# Speaking of the ancient pharaohs **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 20, 2024, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484 "2024-11-20T03:50:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2024, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/1 "2024-11-20T03:50:01Z")
How do we know how they pronounced their names? Where do we get “Tutankhamen” or “Ramses” from the writings they left? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2024, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/2 "2024-11-20T03:57:04Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > How do we know how they pronounced their names? Well, since they did not write down the vowels, we do _not_ know for sure, do we? Whence different spellings like Tutankhamun, Tutankhamen. However, there seem to be ways to reconstruct the vowel and consonant shifts to some extent, even though the exact phonetics remain unknown. [This link](https://friesian.com/egypt.htm) mentions some vowels known from the names written in texts in languages like Akkadian and Greek and of course Coptic. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2024, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/3 "2024-11-20T04:19:03Z")
I should say, as an introduction to how we can read any of that stuff in the first place, it was famously [deciphered](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decipherment_of_ancient_Egyptian_scripts) in modern times, aided by helpful parallel texts like on the famous Rosetta Stone (which includes some famous names). ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2024, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/4 "2024-11-20T04:25:28Z")
Reading it is one thing, reading it out loud is something else. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2024, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/5 "2024-11-20T04:35:49Z")
Yes, I hope that point was clear. Champollion knew the name “Ramses” from Greek sources, for instance, and that actually helped him decipher it in Egyptian in the first place. But if you, today, encountered a completely new name, I am not sure you could say with complete certainty what the pronunciation was, though you could make a pretty good guess. E.g. Ramses = rˁ-ms-sw, but you would have to fill in the rest. Roughly like, try pronouncing Hebrew or Arabic words by reading them if you know the alphabet but are not fluent in the language. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2024, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/6 "2024-11-20T20:21:04Z")
How do we know how anything we haven’t actually heard is pronounced. Even the Greek on the Rosetta Stone is a millennium removed from classical Greek. Do you know that the name Marjoriebanks is pronounced Marchbanks? Or that Fetherstonhaugh is pronounced Fanshaw? All you can really do is speculate, knowing that no one will be able to refute it. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2024, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/7 "2024-11-21T23:05:15Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > All you can really do is speculate, knowing that no one will be able to refute it. Throatwobbler Mangrove sure had a pretty sarcophagus. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2024, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/8 "2024-11-22T03:49:03Z")
He’s my favorite honky! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2024, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/9 "2024-11-22T04:21:39Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > How do we know how anything we haven’t actually heard is pronounced Poetry is one clue, especially poetry based on rhymes or meter. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2024, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/10 "2024-11-22T15:44:46Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Poetry is one clue, especially poetry based on rhymes or meter. That can tell you that words are pronounced similarly, but it can’t tell you about the other if you don’t know how one of them is prounced ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2024, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/11 "2024-11-22T17:08:10Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > That can tell you that words are pronounced similarly, but it can’t tell you about the other if you don’t know how one of them is prounced   Yep. Until the invention of audio recordings, knowledge of all historical pronunciations are based on interlocking inferences of this sounds like that which sound like these but not those, eventually ending with “today this person says it like this”. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2024, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/12 "2024-11-23T02:45:37Z")
Aren’t Cheops and Khufu the same person? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2024, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/13 "2024-11-23T03:08:27Z")
Yes. Khufu was a short version of his Egyptian name. Cheops was the version used by the Greeks. And according to ancient Egyptian theology, by discussing his name today we are helping to preserve his soul, 4,500 years on. > **[Khufu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khufu)** > > This is an accepted version of this page > > Khufu or Cheops (died c. 2566 BC) was an ancient Egyptian monarch who was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, in the first half of the Old Kingdom period (26th century BC). Khufu succeeded his father Sneferu as king. He is generally accepted as having commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but many other aspects of his reign are poorly documented. > The only completely preserved portrait of the king i... ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2024, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/14 "2024-11-24T00:15:12Z")
Japanese borrowed written characters from China and adapted the pronunciation for compound words while keeping the native pronunciation as well. Over the centuries, new combinations of characters were adopted, and the pronunciations of some of the characters had changed. Japanese added the new pronunciations, allowing a character to have several readings. I’ve read that this gives hints to scholars on how ancient Chinese pronunciation had changed over time. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2024, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/15 "2024-11-24T01:54:11Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Throatwobbler Mangrove sure had a pretty sarcophagus. I thought he was buried at sea. From a luxury yacht. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2024, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/16 "2024-11-25T03:55:35Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Yes. Khufu was a short version of his Egyptian name. Cheops was the version used by the Greeks. A significant variation in the name over the years? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2024, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/17 "2024-11-25T04:00:31Z")
Well, the Greeks didn’t come along until about 2,000 years after his death …, ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2024, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-the-ancient-pharaohs/1010484/18 "2024-11-25T04:05:47Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Well, the Greeks didn’t come along until about 2,000 years after his death … Yeah, one of my favorite facts is that Cleopatra is closer in time to us than she was too Cheops.