Talk:Hieratic

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What is the DIRECTION of writing? right to left? left to right? vertical? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.7.247.24 (talk) 13:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Suggested Changes
Re: standardisation of horizontal writing. "This may have been to prevent the scribe's hand from smudging his work (1), but it also may have been to facilitate easier consultation of a rolled document, as well as increasing writing speed (2)."

Argument: Author makes invalid speculation (1) and (2). Proposed action: Delete this line.

1. Smudging of work has nothing to do with vertical or horizontal scripting. It is caused by the direction of the script between left and right conflicting with the hand used by the writer. It will happen in all forms of writing where the stylus is grasped close to the page and this conflict occurs. A typical example occurs in classrooms (left > right script) when a left-handed person writes English in pen and smudges their work. If the same person wrote in vertical script their writing would still smudge unless the ink dried rapidly because the columns still would run left>right and the writing hand would still brush over the existing writing. Smudging would similarly occur if a right handed person wrote right>left either horizontally or vertically without due care.

2. The author's argument is only true if a scribe using vertical script would orient their 'page' in portrait format, rather than in landscape. By changing the page layout to a (horizontally scrolling) landscape format when using vertical script, there is essentially no difference in the speed by which one may draft or consult a rolled document. This layout has the same advantages as horizontal script in a (vertically scrolling) portrait layout so long as the reader/writer is equally familiar with both. HMS DigDug (talk) 01:44, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Reassessment
Well, the article has improved a lot, but it is still "start" class. It is still missing important information, such as how the script actually records the language (how similar is it to hieroglyphics?) and the "influence" section needs to be finished. An article can only be "B" class when all but the most minute details have been included. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:38, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Image removed
The image to the left indicates left-to-right writing, which seems like erroneous: the src at omniglot.com claims that Hieratic was right-to-left writing. The image is misleading, so I removed it from the article. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 10:40, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Confusing definition and interrelation with cursive hieroglyphics
This article has three major problems: These three issues mean that the article is very confusing. I would try to fix it alone but I am not an expert in this. Oncenawhile (talk) 17:49, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) it says Hieratic is primarily an Abjad, which to my mind at least is a gross oversimplification. If I understand it correctly, the Abjad component came to the fore only in the late forms of the hieratic script. I don't have a source for this other than what is implied at History of the alphabet.
 * 2) it goes to great lengths to clarify the separation from cursive hieroglyphs, despite many works defining the latter as simply "Old Hieratic" or "Archaic Heiratic" (e.g. UCL here, Georg Moller here, and a book on Abusir here)
 * 3) it is silent on the various forms of Hieratic over its long period the term is used to cover (e.g. the UCL and George Moller links above)


 * Neither am I. I looked at the relevant entries in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt: "Scripts: An Overview" by Eugene Cruz-Uribe, "Script: Hieroglyphs" by David P. Silverman, and "Scripts: Hieratic" by Edward F. Wente. They say a little about issue #3. They don't directly say that hieratic was not an abjad, but they do say that hieratic corresponded fairly closely to hieroglyphic—which means it could not have been a pure abjad, because hieroglyphic script was not.


 * As for #3, the entries are confusing. Cruz-Uribe refers to cursive hieroglyphs: "It should be noted that a sub-script known as 'cursive hieroglyphs' was used. This sub-script appears to be closely tied to hieroglyphs, but it utilizes forms that are somewhat reminiscent of Hieratic. Some scholars suggest that this script was restricted in use in official religious texts and the training of scribes. This suggestion has some merit, since this sub-script continued in use up through the New Kingdom; however, one finds examples of it in some contexts, such as graffiti, that suggest more widespread use" (vol. III, pp. 194–195). The article on hieroglyphs doesn't explicitly use the term "cursive hieroglyphs", but it says: "In addition to these three scripts [hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic], yet another variety emerged from the Middle Kingdom on; it was employed in the writing of the funerary texts that we now call Coffin Texts and the Book of Going Forth by Day (Book of the Dead). Such texts, written in ink on wooden coffins and later on papyrus rolls, are in a script that is less pictorial than hieroglyphs but maintains the latter's basic iconic features" (vol. III, p. 198).


 * The article on hieratic says at one point, "The Middle Kingdom witnessed the development of a marked distinction between the clear uncial script and the more rapidly executed cursive business hand. Under Hyksos domination, good uncial Hieratic is exhibited in the literary Papyrus Westcar and a mathematical treatise" (vol. III, p. 209). I looked up images of P. Westcar, and its text is more hieroglyph-like than the typical swooshy hieratic, but not as much as the example at cursive hieroglyphs. But a little later, the article says: "Following the Ramessid period, the split between the clear uncial Hieratic, used mainly for religious texts, and the extremely cursive script of administrative documents becomes acute, making it difficult to discern the relationship of the two scripts. Religious documents, such as the Book of Going Forth by Day, reflect a phase in which the Hieratic is clearly influenced by hieroglyphic forms—indeed, occasional signs in these texts are quite clearly hieroglyphs" (vol. III, pp. 209–210). And when I looked at images of post-Ramessid Books of the Dead, some use what look to me like cursive hieroglyphs and others use hieratic. The Book of the Dead of Pinedjem II seems to use both in different places. So cursive hieroglyphs and uncial hieratic seem to blur the boundaries between hieroglyphic and hieratic, but the OEAE articles don't explicitly say so. A. Parrot (talk) 20:24, 27 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi A. Parrot, that's really good insight and very interesting, thank you.
 * I am in full agreement with your conclusion, which ties to the other sources I reviewed - i.e. that the boundary between cursive hieroglyphics and hieratic appears to be blurred (and possibly defined differently by different scholars), but I haven't yet seen a source which explains this clearly enough to use to clean up the article.
 * I'll keep looking. Oncenawhile (talk) 04:47, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Jim in Mission (talk) 17:54, 23 October 2014 (UTC) I'm new to this so please forgive my errors; I'm of the older generation. I wanted to point out that Mr Allen's book, explains the difference between cursive hieroglyphs and hieratic very well on page 6, with illustrations which show how different they are. Hieratic is much more abstract than cursive hieroglyphs. He says, "Hieratic was written with a reed brush and ink, usually on papyrus, and always written from right to left." Thanks for all the interesting reading that you and others have provided. For free. Jim in Mission (talk) 17:54, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Removed "Reformed Egyptian"
I removed the link for "Reformed Egyptian" from "See Also," as this is not an actual language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sasquatchwithalopecia (talk • contribs) 18:12, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Seems reasonable. Doug Weller  talk 19:11, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Removed font section
Hello. I removed your Hieratic and Demotic (Egyptian) additions because adding an entire section describing an external link isn't acceptable Wikipedia practice. Per External links: "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links), but they should not normally be placed in the body of an article." I don't know if you're associated with the fonts but the sections come off as WP:PROMOTION. If these aren't your fonts (per WP:ADV), and you feel they fall under the guidelines of what can normally be linked, I suggest you add the links to the external links section as a single line, like "Free, non-Unicode Hieratic Font". DRMcCreedy (talk) 03:14, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * FYI: This discussion has moved to Talk:Demotic (Egyptian). DRMcCreedy (talk) 22:49, 6 June 2020 (UTC)