Due to the increased popularity of oriental culture, various hieroglyphs are increasingly used in decoration and design. But when buying, for example, a mug with a Chinese symbol, you may want to know its meaning. This can be done even if you do not know the corresponding language.
It is necessary
dictionary of hieroglyphs
Instructions
Step 1
Determine which language the hieroglyph you are interested in belongs to. Most often, Chinese characters are used in the design. Their difference is that they fit easily into a square. These characters should not be confused with Korean syllabic writing, which has a more simplified form - the letter in it consists of only a few elements. In turn, Egyptian hieroglyphs are more like pictograms, that is, they are closer in appearance to the objects they represent.
Step 2
Buy or borrow a dictionary of hieroglyphs from the library. You can also use various online guides. But before that, check if your computer has software that supports reading hieroglyphs.
Step 3
Find out the principle of classification of hieroglyphs in the dictionary. They are usually organized according to their keys. Structurally, a hieroglyph in most cases consists of two elements - a key, which is responsible for its semantic content, and phonetics. helping to understand its reading. Often, the keys are included in the hieroglyph in a modified form, so it can be difficult to find them.
Step 4
Having determined the key of the hieroglyph, open the corresponding section of the dictionary and find in it the image of the character you are interested in. next to it there will be a reading of the hieroglyph, as well as its translation. Keep in mind that often a word consists of more than one character. but from their combination. Therefore, to understand the meaning, it will be necessary to correctly break the group of hieroglyphs into words, which can be problematic - spaces in sentences in Chinese and Japanese are not put.
Step 5
If you need to decipher the meaning of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph, refer to the special Egyptological literature. Also, special sites with dictionaries of the simplest signs of the ancient Egyptian language can help you -
