determinative#Egyptian

{{Further|Sumerogram|Hittite cuneiform#Determiners|cuneiform transliteration}}

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In cuneiform texts of Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite languages, many nouns are preceded or followed by a Sumerian word acting as a determinative; this specifies that the associated word belongs to a particular semantic group.Edzard, 2003 These determinatives were not pronounced. In transliterations of Sumerian, the determinatives are written in superscript in upper case. Whether a given sign is a mere determinative (not pronounced) or a Sumerogram (a logographic spelling of a word intended to be pronounced) cannot always be determined unambiguously since their use is not always consistent.

Examples of determinatives (with transliteration superscripts in parentheses):Hayes, John L., "A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts", Undena Publications, 2000

• {{cuneiform|sux|𒁹}} ({{Transliteration|sux|¹|italic=no}} or {{Transliteration|sux|^m|italic=no}}) for male personal names
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒊩}} ({{Transliteration|sux|^f|italic=no}}) for female personal name
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒄑}} ({{Transliteration|sux|^GIŠ|italic=no}}) for trees and all things made of wood
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒆳}} ({{Transliteration|sux|^KUR|italic=no}}) for countries
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒌷}} ({{Transliteration|sux|^URU|italic=no}}) for cities (but also often succeeding {{Transliteration|sux|KI}})
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒇽}} ({{Transliteration|sux|^LÚ|italic=no}}) for people and professions
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒇽𒈨𒌍}} ({{Transliteration|sux|^LÚ.MEŠ|italic=no}}) for ethnicities or multiple people
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒀭}} ({{Transliteration|sux|^DINGIR|italic=no}} or {{Transliteration|sux|^d|italic=no}}) for gods and other divinities
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒂍}} ({{Transliteration|sux|^É|italic=no}}) for buildings and temples
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒀯}} (^𒀯) for stars and constellations
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒀀𒇉}} (^{{{Transliteration|sux|ÍD|italic=no}}}) (a ligature of {{Transliteration|sux|A}} (watercourse) and {{Transliteration|sux|ENGUR}} (deep waters), transliterated: {{Transliteration|sux|A.ENGUR}}) before canals or rivers in administrative texts
• {{cuneiform|sux|𒄷}} ({{Transliteration|sux|^MUŠEN|italic=no}}) for birds.

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{{Main|Egyptian hieroglyphs#Determinatives}}

In Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, determinatives came at the end of a word. Nearly every word – nouns, verbs, and adjectives – features a determinative, some of which become very specific: "Upper Egyptian barley" or "excreted things". It is believed that they were used as much as word dividers as for semantic disambiguation. Examples include 𓀀 (man), 𓁐 (woman) and 𓀭 (god/king).

Determinatives are generally not transcribed, but when they are, they are transcribed by their number in Gardiner's Sign List.

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Some 90%{{Citation needed|date=January 2019|reason=That most Chinese characters are like this is widely accepted, but this should be cited for the statistic}} of Chinese characters are determinative-phonetic compounds; the phonetic element and the determinative (called a radical) are combined to form a single glyph. Both the meaning and pronunciation of the characters have shifted over the millennia, to the point that the determinatives and phonetic elements are not always reliable guides; nevertheless, radicals are still important for indexing of characters such as in a dictionary.

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{{cite book|last=Edzard|first=Dietz Otto|title=Sumerian Grammar|publisher=Society of Biblical Literature|location=Atlanta|year=2003|series=Handbook of Oriental Studies|volume=71|isbn=1-58983-252-3}}

• {{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220123438/http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/determin.htm|title=Determinative Signs In Egyptian|url=http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/determin.htm|archive-date=20 December 2013}}

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Category:Sumerian words and phrases

Category:Hieroglyphs

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