What are hieroglyphs, and what do they mean?

What are hieroglyphs? Where they are used, and how to understand them? Can such intricate signs be somehow translated into a language we understand, interpreted and deciphered? Of course you can. Among the hieroglyphs exist as ancient, which have long been not used, and modern, which are found in the letter of a lot of oriental cultures. The first, of course, to decipher more difficult, the latter can be translated using "Google". Therefore, in order for everyone to understand what it is and what it is eaten with, we will describe in detail what hieroglyphs are, what groups they divide and what they mean.

Definition of term

In the generally accepted concept, a hieroglyph is a unit of writing that is used by some peoples. It can mean either a single sound, a syllable or a letter, or an entire word. Sometimes hieroglyphs can convey to us the whole sentence or a certain phrase. The term itself has ancient Greek roots. This name was given to oriental written signs by the scientist Clement of Alexandria, who was engaged in deciphering such texts and derived a generalized notion of what hieroglyphs are. The definition he derived was made up of two words: "Hieros", which in Greek means "sacred", and "glyph", which, accordingly, translates as "cut out." He attributed sacred significance to these texts, therefore he called them "a sacred copy of the letter".

Where can I find hieroglyphs

Now, in order to understand what hieroglyphs are, it is enough to look at the writing of the peoples of the Far East. However, in the old days, few people from the ancient world studied the culture of those peoples and their languages. Because this term was most often used in relation to the hieratics - the ancient Egyptian writing. The texts in this language were deciphered in the era of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and even now many of them remain a mystery for historians. Modern hieroglyphs we meet in the Chinese language and all its branches (Korean and Tangut), as well as in the Japanese writing of all kinds and dialects.

Hieratics and its features

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs appeared together with the birth of the First Dynasty of the Pharaohs. The very language of the ancient Egyptians in its phonetics has something in common with the Semitic dialects, but in the same way it is similar to the Cushitic and Berber-Libyan linguistic branches. During the existence of Ancient Egypt, only hieroglyphs were used for writing. Earlier they were cut out exclusively on stones, on the walls of temples and houses. Later, papyrus was used to write laws, other documents and simple letters. Interestingly, the older the record, the easier it is to decipher it. This is due to the fact that the most ancient records of the Egyptians were created thanks to miniature pictures that accurately displayed objects or actions. Later, much more complicated hieroglyphs began to be used, both European and Asian scientists were deciphering it. The main discoverer in this area is the Frenchman Shapmolon. But in fact, much greater contribution to deciphering the ancient Egyptian letter was made by the Persian Ibn Vahshiyya al-Nabati, who translated into Arabic hundreds of spells and state texts.

Japanese script

The modern language of the Land of the Rising Sun is built in part on local dialects, which previously had no grammatical basis, and partly in Chinese writing. Because Japanese hieroglyphs and their meaning often resonate with Chinese vocabulary, but in some cases it is very difficult to find similarities. So, the Japanese language is divided into three parts: kanji - these are the hieroglyphs that came here from China, hiragana and katakana - primordially Japanese alphabet.

Kanji

Chinese written signs are used to denote certain nouns, for the basics of adjectives, and for writing their own names. The meaning and type of reading kanji's character depends on how he got to Japan. As a rule, it still depends on its place in the sentence, from the context. For many written characters, there are more than ten types of reading. Read, in turn, you can use one of two systems. One is called onyemi, and its essence is that the hieroglyph is read in Chinese manner. The second is called kunyemi - pronunciation in accordance with the rules of primordially Japanese speech.

Hiragana

Original Japanese hieroglyphs and their meaning are transmitted using the Hiragana alphabet. Vowel sounds are present in it, except for one consonant - "h". These written signs are used to transform nouns and adjectives, borrowed from kanji. With the help of hiragana, prefixes, suffixes, endings are attributed. Very often, the hieroglyphs from this alphabet sound in colloquial speech and are found in Japanese correspondence. Also hiragana is a salvation for those who do not know kanji. There are many synonyms that can explain the meaning of morphemes unknown to some people, borrowed from the Chinese language.

Katakana

This primordially Japanese second alphabet is also used as an auxiliary alphabet. However, it does not intersect with kanji, unlike hiragana. If you do not know what the hieroglyph means, borrowed in Japanese from other Asian (except Chinese) languages, you can use one of the symbols relating to the alphabet of katakana for its semantic transmission. Also note that the written signs of this alphabet are used only as clues, and are much less common in colloquial speech than hiragana.

Interesting Facts

For every European person, the concept of what hieroglyphs are, how they are read and how to understand them, is a very difficult matter. However, in the middle of the last century, a certain Charles C. Bliss attempted to create a single hieroglyphic system of writing and speaking for the whole world, so that people, say, from France could freely communicate with the inhabitants of China. However, his attempts failed. But in Japan there is a certain kind of language called Romaji. This is the recording of words with the help of the Latin alphabet, which immediately gives us the opportunity to read the hieroglyph and correctly pronounce it.