What is the difference between hieroglyphic and cuneiform writing?

Answer 1

Cuneiform writing was invented by the ancient Sumerians around 3500 B.C. Hieroglyphic writing was invented by the ancient Egyptians around 3200 B.C.

The two forms of writing differed from each other in at least the following ways:

1. Hieroglyphic writing represented consonants only. Cuneiform script represented whole syllables, including the vowels.
2. Although cuneiform script began as picture writing, its symbols rapidly evolved into abstract shapes that, in most cases, bore no resemblance to any actual object. Egyptian hieroglyphs remained recognizable pictures throughout the 3500-year history of the script.
3. Over its long history, cuneiform writing was adapted to the needs of a large number of languages, including the original Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite and Old Persian. Egyptian hieroglyphs were never applied to any language other than Egyptian itself.

The hieroglyphic writing system was ONLY used for ancient EGYPTIAN. The cuneiform writing system, started by the Sumerians, was then picked up and widely used by the Mesopotamian speakers of a Semitic** language unrelated to Sumerian -- the language of the Babylonians and Assyrians, called "Akkadian" by modern scholars. From there it spread further and was used to write other languages - esp. Elamite and Hittite.

Answer 2

Think of a modern newspaper headline written in neat block capital letters, then imagine the same words written by hand very quickly with a biro in joined-up writing.

That is exactly the same relationship as hieroglyphs have to hieratic script - hieratic is simply a fast way of writing hieroglyphs, with no naturalistic colours or other decorations included. So the hieroglyph sign representing N (a horizontal zig-zag line) becomes a horizontal straight line with a hook at the end in hieratic. The sign for K3 (ka) in hieroglyphs (two raised arms joined together at the base) becomes a simple squared U shape in hieratic.

Answer 3

Most surviving texts in the Egyptian language are written in hieroglyphics. However, before these texts were written, the majority of texts were written in hieratic, a cursive writing system used in Egypt that was not composed of symbols and pictures.

If you're asking what the differences between hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt and those of other civilizations like the Mayan are, then the answer is simply the pictures themselves. Hieroglyphics are merely pictures used to express words, whether they are Egyptian or not.

Answer 4

Arabic script is an alphabet, where each consonant is represented by a single letter. Originally, Arabic had no written vowels, but later a system of dots and other symbols was added to indicate the vowel sounds. Modern Arabic has several variations but there are generally around 28 consonants and 3 or 4 vowels that can be long or short. A complication is that each consonant is written slightly differently depending on whether it comes at the start, in the middle or at the end of a word.

Hieroglyphs were not an alphabet but a much more complex script including a large number of phonemes (sound-signs), a few ideograms (where a single sign represents an entire word), determinatives (used to confirm the general meaning of a word) and other signs used to indicate negatives, duals, plurals, feminine words and so on. Phonemes can stand for a single consonant, two consonants or three consonants. Vowels were neverwritten.

In the Middle Kingdom several hundred hieroglyphs were in general use; by the Late Period this had increased to several thousand individual signs.

So, apart from Arabic originally not writing vowels (as in hieroglyphs) the two writing systems have no connection.