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Writing

Amenophis III

Ask Amenophis:
  Did the Egyptians have an alphabet?  
  What did the Egyptians write with?  

Amenophis says:

 
 
There are no vowels in hieroglyhic writing! Vowels are the letters <i>a</i>, <i>e</i>, <i>i</i>, <i>o</i>, and <i>u</i>. You can't pronounce words without them, but the Egyptians left them out in writing. Modern Arabic and Hebrew are also written without vowels. They probably learned this trick from the Egyptians.

Egyptian writing is made up of pictures, each of which is called a "hieroglyph". Hieroglyphs are pictures of animals, people, buildings, tools, food, and other things which were familiar to the Egyptians.

Each hieroglyph represents one or more letters. The Egyptians wrote words by using these letters.

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