Hieratic

Hieratic is an adaptation of hieroglyphic script, signs being simplified to make their writing quicker. Hieratic was administrative and business script throughout most of its history, and recorded documents of a literary, scientific and religious nature. It was most often used on papyrus rolls or sheets, or on bits of pottery or stone. Hieroglyphs were written with a reed brush and ink on papyrus, leather or wood, and on those surfaces it was harder to attain crisp quality and detail of signs as carved on stone. So cursive hieroglyphic was merely a simpler form of each hieroglyphic sign. A hieratic sign was not always as clear a counterpart to its hieroglyphic sign as was cursive hieroglyphic. Hieratic should not be confused with cursive hieroglyphic script, though two resemble each other. Cursive hieroglyphic script is usually written from right to left in columns, though just as with hieroglyphic it could vary, and is found almost exclusively in religious texts such as Book of Dead. Hieratic could be written in columns or horizontal lines, but it always read from right to left. It also sometimes contained punctuation in form of a small dot to separate units of thought.

Demotic The word "Demotic" comes once again from Greek, meaning "popular script." By Hellenistic period of Ptolemies, demotic was only native script in general daily use. It is a very cursive script, having been derived directly from hieratic, making it difficult to read and almost impossible to transcribe into any hieroglyphic counterpart. Demotic texts were generally administrative, legal and commercial, though there are a few literary compositions as well as scientific and religious texts. The Rosetta Stone contains a section inscribed in demotic along with hieroglyphic and Greek.