Category Archives: Learn Egyptian
Egyptian for Kids Lesson 6: Animals and “Yoo”
The picture below shows a baby hartebeest, a type of African antelope. It is one of the hieroglyphs that sounds like the y in yes.
When you add it to the quail chick, you get yoo. Imagine a dog howling to remember how to say dog. YoooOOOOoooo!
You figured out by yourself that the dog picture was the determinative for dog, didn’t you? See if you can figure out the other determinatives.
As you can see, determinatives make understanding Egyptian easier. In fact, just as the cat determinative eventually became a short version of “Mioo”, many of the animals became short versions of themselves. You can think of it as the scribe version of texting.
There are tricks to remembering vocabulary, too. If “yoooOOOOoooo” is the long, sad howl of a dog, it might also sound like a person’s sad cry, a call for help from someone stranded on an island, and a sad cry when someone treats you badly.