Nile Valley Hieroglyphs & More

Learn Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Hieratic, Demotic, Coptic, Old Nubian, and Meroitic scripts!

The Egyptian language was written in different ways over the many, many years of its use. Hieroglyphs were used for monumental inscriptions, while a cursive form called hieratic ("priestly writing") developed and was also used. The way Hieratic was written changed over time, and different scribes had their own unique styles. Later on, another cursive form called Demotic ("the people's writing") developed. In the latest stages of the Egyptian language, a new alphabetic writing system called Coptic developed under influence from Greek. Individual hieroglyphs, as well as the Hieratic and Demotic signs derived from them, can represent one or more sounds. In addition to sounds, there can also some used as "determinatives," which give important information about the word. And finally, sometimes a hieroglyph actually just represents the thing it is a picture of! In this case there is usually a special mark to indicate such. This app can be used to quickly familiarize yourself with common hieroglyphs and their associated sounds, but is best used as a supplement to a course or book. In its later years, the Egyptian language was written in the Coptic alphabet, which developed under Greek influence. This alphabet was adopted and added to by the Nubians when they adopted Christianity. These new letters came from another ancient Nubian writing system called Meroitic, which has both hieroglyphic and cursive forms.

Access each writing system from the menu, and study the glyphs/letters then test yourself with our quiz game!

In the future, we hope to include common biliterals, triliterals, determinatives and more to help you with your studying!