The Evolution of the

Egyptian Language


Hieroglyphs

hieroglyphics

4th millennium BCE to 394 CE (last attested hieroglyphs at the island of philae)

In Egyptian culture, writing was considered a sacred activity that had the creative power to bring things into existence via writing. Their focus was on the ability to control the world by naming things around them. Hieroglyphs derived from the physical world the Egyptian people were surrounded by—over 6,000 glyphs exist but only about 800 were commonly used.

Explore More

  • Cleopatra

    Cleopatra

    Cleopatra was the last known ruler of the Egyptian people that was literate in hieroglyphs and felt very strongly that this was necessary to keep her culture and language alive. Though Cleopatra came to power after the Ptolemies, who were Macedonian rulers and therefore illiterate in the Egyptian dialects, she brought back a sense of leadership under an actual Egyptian.

  • Hieroglyphics

    Hieroglyphics

    One sign can stand for a single sound, a set of sounds (called phonograms) or a word (logograms). Sentences can be written left to right, right to left, or top to bottom, and are deciphered based on in which direction the sentence makes sense. There was also some variation over time, with certain writing directions being more popular during specific time periods.