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Think of hieroglyphs as representing sounds rather than letters. Hieroglyphs are extremely adaptable and some signs can be rotated through 90 degrees to better fit the available space; others can not be rotated but have alternatives signs for the same sound.

For example the sound s can be written horizontally using the door-bolt sign, or it can be written vertically using the alternative folded cloth sign - neither of these signs can be rotated, but one of them would be chosen depending on the available space to maintain an orderly, neat grouping of signs.

Sometimes signs appear to have the same sound value in English, but in fact they are completely different in the ancient Egyptian language. For example three signs often (incorrectly) given the value h - reed shelter, twisted rope and circle with horizontal lines through it (placenta?) are really three different letters: h, emphatic h and throaty h. All these sounds are perfectly normal and easy for speakers of modern Arabic (for example), but English does not have these different sounds so English speakers struggle with them.

Some signs can express more than one sound, but often this represents standard spellings in different words. The vulture hieroglyph can stand for the word mwt (mother) when used as an ideogram or it can simply have the sound value mt - but as an ideogram it would be followed by a short vertical stroke to clarify what was intended.

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Q: Why do some hieroglyphs have two symbols?
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