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Contents

EGLYPTIONARY!

The Egyptian Hieroglyphic Wiki Dictionary


Hello, and welcome to the Eglyptionary. Yes, the Eglyptionary. I don't care if you don't know how to say it. Be creative.

But on to whys and wherefores and whereforearts. It's impossible to have a truly comprehensive Middle Egyptian dictionary. Faulkner, for all his thoroughness, is terribly incomplete. Even the monolithic Wörterbuch is missing many entries, besides which it is now well and truly dated. There have been several attempts to create online resources, like word lists and PDF dictionaries, all of which are useful to a point, but they lack two important things. One is that they are reliant upon a single author or maintainer, which immediately limits the scholarship involved. One man cannot write an entire Wörterbuch, and one man cannot reference the entire ME language. On the other hand, they do not make proper use of their medium. On the Internet, there is no such thing as limited space. Faulkner and the Wörterbuch were limited by size - a printed book can only be so big before it is unwieldy. But on the Internet the pages can go on forever, and there is no reason why we can't list every known Egyptian word, and no reason why we can't list all the appearances of a given word.

What is a Wiki?

Wikis have the philosophy that a page editable by all is more accurate than a page editable by no-one. Think of the Wörterbuch. After the book is published, nobody at all can change it - whether to make corrections or additions. Not even the authors can change it unless they bring out an entirely new edition. But with a wiki, the pages constantly evolve. If someone sees an entry is wrong, they can correct it. If someone sees an entry is missing, they can add it.

Using a Wiki solves all the problems of the other available resources. A wiki is subject to the peer review of everyone who uses it. There is no need to worry about space. There is no limit on the size a website can be, and no matter how large the Eglyptionary grows there will always be more room.

Features

Eglyptionary...
  • displays both the glyphs and the transliteration for each word.
  • lists all meanings and variant writings.
  • has a separate Reference page for each word where all documented ocurrances are listed.
  • involves no complicated programming. Simply fill in the gaps - the formatting and graphics are done for you.
  • has NO logins. Editing is free and unrestricted, though changes may be rolled back if they are inappropriate.

How Can I Use the Eglyptionary?

The easiest way to get started is to copy the template from the Help page and follow the simple instructions there. Alternatively you can observe the way the other entries work - the markup is not difficult to learn. The Help page also has detailed instructions on how to use the markup.

So get in there are lend a hand! The more you use the Eglyptionary, the better it will become. Click on the letters in the alphabet bar at the top of the page to start browsing the Eglyptionary.

We also have a Forum for discussions about the Middle Egyptian language and the Eglyptionary itself. If you have any questions or simply want to chat about the colour of the sky, head over to the language forum. If you're looking for specific help with the Eglyptionary, you can ask in the support forum. If you want to talk about the nuts and bolts of the Eglyptionary, discuss how it can be improved or report bugs, check out the development forum. No logins are required for the wiki, but the forum does require registration. Alternatively you can email the administrator directly, and I will get back to you right away: hiero@saintsimian.com

How Does the Eglyptionary Work?

The Eglyptionary is born of WiKiss and WikiHiero. WiKiss is a PHP application whose simplicity let it be adapted to my purposes. WikiHiero is an inspired PHP application that takes ordinary MdC input and displays the hieroglyphs as HTML images. The two were mashed together by me with a fistful of supporting code for bug fixes and added functionality.

My understanding is that a new version of WikiHiero is on the way. The current version 0.2.12 is not perfect, but is workable. If you want any new glyphs to be added, please contact me and I'll be happy to oblige: hiero@saintsimian.com
When WikiHiero 2 is released, I will look into upgrading the Eglyptionary.