Below you will find each of the individual words that made up the random grouping of Exercise II. The concrete meaning of each word is given. Did you get all the words? And was the general meaning you found close to the concrete meaning?

Word Concrete meaning Notes 1) bird The last sign is a determinative. 2) Sokar Name of a god. The last sign is a determinative. 3) boat The last sign is a determinative. 4) man The stroke before the determinative representing a man, is used as a space filler. 5) to rise The last sign is a determinative. 6) heaven, sky The last sign is a determinative. 7) to adore The last sign is a determinative. 8) child The last sign is a determinative. 9) to approach The last sign is a determinative. 10) hungry man This word is written with two determinatives. The first indicates an activity of the mouth or head (to be hungry), the second that the word refers to a man. 11) Ptah Name of a god. The last sign is a determinative. 12) to know The last sign is a determinative indicating something abstract. 13) joyful This word is written with two determinatives. The first indicates joy, the second an activity of the mouth or head. 14) people, mankind, Egyptians Strictly speaking, the man and the woman are two separate determinatives, with the three strokes indication a plural. 15) sun The last sign is a determinative. 16) royal child The last sign is a determinative. 17) Anubis Name of a god. The last sign is a determinative. 18) birds The second last sign is a determinative. The three strokes indicate a plural. 19) day The last sign is a determinative. 20) mouth The first sign is used as an ideogram and represents a mouth, the stroke is a determinative stroke that informs us that the first sign means what it represents. 21) bull The last sign is a determinative. 22) widow The second last sign indicates mourning, the last sign a woman. 23) animal hide The last sign is a determinative. 24) to row The last sign is a determinative. Note how the first sign also conveys the meaning of the word in this case. 25) house The stroke is a determinative stroke. 26) land The stroke is a space filler. 27) sun The stroke is a determinative stroke.

What else can you learn from this exercise?

• Take a look at the words with the numbers 16 and 17. One sign, the determinative, can make the difference between two words that are written in an almost identical manner. The phonetic part of the two words is identical and you can only derive their precise meaning from the determinative. This example shows a practical purpose of determinatives.
• Compare the words 15 and 27. Both have the same meaning. In fact, word 27 is just a variant writing of word 15. Egyptian hieroglyphs were a flexible way to write words, depending on the context, the available space, the preferences of the writer...
• Compare words 2, 11 and 17, or 5, 15 and 19. The same determinative can be used for words with a different meaning.