Egyptian uniliteral signs

TheEgyptian hieroglyphic scriptcontained 24 uniliterals (symbols that stood for single consonants, much likeEnglishletters) which today we associate with the 26 glyphs listed below. (Note that the glyph associated withw/ualso has ahieraticabbreviation.)

The traditionaltransliterationsystem shown on the left of the chart below is over a century old and is the one most commonly seen in texts. It includes several symbols such as3for sounds that were of unknown value at the time. Much progress has been made since, though there is still debate as to the details. For instance, it is now thought the3may have been analveolar lateral approximant ( "l" )in Old Egyptian that was lost by Middle Egyptian. The consonants transcribed asvoiced(d, g, dj)may actually have beenejectiveor, less likely,pharyngealizedlike the Arabicemphatic consonants.A good description can be found in Allen.For other systems of transliteration, seetransliteration of ancient Egyptian

Uniliteral signs
Sign		Traditionaltransliteration			Phonetic valuesper Allen (2000)
			Say	Notes	Old Egyptian	Middle Egyptian
	an Egyptian vulture	3	a	calledaleph, aglottal stop	[l]or[ɾ]	silent,[j],and[ʔ]
	a reed	ỉ	i/a	calledyodh	an initial or finalvowel;sometimes[j]
	a pair of reeds	y	y	doubleyodh	no record	[j]
	pair of strokes or river (?)
	an arm	ʾ	a	calledayin, avoiced pharyngeal fricative	perhaps[d]	[ʕ];[d]perhaps retained in some words and dialects
or	a quail chick or its hieratic abbreviation	w	w/u	calledwaw	[w]~[u]
	a lower leg	b	b		[b]~[β]
	a reed mat or stool	p	p		aspirated[pʰ]
	a horned viper	f	f		[f]
	an owl	m	m		[m]
	a ripple of water	n	n		[n]	[n],sometimes[l]
	a mouth	r	r		seeimage	[ɾ],sometimes[l] (always[l]in some dialects)
	a reed shelter	h	h		[h]
	a twisted wick	ḥ	h	an emphatich, avoiceless pharyngeal fricative	[ħ]
	a placenta	ḫ	kh	avoiceless velar fricative	[x]
	an animal belly with tail	ẖ	kh	a softer sound, avoiceless palatal fricative	[ç]
	a folded cloth	s	s	Old Egyptian sound for "door bolt"is unknown, but perhaps waszorth	[s]	[s]
	a door bolt				[θ]
or or	a garden pool	š	sh		[ʃ]
	slope of a hill	ḳorq	k	an emphatick, avoiceless uvular plosive	ejective[qʼ]
	a basket with a handle	k	k		aspirated[kʰ] in some words,palatalized[kʲ]
	a jar stand	g	g		ejective[kʼ]
	a bun	t	t		aspirated[tʰ]
	a tethering rope	ṯortj	ch	as in Englishchurch	palatalized[tʲ]or[ʧ]
	a hand	d	d		ejective[tʼ]
	a cobra	ḏordj	j	as in Englishjudge	ejective[tʲ’]or[ʧʼ]

Gardinerlists several variations:

Uniliteral signs
Sign		Traditionaltransliteration	Notes
	bag of linen	g	Appears in a few older words
	unknown (Possibly: Finger)	m	Originally biliteralim
	crown of Lower Egypt	n	Originally ideogramntfor 'crown of Lower Egypt'
	pestle	t	Originally biliteralti

See also

• Transliteration of ancient Egyptian
• Egyptian biliteral signs
• Egyptian triliteral signs
• List of hieroglyphs