en er: <water plural mouth stroke>
Perhaps with more study of the works of the Great Scholars (Gardiner, Allen and such like) the conundrum will be clarified.
Allen, James P. 2000, 2001. Middle Egyptian: an introduction to the language and culture of hieroglyphs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Budge, Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis. 1963 1983 [printing]. Egyptian language: easy lessons in Egyptian hieroglyphics with sign list. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Budge, Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis. 1978. An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary: with an index of English words, king list, and geographical list with indexes, list of hieroglyphic characters, Coptic and Semitic alphabets, etc. 2 vols. New York: Dover Publications. Original edition, "Republication of the work originally published. by John Murray, London, in 1920."
Collier, Mark, and Bill Manley. 1998. How to read Egyptian hieroglyphs: a step by step guide to teach yourself. London: British Museum Press.
Faulkner, Raymond Oliver. 1962. A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Oxford: Printed for the Griffith Institute at the University Press by V. Ridler.
Gardiner, Sir Alan Henderson. 1957 (2007). Egyptian Grammar: being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs. 3rd ed., rev. ed. Oxford: Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, by Oxford University Press.
At present YAR cannot confidently make word breaks, or hazard a decent guess at pronunciation.
YAR has at present around 14 examples of <water plural mouth> :
which is the same as the above illustration, without the <stroke> at the end. The <stroke> would suggest that it marks the end of a word, and this would be confirmed by some of the stroke-less examples. Here follow such examples.
1. <water plural mouth>
X: 1 ... tjen ren ...
Egyptian
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respelt
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English
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EngJSM
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source
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ID JS
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glyphs
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"dd=tn rn=tn n sš pn [?]"
|
djed-tjen ren-tjen en sesh pen =
|
"you say your name to that scribe [?]"
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say you-all / name ye-all-of / to / scribe that :
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Demovic Tools of the Language Pt 2 (white) [20:1]
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<cobra-J hand tether water plural mouth water tether water plural water paint: post-R squatter stool water>
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    |
djed-tjen ren-tjen en sesh pen:
cobra-J hand tether water plural mouth water tether water plural water paint: post-R squatter stool water
In the above case,
<water plural> are the last elements in the 2plNOM pronoun tjen ‘you-all’
<mouth> is the first component of ren, ‘name’
X: 2 ... sen er ...
Egyptian
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respelt
|
English
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EngJSM
|
source
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ID JS
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glyphs
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"mesu - sen er åqer sep sen"
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mesu sen er iqer sep sen =
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"their births exceedingly, twice."
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birth / them-all / in relation to / excellent / moment two :
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EAWB [155:8]
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<abacus-M cloth coil cow: birth cloth water plural mouth reed slope mouth plane socket strokex2>
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     |
mesu sen er iqer sep sen
abacus-M cloth coil cow: birth cloth water plural mouth reed slope mouth plane socket strokex2
In this next example, above,
<water plural> are the last elements in the 3plACC pronoun sen ‘them-all’
<mouth> is the single glyph in the preposition er with many idiomatic translations but which YAR reduces to ‘in relation to’
X: 3 ... ten reKH ...
In this Wallis Budge example (reproduced below as it occurs in his book):
Egyptian
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respelt
|
English
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EngJSM
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source
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ID JS
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glyphs
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"reX - kuå - ten reX - kuå ren - ten enen"
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reKH kuwi ten reKH kuwi ren ten enen =
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"even I know you. I know your names. Do not"
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know I ye-all // know I / name ye-all-of // not :
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EAWB [226:7]
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<mouth string plane-v cup stroke quail bun water plural mouth string plane-v cup quail stroke mouth water squattermouth plural-v bun water plural waterx2>
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reKH kuwi ten reKH kuwi ren ten enen
mouth string plane-v cup stroke quail bun water plural mouth string plane-v cup quail stroke mouth water squattermouth plural-v bun water plural waterx2
... the glyphs forming the <water plural mouth> sequence occur in the 3rd and 4th items in the green column above.
<water plural> are the last elements in the 2plACC pronoun ten ‘you-all’ [sometimes written tjen]
<mouth> is the first component of reKH ‘know’
It is worth noting kuwi ‘I’ in this example, is rendered <cup stroke quail> and then as <cup quail stroke> (items 2 and 5 in the green column). It might have been incorrectly transcribed in the first case, or the scribe might have allowed graphic transposition for some unknown reason.
X: 4.1 ‘outside’
All of the other examples of <water plural mouth> (without <stroke>) feature the end portions of plural pronouns followed by either a noun beginning with /r/, or the preposition er ‘in relation to’ ...
except for the following:
Egyptian
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respelt
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English
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EngJSM
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source
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ID JS
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glyphs
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"er bu-n-re"
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er buner =
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"outside"
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in relation to outside :
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EAWB [182:1]
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<mouth leg coil water plural mouth road legs>
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  |
X: 4.2 ‘outside’
The respelling by YAR was speculative, but in part based on entries by Gardiner and Faulkner.
"bnrw"
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buner-u =
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"outside"
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outside entity :
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Gardiner [564.1:17]
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<leg water mouth quail house>
|
 |
Could EAWB in X: 4.1 have placed the <plural> before the <mouth> instead of after? For the <quail> (or <coil>) has the sound /u/, and the function ‘entity’ when suffixed to a word. And the <plural> can sound the same, and at times have the very same ‘entity’ function rather than indicating a plural, serving as and alternative to <quail / coil>.
2. <water plural mouth stroke>
The foregoing is straightforward compared with the examples to follow.
X: 5 ‘outside’
"er bu - n - re"
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er buner =
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"outside"
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in relation to outside :
|
EAWB [182:3.1]
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<mouth leg coil water plural mouth stroke road legs>
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  |
This example is identical to X:4.1 except that there is a <stroke> after <mouth>.
From that it may be assumed that X:4.1 more properly belongs to the group now to be considered.
X: 6 ‘to mock at’
Egyptian
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respelt
|
English
|
EngJSM
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source
|
ID JS
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glyphs
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"buḥnra"
|
bu en er =
|
"to mock at"
|
mock :
|
WBDic [215.2:9.1]
|
<leg coil tusk plane water plural mouth stroke squattermouth>
|
 |
"buḥnra"
|
bu en er =
|
"to mock at"
|
mock :
|
WBDic [215.2:9.2]
|
<leg quail tusk plane water plural mouth squattermouth>
|
 |
The only difference between these two Wallis-Budge examples is the use of <coil> in the first and <quail> in the second, and of <mouth stroke> in the first and <mouth> alone in the second.
As determinatives (<tusk plane> in these two cases), and plural markers, normally follow the basic word rather than occurring part-way through it, this accounts for the respelling as /bu en er/ in three words. However, in examples X: 4 and X: 5 the respelling adopted in the NedjNedj databases has been /buner/, and the only justification for this is simplification, and (in the absence of being able to ask the scribes directly) to show alternative possibilities .
X: 7.1 ‘eager’
"tnr"
|
tjen er =
|
"eager"
|
eager :
|
Faulkner Concise [306:7]
|
<tether water plural mouth stroke arm: stick>
|
 |
Faulkner alone has this example.
Whether it is two words or one is not known.
X: 7.2 ‘reminder’, ‘great deeds’
Great scholars such as Faulkner, and earlier Wallis Budge, make it hard for for juniors such as YAR in the study of AE, through records such as the following for effectively the same tjen er / tjener (i.e. two or one words) concept.
"tnw-r"
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tjenu er =
|
"reminder"
|
reminder :
|
Faulkner Concise [306:1.22]
|
<tether water hockey duck: fly plane: bun pot quail mouth>
|
 |
"ϴenru"
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tjenu er =
|
"deeds great"
|
:
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EAWB [101:9.2]
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<cosh water plural mouth stroke arm: stick>
|
 |
Faulkner in the top row gives glyphs that leave no doubt that it is tjenu er (or tjenur), in view of the <pot> nu and <quail> u.
Likewise the scribes, too, provided challenges for YAR and his ilk by writing the same word so differently, as the contrast between the two rows in X: 7.2 clearly reveals (Yes! The different glyph sequences yield the same phonic result: tjenu er / tjenur).
And EAWB’s Row 2 example is effectively identical if sound and form to Faulkner’s example in X: 7.1.
But, next consider the meanings supplied by the scholars for these same items: eager, reminder, great deeds. It practically makes a novice want to give up any hope of ever being able to make genuine sense of Ancient Egyptian (AE) inscriptions in the face of such diverse interpretations.
X: 8 ‘forget’
Here is the final example:
Here is the final example:
"thanreḥ"
|
tjAner =
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"to forget"
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forget :
|
WBDic [851.1:5.1]
|
<duckling stroke water plural mouth stroke tusk plane tusk squattermouth>
|  |
Gardiner (p. 463) says that <tusk> is a determinative for ‘tooth’ and that it is used for tooth-related actions such as peseHe ‘bite’ and sebet ‘laugh’.
Well, Wallis-Budge may indeed be right in glossing tjAner as ‘forget’— but so far no support for this notion has been uncovered by the NedjNedj databases. But at Sunday 2 March 2014, with a mere 27 000 entries, these databases are far from complete.
3. Conclusion
cry of heart
This entry has been something of a cri de coeur by a novice trying to make some headway with hieroglyphs and the AE language, mainly through the assistance of the published works of real scholars; but who is finding obscurity at times in the scholarly texts as well as light.
And, dear Blog Reader, do not put too much faith in the rendering of the 'cry of heart' idiom above. YAR made it up.
Sunday 2 March 2014
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