The Phonetic Signs

The phonetic signs themselves can be separated into different classes, according to the number of consonants they write. The most used signs are the uniliteral signs which, as their names state, represent one consonant. Had the Egyptians restricted themselves to these signs, they would have used an alphabetic writing, but they did not. And, contrarily to what a naive view of evolution might suggest, their system was closer to an alphabetic writing in the sixth dynasty than in the ptolemaic times. The uniliteral signs are shown in table 1.

Along with these signs, biliteral and triliteral signs, representing respectively two and three consonants were used. Most of the time, some of the consonant represented by the sign were written twice, once with the bi- or tri- literal sign, and once with a uniliteral sign. For example, the biliteral sign is to be read , and is . But reads and not .

This had some aesthetic uses, but was mainly important in hieratic, the very cursive script used in everyday life, where it was easier to misinterpret signs. The redundancy achieved thanks to the supplementary uniliteral signs allowed to distinguish similar looking signs.

 
Table 1: Alphabetical signs