hieroglyph
Speech parts
1. hieroglyph - Noun
2. hieroglyph - Adjective
3. hieroglyph - Verb
Meaning
Alt. of Hieroglyphic
Source: Webster's dictionarySynonyms
Antonyms
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As used in the previous sentence, the word hieroglyphic is an adjective (in the same way photographic is an adjective), but is often erroneously used as a noun in place of hieroglyph.
History The Semitic sound value of Qôp (perhaps originally qaw, "cord of wool", and possibly based on an Egyptian hieroglyph ) was /q/ ( voiceless uvular stop ), a sound common to Semitic languages, but not found in English or most Indo-European ones.
It is thought that Semitic people working in Egypt c. 2000 BC borrowed a hieroglyph for "water" that was first used for an alveolar nasal ( /n/ ), because of the Egyptian word for water, n-t.
Due to the fact that the phonetic realization of Egyptian cannot be known with certainty, Egyptologists use a system of transliteration to denote each sound which could be represented by a uniliteral hieroglyph.
Loprieno (2004) p. 173 Writing main Hieroglyphs on a funerary stela in Manchester Museum The Rosetta stone (ca 196 BC) enabled linguists to begin the process of hieroglyph decipherment.
Much later, at the end of the Second Dynasty (c. 2890–2686 BCE), King Peribsen used the Set animal in writing his serekh -name, in place of the traditional falcon hieroglyph representing Horus.