Throughout this site little use is made of hieroglyphic texts, but all the more of transliterations and translations. In these texts the "Manuel de Codage" is used, a standard system for computer-encoding of Ancient Egyptian writing. During the first "Table Ronde Informatique et Egyptologie" in 1984 a committee developed this uniform system for encoding hieroglyphic texts on computer. It offers an easy to use manner of encoding hieroglyphic writing and an abbreviation of hieroglyphic transcription (transliteration), and was presented through:
J. Buurman, N. Grimal, J. Hallof, M. Hainsworth, D. van der Plas.
Manual for the Encoding of Hieroglyphic Texts for Computer-input.
Informatique et Egyptologie 2, Paris, 1988. (original text June 1985)
The encoding system of the "Manuel de Codage" has since been adopted by international Egyptology as the official common standard for registering transliterations and hieroglyphic texts on computer. Transliterations consist of transcribing the hieroglyphic writing into "latin" writing, using characters from the latin alphabet, differentiated by diacritical points for sounds unknown to modern western languages. The use of these characters with diacritical marks proved to be a problem for early computers (and still makes everyday computer use quite laborious). The "Manuel de Codage" offers an excellent way of translating Egyptian transliterations to the normal computer keyboard, using the easily accessible range of standard key-values, without any extended characters. This modus operandi also makes it possible to easily maintain and separate the order of hieroglyphical signs by simply using a dash: e.g. Ax-n-iten (Akhenaten).
While in general texts on this site Ancient Egyptian names and terms are mostly presented in a fluid "westernised" style, in specific texts such as listings of (royal) titles and direct translations of Ancient Egyptian texts, the Manuel de Codage is frequently used.
According to the Manuel de Codage, the Egyptian "alphabet" is transcribed to computer this way:
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