“It is your choice,” Khase replied readily, pleased with the intelligence of the question. “Generally you would write the ideogram, or spell it out phonetically with the determinative or determinatives. It is common to use multiple determinatives. The only time that a word should be written phonetically without its accepted determinatives would be if the determinatives do not fit on the object or page they are being written on.” He smiled wryly. “As I said, spelling is often sacrificed for aesthetics. You are unlikely to be writing the ancient language on any lasting monuments, however, so you should always spell a word with the determinatives, or as an ideogram where appropriate.”
Danny’s second question pre-empted what Khasekhemwy had been about to say next. He’d definitely made the right move in picking this kid. Noticeably more at ease now than when Danny had entered the room (it helped that he’d forgotten the tiger was there), Khase flicked through a few pages of the book to show some lines of the ancient language printed on the page.
“The easiest way to determine how to read a text is to look for any glyphs depicting animals or people,” he pointed to one showing a quail chick. “Animals and people will always face the direction you need to read from. This chick is looking to the left, so you know you need to read this text from left to right. Because of the top to bottom but never bottom to top rule, you also know that where characters are on top of one another within the same line, you read the top one first. If there are no animals or people to give you a clue, look for a word you recognise and determine from that the direction in which to read.
“Ideograms are easy to recognise, because they are always accompanied by an ideogram stroke.” Khase flicked a few more pages and pointed to the glyph of a donkey. Just under the donkey was a single, vertical line. “So you know that this word says ‘donkey’. Incidentally, the word for ‘donkey’ in the ancient language is a’a; an ayin and an aleph. Phonetically, it is written like this.” He thumbed through several more pages and landed almost instantly on the one he wanted. His speed at finding the right pages indicated how well he knew the book. “This first character is a biliteral sign. Uniliteral signs are signs which have one sound, as you have just learned; biliteral signs have two sounds, and triliteral have three. Biliteral signs are the most commonly used in the ancient language. This is the biliteral sign for the ayin followed by the aleph, a’a. This next sign, the erect penis, is a determinative.” He pointed at it. “And this last sign, the donkey, is also a determinative.”
It was a mark of how little Khase understood young children that he said ‘erect penis’ quite calmly, assuming no reaction or silliness.
“We will write some more of the ancient language next week,” he added. “This week I want you to memorise the uniliteral signs and the rules of the language I have just taught you. That will make starting to write easier. For now, we will move on to the essential spoken words and phrases. Some you may know already. You are aware of fairy rens?” He paused long enough to give Danny a chance to answer. “Ren is a word in the ancient language meaning ‘name’ or ‘identity’. The place you know as ‘Sebauza Ruins’ is partially constructed with the ancient language; sebauza means ‘a male original fairy’. It is derived from the words seba, meaning ‘star’, and za, meaning ‘son’. So ‘Sebauza Ruins’ literally means ‘the ruins of the son of the stars’.”
khasekhemwy
patron deity of palestine
|
|
