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After several hundred years, the Egyptians lost sight of both these meanings and the picture.
經過了幾百年，古埃及人把這兩種意義都扔掉了，
Here is a picture of a litttle man with a saw, came to stand for a single letter, the letter S.
圖案只代表一個單獨的字母，即“s”。我舉一個簡單的句子來說明我講的意思。
A short sentence will show you what I mean.
有一句短句可以使你明白我的意思。
Here is a modern English sentence as it would have been written in hieroglyphics.
這里有一個現代的英文句子，
(Here in the text, you see a picture of a man's face , a bee, a leaf. Another picture of man's face, a man carring a saw, and a giraffe.)
這里有一篇文字，你會看到一張圖片，圖片上有一張人臉，一只蜜蜂還有一片樹葉。另外一張圖是一張人臉，一個拿著鋸子的人還有一只鹿。
The man's face picture either means one of these two round objects in your head, which allow you to see or it means "I," the person who is talking.
圖案或者表示長在你臉上、讓你能夠看見大千世界的圓圓的東西（眼睛），或者代表“我”（i），也就是那個正在說話的人。
A(Here you see a picture of the bee)is either an insect which gathers honey, or it represents the verb "to be" which means to exist.
圖案或者表示一種采蜜的昆蟲（蜜蜂），或者代表動詞“是”（to be）。
Again, it may be the first part of a verb like "be-come" or "be-have."
最后，它變成了“成為”（be－come）或“舉止”（be－have）之類動詞的前綴。
In this particular instance it is followed by which means a "leaf" or "leave" or "lieve" (the sound of all three words is the same). The "eye" you know all about.
在這個句子中，緊隨其后的圖案為，它的意思是“樹葉”（leaf）、“離開”(leave）或“存在”(lieve），這三個詞的發音相同。接下來的圖案又是“眼睛”，前面已經講過它的意思。
Finally you get the picture of A(and here is a picture of a girraffe). It is a giraffe.
最后，你遇上了圖案它是一只長頸鹿。
It is part of the old sign-language out of which the hieroglyphics developed.
這個詞屬于古代埃及圖像語言保留的一部分，而象形文字就是從這種古老的圖像語言中發展而來的。
You can now read that sentence without much difficulty.
現在，你可以根據讀音很容易的讀出這句用象形文字寫的話。
"I believe I saw a giraffe"
“我相信我看見了一只長頸鹿。”
Having invented this system the Egyptians developed it during thousands of years until they could write anything they wanted,
發明這種象形文字體系后，古埃及人又用了數千年的時間不斷完善它，直到他們能夠用它記錄任何想表達的東西。
and they used these "canned words" to send messages to friends, to keep business accounts
他們用這種文字告知朋友消息，記錄商業帳目，
and to keep a record of the history of their country, that future generations might benefit by the mistakes of the past.
描述自己國家的歷史，以便后人能從過去的失誤中汲取教訓。
