LESSON 1

1 . 1 . EGYP TIAN N OU NS

Nouns are words that languages use to designate thingsreal or imaginary (aardvark / unicorn), concepts or actions (reason / murder), even words themselves (noun). Some nouns are general enough to apply to many different things (river, actress), or specic enough to refer to only one thing (Ganges, Cher). The latter are called proper nouns, and in English they are usually capitalized (but note the preference of the American feminist author bell hooks). As in Hebrew, Greek, French, Nahuatl, Georgian, and many other languages, nouns in Egyptian are built of roots and afxes (prexes, inxes, sufxes). In English the nouns pig, pigs, piggishness, pigsty, and pighead all have in common the morpheme pig. It is the root of these ve words. The word pig itself consists of only one morpheme [ = pig + ]; the others are formed by adding things to this rootfor example, the ending s to form the plural. The word pigment also contains a phonetic sequence pig, but etymologically it derives from a different root: a nouns root cannot always be deduced from the word in isolation! Egyptian nouns are built up in the same way: of roots and afxes. Some consist only of the root, while others have one or more prexes, inxes, or sufxes. For example, on the Egyptian root sA are formed the words sA (son), sA.t (daughter), sA.w (sons), sA.wt A morpheme is the smallest linguistic (daughters), among others. Normally, Egyptian roots unit that has semantic meaning. The consist of two or three consonants, although some have concept morpheme differs from the confour or ve. cept word, as many morphemes cannot In Classical Egyptian nouns are differentiated by gender stand as words on their own. A morand by number, but they do not exhibit case. If there were pheme is free if it can stand alone, or construct, pausal, or emphatic forms for the Middle Egypbound if it is used exclusively alongside a tian nounas in Classical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Old Ethifree morpheme. The word unbreakable has three morphemes: un-, a bound opic (Geaez)these do not show up in any of the Egyptian morpheme; break, a free morpheme; scribal systems.
and -able, a bound morpheme.
1 . 1 . 1 . GENDER

The Egyptian language makes use of two different grammatical genders. For the most part, nouns are either masculine or feminine, although a few are attested in both genders (see below, N.4). In general, masculine nouns stand unmarkedthat is, they show no specic grammatical termination. Some, however, take the ending j or w, although these are often omitted in the writing: sn brother

xrpw mallet

sbA star

mnw monument

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nm knife Sa container

nmw dwarf Saj sand

-t Almost all feminine nouns take the ending -t, a sufx that is added directly to the root; this makes them particularly easy to spot. Certain feminine nouns, however, remain unmarkedthat is, they do not terminate in -tand therefore their gender is not immediately apparent upon inspection. Masculine versus feminine gender sometimes correlates with sex; for many nouns gender assignment is arbitrary. sn brother

sn.t sister

nTr god

nTr.t goddess

p.t sky
jArr.t vine N.1. It is important to keep in mind that the feminine t is an added ending, not an original part of the noun itself. In hieroglyphs the feminine ending -t is attached directly to the root, placed immediately before the determinative(s), if there are anystudy the writings of the feminine nouns above, noting where the t and where the determinatives are placed. In transliteration this grammar follows the widespread Egyptological convention of separating the feminine ending from the root by a dot: p.t, nTr.t, sn.t, and so on. Other publications, however, run them together ( pt, nTrt, snt, and so on), although this tends to make the morphology less clear. N.2. Many place names do not show the characteristic ending -t, but function as feminine grammatically nonetheless. Compare these examples: #r Syria-Palestine (m.)
*Hnw Libya (m.)
P Buto (m.)

%T.t Asia (f.)

KAS Nubia (f.)

AbDw Abydos (f.)

N.3. Conversely, some words that end in -t are masculine. This occurs when t is not a sufx but the nal letter of the rootthat is, when the t belongs to the root and is not the feminine ending. In this grammar the feminine ending -t is always punctuated with an antecedent dot; if there is no dot, the t is part of the root. Thus, xt wood(m.) versus x.t thing (f.). Among the most common masculine nouns in which t forms part of the root are: xt wood, mast (m.)
jt father (m.)
nxt victory (m.) twt statue, image (m.)
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xnt face (m.) jt barley (m.)

m(w)t death (m.) mt penis (m.)

In transliteration a letter written in parentheses [for example, m(w)t] represents a consonant that belongs to the stem or ending, but is not written out in the hieroglyphs. Such writings are often called defective.

1.1. EGYPTIAN NOUNS

N.4. A few nouns exhibit the reverse: morphologically, they are feminine but occasionally, in other contexts, they function as masculine, usually with a slightly different nuance in the meaning. For example x.t when it means thing or things is feminine; however, when it means something, it is treated as masculine (for the plural strokes, see below under Strokes; see also 1.2.1. Attributive Adjectives):
x.t nb.t nfr.t all good things
x.t Sm something hot Note the adjective Sm hot is masculine; it lacks the feminine ending t that we nd in nfr.t; see 1.2.1. Attributive Adjectives. dp.t N.5. Like many languages (Latin, Russian), formal Middle Egyptian dispenses with both denite and indenite articles. Thus the noun dp.t may be translated a boat, the boat, or just simply boat, depending on the context in which the word occurs. Colloquial Middle Egyptian almost certainly made use of articles (see Lesson 3, section 3, N.4); however, these are rarely encountered in written texts, except where they reect the spoken languagefor example, in letters, legal statements, or in tomb scene captions as quotations of persons of inferior social status. The articles sporadically encountered in some literary papyri may well be later additions to the text and cannot be taken with certainty to represent the original writing. To express deniteness and indeniteness, Middle Egyptian has various demonstratives and periphrastic phrases at its disposal, which this book treats later (see Lesson 3). Middle Egyptian also relies more on context to determine deniteness, like other languages that lack articles.

1.1.2. NUMBER

Middle Egyptian (like Greek, Hebrew, and Sanskrit) has three categories of number: singular, dual, and plural. The dual is used with things that naturally occur in pairs or that are perceived in dualistic terms: for example, feet, ears, sandals, the Two Lands (Upper and Lower Egypt), the twin obelisks. There are three principal ways for indicating number in hieroglyphs: declension, replication, and strokes. Declension. Most commonly, Middle Egyptian expressed number by adding a bound morpheme to the root. While the singularwhether masculine or femininehas no declension to mark the number, the dual and plural each have distinctive sufxes that indicate gender as well as number. The forms are as follows: Table 1.1. Declension
Masculine Feminine

Singular
Dual

-wj

-t

-tj -wt

Plural

-w

1.1. EGYPTIAN NOUNS

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As with the ending t of the feminine singular, the grammatical terminations for the dual and plural are regularly written before the determinative(s). In transliteration they are separated by a dot: sn brother
sn.wj two brothers

sn.t sister
sn.tj two sisters

sn.w brothers

sn.wt sisters

In transliteration the sufxes are added directly to the root. This means that in the masculine plural, the -w is written directly after the root in the transliteration. In the feminine plural, however, the -w comes before the nal t. Hence sn > sn.w, but sn.t > sn.wt.

Many scribes omit the -w from their writing of the dual and plural forms, perhaps because the consonant was weak. From the Eighteenth Dynasty on, moreover, the writing of the feminine plural almost always lacks the -w, so that the feminine singular and feminine plural look exactly alike. For example: rd.(w)j two legs

sn.t sister

sn.(w)t sisters sA.(w)t daughters

sA.t daughter

Only context can distinguish between the last two forms. In transliteration it is preferable to place the omitted -w in parenthesis to help clarify the form. Replication. There were other ways to write the dual and the plural, however, which could dispense with these sufxal terminations altogether. One of the oldest and most common methods for expressing the dual consisted of doubling the logogram with which the singular was written. Writing the glyph for arm twice meant two arms. Alternatively, scribes might write out the phonetic notation for the word and follow it by a redoubling of the determinative. Occasionally, both the declensional endings and a reduplication of the determinative are found. Regardless of how the dual is written, the sufx terminations are always employed in the transliteration. For example: jb.wj two hearts [not: jb jb] dp.tj two boats jr.tj the two eyes rd.wj the two legs The same principle could also be employed to write the plural. Here scribes generally dispensed with the plural endings and trebled the logogram with which the singular was written out. As with the dual,

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1.1. EGYPTIAN NOUNS

they also sometimes supplied the phonetic notation for the singular and then tripled the determinative. Occasionally, both the declensional endings and a reduplication of the determinative are found. With biliteral nouns, scribes sometimes repeated the word three times in its entirety. In any case, the transliteration still employs the sufx endings. sA.w sons tp.w heads Dba.w ngers Hm.wt women jt.w ancestors [< jt father]

Strokes. Dual and plural could also be indicated by the addition of linear strokes. The oblique strokes (dual strokes), placed below or after the writing of the word, commonly functioned as a marker of duality. The two strokes could also be written vertically ( ) or horizontally ( ). For example, the dual for two arms [ a.wj ] might be written in any of the following ways, with no difference in meaning or in connotation:
or or or or

) Similarly, in standard Middle Egyptian, plural , ) and plural dots ( plural strokes ( strokes frequently serve as an indicator of plurality. Occasionally, the scribes also wrote plural dots. These strokes or dots were placed immediately below or alongside (that is, after) the semantic determinative. Again, the sufx pronouns are employed in the transliteration. So: pr house
jb.w hearts sA.w sons mw.wt mothers As these examples make clear, there were ordinarily multiple ways to write the dual or plural of any noun in Middle Egyptian. In fact, different ways of writing these forms can be combined, although plural strokes and tripling are incompatible. Compare with these examples: Xrd.w children sn.wt sisters

pr.w houses

or

or

1.1. EGYPTIAN NOUNS

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or

Hr.w faces nTr.w [ < nTr god]

N.1. Some nouns that terminate in wj, -tj, w, or w.t were written as if they were duals or plurals by false analogy with the declensional endings. As these false plurals and false duals are actually singulars and not true duals or pluralsthat is, the wj, -tj, w, or w.t terminations belong to the rootthe ending is not separated in transliteration by a dot. Note, however, the retention of the dot for the feminine ending in transliteration where this is appropriate. Hqrw hunger rnnw.t exultation pHtj power, strength njw.tj local mnw monument xAwj evening

Despite its appearance, njw.tj is not the dual two towns but a nisba-adjective that means local.

For more on nisba-adjectives, see Lesson 4. N.2. Originally, the oblique strokes in the declensional endings for the dual - and - seem to have been determinatives, markers of duality. By their association with the writing of the duals wj and tj, however, these dual strokes eventually took on the phonetic value j, and thus came to function as a phonogram for j even outside the context of the dual. The substitution is quite common. For example:

jrj pertaining to mj come! Other texts transliterate the phonogram as y, and distinguish i from y, a phonetic difference that it is difcult to maintain from the evidence at our disposal. Here, therefore, we will continue to transliterate the reed leaf, the double reed leaf, and the dual strokes uniformly as j.

1 . 2 . EGYPTIAN ADJECTIVES

Adjectives are words that describe qualities, such as size (large, narrow), color (black, red ), or value ( ne, disgusting). In English adjectives are mostly used to modify nounsthat is, to specify what kind of noun is meant: a large man, a narrow corridor, and so on. In Middle Egyptian, however, the adjective can serve not only to modify a noun (attributive adjectives). It can also stand on its own and function as a noun (substantival adjective), as adjectives do regularly in Greek or French and occasionally in English: for example, the wicked man [adjective as modier, as an attributive adjective], the wicked [adjective as (mass) noun, as a substantival adjective].

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1.2. EGYPTIAN ADJECTIVES

Like nouns, adjectives are inected for number and gender; in fact, the declension of the adjective is exactly like the noun (see Table 1.1. Declension, above). The full declension for nfr (good) therefore runs as follows: nfr (m.s.) nfr.wj (m.d.) nfr.w (m.pl.) nfr.t (f.s.) nfr.tj (f.d.) nfr.(w)t (f.pl.)

In the feminine plural the w is almost never written out; therefore the feminine singular of the adjective and the feminine plural look identicalonly context will distinguish one from the other. As with the defective writing of the feminine plural noun, however, the transliteration places the omitted w in parentheses. Like nouns, adjectives also employ replication to express duality and plurality, as well as dual and plural strokes. The practice is, in fact, quite common: txn.wj wr.wj two great obelisks pr.w aA.w the great houses

1 . 2 . 1 . ATT R IBU TIVE A D JECTIV ES

As a general rule in classical Egyptian, modiers take second position. Accordingly, in Egyptian an attributive adjective directly follows the noun it modies, although in some constructions it is also possible that other words will intervene. An attributive adjective agrees in gender and number with the noun that it modies. Gender and number markers generally precede any determinative(s). hj Xsj a vile husband dp.t aA.t a large boat Xrd.w onj.w brave children sA.wt nfr.(w)t good sisters [note the omission of the w-] jr.tj Dw.tj two evil eyes If an attributive adjective refers to entities of more than one gender, it is put in the masculine. Adjectives that modify words that are feminine, such as KAS (Nubia), but lack the feminine ending t, exhibit the t in the attributive adjective: KAS Xsj.t vile Nubia

1.2. EGYPTIAN ADJECTIVES

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1 . 2 . 2 . SU B STAN TIVA L A D JECTIV ES

In Middle Egyptian, adjectives can be used as ordinary nouns. In the feminine singular, however, the notion is abstract. This section discusses adjectives used as ordinary nouns and the abstract use of the feminine singular. Adjectives used as ordinary nouns. The adjective can stand on its own as a noun, as regularly in French, Greek, Latin, and occasionally in English (for example, the rich, the beautiful, the famous). In standard English the use of adjectives as substantives is usually generic or collective. In Egyptian, however, almost any adjective can be nominalized: the skillful [woman], the handsome [man], and so on. Where the gender of the noun or individuals is specied, the corresponding form is used. When used with persons, deities, or animals, an appropriate determinative indicating the species is almost always added. For example: nDs small > aA great nfr beautiful Dw evil > > > nDs commoner aA.t the Great Goddess nfr.t a pretty cow Dw.t an evil woman

Abstract use of the feminine singular. The feminine singular of the adjective can be used independently as a substantive to refer to a quality in the abstract. The sense is similar to the neuter form of the adjective in Greek (t gaqn [to agathon] the Good), but the parallel can be misleading because there is actually no neuter gender in Egyptian. The forms are feminine and normally occur in the singular, although plurals are attested. Xsj.t debility Dw.t evil onj.t strength
Dictionaries index all forms according to their root, in the arbitrary order of the monoconsonantal signs. For nouns and adjectives this means that the entry will appear rst under the masculine singular. However, all forms of that root (that is, the root + bound morpheme) are listed together, even if no dictionary is complete in this regard. Hence, along with the form Ab, one nds Ab.t, Abj, Abw before progressing on to AbAb, Abb, Abnn, and so on. Similarly, while x.t (thing) occurs near the beginning of the entries under #, xt (wood) occurs toward the end, since in the rst case the t is an afxed morpheme (the regular marker of the feminine gender), while in the later the nal t forms part of the root (see N.3. above, under 1.1.1. Gender): the root x- precedes the root xt. Because this method of indexing is relatively far removed from the way English or other European-language dictionaries are set up, for most students this takes some getting used to. At rst this is bound to be time consuming, and beginners will make numerous mistakes. Learning how to use an Egyptian dictionary is an important part of the process of learning to read Middle Egyptian, no matter how frustrating this initially may be. All words used in this grammar are indexed in the lexicon in Further Resources at the back of the book (see R-6. Vocabulary in Part Three).

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1.2. EGYPTIAN ADJECTIVES

VOCAB U LAR Y: FAM ILY, PER S ON S , THE BOD Y

Ab.t family, clan jb heart jr.t eye jt father (m.)

Hr face (n.) X.t belly, body, womb $nmw Khnum Xrw immediate family, relations Xrd child Xsj cowardly, vile, weak s man s.t woman

The in the hieroglyphic spelling father has not been adequately explained, although there are many theories. In any case, it is silent, an integral part of the spelling but evidently not pronounced. Hence it should not be included in the transliteration.

a arm sA back aA large, great sA son pr house sA.t daughter mw.t mother sn brother nfr beautiful, good sn.t sister nDs small onj brave, strong r mouth; door, opening; speech, spell tp head rmT person, inhabitant; TAj man, male people: , rmT dp.t boat Dw bad, evil hj husband Dba nger @w.t-@r Hathor Dr.t hand Hm.t woman, wife

rd leg, foot

VOCABULARY: FAMILY, PERSONS, THE BODY

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Biconsonantals Ab jr aA pr Hm Hr Xr Triconsonantals nfr sA sA sn tp TA Dw

EX ERCISE S

A. Translate the following phrases from Middle Egyptian into English. Give the transliteration as well as the translation. 1.
2.

3.

4.
5. 6.

7.

8.
9.

10.

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EXERCISES

B. Translate the following phrases from English into Middle Egyptian. Write out the hieroglyphs as well as the transliteration. 1. a vile man 2. the brave woman 3. a small hand 4. a bad thing 5. two feet 6. an evil brother 7. a beautiful face 8. the good mother 9. arms 10. a big mouth
FU RTHER R EADIN G

T. Allen. The Ancient Egyptian Family. New York, 2009. M. Biebrier. Terms of Relationship at Deir El-Medina. JEA 66 (1980): 1007. A. Capel and G. Markoe, eds. Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt. Cincinnati, Ohio, 1996. J. ern. Consanguineous Marriage in Pharaonic Egypt. JEA 40 (1954): 2329. M. el-Amir. Monogamy, Polygamy, Endogamy, and Consanguinity in Ancient Egyptian Marriage. BIFAO 62 (1964): 1037. C. Eyre. Crime and Adultery in Ancient Egypt. JEA 70 (1984): 92105. H. Fischer. Egyptian Women of the Old Kingdom and the Heracleopolitan Period. New York, 1989. A. Gardiner. Adoption Extraordinary. JEA 26 (1940): 2329. C. GravesBrown. Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt. New York, 2010. N. Kanawati. Polygamy in the Old Kingdom of Egypt? Studien zur altgyptischen Kultur 4 (1976): 14060. B. Lesko, ed. Womens Earliest Records from Ancient Egypt and Western Asia. Atlanta, 1989. L. Meskell. Intimate Archaeologies: The Case of Khat and Merit. World Archaeology 29 (1998): 36379. R. Middleton. Brother-Sister and Father-Daughter Marriage in Ancient Egypt. American Sociological Review 27 (1962): 60322. A. Nur el-Din. The Role of Women in Ancient Egyptian Society. Cairo, 1995. P. Pestman. Marriage and Matrimonial Property in Ancient Egypt. Leiden, 1961. G. Robins. Relationships Specied by Egyptian Kinship Terms of the Middle Kingdome, CdE 54 (1979): 197217. . Women in Ancient Egypt. Second edition. Cambridge, 2008. J. Tyldesly, J. Daughters of Isis: Women in Ancient Egypt. London, 1994. S. Whale. The Family in the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Sydney, 1989. H. Willems. A Description of Egyptian Kinship Terminology of the Middle Kingdom, c. 20001650 BC. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 139 (1983): 15268.

FURTHER READING

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