How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-by-Step Guide to Teach Yourself, Revised Edition

I recently received this book and I really must say it is a great book. I am no expert; in fact, I bought this book because I am a complete beginner and I from what I saw in reviews of various books I felt this was the most appropriate text for beginning with the study of egyptian hieroglyphs. I have already gone through the first chapters and I am glad to say it is very pleasant to learn hieroglyphs from this book: the pace is quite natural and slow, they present to you just as much words and phrases as you need in each chapter so you can try to memorize them slowly, and even though the book is short, it presents a lot of information in a very condensed manner, so after just a couple of chapters so feel as though you have learned a lot of things, while never failing to enjoy your reading or getting bored. It is almost as being in class with a really enjoyable professor. The excursus sections are also quite enjoyable to read and they always have much to do with the concepts introduced in their chapter. The exercises, like everything else in this book, were thought up very well, and they really put your grasp on the concepts to the test. I could go on hightlighting specific aspects of this book, but I believe I already said all the important ones. In terms of content, presentation, and overall quality as a educational text I give this book a solid 5/5. I believe that this book should work perfectly as a stepping stone between the beginner aspiring to learn the egyptian language and the more complex/more scholarly text from authors such as Allen, and give him/her the necessary understanding to be able to actually use other drier materials as sign lists, translations books, and dictionaries. Now, something that did somehow take the smile off my face was that a couple of the beautiful golden letters that spell "hieroglyphs" in the front cover started peeling away after three or four days. It's not enough to actually take away some of my fondness towards the book, but it is indeed something that should be noted. However, I know this is not the authors' fault and so I will not take it into account when giving out the stars because this book is really too good to give it something less than 5 stars.

_How To Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs_ is an excellent starting place for anyone wanting to learn the fundamentals of transliterating and translating hieroglyphs. The first chapter is a bit overwhelming, (the authors want students to jump in feet first), but the strucutre of the language is quickly and clearly explained. Each exercise has an answer key at the end of the book for you to check your work, which I found to be invaluable. The vocabulary lists similarly help in working through the translation and transliteration of tombs, monuments and cartouches. The grammar - and the explanation of how it works in ancient Egyptian - is what really sets this text apart from others on the subject. Tenses, verb forms and prepositions are clearly explained and modeled. A cautionary note: if you have not learned another language (or if its been awhile since you last studied language), this will be difficult - perhaps very difficult - to pick up. As with any serious study of language, perseverence, practice and patience will pay off, and Collier and Manley do a tremendous job of breaking down the rules of the language. That is not to say that the book is not without its flaws. Some of the images of inscriptions are of very poor quality - they almost look as if they are third or fourth generation photocopies such is the degeneration of the images; some are of such poor quality to make them illegible. (Fortunately their catalogue number at the British Museum is provided allowing one to look them up on line.) While the vocabularly lists are comprehensive, the authors do have a tendency to provide terms, and especially epithets of gods, outside of the vocab lists, and then expect readers to recollect them for translation much later in the book. In the final analysis, this is far and away the best introductory text on the language. When completed, students should (at the very least) be able to read the funerary inscriptions found on most tombs, (the Htp d nsw) and will be in an excellent position to begin more complex study. Highly recommended.

This is a great book if you're going on a tour of Egypt and want to learn a little about hieroglyphics so you won't be completely illiterate while exploring the tombs - your guide on any official tour should be able to read them, but won't have time to explain everything. You won't get bogged down for months - it's geared for words and phrases you are likely to find in tombs. I studied the first three chapters then scanned and combined the tables in the back of the book into a two-sided, one-page cheat sheet to carry with me into the tombs. It made my trip much more enjoyable and people on our tour were always asking me what it said next to an interesting drawing - I could usually get at least the gist of it: "He's making an offering of beer and other things to a god...", etc. A great example is when our tour was at Luxor, in the Temple of Karnak, and I noticed that on many of those large pillars (it's a "forest" of pillars without a roof) the hieroglyphics for "life" (the ankh) and "give" (a tiny triangle in an isosceles triangle) were repeated over and over at ever higher places as you walked around the pillar. The temple was dedicated to the god Amun Re. Suddenly, I realized the meaning: while following those words, your eyes were being lifted to Amun Re, the Sun god, who "gave life" - it was as if someone from over 3000 years ago suddenly reached out and talked to me.

I was glad that I started this book with a little background (the Great Courses: Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs), because I still found the last few chapters of Collier and Manley's book quite challenging, especially the participles and the future forms (sdmty.fy). That last chapter was a doozy. The positives: 1) Organized layout 2) Exercises for practice 3) Answer key in the back (thank goodness!) 4) actual stelas you might find in a museum The negatives: 1) Tiny, tiny print of the hierogylphs! They could definitely have benefited from a slightly larger font size. 2) A few pictures of the actual stelas were almost unreadable. The second picture that I posted above is an example of this. To read that one, I actually had to google the stela number and print an "easier to read" copy off the internet.

I first learned some Middle Egyptian (with hieroglyphs) some 60 years ago at age 12. I was still able to decipher monumental inscriptions (as in: The Great King smote the Evil Foe in Foreign Lands) on an trip to Egypt a couple of years ago. Since the original textbook by E.A. Wallis Budge , published at the turn of the last century, there have been advances in linguistic theory, and interpretation of hieroglyphs, as well as didactic method. This book is greatly appreciated, useful either as a first introduction or as a refresher/review. Note that ancient Egyptian is an Afro-Asiatic language, ancestral to modern Coptic, and very distantly related to the Semitic languages (e.g., Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew). Might also come in handy should you encounter a REALLY OLD Egyptian.

Bought this a a gift for a friend, who after a trip to Egypt wanted to learn Hieroglyphics. It is an easy to learn from book..

If you are looking to purchase a Beginning book on Egyptian Hieroglyphs, then I highly recommend this book along with Charles E. Nichols. They both would give you complete understanding on the Hieroglyphs. I've mentioned in my review of Charles E. Nichols that I find it exciting that when I watch a TV program on Egyptian Civilization, I can read the hieroglyphs and I am sometimes even more accurate than the person who is interpreting the language! This book will start you off slowly and work you all the way up to advance stages. You can read this book alone and will have more knowledge than some of those who actually think they are advanced. Mark Collier does an exceptional job at covering a difficult language like Egyptian Hieroglyphs and presenting it in the simplest form and if you are a beginner, you can't ask for more. You won't find another one like this. After studying this book as well as Charles E. Nichol's, I highly, highly recommend "Middle Egyptian Second Edition By James P. Allen". His book is the very best on the Hieroglyphs. Keep in mind that his is for the advanced even though He does go back over the beginning stages to bring you up on the subject. Those students majoring in Egyptology in Universities as Stanford, University of California Berkeley, Cal Poly, and the Ivy League would study his book. So you definitely can't go wrong.

As stated a few times, this is far from a comprehensive overview of Hieroglyphics, but it's perfect for the absolute beginner. It uses the standard transliteration and covers the needed symbols for each lesson. It mainly sticks to standard formulas, but that restrained scope works well for not getting too complex for beginners. I kept a notebook handy and recorded vocabulary and lesson exercises as I worked through the chapters. It felt like fun work, and when you are able to read off a whole deity offering, it's satisfying. You won't be proficient at grammar, and since it only uses genuine examples, I felt like there were a few places where the author could have constructed examples to illustrate a grammatical concept. There were times towards the end where I know I had some outstanding questions. Overall I enjoyed it, and it was nice for a first attempt. I will be moving on to other books after this to dig deeper into the grammar.

livraison parfaite à tous points de vue. Article arrivé en très bon état.

An amazing introduction to the ancient egyptian language, makes it easier to understande than never.

This book is awesome! The presentation is great, with shiny cover and protected in plastic. The contents are so practical and clear! I could have never imagine a book on hieroglyph being this easy to learn.

J'ai appris à lire les hiéroglyphes parce que j'avais toujors rêvé de le faire. Ce livre de Collier et Manley a sa place dans cet apprentissage. Cela dit, je le recommanderais pas comme livre d'introduction aux hiéroglyphes. Pour deux raisons : A ) ce livre m'a semblé porter sur des sujets "de spécialisation". En effet, je trouve que ce livre ne débute pas par la présentation générale et progressive des hiéroglyphes les plus communs. Il y a entre 500 et 700 hiéroglyphes, plus encore si on tient compte des époques plus récentes. Ça fait beaucoup à apprendre et ce n'est pas nécessaire de tous les apprendre d'un coup. Il faut vraiment y aller progressivement pour ne pas se décourager. Et puis il y a les mots à apprendre : inutile de tout apprendre en même temps non plus. B) l'autre raison en est une de prof, je suppose : les exercices viennent avec les réponses sur la page d'à côté. Oui, ça facilite grandement le processus, mais je dirais que c'est trop facile : pas besoin de trop réfléchir... ni de trop apprendre. J'ai trouvé que ce livre semble s'adresser à des apprenants intermèdiaires, ceux et celles avec une base d'introduction, justement. Par exemple, dès le chapitre 2, il est question des noms des pharaons qu'il s'agit d'écrire. C'est trop vite : il vaudrait mieux apprendre les mots plus courts de la vie quotidienne. Dès le chapitre 4, le livre introduit les conjugaisons des verbes. Tout cela est utile à savoir, mais dès le début? Ma démarche a commencé avec le livre de Janice Kamrin : ancient egyptian hieroglyphs (en anglais). A ce sujet, les francophones n'ont pas forcément à utiliser un livre en anglais parce qu'il y a de la documentation en français. Pour revenir au livre de Kamrin, il a été pour moi un excellent livre d'introduction parce que l'auteure a décidé de présenter quelques hiéroglyphes sans toujours dire à quelles lettres ils correspondaient (elle l'a fait au cours du livre). Elle a commencé à enseigner des mots courts et simples de la vie quotidienne : père, mère etc, pain, amour, eau, tête, force etc. À la fin, elle a enseigné environ 200 hiéroglyphes. Mais son livre a une autre qualité pas toujours appréciée à sa juste valeur : son livre semble désordonné, ce qui oblige l'apprenante à structurer le savoir et à chercher les réponses parmi des pages et des pages ( leur nombre augmente progressivement). Et c'est ce travail cognitif qui amène progressivement à retenir la matière. Bien sûr, ça implique d'écrire une multitude d'indications et de précisions dans le bord des pages, mais cela aide à s'appropier le contenu du livre. A la fin du livre de Kamrin, l'auteure suggère le livre de Collier et Manley pour faire suite à son livre. Et là, c'est une très bonne suggtestion, parce que le contenu de Collier est clairement un complément du livre de Kamrin. En effet, les noms des pharaons et la conjugaison des verbes n'avaient pas été suffisammment présentés par le livre de Kamrin. Et puis, le livre de Collier est tellement plus ordonné et facile comparativement à celui de Kamrin. Cela dit, il faut retenir que je l'ai abordé après des mois d'apprentissage et de travail dans le livre de Kamrin : je savais utiliser la longue liste des hiéroglyphes et je savais déjà chercher dans une liste de mots. Mais je savais surtout comment retrouver une information sans abandonner à la première difficulté. Cela dit, à la fin de leur livre, Collier et Manley suggèrent de poursuivre notre apprentissage en utilisant le livre de James Allen : Middle Egyptian, an introduction to the language and culture of hieroglyphs. Ce livre est tout sauf une introduction. Ce livre est édité par l'Université de Cambridge et il y est dit qu'il s'adresse aux futurs égyptologues. Allen présente les principales règles de grammaire. Ce livre est extrêmement bien pensé et "complet". Ce que l'on savait déjà est complexifié à souhait... mais ça reste compréhensible! À la fin de son livre en anglais, Allen dit que pour continuer notre apprentissage, il faut apprendre le français et l'allemand pour avoir accès aux nombreuses publications spécialisées dans le but de se pratiquer encore et encore à traduire les textes ancients.

I bought this book as a follow-on from the author's previous book Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Beginners. I was not disappointed in its content and the level at which it is pitched. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning sufficient hieroglyphs to be able to understand Egyptian items held in museums.