Determinatives

Determinatives, or ideograms, are signs that are used to determine the sense of a word. For example, the word 'wn' could mean light, become bald, hurry, or mistake, depending on which determinative comes at the end of the word. See the list below.

hieroglyph	translation
	light
	become bald
	hurry
	mistake

When transcribing Egyptian (putting the hieroglyphs into alphabetic characters) or pronouncing Egyptian, the determinatives are left out. Each of the examples above would, therefore, be transcribed as 'wn.'

Because the Egyptians did not use vowels, we do not really know how the word would have been pronounced. It is a general practice, however, to put the vowel 'e' in for pronunciation. Therefore, 'wn' would be pronounced 'wen.'

Determinatives are very helpful when trying to translate hieroglyphs because the Egyptians did not use punctuation or spaces between words. Therefore, determinatives help to define the end of sentences and words.

Below is a list of some common determinatives (det) and what category (cat) of words they are used to determine. This is not a complete list, but these are the ones that you should learn in order to complete the rest of the exercises on this web site.

det	cat	det	cat
	men		places other than Egypt
	women		desert
	force, exertion		motion
	old		backward motion
	mummy, statue, picture, image		writing, abstract ideas
	gods		grapes, wine
	land, agriculture		cities
	small, evil things		hair

Determinatives come after the signs that make up a word.

For example, if you were translating , you would know that what you were translating had something to do with 'men.' (This word would be transcribed 'nb' which translates to 'lord')

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