Name:
Date:
Period:
The Problem with Hieroglyphs
Directions: Egyptian hieroglyphs used no vowels, punctuation, or capital letters. In addition, there were
no spaces between words. This makes hieroglyphs difficult to read, even for scholars today. To
understand this problem, study the text below. Try to translate it into “proper” English on the lines
provided.
frnrl3000yrsncntgptwsnfthwrldsgrtstcvlztnsvryfwgptnscldr
drwrtthnswhcldwrsllyscrbsrprstsgptnshdfrmfwrtngclldhrgl
phsthkytndrstndnghrglphswslstfrcntrsntlthdscvrfthrsttstn
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Now, write your own sentence with no vowels, punctuation, capital letters, or spaces. Give it to a
partner to translate.
Your sentence:
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Translation:
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________