A hieroglyph (
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
for "sacred carvings") was a
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
of the
ancient Egyptian writing system.
Logographic
In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced '' hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, ...
scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonism, Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and Hellenistic religion, religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of ...
, especially during the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...
, a "hieroglyph" was an artistic representation of an
esoteric
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...
idea, which Neoplatonists believed actual Egyptian hieroglyphs to be. The word ''hieroglyphics'' refers to a hieroglyphic script.
The Egyptians invented the pictorial script, which refers to any writing system that employs images as symbols for various semantic entities, rather than the abstract signs used by alphabets. The appearance of these distinctive figures in 3000 BCE marked the beginning of Egyptian
civilization
A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system).
C ...
. Though based on images, Egyptian script was more than a sophisticated form of picture-writing. Each picture/
glyph
A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
served one of three functions: (1) to represent the image of a thing or action, (2) to stand for a sound or the sounds of one to as many as three
syllables
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological " ...
, or (3) to clarify the precise meaning of adjoining glyphs. Writing hieroglyphs required some artistic skill, limiting the number of scholars chosen to learn it. Only those privileged with an extensive education (i.e. the
pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until th ...
,
nobility
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...
and
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
s) were able to read and write hieroglyphs; others used simpler versions more suited for everyday handwriting: first the
hieratic script, and later the
demotic.
List of scripts and script-like systems sometimes labeled 'hieroglyphic'
*
Anatolian hieroglyphs
*
Aztec hieroglyphs
*
Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...
*
Cretan hieroglyphs
Cretan hieroglyphs are a hieroglyphic writing system used in early Bronze Age Crete, during the Minoan era. They predate Linear A by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history. , ...
*
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1, ...
*
Mayan hieroglyphs
*
Mi'kmaq hieroglyphs
*
Muisca hieroglyphs
*
Ojibwe hieroglyphs
*
Olmec hieroglyphs
*
Rongorongo
One of the two forms of the
Meroitic writing system is usually described as "Meroitic hieroglyphs" because the characters are similar to and in most cases derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs. They are used, however, not as logographs but as an
alphasyllabary.
In
Eastern Slavic languages, the term hieroglyph refers to any
morphemic script, and is commonly synonymous to Chinese and Japanese writing.
See also
*
List of languages by writing system
* ''
Monas Hieroglyphica
''Monas Hieroglyphica'' (or ''The Hieroglyphic Monad'') is a book by John Dee, the Elizabethan magus and court astrologer of Elizabeth I of England, published in Antwerp in 1564. It is an exposition of the meaning of an esoteric symbol that he ...
''
*
Mother Goose in Hieroglyphics
''Mother Goose in Hieroglyphics'' is a book for children by E.F. Bleiler, originally published in 1849. The book features well-known nursery rhymes, written with pictures (about 400 detailed woodcuts) substituting certain words (rebus).
Externa ...
*
Unown
is a Pokémon species in Nintendo and Game Freak's ''Pokémon'' franchise. Created by Ken Sugimori, Unown first appeared in the video games ''Pokémon Gold'' and ''Silver'' and in subsequent sequels, later appearing in various merchandise, spin ...
References
Further reading
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External links
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{{Authority control
Etymologies
Egyptian inventions