Hieroglyphics Translator

How this hieroglyphics translator works

Each letter is replaced by the Egyptian sign that has the closest sound. This is the same method museums use when they show visitors how to write a name: B becomes a foot, M an owl, N a ripple of water, R a mouth. Numbers are written with Egyptian number signs, so 2026 becomes two lotus flowers, two heel bones and six strokes.

Be clear about what it does not do. It is an English to hieroglyphics translator for sounds, not for meaning. Egyptian had its own words and grammar, it wrote very few vowels, and most real inscriptions mix alphabet signs with signs for whole words and for two or three consonants. If you need a real ancient sentence for a tattoo or an engraving, ask an Egyptologist or check a dictionary such as Faulkner's before you make it permanent.

Hieroglyphic alphabet chart

The modern hieroglyphic alphabet below uses the single-consonant signs of the ancient Egyptian alphabet. The code in the last column is the sign's number in Gardiner's sign list, which Egyptologists use to name signs.

Write in Arabic, French, German, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese

Choose your language in the "Writing in" menu. The translator then reads letters the way that language says them, before it picks the signs. A few examples of what changes:

• Arabic: ح, خ, ع and ق get their own signs (twist of flax, placenta, forearm and hill), because Egyptian had the same consonants. Arabic and Egyptian are both Afroasiatic languages, and neither writes short vowels, so harakat are skipped. Ta marbuta ة becomes the bread loaf: the Egyptian feminine ending was also a t. Arabic mode also switches the reading direction to right to left, which was the most common direction in Egypt.
• French: ch is the pool sign (sh), ou is the quail chick, eau and au are the lasso (o), and c before e or i is the folded cloth (s).
• German: sch is the pool sign, ch is the placenta (kh), w and v are the horned viper (f), z is t + s, and ä, ö, ü follow their sounds.
• Spanish: j and g before e or i are the placenta (kh), ll is the two reed leaves (y), ñ is n + y, h is silent and gets no sign.
• Italian: c before e or i is the tethering rope (ch), sc before e or i is the pool sign, gn and gli add a y sound, h is silent.
• Portuguese: nh and lh add a y sound, ch and x are the pool sign, h is silent.

These rules cover the common spellings, not every exception. If a name comes out wrong, untick "Combine letters" or type it the way it sounds.

How to write your name in hieroglyphs

1. Write your name the way it sounds, not the way it is spelled. "Phillip" sounds like F-I-L-I-P; "Kate" can be K-A-T.
2. Type it above. Keep "Use one sign for sh, ch, kh" ticked so that Sharon starts with the pool sign, not S + H.
3. For a soft C, as in "Cecil", type S instead of C.
4. Tick Cartouche, pick a direction, and press Save as image. The PNG is drawn in your browser at 96 px per sign.

Hieroglyphics translator to English

Paste hieroglyphs below, or tap the signs, to read them back as letters. This works for the alphabet signs in the chart and for number signs. Signs that stand for whole words or for two or three consonants are shown as ? — reading those needs a full sign list, so this part is a helper, not a complete ancient hieroglyphics translator.

Egyptian numbers

Egyptians counted in tens. A stroke is 1, a heel bone is 10, a coil of rope is 100, a lotus flower is 1,000, a finger is 10,000, a tadpole is 100,000 and the god Heh with raised arms is 1,000,000. To write 345 you repeat signs: three coils, four heel bones and five strokes. The translator above does this for any number up to 9,999,999.

Why this is an Egyptian hieroglyphics translator for sounds

Hieroglyphs were read again only after 1822, when Jean-François Champollion used the Rosetta Stone and royal names in cartouches, such as Ptolemy and Cleopatra, to show that many signs stood for sounds. Those foreign names were spelled sign by sign, which is exactly what this tool does for your name. It is why the lion is used for L: Egyptian had no separate L, and scribes of the Greek period chose the lion for it.

How we tested

Before publishing we checked every sign in the chart and in the tool against the Unicode 16 character names (each name carries the Gardiner number, for example EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH G017 for the owl). We ran the page in Chromium on a desktop screen and at a 375 px phone width: no sideways scrolling and no errors in the console. We typed Cleopatra and "Sharon 2026": Sharon started with the pool sign for SH, and 2026 came out as two lotus flowers, two heel bones and six strokes. We saved the image in all three layouts (a 1006 × 210 px row, the mirrored right-to-left row, and a 210 × 1158 px column) and looked at each one. In the reverse box, M-A-R-I-N, the KH sign and a seated-man word sign read back as M·A·R·I/E·N, KH and ?. The hieroglyph font the page downloads was about 12.5 KB. After adding the language menu we tested names in all seven languages: محمد gave owl, twist of flax, owl, hand (m-ḥ-m-d) and switched to right to left; فاطمة ended with the bread loaf for ة; Schmidt started with the pool sign; José and Guillermo gave the placenta for J and two reed leaves for LL; Francesca gave the tethering rope for the soft C; João and Filho gave the cobra for J and L + Y for LH. We repeated the 375 px check with Arabic text. Not tested yet: Safari on iPhone and Firefox.

Questions

Is this a real translation into ancient Egyptian?

No. It writes the sounds of English letters with the Egyptian alphabet signs, the way museums show visitors how to write their names. Real Egyptian words used other spellings and many word signs, so translating the meaning of a sentence needs an Egyptian dictionary and grammar.

Why do E and I use the same sign?

Egyptian writing did not write most vowels. The reed leaf stood for a weak i or y sound, so modern charts use it for both E and I. The two reed leaves are used for Y.

Which way do you read hieroglyphs?

You read toward the faces of the people and animals. If the owl and the lion face left, start on the left. Scribes wrote in rows or in columns, from either side, to fit the space or to make a wall symmetrical.

What is a cartouche?

A cartouche is the oval ring with a short line at one end that surrounds the name of a pharaoh. The line marks where the name ends. Tick Cartouche to draw one around your text.

Why do I see empty boxes instead of hieroglyphs?

Your device has no font with Egyptian hieroglyphs. This page loads the free Noto Sans Egyptian Hieroglyphs font, and Windows 10 and 11 also include one. If you still see boxes, a content blocker may be stopping the font; allow fonts.googleapis.com or try another browser.