Not what I expected
As I understand it hieroglyphs can be used as phonetic glyphs, so I would have thought I could type my name, have the app look up the phonetics, and produce a hieroglyph string output that matches. Nope.
I'm sure it's good at translating and so forth, but I don't see any hieroglyph OCR built-in, so I expect translating a wall at a museum will be arduous.
The English to Egyptian translator is curious. Type 'pyramid' as a simple test and... I guess a triangle surrounded by anything means 'pyramid', and any phrase with the word 'pyramid' won't use it. Ok then.
Curious that there are several different sphinxes in hieroglyphs. I wonder if they're specific to different sphinxes.
Response from developer
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. We genuinely appreciate it. It sounds like your expectations were oriented toward a touristic name generator and on-device hieroglyph recognition. Those are interesting use cases, but they fall outside the scope of what this app is designed to do. The app is intended as a substantial, academically sound dictionary and reference for ancient Egyptian rather than a tool for generating phonetic equivalent of modern names or performing OCR on inscriptions. Regarding your example with “pyramid”: the English to Egyptian search brings up not just the words for pyramid, but also nearly 100 job titles for people who dealt with working in, or maintaining the pyramids. Similarly, the presence of multiple “sphinx” signs reflects distinct glyphs and usages in the writing system, not interchangeable pictorial variants. If your goal is to explore or study the language as it appears in inscriptions and texts, we hope the app will prove useful. Thousands of university students and faculty, museum staff, and working Egyptologists already do. And we do appreciate your feedback—it helps clarify how we can better communicate the app’s purpose and capabilities to new users.
Quality service
No results
Response from developer
While Hieroglyph Pro contains a basic orientation to the Egyptian language, it is mainly a dictionary, not a complete language course. The dictionary is one of the largest, most complete available for mobile devices and contains over 100,000 words and phrases! The App is used in several major Universities and Museums. The current best reference textbooks list only a fraction of known hieroglyphs as having known phonetic components or defined meanings. Many are just what are called determinatives which have no “phonic” but simply help the reader clarify the meaning of a word. You might find the app more useful after reading a few tutorials on Egyptian.
Mobile Hieroglyphics
Response from developer
Thanks for the 5 star review! We designed the App to be independent of web connections just so it can be used underground in tombs and monuments. The App dictionary also contains thousands of titles, epithets, and formulas frequently seen in tombs as well as thousands of personal and royal names. Enjoy your visits to those fantastic monuments from long ago!
Comprehensive and up-to-date
I was moved to write this when I saw that they are continuing to update with new words, even though this is not a subscription based app. I've bought a book it recommends for complete beginners, which compliments the app nicely.
*Update: I am so very impressed with the updates for additional words. This is not an orphan app, begun and forgotten. Just the opposite. We benefit from current scholarship
Response from developer
ElizabethKW: Thank you so much for your kind review! We will keep plugging away to provide our App customers the very best mobile tools for exploring Egypt.
