The final evolutionary result was the Greco-Latin system (which includes as a derivative the Cyrillic script that is currently used in Russia and Ukraine).

Other northeastern African languages ​​also created similar systems. The ge'ez, traditional and religious language of Ethiopia is written using its own script based on signs that represent consonants. As in Arabic, they are modified to indicate the associated vowels. Other languages ​​commonly used in the Ethiopian region, such as Amharic, Tigrinya, Bin and Me'en, also use the Ge'ez alphabet,