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The hieroglyph alphabet: 24 signs and their sounds
6 October 2026
The hieroglyph alphabet is the set of 24 signs that each write a single consonant, from the Egyptian vulture (ꜣ) to the cobra (ḏ, said dj). Learn these first: most royal names and everyday words use them.
The list is a modern one. Egyptian scribes mixed these signs with hundreds of others that write two or three consonants, whole words or silent categories, and they wrote no vowels. Egyptologists pulled the one-consonant signs out and put them in a fixed order, the one below.
The 24 signs in Egyptological order
Each line gives the picture, its Gardiner code, the consonant as Egyptologists write it and a rough English sound.
- Egyptian vulture (G1): ꜣ, a glottal stop, read a
- Flowering reed (M17): i, read i or a
- Forearm (D36): ꜥ, a deep throat sound, read a
- Quail chick (G43): w, read w or u
- Foot (D58): b
- Stool (Q3): p
- Horned viper (I9): f
- Owl (G17): m
- Ripple of water (N35): n
- Mouth (D21): r
- Reed shelter (O4): h
- Twisted flax wick (V28): ḥ, a strong h
- Placenta (Aa1): ḫ, kh as in loch
- Belly with udder (F32): ẖ, kh as in ich
- Door bolt (O34): z, later s
- Folded cloth (S29): s
- Pool (N37): š, sh
- Sandy hill (N29): q, a k deep in the throat
- Basket with handle (V31): k
- Jar stand (W11): g, hard as in go
- Bread loaf (X1): t
- Tethering rope (V13): ṯ, tj as in church
- Hand (D46): d
- Cobra (I10): ḏ, dj as in jump
Sounds English does not have
Several signs look like doubles of each other. They were distinct sounds. The reed shelter is a plain h and the twisted wick a stronger ḥ from the throat. The placenta is the kh of Scottish loch, the belly with udder a softer kh, closer to German ich.
Three more come in pairs: k and a deeper q, t and tj, d and dj. The door bolt began as z; in Middle Egyptian it merged with the s of the folded cloth, so scribes came to use the two signs for the same sound.
The vulture and the forearm are both read 'a' today, but both were consonants. The vulture was probably a glottal stop by Middle Egyptian times, the forearm most likely a sound like Arabic ʿayn.
Missing letters and a 25th sign
There is no sign for l or v, and none for e or o. When Greek kings arrived, scribes wrote the l of Ptolemaios and Kleopatra with the recumbent lion (E23), a sign that otherwise reads rw.
A y sound is written with two strokes (Z4) or with two reeds side by side. Some charts add it as a 25th letter. In Ptolemy's cartouche the double reed writes the y of Ptolemaios.
Spelling an English name
Spell the name as it sounds, one sign per sound. Nora, for instance, could be the ripple of water for n, the quail chick for the o, the mouth for r and the vulture for the final a.
Sounds the list lacks get the nearest sign. A common choice is the horned viper (f) for v, the lion for l, and the loaf (t) or the tethering rope (tj) for an English th.
Scribes left most vowels out of Egyptian words. For a modern name, writing each vowel with the vulture, the reed or the quail chick makes it easier for friends to read, and that is how the Ptolemaic scribes treated Greek names.
Beyond the 24
The alphabet gets you names. Texts lean just as heavily on signs for two or three consonants, such as the ankh (S34, ꜥnḫ, ankh, 'life') or the heart and windpipe (F35, nfr, nefer, 'good'). These signs often bring alphabet signs along to confirm their sound, so knowing the 24 helps there too.
Drawing each sign from memory fixes it faster than looking at a chart. The scribe school grades your drawing and repeats the signs you miss.
Questions
Did the Egyptians invent the alphabet?
Indirectly. The earliest known alphabet, from Sinai and Egypt in the first half of the second millennium BC, borrowed hieroglyph pictures to write a Semitic language one sound per sign. Through Phoenician it led to the Greek and Latin letters used today.
Why do alphabet charts show different signs for the same letter?
Charts for writing names map English letters onto Egyptian sounds and have to choose: c can be k or s, and both the vulture and the forearm stand for a. Some also use the coil (Z7), a later form of the quail chick, for w.
Is the Coptic alphabet the same as the hieroglyph alphabet?
No. Coptic, the last stage of Egyptian, was written with the Greek alphabet plus six or seven letters taken from Demotic, the late everyday script. It wrote vowels, which hieroglyphs never did for Egyptian words.
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More to read
- Did the Egyptians write vowels? Did hieroglyphs have vowels? No: they wrote consonants only. Why Egyptologists say nefer, and how Coptic and Babylonian tablets keep the real vowels.
- Determinatives: the silent signs that tell you what a word means Hieroglyph determinatives are silent signs that classify a word. Learn to spot them in real Egyptian spellings and see how they work.
- What is a cartouche, and why kings put their names in one What is a cartouche? The oval rope ring around an Egyptian king's name. Where it came from, which two names it held, and how to read one.