Egyptian words I remember,” he said. “I’ll be the first to admit that I need the dictionary more often than not, but . . .”
“You’re onto something, my good knight,” Stephen said, obviously in high spirits. “Now give us a good morning and let us finish the basic transcription before we go on.”
Neville agreed, and with Stephen helping him, it wasn’t long before the hieroglyphic text had been reduced to strings of letters broken into word groups.
TH GDS KRS BYDS BY TH BRYD KING DPRT NT INGLND FR DSRT WSTS DTH IS THR BWR TH GRINING WMN SFYNK.
“But it doesn’t make any sense!” Jenny protested. “There are too many consonants, not enough vowels.”
“Actually,” Stephen said, his good humor persisting, “there are no true vowels in written Egyptian. The Egyptians didn’t bother writing them, anymore than the Hebrews did.”
“And I bet they figured them out by context, right?” Jenny said. “I could write my name Jni Bnt and someone familiar with French or English might guess what to fill in.”
“That’s about how it went,” Stephen agreed. “I see you scowling at our humble transcription, thinking I’m teasing you again. The characters Neville and I keep filling in as an ‘I’ are technically weak consonants, but don’t let that bother you. I believe our writer here has included the feather to make his meaning more clear.”
“More clear?” Jenny asked dubiously.
“Well, he could have left it out altogether,” Stephen said. “He didn’t use the signs that might fill in for the letter ‘A’ for some reason. So, Neville, you’ve had time to study this. What do you make of it?”
“I think,” Neville replied, feeling his way toward what he had felt as he began to transcribe the text, “that this is not written in Egyptian, but in some other language—most probably English.”
“English!” Jenny said. “Show me what you mean.”
Neville pointed to a word about a third into the transcribed text.
“That for one. It says ‘king’ as clear as anything. The one three words later could be ‘England’ without too great a stretch of the imagination.”
“Inglnd,” Jenny said, sounding it through. “There’s no hieroglyph for ‘E,’ right? Anyhow, we don’t so much say ‘eh’ as ‘ih.’ Ln-d sure does look like ‘land,’ though I suppose it could be ‘lend.’ ”
“Think like an Egyptian,” Stephen urged. “What makes sense is probably what we want. Shall we start at the beginning?”
“I’ll wager that ‘T-H’ is ‘the,’ ” Neville said without hesitation. “It occurs several times in the text.”
“Gods!” Jenny exclaimed, nearly shouting her discovery. “The next word is ‘gods.’ ”
“Now, K-R-S doesn’t look like much,” Stephen said, “but take a page from our Germanic cousins. Don’t look at it, sound it through.”
“Krs,” Jenny said obediently. Then her eyes widened. “Curse!”
“That’s my guess, too,” Stephen said. “We must remember that English is completely illogical and we have hard C’s that sound like K’s and soft C’s that sound like S’s. Our correspondent here is giving us phonetic equivalents.”
“I think,” Neville said, “that this is why he didn’t use the character for ‘A.’ As I recall, the Egyptians didn’t have a character that differentiated between the long and short forms of the vowel, while a long ‘I’ sounds like ‘Y’—which was represented by the doubled feather character.”
“The letter Y is long ‘I,’ ” Jenny murmured. “That means the next word is ‘bides.’ ”
Using these rules, they quickly translated the remainder, with only a few words causing them to pause long enough for the ink in Stephen’s pen to blot.
THE GODS CURSE BIDES BY THE BURIED KING DEPART NOT ENGLAND FOR DESERT WASTES DEATH IS THERE BEWARE THE GRINNING WOMAN SPHINX.
“I admire this manner of spelling,” Jenny said, comparing the original to their transcription. “It makes
“You’re onto something, my good knight,” Stephen said, obviously in high spirits. “Now give us a good morning and let us finish the basic transcription before we go on.”
Neville agreed, and with Stephen helping him, it wasn’t long before the hieroglyphic text had been reduced to strings of letters broken into word groups.
TH GDS KRS BYDS BY TH BRYD KING DPRT NT INGLND FR DSRT WSTS DTH IS THR BWR TH GRINING WMN SFYNK.
“But it doesn’t make any sense!” Jenny protested. “There are too many consonants, not enough vowels.”
“Actually,” Stephen said, his good humor persisting, “there are no true vowels in written Egyptian. The Egyptians didn’t bother writing them, anymore than the Hebrews did.”
“And I bet they figured them out by context, right?” Jenny said. “I could write my name Jni Bnt and someone familiar with French or English might guess what to fill in.”
“That’s about how it went,” Stephen agreed. “I see you scowling at our humble transcription, thinking I’m teasing you again. The characters Neville and I keep filling in as an ‘I’ are technically weak consonants, but don’t let that bother you. I believe our writer here has included the feather to make his meaning more clear.”
“More clear?” Jenny asked dubiously.
“Well, he could have left it out altogether,” Stephen said. “He didn’t use the signs that might fill in for the letter ‘A’ for some reason. So, Neville, you’ve had time to study this. What do you make of it?”
“I think,” Neville replied, feeling his way toward what he had felt as he began to transcribe the text, “that this is not written in Egyptian, but in some other language—most probably English.”
“English!” Jenny said. “Show me what you mean.”
Neville pointed to a word about a third into the transcribed text.
“That for one. It says ‘king’ as clear as anything. The one three words later could be ‘England’ without too great a stretch of the imagination.”
“Inglnd,” Jenny said, sounding it through. “There’s no hieroglyph for ‘E,’ right? Anyhow, we don’t so much say ‘eh’ as ‘ih.’ Ln-d sure does look like ‘land,’ though I suppose it could be ‘lend.’ ”
“Think like an Egyptian,” Stephen urged. “What makes sense is probably what we want. Shall we start at the beginning?”
“I’ll wager that ‘T-H’ is ‘the,’ ” Neville said without hesitation. “It occurs several times in the text.”
“Gods!” Jenny exclaimed, nearly shouting her discovery. “The next word is ‘gods.’ ”
“Now, K-R-S doesn’t look like much,” Stephen said, “but take a page from our Germanic cousins. Don’t look at it, sound it through.”
“Krs,” Jenny said obediently. Then her eyes widened. “Curse!”
“That’s my guess, too,” Stephen said. “We must remember that English is completely illogical and we have hard C’s that sound like K’s and soft C’s that sound like S’s. Our correspondent here is giving us phonetic equivalents.”
“I think,” Neville said, “that this is why he didn’t use the character for ‘A.’ As I recall, the Egyptians didn’t have a character that differentiated between the long and short forms of the vowel, while a long ‘I’ sounds like ‘Y’—which was represented by the doubled feather character.”
“The letter Y is long ‘I,’ ” Jenny murmured. “That means the next word is ‘bides.’ ”
Using these rules, they quickly translated the remainder, with only a few words causing them to pause long enough for the ink in Stephen’s pen to blot.
THE GODS CURSE BIDES BY THE BURIED KING DEPART NOT ENGLAND FOR DESERT WASTES DEATH IS THERE BEWARE THE GRINNING WOMAN SPHINX.
“I admire this manner of spelling,” Jenny said, comparing the original to their transcription. “It makes
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