Hieroglyphs
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"Hieroglyphics" redirects here. For the hip hop group, see Hieroglyphics (band).
Hieroglyphs or hieroglyphics can be
- characters from a logographic or partly logographic writing system, such as
- Egyptian hieroglyphs
- Anatolian hieroglyphs (also known as Luwian hieroglyphs)
- Cretan hieroglyphs
- Mayan hieroglyphs (the best known of about half a dozen documented Mesoamerican writing systems)
- Mí'kmaq hieroglyphic writing
- colloquially, any handwritten characters which are difficult to read or decipher. (For example: "Bob, can you tell me what you've written here? I can't understand your hieroglyphics").
[edit] Etymology
from the Greek words ἱερός (hierós 'sacred') and γλύφειν (glúphein 'to carve' or 'to write', see glyph), and was first used to describe Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Greeks who came to Egypt prior to and during the Ptolemaic Period (305 BC - 30 BC) observed that while [[sometimes simply dropped the "letters" part, calling them τά ἱερογλυφικά 'the hieroglyphics' ('letters' being understood).
Although the adjective "hieroglyphics" is still used today by some as a noun, and can add a humorous and informal tone (such as in the above example, in relation to remarks about the unreadability of a person's handwriting), this practice is technically incorrect.
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