It might be a good idea to memorize them. Many of the two-letter signs have meaning on their own, and represent individual words. Often, they are completed with a stroke, the socalled ideogram sign , to indicate that the designated word corresponds with the pictorial value of the sign. Determinative Signs Many old Egyptian words are written with the same signs, even if they have a completely different meaning. To permit an understanding of the meaning of words, so-called determinative signs where written at the end of the word, to help determine the word's meaning.
Most determinatives serve to indicate the general category of the word they describe.
The ancient Egyptians had the nasty habit of writing their sentences without spaces between words, and without an indication of the start of new sentences. Because the determinative signs are placed at the end of words, they provide us with a means to decypher the structure of sentences. Notice the determinative sign with the running legs at the end of the word. This is the word for majesty , followed by letter f, indicating the possessive pronoun his . This is an adverb, with the meaning on .