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Ripple of Water

Letโ€™s read some Hieroglyphs ๐“Šน๐“Œƒ๐“ช!

I decided to make another post about the โ€œRipple of Water ๐“ˆ–โ€ symbol since it has always been one of my favorites and my last post about it was over a year ago!ย 

The โ€œRipple of Water ๐“ˆ–โ€ is a uniliteral phonogram that has a sound like โ€œNโ€! This is the main usage of this symbol and it does not function like an ideogram or determinative which makes it super easy because you know you are looking at a phonogram symbol that is either part of a larger word or is just a word on its own!

The Ripple of Water
The Ripple of Water written three different ways.

In the picture ๐“๐“…ฑ๐“, I highlighted three ๐“ผ different types of hieroglyphs ๐“Šน๐“Œƒ๐“ช – painted, carved, and then Cursive Hieroglyphs which is kind of like a short hand hieroglyphs ๐“Šน๐“Œƒ๐“ช that is used on papyrus! The hieroglyphs ๐“Šน๐“Œƒ๐“ช that are most familiar to people are the ones that are either painted or carved! I love seeing the variations in the symbols across various ancient Egyptian art forms! 

While a simple symbol, the โ€œRipple of Water ๐“ˆ–โ€ has many uses in Middle Egyptian! On its own, ๐“ˆ– can mean: 

  • To
  • For
  • Of
  • Through
  • In
  • Because
  • Not/Cannot/No
  • Unless
  • They/We/Us/Our

Thatโ€™s a lot of words! When reading inscriptions ๐“Ÿ๐“›๐“ฅ, you can figure out the meaning based off of the context clues! The Ripple of Water ๐“ˆ–โ€ is so versatile it sometimes feels like the word/symbol means what you need it to mean to make the sentence flow! 

โ€œWe, us, and ourโ€ can also be written as: ๐“ˆ–๐“ฅ. โ€œTheyโ€ can be written as: ๐“ˆ–๐“ฎ or ๐“ˆ–๐“ญ. 

When the โ€œRipple of Water ๐“ˆ–โ€ is three stacked on top of each other โ€œ๐“ˆ—,โ€ itโ€™s actually a different symbol with a different meaning! The symbol is aptly named โ€œthree ripples of water ๐“ˆ—.โ€ It can function as a biliteral phonogram for the sound โ€œmw,โ€ and is both the ideogram and determinative for the word โ€œwater ๐“ˆ—.โ€

This is my personal photograph and original text. DO NOT repost. 

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