From: Dirk Campbell Subject: Re: : AEL waw Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:04:11 +0000 To: Ancient Egyptian Language List It appears that there are onomatopoeic words for animals, such as iuiu (dog) and miu (cat). How are the hieroglyphs for these words possible if they can only be sounded as consonants? Regards Dirk ============================================================================== From: "Marianne Luban" Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:03:04 GMT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk Subject: Re: : AEL waw ---------- Original Message ---------- From: Dirk Campbell >It appears that there are onomatopoeic words for animals, such as >iuiu (dog) and miu (cat). How are the hieroglyphs for these words >possible if they can only be sounded as consonants? The caveat must be that simply because words look like they might rhyme by the way they are spelled doesn't mean they did in vocalization. I have explained onlist and off about the semi-vowels, called such because they can at times have the sound of what *we* consider vowels. /w/ is one of these consonants. It is the same as the Hebrew consonant "vav", which can also be sounded s an "o" or a "u". Really, this is not difficult to understand once you accept that not all graphic systems have to be exactly like the alphabet I am using to write this reply where the letters are strictly divided into consonants and vowels without exception. Besides, consonants can be sounded. In the Egyptian graphic system, a very few consonants, while always appearing the same as graphemes, can have various values as phonemes [i.e. how they were pronounced depending upon the word]. There was plenty of rhyming in Egyptian, both visual and vocalic. Here is something from Utterance 36 of the Daily Ritual: ii sty=s r=k imn-ra nb nswt tAwy kAp n tw irt Hrw m r rmi sw ii sty=s r=k imn-ra nb nswt tAwy Marianne Luban ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:00:11 -0500 (EST) From: Grant Hicks To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: : AEL waw Think of them as ywyw and myw. -----Original Message----- >From: Dirk Campbell >Sent: Jan 27, 2010 8:04 PM >To: Ancient Egyptian Language List >Subject: Re: : AEL waw > >It appears that there are onomatopoeic words for animals, such as >iuiu (dog) and miu (cat). How are the hieroglyphs for these words >possible if they can only be sounded as consonants? >Regards >Dirk ============================================================================== From: "A.K. Eyma" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: : AEL waw Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:59:00 +0100 Dirk wrote: >It appears that there are onomatopoeic words for animals, such as >iuiu (dog) and miu (cat). How are the hieroglyphs for these words >possible if they can only be sounded as consonants? Why not? In English a cat "mw"s and you would not need to write the vowels to know what that means. :) The word for cat in Egyptian, masc. miw, fem. mit, probably means "the one that mews", the "maaaaaaaay!!"-er ;). Aayko ============================================================================== From: Dirk Campbell Subject: Re: : AEL waw Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:18:15 +0000 To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Thanks everyone, I think I'm getting the picture Dirk ==============================================================================