My knowledge of hieroglyphs is far beyond beginner but probably just short of intermediate. When I work on my flashcards I get to a point where I can walk around Egyptian temples and tombs and UK museums and translate texts very happily. The moment I slack, however, I forget just enough to make it a challenge to compose grammar with the appropriate words.
I went to a course many years ago with Dr José Pérez-Accino who described hieroglyphs as “teflon” (i.e. non stick) and I have always thought that he hit the nail on the head with that remark!
Learning hieroglyphs is a challenge but worth while. We are hoping to run a course here on Egyptological for beginners so if you feel that it is something you would like to do please let us know! We are interested in hearing not only from beginners but those who would like to revise.
By Andie
thanks, looking forward to the course,something ive always wanted to do.
hope my brain is up to it!!
And I’m hoping that my brain is up to producing a course that make hieroglyphs easy to get to grips with :-).
hi andy
any news on the hyroglyphics course?
regards
peter
any news on the course yet?
Hi Peter
We are planning to run an initial beginners’ course, starting in late January. It will consist of 10 lessons, plus two introductory chapters to set the scene. Our plan is to work from the first lesson onwards with real-world examples from the Petrie Museum, the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum, all in the UK (for the convenience, I confess, of the authors!). As usual, we will encourage people to reply to lessons with questions and comments, which will all help participants to get to grips with the subject.
A lot of courses use one of the several available texts as a focus, but in case readers want to test the waters without making a purchase there will be no need to buy a standard text at least for the first course. We’ll see what happens after the first one, and decide how to proceed from there.
If the initial beginners’ course is successful, we will use feedback to develop further courses, continuing to step up the levels indefinitely, just as long as there is interest.
Best
Andie
Definitely interested Andie and the choice of ‘texts’ sounds good too!
Hi
I have good experience to teach hieroglyphs ,I like to do this so much ,if somebody need help ,he can email me ,it will be so nice
Dear Mona and Peter
Andrea and I are together today to discuss the plans. We are keen to get this started – more news during August.
Kate
has this course started yet, and if so can you let me know where to find it,thanks.
Hi Kate/ Andie,
Great idea. When (attempting) translating texts, i tend to have up to 4 Hieroglyph books open (Mainly James. P. Allen). This is just the way i do things!!
What I’ve found useful are Hieroglyphic dictionaries. That way even the beginner has a chance of being able to translate a name/ place/ offering, etc.
A frustration is re- learning what a noun is, pronoun, adjective, etc. Then you have honorific transposition, phonetic complements and all these new phrases, which was enough to make me give up (initially). Perhaps these types of subjects can have their own area, for ease of reference- perhaps alongside flashcards or “quiz” areas.
Just early thoughts,
Stuart
I would be interested in learning how to read hieroglyphs . I look forward to it being available.
I’m very interested in learning to transliterate hieroglyphics to English. I’ve tried several times, but I always get stuck just a few pages in, when you have no choice but to stop and memorize 75+ transliterations with corresponding determinatives before you can proceed. That’s the big hurdle for me. I had hoped Allen’s book would be different.
I wish someone would write a book with an educational design that breaks in the student more methodically and slowly, (with vocab summaries, perhaps in digital format) building ‘sentences’ from 1 glyph, and then 2, 3, 4, etc., teaching new grammar rules as they apply along the way (with appropriate history lessons here and there).
Thanks for the feedback, Phil. Kate and I will be talking in a couple of weeks about how best to design a course that will suit everyone who has contacted us so far. You have given us some more good ideas to talk over.
I would be very interested in a hieroglyph course here Andie and Kate. I think it’s a subject best worked on with others! I’m currently struggling with the grammar, working through Collier and Manley and it takes some willpower to stick with it! Any level of input would be great!
There seems to be quite a bit of interest. Andrea and I have planning sessions later in the month and the course is on the list of things for us to discuss.
I would very much like to learn more hieroglyphs. I get back to it every now and then with numerous books, but I think with a course I would get a lot more out of it.
James
Thanks James, there seems to be good demand which is very helpful to know.
Hi James. I feel much the same way. I seem to get to grips with it and then get busy doing something else. By the time I’ve returned to the books I have lost some ground. As Kate says, it does seem that there is a demand for an online course so we will factor that into our plans for the future. Thanks very much for taking the time to comment. Andie.
Many thanks Marina. It is very useful to have this sort of feedback so that we can see if there is enough interest to run a course and to hear what sort of experience and needs people have. Very glad that you like the site. All the best, Andie.
At present I have recently started trying to learn Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs from a book…it is very good but sometimes I feel it might be nice to be following a formal or semi-formal course of study.
I would be interested to hear about any forthcoming course, so that I could consider it further.
Thanks a lot…and congratulations on an excellent website.
Marina