hieroglyphic pronouns

Personal pronouns. Suffixes, dependent and independent. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, masc., fem., neut. With nouns. Demonstrative, vocative, interrogative. James P. Allen

Well this is fun in'nit. 

Shut up, it is. See? That there is vocative. (You) are (pro)voked, (e)voked, voked to shut up about it not being fun. 

I save these phrases for fun. It's how I know what all those things in the museum are actually saying and how I know when the curators are bullshitting. The phrases are put on individual files, cards if you like, and saved to a Coppermine photo gallery here.   Go on, have a look. I also have real cards, thousands of them, all hand drawn. There are so many it makes my hand hurt. Other times I type them using the codes for the symbols within the program JSesh which is free and is based on the Manuel de Codage, which in turn is based on Gardiner's system of classification. It's an international thing so everybody gets into the act.  


There are two ways to get at the code for a specific glyph, three actually. One way is by the Gardiner's classification and the other way is by the supposed phonetic corollary, if there is one, or the code for the sound if there is one. This is how Egyptologists converse through the mail, by using the code for the glyphs. It's like talking in code about another code. Very strange. And yet one can actually see the little pictures in one's mind as one reads because one has already used the same code to such an insane extent. The third way is by finding the little picture within a gigantic list of pictures and double clicking on it. They're organized according to Gardiner's list which has been greatly elaborated since Gardiner gave it his best go. Then there is additional code for the arrangement of glyphs within ligatures, which is the technical word for groups of glyphs. It is possible to move them around, shrink and expand them, flip them, 'x' out areas, turn them red.  The tricky bit is when there is no corresponding sign or code within the font file. In that case I rely on Photoshop to adapt something close. That happens a lot.  Like this down here, the word for 'wife.' Allen uses a glyph described in his book as 'pelvis and vulva,' gross, I know, listed as no. 280a under Gardiner's D. 'Parts of the Human Body'. But Gardiner himself does not list this symbol and neither does JSesh. So I used Gardiner's N42 (Sky, Earth, Water) symbol for water well because it is the same shape with the same little notches on it. all I had to do was provide the little central slit. Ewwww.   It would be so much easier if JSesh would just have D280a.  So there you go.

Incidentally, I tore up my James P Allen book. The doggone thing is just too heavy and too tight. So I tore off the covers and divided it into sections like I did all my school textbooks. It makes them a lot easier to manage but impossible to resell. In the end I'll bundle it all back and tie it with an old belt. The thing I don't like about the book is the type is too small. I must use a magnifying glass just to assure I'm looking up the right thing and that slows the process immeasurably almost unacceptably.



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