Hatshepsut Pronunciation

Many people do not know the correct Hatshepsut pronunciation. Despite being one of the most successful Pharaohs in Egyptian history. Hatshepsut was the second official female Pharaoh (Sobekneferu was the first) and she was the fifth Pharaoh in Egypt’s 18^th Dynasty.

Here is how to pronounce Hatshepsut:

Hat-Shep-Soot / hætˈʃɛp sɛt

An audio recording of the British pronunciation of Hatshepsut.

When pronouncing Hatshepsut, you want to stress the “shep” syllable. So the Hatshepsut pronunciation is hat-SHEP-soot.

Here is the Hatshepsut pronunciation in other languages:

Turkish – Hatshepsut’un
French – Hatchepsout
German – Hatschepsut
Chinese – 哈特
Japanese – キ
Hindi – हत्शेपसट
Korean – 실외 수영장,마사지,당구대,승
Arabic – حتشبسوت

The meaning of Hatshepsut is “foremost of noblewomen”. The Hatshepsut pronunciation is based on the ancient Egyptian language. Egyptian was an Afroasiatic language that was used in Ancient Egypt. This is one of the oldest written languages we know today. When Hatshepsut was alive, she probably would have been in the transitional period between the Middle Egyptian language (2055-1650 BC) and the Late Egyptian language (1069-700 BC) as she lived from 1506-1458 BC. The Middle Egyptian language was still used as a written language up until the 4^th century AD.

Akkadian could’ve possibly been used during Hatshepsut’s time. Hatshepsut could have possibly been knowledgeable in Akkadian because it was used as a diplomatic lingua franca by powerful kingdoms during the Bronze Age. Hatshepsut built good political ties and opened trade routes with neighbouring countries when she ruled, hence why it is believed she could have potentially had knowledge of this language. Akkadian was written in Egypt, historians believe it could have probably been written by Egyptian scribes.