Not sure that is right, unfortunately. They are just doing a letter by letter conversion which doesn't really work that well. Its a nice pretty gimmick though. I'll try to remember when I get home to look in my book of hieroglyphics to see how I think your name should be spelt (and double check what the above is). In particular I'm intrigued as to the way they seem to use three symbols for "y" (they do similar for "i" but at least they are the same three).
Still, very pretty as I say. I am vaguely tempted to try to properly do my name on a cartouche. Not sure what I'd use it for though. :)
Feel free to correct me. I'm one of those fairly lazy people who knows nothing about ancient Egypt and tends to view it as a bit of a generic fantasty setting. This is because it isn't Britain, which is a real place and who's history much be treated with religious reverence and nazi like precision :p
They do translate letter by letter. Did the Egyptians not have an alphabet in the same way we did?
The Ashmolean museum do cartouche necklaces. They had one on sale at Valentine's Day which claimed to say 'I love you' in hieroglyphics. I did wonder slightly what it really said and whether any ancient Egyptian would have recognised it :p
Egypt is a fantasy setting but not a generic one. It has a wonderfully rich background written for it which is wonderfully inconsistent as they're backplot modified as time went on. Ancient egypt is cool!
And they kind of have an alphabet but the way it worked was that in general the symbols are consonant sounds, occasionally multiple consonant sounds, and then it gets more complex.
Its ages since I last looked at them but the repeated L in Sally would most likely not have been repeated in egyptian because it only sounds once. Also vowel sounds are often not explicitly written. I can't think of a proper example but the translation might literally be "rnt" which would then have vowels put in. Given that I have an entire book on this though I'm not going to be able to do it justice in an LJ comment. :) It is very interesting though. The book cost 10/15 quid and is something I reccomend for roleplayers since it gives a better idea of how non-english languages and writing might work.
The other fun thing is using symbols to give context to words. So you add a symbol on the end that will say "this is a person" or something that says "this is an action" or "this is a god" and so on. Its kinda cool. :)
Mr Chris is right. Ancient Egyptian alphabet very different indeed. Doesn't have an equivalent for every letter in the English alphabet, despite what the papyrus sellers out there will tell you. It has 24 alphabet signs, and more than 2400 individual signs in total... I nearly cried when Paul came back from his day trip, pleased as anything with a piece of papyrus with 4 signs on it, claiming it was his name. I didn't dare tell him the first symbol was the sign for a sacred pool....
A lot of heiroglyphs mean whole words, not letters or sounds, and as far as I can remember from my lectures, they had no vowels in the written form, only vowel-equivalents like "Y". We add in the vowels when we pronounce it so it can be actually spoken. To an actual ancient egyptian, we could be speaking total garbage....
Yeah, the no vowel things is a bit confusing because I'm sure there are a few things that are a bit like vowels. I suspect I jsut don't have the linguistics knowledge to cover it though. :)
And yay! I'm knowledgeable on something that could almost be considered arts! :)
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Date: 2005-04-14 09:04 am (UTC)Still, very pretty as I say. I am vaguely tempted to try to properly do my name on a cartouche. Not sure what I'd use it for though. :)
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Date: 2005-04-14 09:07 am (UTC)They do translate letter by letter. Did the Egyptians not have an alphabet in the same way we did?
The Ashmolean museum do cartouche necklaces. They had one on sale at Valentine's Day which claimed to say 'I love you' in hieroglyphics. I did wonder slightly what it really said and whether any ancient Egyptian would have recognised it :p
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 09:18 am (UTC)And they kind of have an alphabet but the way it worked was that in general the symbols are consonant sounds, occasionally multiple consonant sounds, and then it gets more complex.
Its ages since I last looked at them but the repeated L in Sally would most likely not have been repeated in egyptian because it only sounds once. Also vowel sounds are often not explicitly written. I can't think of a proper example but the translation might literally be "rnt" which would then have vowels put in. Given that I have an entire book on this though I'm not going to be able to do it justice in an LJ comment. :) It is very interesting though. The book cost 10/15 quid and is something I reccomend for roleplayers since it gives a better idea of how non-english languages and writing might work.
The other fun thing is using symbols to give context to words. So you add a symbol on the end that will say "this is a person" or something that says "this is an action" or "this is a god" and so on. Its kinda cool. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 09:54 am (UTC)Mr Chris is right. Ancient Egyptian alphabet very different indeed. Doesn't have an equivalent for every letter in the English alphabet, despite what the papyrus sellers out there will tell you. It has 24 alphabet signs, and more than 2400 individual signs in total... I nearly cried when Paul came back from his day trip, pleased as anything with a piece of papyrus with 4 signs on it, claiming it was his name. I didn't dare tell him the first symbol was the sign for a sacred pool....
A lot of heiroglyphs mean whole words, not letters or sounds, and as far as I can remember from my lectures, they had no vowels in the written form, only vowel-equivalents like "Y". We add in the vowels when we pronounce it so it can be actually spoken. To an actual ancient egyptian, we could be speaking total garbage....
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 11:15 am (UTC)And yay! I'm knowledgeable on something that could almost be considered arts! :)