Language desk
< February 7	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 9 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 8

How (if possible) to accurately write a name in Egyptian Hieroglyphics

How does one write the name, Jessica, in Egyptian hieroglyphics? This needs to be accurate, folks, and I'm getting different transliterations from different sources I find through Google. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Shevat 5775 01:57, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, heiroglyphics changed over time, so their's no one correct answer. Even the cartouche/shen ring changed. StuRat (talk) 02:05, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, doy, right. Should have remembered that the language did evolve even if the art didn't change all that much (save for that one odd fellow). Let's go with hieroglyphics in Late Egyptian then. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Shevat 5775 02:12, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hieroglyphs is actually the 'correct' word for them, not hieroglyphics, as they are 'glyphs' not 'glyphics'. That's what every Egyptologist has always told me. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 08:55, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've long since stopped fighting with autocorrect on this. You're right though that the -ic ending would generally mean an adjective. I'd also like the hieratic form of the name. Late Egyptian as well. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Shevat 5775 14:33, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I spoke to one of my Egyptologist friends and she said the syllabic hieroglyphs didn't change from period to period. I also ran a transliteration by her in both forms and seemed okay. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Shevat 5775 16:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sir William, please, please, please tell us that you are not considering getting a tattoo? Bad things happen when people get tattoos in languages they can't read. --Shirt58 (talk) 01:45, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Haha, no, I was sprucing up a valentine for another Egyptologist friend by that name. The actual letter is written on a papyrus scroll, but I decided to add another scroll with her name as a cartouche. In other words, doing it right. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 20 Shevat 5775 01:51, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cherchez la femme ;-) --Shirt58 (talk) 04:22, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, this is pretty standard practice for me as I'm rather unusual . That was one of four valentines for this year. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 20 Shevat 5775 20:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bad things happen when people get tattoos in languages they can't read.—Words of wisdom that more people should hear (and heed). --173.49.18.95 (talk) 03:30, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not just tattoos. A Reader's Digest story about a woman who liked the way some Chinese characters looked on a menu, and had a T-shirt made with the characters on it. The next trip into Chinatown she was getting snickers. A Chinese speaker told her that her T-shirt read "Cheap but Good". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:00, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hahaha, that is fantastic! Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 20 Shevat 5775 04:11, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Back in 2012, someone asked about tattoos that were supposed to be "Travis", "Amanda" and "Jack". Turns out that the tattoos were "Travis", "Amanda" and "device you use to lift your car off the ground to replace a flat tyre". --Shirt58 (talk) 04:22, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Like this? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:13, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

handsome self portrait there. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 20 Shevat 5775 20:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Our Jack is a weightlifter, eh? —Tamfang (talk) 21:07, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ha. The only weight I lift is my body weight when I trudge wearily in my chains of self-pity from one squalid room to another in my house of sordid shame in search of sustenance both physical and spiritual or to seek refuge from my never-ending torment from a bizarre bestiary of hideous goblins and trolls. Oh, I also lift my fingers to inscribe these bitter and melancholy tracts onto the pages of history. That's about the size of it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:58, 10 February 2015 (UTC) [reply]

The above post made me sad on a number of levels. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 22 Shevat 5775 06:39, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good. The worst fate for an artist is the indifference of others. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:27, 11 February 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Flinders Petrie -- Pre-Coptic writing of the Egyptian language almost completely ignored vowels, so the word "syllabic" is very doubtful in this context. The most basic way of writing "Jessica" would be as follows (though this could be fancied up in various ways): AnonMoos (talk) 03:32, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I used the first three characters as well as vulture assuming that the last sound would need to be represented even if it functions the same way Semitic languages do with regard to "vowel" endings (no vowel, but something else indicating there's another sound after consonants).[1] Dammit, though I didn't know about the seated woman hieroglyph to represent a feminine name! Ah well, already been sent off. And maybe because I gave it royal styling it doesn't really matter. (Though I'm not an Egyptologist, so I don't know.) Thank you very much for taking the time to do the research. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Shevat 5775 04:21, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you want the name "Jessica" to be written as the name of a foreign queen, then what's shown in your image is perfectly reasonable. If you want it to be written more as the name of a non-royal Egyptian woman, then my version above would serve as a basic starting point... AnonMoos (talk) 11:44, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How about as a Royal Egyptian woman? A different end sign I trust. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Shevat 5775 15:14, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably drop the pseudo-vowel signs, maybe add a "loaf and egg" feminine ending indicator. I'm not an expert either. AnonMoos (talk) 06:08, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The version with vulture was verified by someone with at least some fluency in hieroglyphs as being appropriate (though without any signifier for royalty other than the base of the cartouche), though our understanding overall is kind of flawed either way, haha. Ah well, I'll just make a new one next Valentine's Day and inform her then. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 22 Shevat 5775 06:39, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Vulture="a" is fine for foreign names, but when writing their own language in pre-Coptic writing systems, Egyptians pretty much didn't write vowels at all. AnonMoos (talk) 09:48, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above hieroglyphs are perfectly acceptable. The seated female would be correct. However, you may want to add another glyph (which you can) to mean 'God beholds' (or replace it with such), which is what the name 'Jessica' means (in Hebrew). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 08:21, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Jessica does not mean "God sees" in Hebrew. It might not mean anything at all, but there's a speculative connection to a name Yiskah יסכה in Genesis 11:29, which Brown-Driver-Briggs labels "etym. dubious", but which can be subjected to further speculations... AnonMoos (talk) 09:48, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]