The spelling of ancient Egyptian names in modern languages

The spelling of the names of Egyptian gods and kings in modern writings is far from consistent. For beginners, this can be quite confusing. The following factors contribute to these inconsistencies:

1. In the Egyptian script (the hieroglyphs), only consonants were written.

2. Some Egyptian consonants resembled certain vowels. One of these consonants could even (depending on its position) resemble two different vowels.

3. In the various modern languages (such as English and French) the same sound may be written with different letters.

4. There are texts in ancient Greek that give Greek versions of the names of some Egyptian kings and gods.

5. Egyptologists are almost as conservative in their habits as the ancient Egyptians themselves were. Therefore, certain writings of old are still retained, just because one is used to them.

1. Only consonants were written.

In the hieroglyphic script, only consonants were written. (This is the same with e.g. Arabic and Hebrew. There is a close relationship between ancient Egyptian and these Semitic languages). This means that we just do not know how the language originally sounded – although we can make some inferences, from comparisons with Coptic (Coptic is the modern descendant of the ancient Egyptian language). The next best thing then is to stick with the sounds that the Egyptians did write: the consonants. This is done in the so-called transliteration: the straightforward substitution of letters for hieroglyphs:

nfr st r xt nbt meaning: "it is more beautiful than anything".

2. Some consonants resembled vowels.

As the above example shows, pronouncing the words that are so created becomes rather cumbersome. We need to add some vowels.
Two common approaches exist for this:

• the substitution of some of the consonants by the vowels, that  these resemble,

• and, where needed, the insertion of additional vowels. The international convention is, to use for this purpose only the letter "e".

The following Egyptian consonants were somewhat similar to our vowels:

• "w" resembled "u";

• two sounds that are alien to European languages (in Hebrew known as aleph and ayin) vaguely resembled an "a";

• another sound (in Hebrew: yodh) that usually corresponds with the consonantal "y" sometimes resembled an "i". At the beginning of certain words however, it had the same sound value as aleph, and resembled an "a".

So, by replacing "w" with "u’, the name of Khwfw can be written (and pronounced) as "Khufu". And by inserting "e's", nfr becomes "nefer".
There is however no unequivocal rule for the number of e’s that is inserted, or the places of insertion. So you may encounter "Mertseger" alongside "Meretseger" (a goddess), or Amenhotep next to Amenhotpe (a king).

Some earlier Egyptologists preferred to substitute an "a" for every yodh. This is why we still speak of Unas instead of Unis (a king).

A special case is Re or Ra, the sun god. In hieroglyphs, his name is written r+ayin. Earlier Egyptologists inserted the "e" between the R and the ayin, and left the ayin out as being unpronounceable; the end-result was Re.
Alternatively, if one replaces the ayin with "a", one arrives at  Ra.

• The sound of "u" in English and German is written as "ou" in French, and as "oe" in Dutch. This accounts for the variants Unas (in English and German), Ounas (in French)  and Oenas (in Dutch) (a king).

• Another option is of course to retain the "w". If we combine then all the possibilities regarding "w", we arrive at the following little gem: Wepwawet (in English & Dutch), Upuaut (in German) and Oupouaout (in French) (a deity).

• Ancient Egyptian employed the sound of "ch" as in the Scottish word Loch. In English and French this is written as "kh", but in Dutch and German it is "ch"; so we have Khonsu (English), Khonsou (French), Chonsoe (Dutch) and Chonsu (German) (a god).

• The English sound "sh" is written in Dutch as "sj". So Hatshepsut (in English) can turn up as Hatsjepsoet in Dutch (a queen).

4. Greek versions of Egyptian names.

In antiquity, several Greek authors have written about AE. In their texts, they used Graecized versions of the names of the Egyptian kings and gods. Since especially earlier Egyptologists would have had a classical education, they were already familiar with these names - and kept using them. In newer publications, the Greek names of Cheops, Chefren and Mykerinos are now mostly replaced with something like Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure.

The use of the letter "o" in a name usually is an indication that one is dealing with a Greek version: e.g. Sethos = Seti (a king). Sometimes, this "o" is changed to "u" in English. So the Greek Amon (a deity) becomes Amun in English, and from there sometimes even Amoun in French or Amoen in Dutch - while the original has "imn" for sounds, what should be pronounced as Amen.

5. Conservatism among Egyptologists.

The name of king Unas, already mentioned, is a fine example of "traditionalism" among Egyptologists. A modern rendering would be Wenis or Unis. But as far as I remember, I have never seen it written in either way.
And for myself, (although I have not had a classical education): I still use Cheops, Chefren and Mykerinos, simply because I like them better (which is of course what all conservatives say...)

Conclusion

It takes some getting used to....