Monoliterals

Monoliteral Signs
The first major group of Hieroglyphic signs, the monoliteral signs represent individual sounds or phonemes. They can be likened to an alphabet, but it is important to keep in mind that these symbols can also be read logographically.

Semivowels.jpg Semivowels
The Monoliterals can be split into two distinct categories:  semivowels and consonants. The notion of a semivowel is common in various Afro-Asiatic languages, and is best explained within the context of the Semitic languages (ie: Arabic and Hebrew). A semivowel is essentially a consonant that behaves as a vowel (ie: separates other consonants or consonant clusters) and sounds like a vowel. It is acceptable to treat them as vowels, but it is also important to know that these semivowels can also hold consonantal phonemic values. Generally the pairing of a semivowel with vocalic and consonantal phonemes is logical. For example:  The quail sign, transliterated as w can either represent the /u/ phoneme (like the "oo" in "food") or the /w/ phoneme (like the "w" in "wet") depending upon the consonants or semivowels around it. All of the semivowels and their transliterations are listed in the column to the left. The Egyptian semivowels are named according to their Hebrew counterparts. From top to bottom they are: Aleph, Ayin, Yodh, (Yodh), Waw, (Waw). The quail sign and the spiral sign are often interchangeable, and have the same phonetic value.