029: The Question Changes Everything

In this episode, we dive into the transformative power of questions and how they serve as the ultimate tool for mastering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Whether you are a beginner struggling to identify a "funky" looking sign or an advanced student grappling with complex verb structures, asking questions is the key to breaking through mental blocks.

We explore the psychological barriers that keep learners stuck, the technical nuances that differentiate Egyptian from English, and why a community is essential for your success.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• The Two Silent Progress-Killers: Discover the two main reasons students get stuck and how these internal barriers can stall your progress for months.

• The Mystery of Amun First: Find out why King Tutankhamun’s name starts with the god Amun in hieroglyphs, even though we say "Tut" first, and the concept of honorific transposition that explains it.

• How to Read "Funky" Hieroglyphs: Gain insights into why signs on real artifacts rarely look like the pristine versions in textbooks and how an expert can help you visually trace the artist’s intent.

• Breaking the Stuck in Your Head Cycle: Life often interrupts study – whether through illness or busy schedules. Learn how to overcome the difficulty of restarting and why an outside perspective is the ultimate cure for the "big hairy project" feeling.

• The Ripple Effect of Curiosity: Discover why there truly are no stupid questions and how your single inquiry can provide an "aha moment" for an entire community of learners.

• Your Chance to Ask Anything: Hear about a special, first-ever opportunity to submit your own questions about hieroglyphs, Egyptian history, or the life of an Egyptologist to be answered in a future episode.

And here's your chance to ask me anything and I will make a podcast episode answering your questions that come in.

Your question could be about anything on your journey with hieroglyphs; it could be something else entirely about ancient Egypt; it could be things you're nosy about in my life as an Egyptologist or about Egyptology in general. It really is the “anything” in “ask me anything.”

Submit your question here: https://www.voicesofancientegypt.com/ama

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Download my free guide, Half-Hour Hieroglyphs to get started with hieroglyphs now.

Learning hieroglyphs is a challenge if you don’t have a tried and true system to follow. This free guide will teach you how hieroglyphs work and how to use them to write names the way the ancient Egyptians did.

Grab the free guide at https://voicesofancientegypt.com/guide

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Voices of Ancient Egypt, the podcast for people who don't just want to learn about ancient Egypt, but want to understand it on a deeper, more meaningful level. I'm Melinda Nelsonhurst, an Egyptologist with a PhD in the field and years of experience teaching at the university level, working in Egypt, and training students around the world to read real ancient Egyptian texts. I've spent decades studying the civilization in a traditional academic setting, so you don't have to. And so you can access knowledge that's usually locked behind academic walls. This podcast brings ancient Egyptian history, beliefs, and language to life and shows you that learning hieroglyphs is possible no matter your age, background, or schedule. So whether you want to read hieroglyphs in museums, on social media, or on your next trip to Egypt, you'll find the tools, stories, and encouragement to make it real right here. Let's hear the voices of the ancient world together. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Voices of Ancient Egypt podcast. I'm really excited to be sharing this one with you today because this is something that came directly from my coaching calls with my students in my programs Scribal School and Master Scribes in the last week that I think really gets overlooked or ignored or even put down in a way sometimes that's so important when we're learning, whether it's learning hieroglyphs or anything else, and honestly, in many other aspects of life too. And that is the power of questions. And I see two things that really hold people back from asking questions when they're learning to read hieroglyphs. And this probably applies when you're learning anything else as well. But my experiences in teaching Egyptology and hieroglyphs especially. And so what I see is two potential problems. One is a lot of people, if they're not working with me already, for example, don't have anyone that they feel like they can ask who would be able to answer their questions. And they're just feel stuck with where they are. Maybe they've learned a little bit, right? But they have questions that they just can't get answers to, right? And maybe they've read this part of the book over and over again, and it's just led to them feeling deflated. The other thing that I see hold people back is a fear of being vulnerable by asking questions. Because when you ask a question, of course, you're inherently showing that you don't know the answer. And that's the entire point of why you're asking the question, right? But sometimes we can feel uncomfortable asking questions, especially when it's in front of others and not just one-on-one with the one person that we're asking. However, I would make the argument that actually it's even more important to do this in front of others. And I've seen both of these things, though, hold people back, especially the fear aspect, which tends to be stronger in some groups and settings than others. So, for example, I see this more in the university setting than I do in my programs teaching outside the university. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Some of it can be the setting itself, some of it is we tend to be a little less worried about that as we get older. So once you're past that 18 to 22 age, you're more likely to be willing to ask questions, for example. And there's all kinds of things, of course, as a university professor, you can do to make people more comfortable and willing to ask questions in the classroom. But there's still at that age a very strong drive to fit in with your peers and a fear of standing out amongst your peers and or looking stupid, right? So it does, I think, plague younger groups oftentimes even more. But I see this also with older adults as well. Although I do see it, like I said, more in the formal setting than I do generally in my programs. But fear still holds people back sometimes in my programs as well. And sometimes they'll stay stuck for quite a while. You know, it could be a few days, it could be a week or two. Sometimes it's been months where they're just, you know, they're stuck on a particular text, maybe they're working on, or there's a lesson that they watched and it really made sense to them. But then when they're doing the exercises, there's just this one part that they're not getting and they're worried that the problem is them, right? And they're worried about asking the question. But then everything changes when they do ask that question. And that's why I encourage my students to ask me anything. And there are truly no bad questions. It might sound cliche, but really there are no stupid questions. It's absolutely true. And every question helps, not just that person who asked it, but honestly, it helps everybody else who's in that room too, whether we're talking virtually or physically in real life. It helps everybody who's there to see it or hear it and also experience the response, the answer. So I'll give you an example. In my next level program, Master Scribes, one of my students just asked on our call a question about some pretty technical stuff that was unclear to her and holding her up with understanding some things with why Egyptologists translate certain texts certain ways. And um, she'd read the grammar book, she's read the terminology before, read descriptions of it, but she was still like stuck on not understanding this difference. Now, I want you to keep in mind that these terms are ones that I think probably most people are not familiar with. And this came from an advanced student. So you may have never even heard these before, and that is totally okay that you're not there right now, but you absolutely can be someone who is part of the conversation at this level if that's what you seek. But for right now, bear with me for the sake of the story and the example. So she asked me what the difference is between tense and aspect. Now, these are terms used for verbs or the words that we call verbs, which are like action words, right? And tense, you're probably more likely to have heard of, at least if you're a native English speaker. You know, tense means the time that the action happened. So specifically whether it's in the past, the present, or the future. On the other hand, aspect is about whether the action that you're talking about has completed. Is it a completed action, or is it still ongoing or in progress? So, for example, you could say, I am going to the store that's in progress and in the present tense. Or you could say, I have been going to the store. Now that's a little more complicated because we tend to think of, you know, if it's completed, it's in the past. If it's ongoing, it's in the present, right? But in this case, it's something that's ongoing when we say, I have been going to the store. It's something that didn't finish. We didn't say, I went to the store. It's all done, right? We said I had been going to the store. But it's also in the past, right? So that's how they're they're different from each other. Or we could say, I have gone to the store. And in that case, it is completed action. It's all done. You're not continuing to go to the store, and it's in the past. So you can have any variation of this mix of tense and aspect, and that's just a brief explanation. So if if you're not wrapping your head around it quite yet, please don't worry about that. Like I said, this is a topic we get into really just in a very advanced level. So it's not something to fret about or anything if it doesn't 100% click right now. But my point is that once I explained this on the call, and this was something that we talked about a little bit, but not super deeply and explicitly before. And this student has had some university background and the language and has read some grammar books, and so oftentimes has a lot of questions about what do these things mean that she's reading in the grammar book. And she'd been really stuck on this one. So when she brought this to me and I was able to answer it for her, it was like a big aha moment. It was like something that just seemed totally incomprehensible. Now all of a sudden, made sense, and she felt like she could move on to the next thing now rather than being stuck there. And what I thought was the most rewarding and truly amazing thing about questions like this one, and in this case in particular, is this didn't help just her, right? It didn't help just my student who asked this question. This helped everybody else who was on the call or who caught the replay of that call. Because even if it's a question they hadn't thought of before, it is something that they are encountering when they're learning Egyptian and they're even if they're just starting to maybe learn a little bit about verbs, or maybe they're much further along. Either way, on whatever level they're at, sort of there, this can help to start to make some of the things that we do when we translate into languages like English make sense. And so a bunch of my other students were like, wow, I never thought about that. And that's like an amazing insight to have to understand with why sometimes we have multiple choices in English with how we translate something from Egyptian, because they use these things very differently. Middle Egyptian tends to be mostly about aspect and not tense. And in English, we tend to sort of emphasize tense more. So there are very different ways of handling, kind of talking about action, right? Or maybe not very different, but in any case, it's a different sort of concept with which to look at that action. And so when you realize that, it really opens up your understanding of like, okay, why is it that we can translate this one thing, this one sentence in Egyptian with slightly different ways of doing it in English that all have to do with whether the action is completed or not, but yet it could be in a different time frame and so forth. So that was something that really unlocked something for so many of my students with this higher level of understanding of what was going on there. And while this does get pretty technical and is not something that like anybody needs to worry about when they're in the beginner stages, it does become important later on, of course. And I see my beginners also have the same kind of problem with this, where they get stuck on something, and it doesn't have to be grammar even. It doesn't have to be something complicated. It could be as much as like just this sign on this particular artifact, I can't figure out what this sign is. It doesn't look like any of the ones that I've seen before. I'm not familiar with it. And it might be simply that the person carving that object had a little bit different way of carving that sign. And when you're just starting out, all of these things look a bit different. And it's the kind of thing that once you get experience, of course, then becomes much more recognizable. But sometimes my students will get stuck on that for a while. But then when they bring it to me and I explain to them this is why it's this, and I'll even trace it for them visually so they can see what I'm pointing out and what I'm seeing about like what are the parts of this sign, even though it looks a little funky, what are the parts of it that give me the clue that, or multiple clues potentially, that I think this is the sign that the artist was carving? Or one example just from this week as well, from our call in Scribal School, we're doing a guided study plan right now with some bonus calls. And one of the questions that came up a lot in the last couple of weeks, both in our private group that they can post in at any time as well as on that call, was why does the name Tutung Ha moon have the hieroglyphs in a different order than I expect? Right. So we say Tutung Ha moon, why do we say Tutung Ha moon when in the hieroglyphs, the amoon part is at the beginning, right? And this is a concept that Egyptologists call honorific transposition. Um and I like to say that that's because we always have to have the most complicated highfalutin sounding names for everything. Um, but it's really it's just a basic idea that whenever they name a god or a king, also, there's this way of honoring them by moving that name up to the beginning of something, whether it's in a larger name like Tung Ha moon or in a phrase, they will move it up. And it's something that these students are asking this because they actually haven't gotten to. We have a lesson that talks all about this in Scribal School, but they haven't gotten to that lesson yet, right? But they've seen this name Tung Ha moon in exercises and they're like, why is it this way? And one of my students even said, like, right after we talked about this, like, she's like, I feel so much better about this now. And I'm like totally ready to tackle the next uh lessons, the next modules. And it's because, you know, this is one of the issues that people run into all the time, whether they are in a formal course and maybe they don't have an opportunity to ask questions, or they're just afraid to ask questions, or they're trying to learn from a book, for example, or from like online sources like on websites and AI and things like that, that they run into these problems of not having somebody that they, a real person that they can ask these questions of, or that they feel comfortable asking these questions of. But this is also not limited to questions about the ancient Egyptian language. I wanted to point this out because sometimes we get caught up in kind of like worrying about, like, oh, I got to ask like technical questions about this, and it's just in thinking that that's the only stuff that we get stuck on. But really, I see this a ton, and you know, a huge percentage of the things that I answer or coach on oftentimes are not necessarily specifically to do with the language, although I would say most are, but a lot of them also have to do with something else. So, for example, I've had students who sometimes they went on a trip or they had a serious illness, or they just got really busy with life, and that interruption took them away from their studies for a bit, and now they're having a lot of trouble picking back up again until they come and ask me about it. And I see this all the time. So I have one student, for example, who's had some really serious health battles. And so she'll kind of come in and out from studying. She'll be studying for a while, she'll cut back for a while, or even completely stop sometimes when her health is more of an issue and um she has to put it on hold for a little bit. And when this happens, it can be really easy. This can happen to her, and I've seen it with many other students as well. It can be really easy to then have it be hard to start up again. It might sound sort of silly, but if you've ever been through this experience with anything in life, you might recognize this in yourself as well. Then any kind of project or thing, even if you really like it and it's really something you've you're passionate about, when you haven't done it for a while, it can be hard to pick it up again because it suddenly feels difficult when it's been a while since you engaged with it in some way, right? And the longer we go, the harder it seems to feel in our brain. Like it just seems like I don't even know where to start and what would I do? And oh, I don't know if I have enough time right now to figure it out. And those kinds of things can happen. But when my students come to me and they tell me how they're feeling stuck, like they get this problem that threw them off track and now they want to get back on track, but they just don't, they're just having trouble getting started. You know, maybe they don't know where to start or they don't really even know like why they are having trouble starting, right? They're just like, I want to start, but I'm not doing it. So, like, what's going on here? And when they come to me, first of all, I can help them see how normal this is for this to happen. Because as you just heard me say, this happens all the time with people. It happens to me with things very often. If it's something I haven't done in a while, I'm like, ooh, that sounds like a big hairy project, right? Um, and it is so normal. And honestly, just understanding that is more than half the battle anyway, because that's part of what kind of helps us stay stuck, is this feeling and feeling like, why do I feel this way? Also, and thinking it's like there's some kind of problem with ourselves rather than this being normal. But then we also formulate a plan to get them back on track. And it doesn't need to be a complicated plan or even a very detailed plan. It's really about having someone who can see things from the outside, someone who's not all in your head, because you're all in your head when this happens, right? And you're stuck and you might even be thinking about all the ways you could do this and like, can I do it this way? And should I do it this time of day? And which thing am I going to work on? And do I have enough time? Right. And you just kind of get stuck in this thinking about it rather than doing it phase. And once you get somebody who's outside of your own head who can look at it and discuss it with you and ask you questions as well as answer yours, this is the key to really getting out of your head and then taking action in those situations. And that's why I encourage you, everybody out there, to find a community or even a formal program with a community and access to an expert so that you can experience the power of asking questions and getting that second set of eyes, expert eyes, and also that outside viewpoint that can change so much and keep you unstuck or get you unstuck when you do get stuck for a little bit. So you don't have to stay stuck for very long at all. And then keep moving forward. And whether you're working on learning hieroglyphs or if it's something else in your life, I really encourage you to find that support that you need. And of course, take advantage of it once you have it. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Remember that you're not just helping yourself when you ask questions, you're helping everyone else who gets to hear your question and the answer to it. And honestly, you're probably also helping the person that you ask the question of. My students help me understand things deeper all the time when they ask me questions because sometimes there's things I just didn't even think to ask myself or to ponder until they ask me that about a text or about this aspect of the language. And I'm like, you know, I hadn't thought of that before. That's a really good question. And then that allows me to dig deeper into that and examine it and not only help them and answer their questions, but deepen my knowledge as well. So whenever you ask a question, remind yourself you're not only helping yourself, you're helping everybody else in the in this room as well, whether it's a virtual room or a real life physical one. And so don't, whatever you do, don't shy away from asking questions. It really is powerful. And that brings me to something that I have never done before. And I don't know if it'll do it again. Maybe I will, maybe it'll be like a once-a-year thing or something like that. But to this end of the power of asking questions, I know a lot of you listening are not in my programs and are their programs are not open for enrollment right now. And you might be like, gee, this is nice. I wish I could ask you questions, but I'm not in there. So here is your chance to ask me anything, and I'm going to make a podcast episode answering questions that come in. So your question could be about anything on your journey with hieroglyphs, it could be something else entirely related to ancient Egypt. It could be, you know, some other aspect of the history or culture, for example. It could be just things you're nosy about in my life as an Egyptologist, or maybe about Egyptology in general. Um, it really is that anything in Ask Me Anything or AMA, right? So submit your questions. You can do that by going to voicesofancienegypt.com slash AMA. That's voicesofancieneegypt.com slash AMA. I'll link that in the show notes as well. And you can either enter your name with your question or you can leave it completely anonymous. It is absolutely up to you. Whatever you prefer and are most comfortable with, I would encourage you to do. And I cannot wait to see your questions and answer them here on the podcast.