Do we know how to pronounce the hieroglyphics symbols?

It seems that when Jean François Champollion deciphered the ancient Egyptian writing (using Rosetta Stone and others), he discovered that it was still quite similar with Coptic despite the time difference. Coptic hasn't been a spoken language since the 1600's, but is the liturgical language of the coptic church and hence has been well preserved (as Latin has been).

So I think he used coptic to get the ponunciations.

About "Ra": We don't really know what the vowel is. In fact, I don't think we know any vowels!

Hopefully and expert is online and can give a better answer!

Check out the source. I Didn't have time to read it properly.

Hieroglyphics Pronounce

We kind of know how to pronounce the hieroglyphs. We don't know what vowels they had, as Egyptian was a Semitic language, like Hebrew, and like Hebrew they didn't write down the vowels. What this means is that we know what consonants they had, and how to pronounced those, but are guessing about the vowel sounds.

Actually for years we didn't know how to translate the hieroglyphics. But when the rosetta stone was discovered, everything became clear. What the rosetta stone did was equate the heiroglyphics with other languages (I believe they were greek, latin, and one other that isn't deciphered because that piece of the stone is lost.) Then, since it is related to these other languages (that we DO know how to translate), it is now possible to translate hieroglyphics.

Well, that's the point - we don't. At least not just by looking at them.

The phonetic alphabet we use in the western world today was invented by the Phoenicians. They were professional travelers and traders.

The created their alphabet so you could tell how a word was pronounced, just by looking at it. The ancient Egyptians did not.

Like Chinese ideograms, you can pronounce them anyway you like.