Such was plainly the origin of phoneticism in the Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions. Take the word _nefer_. Its most common concrete signification was “a lute,” and in the picture writing proper the lute is represented by its figure. But _nefer_ had several other significations in Coptic. It meant, a _colt_, a _conscript soldier_, a _door_, and the adjective _good_. The picture of the lute therefore was used to signify every one of these.
It will be observed that this is an example of a pure ikonograph—the picture is that of the object in full, a lute; but precisely in the same way the second class of figures in picture writing, those which are wholly symbolic, may be employed. This, too, finds ample illustration in the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Instead of the picture of a house, the figure of a square was employed, with one side incomplete. Phonetically, this conveyed the sound _per_, which means _house_, and several other things.
It will readily be seen that where a figure represents a number of homophonous words, considerable confusion may result from the difficulty of ascertaining which of these is intended. To meet this, we find both in Egyptian and Chinese writing series of signs which are written but not pronounced, called “determinatives.” These indicate the class to which a word has reference. They are ideographic, and of fixed meaning. Thus, after the word _nefer_, when used for conscript, the determinative is the picture of a man, etc.[210]
There is little doubt but that all the Egyptian syllabic and alphabetic writing was derived from this early phase, where the governing principle was that of the rebus. At the date of the earliest inscriptions, most of the phonetics were monosyllabic; but in several instances, as _nefer_, above given, _neter_, which represents a banner, and by homophony, a god, and others, the full disyllabic name was preserved to the latest times. The monosyllabic signs were derived from the initial and the accented syllables of the homophones; and the alphabet, so-called, but never recognized as such, by the Egyptians, either from monoliteral words, or from initial sounds. At no period of ancient Egyptian history was one sound constantly represented by one sign. In the so-called Egyptian alphabet, there are four quite different signs for the _M_, four for the _T_, three for the _N_, and so on. This is obviously owing to the independent derivation of these phonetic elements from different figures employed ikonomatically.