 | Glottal stop, like at the start of German words (a) | Egyptian vulture |
 | Like a glottal stop, a consonantal y | Flowering reed |
 | y | Two flowering reeds/oblique strokes |
 | `, Guttural sound | Forearm |
 | w or u | Quail chick |
 | b | Foot |
 | p | Stool |
 | f | Horned viper |
 | m | Owl |
 | n | Water |
 | r | Mouth |
 | h as in 'English' | Reed shelter in fields |
 | Emphatic h | Wick of twisted flax |
 | kh as in Scottish 'loch' | Placenta(?) |
 | ch as in German 'ich' | Animal's belly with teats |
  | s/z | Belt/folded cloth |
 | sh | Pool |
 | Backward k, like q in 'queen' | Hill slope |
 | k | Basket with handle |
 | Hard g | Stand for jar |
 | t | Loaf |
 | Originally tsh (or tj) | Tethering rope |
 | d | Hand |
 | Originally dj and also a dull, emphatic s | Snake |
Transliteration
Since vowels were not usually written, two signs could be pronounced in a range of different ways. For example, 
(ws) could sound like was, wes, ews, awsa, etc. The way that is normally used (according to the 'Egyptian Grammar' book), is to use an e, except where the glottal stop (
) and the guttural sound (
) occur; these translate to a.
But remember - it is unknown how the words were actually said - we don't know where the vowels were placed!
Biliteral and triliteral words are written, except for when they are near similarly pronounced uniliterals. For instance, 
is consonantal y-mn, not consonantal y-mn-n.
Semi-vowels
and
are consonant signs, but the sounds of these consonants are close to the vowels i and u. These are known as semi-vowels.*
If
is used at the start of a word, it is pronounced as y otherwise it is pronounced i. As
it is only found at the end of a word and is pronounced as y.
Weak Consonants
and
are known as weak consonants. They were often changed or omitted - often, they were replaced by
.
* Note, it seems that
and
are also translated as an a, these days. Eg. Amen-Ra, rather than Imen-Ra!