After several hundred years, the Egyptians lost sight of both these meanings and the picture.
经过了几百年，古埃及人把这两种意义都扔掉了，
Here is a picture of a litttle man with a saw, came to stand for a single letter, the letter S.
图案只代表一个单独的字母，即“s”。我举一个简单的句子来说明我讲的意思。
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.
这里有一个现代的英文句子，
(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.)
这里有一篇文字，你会看到一张图片，图片上有一张人脸，一只蜜蜂还有一片树叶。另外一张图是一张人脸，一个拿着锯子的人还有一只鹿。
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.
图案或者表示长在你脸上、让你能够看见大千世界的圆圆的东西（眼睛），或者代表“我”（i），也就是那个正在说话的人。
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.
图案或者表示一种采蜜的昆虫（蜜蜂），或者代表动词“是”（to be）。
Again, it may be the first part of a verb like "be-come" or "be-have."
最后，它变成了“成为”（be－come）或“举止”（be－have）之类动词的前缀。
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.
在这个句子中，紧随其后的图案为，它的意思是“树叶”（leaf）、“离开”(leave）或“存在”(lieve），这三个词的发音相同。接下来的图案又是“眼睛”，前面已经讲过它的意思。
Finally you get the picture of A(and here is a picture of a girraffe). It is a giraffe.
最后，你遇上了图案它是一只长颈鹿。
It is part of the old sign-language out of which the hieroglyphics developed.
这个词属于古代埃及图像语言保留的一部分，而象形文字就是从这种古老的图像语言中发展而来的。
You can now read that sentence without much difficulty.
现在，你可以根据读音很容易的读出这句用象形文字写的话。
"I believe I saw a giraffe"
“我相信我看见了一只长颈鹿。”
Having invented this system the Egyptians developed it during thousands of years until they could write anything they wanted,
发明这种象形文字体系后，古埃及人又用了数千年的时间不断完善它，直到他们能够用它记录任何想表达的东西。
and they used these "canned words" to send messages to friends, to keep business accounts
他们用这种文字告知朋友消息，记录商业帐目，
and to keep a record of the history of their country, that future generations might benefit by the mistakes of the past.
描述自己国家的历史，以便后人能从过去的失误中汲取教训。
