MYSTERY: en er: water plural mouth stroke

A group of glyphs occurs occasionally and it frankly has Your Amateur Researcher (YAR) puzzled. 

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	respelt	English	EngJSM	source	ID JS	glyphs
"dd=tn rn=tn n sš pn [?]"	djed-tjen ren-tjen en sesh pen =	"you say your name to that scribe [?]"	say you-all / name ye-all-of / to / scribe that :	Demovic Tools of the Language Pt 2  (white) [20:1]	<cobra-J hand tether water plural mouth water tether water plural water paint: post-R squatter stool water>

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	respelt	English	EngJSM	source	ID JS	glyphs
"mesu - sen er åqer sep sen"	mesu sen er iqer sep sen =	"their births exceedingly, twice."	birth / them-all / in relation to / excellent / moment two  :	EAWB [155:8]	<abacus-M cloth coil cow: birth cloth water plural mouth reed slope mouth plane socket strokex2>

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	respelt	English	EngJSM	source	ID JS	glyphs
"reX - kuå - ten reX - kuå ren - ten enen"	reKH kuwi ten reKH kuwi ren ten enen =	"even I know you. I know your names. Do not"	know I ye-all // know I / name ye-all-of // not  :	EAWB [226:7]	<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>

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	respelt	English	EngJSM	source	ID JS	glyphs
"er bu-n-re"	er buner =	"outside"	in relation to outside  :	EAWB [182:1]	<mouth leg coil water plural mouth road legs>

X: 4.2 ‘outside’

The respelling by YAR was speculative, but in part based on entries by Gardiner and Faulkner.

"bnrw"

buner-u =

"outside"

outside entity :

Gardiner [564.1:17]

<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"

er buner =

"outside"

in relation to outside  :

EAWB [182:3.1]

<mouth leg coil water plural mouth stroke road legs>

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	respelt	English	EngJSM	source	ID JS	glyphs
"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"	tjenu er =	"reminder"	reminder  :	Faulkner Concise [306:1.22]	<tether water hockey duck: fly plane: bun pot quail mouth>
"ϴenru"	tjenu er =	"deeds great"	:	EAWB [101:9.2]	<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:

"thanreḥ"

tjAner =

"to forget"

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

rem en ib

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

PLURAL — ENTITY and other suffixes

SUFFIXES

Soon after your amateur researcher began transcribing Ancient Egyptian dictionary entries he adopted the following basic suffix interpretations:

agent: i

entity: u

relative (what is): t

AGENT

glyph	respelt	JS name	functrion/value
	i	reed	agent
	i	reeds	agent
	i	pair	agent

ENTITY

	u	coil	entity
	u	quail	entity

RELATIVE

-t

bun

relative: ‘what is’

DETERMINATIVES

Determinatives are a class of suffix that do not contribute to the sound of the words they follow, but rather are indicators of meaning. And there is little wonder that the Ancient Egyptians (AEs) used this device. At first sight determinatives appeared to be a needless encumbrance. 

English could use determinatives to assist with the following:

bass: It was fishy to have a bass painted on the band’s big bass drum.

close: It was close to the time for the speaker to close the argument.

detail: To detail a sheep is a detail in animal husbandry.

desert: Should rain desert the landscape long enough the terrain becomes a desert.

does: Does eat oats as does a goat eat grass.

intimate: The prosecutor might intimate he had an intimate link with the victim.

invalid: The argument against the invalid was invalid.

lead: Of all the heavy metals, lead was in the lead.

object: You can’t object if a transitive sentence has an object.

polish: The Polish performer lacked polish.

present: Please present the prizes to all the winners present.

produce: The produce of agriculture will produce revenue for the nation.

refuse: The refuse after the fireworks the garbagemen could not refuse to collect.

row: There was a row over rights three days in a row.

sewer: The sewer of clothes saw the sow was in the sewer.

sow: A pig can’t peg clothes nor can a sow sow seeds.

subject: To subject someone to indignities is a subject of concern.

tear: She shed a tear over a tear in the veil.

wind: Can’t hear the watch wind down or see the wind whistle at the windows.

wound: The nurse wound the dressing firmly around the wound.

If say, bekA meant ‘morning’,  why clutter up the sound glyphs with pictorial additions? The reason is that innumerable words that visually sound the same may have quite different meanings. Consequently in an inscription, the scribes used determinative to show which of the word meanings was intended. And this is the case with bekA:

bekA: to shine

Determinative: <sun: abacus-M>. The sun and rays suggest ‘shining’:

"beka"

bekA =

"to shine"

shine  :

WBDic [225.1:11]

<leg arms: up eagle sun: abacus-M>

bAkA: to swell

Determinative: <kneeless>. The pregnant woman suggests ‘swelling’:

"beka"

bAkA =

"to bulge out"

swell  :

WBDic [225.1:16]

<leg jabiru arms: up stroke kneeless>

bekA: weak

Determinative: <squatter: limp>. The lax seated man suggest ‘weakness’:

"beka"

begA =

"weak"

weak  :

WBDic [225.2:4.2]

<leg arms: up eagle coil squatter: limp>

AMBIGUITY

In each of the agent, entity and relative group of glyphs there is the presence of, or potential for, ambiguity.

<bun> /t/: either relative, or feminine indicator

While the glyph <bun> /t/ is the marker for the relative (‘what is), it is also used to indicate the feminine. Sometimes it is not possible to know with certainty which usage was intended. Often it scarcely matters.

mer-et: beloved

This could be ‘something loved’ or a’beloved (woman)’:

"mrt"

mer-et =

"beloved"

love what is [beloved]:

Col/Man [90:4.32]

<hoe mouth bun>

STROKES

Single stroke

A single stroke is often used whether by convention, or to indicate that the sign represent really means its pictorial value. It might also indicate, or at least tend to suggest, that that is where a word, or word-component, ends — although determinatives might follow.

Two strokes

for 

A pair of strokes <pair>, on a slant, is often used instead of a pair of reeds <reeds>. They have the sound /i/. While they generally indicate ‘agent’; sometimes they denote duality — that there were two of the thing concerned.

Three strokes

or

or 

Three strokes indicate plurality, and this sign was often not pronounced:

"sen"

sen =

"[they]"

they-all  them, their:

EAWB [95:8.1]

<bolt water PLURAL>

sen: part of an inscription on the back wall of the temple at Kom Ombo

"tjen"

tjen =

"[you-all]"

you-all  :

EAWB [95:7.2]

<tether water PLURAL>

tjen: part of an inscription on the back wall of the temple at Kom Ombo

However, the plural sign could also be pronounced, with the sound value /u/. And where a plural occurs in a word otherwise ending in -t, the word concerned would be pronounced ...ut.

ENTITY: /u/: <quail>, <coil> and plural

It would appear that the plural sign, often being pronounced /u/, was used in the same manner as <quail> and <coil> to indicate ‘entity’, as in the following examples:

"ršw"

resh-u =

"joy"

happy entity :

Gardiner [578.2:11.2]

<mouth pool nosey PLANE PLURAL>

"grgw"

gereg-u =

"lying"

fib entity :

Allen [470.1:26]

<axehead mouth seven: 7 sparrow PLURAL>

While often the plural marker might be interpreted either as a genuine plural indicator or as denoting ‘entity’, there are man occasions when its standing as an alternative to <quail> or <coil> seems undeniable. However, when it was separately pronounced is something that your amateur researcher is not yet confident to assert.

A SOMEWHAT ABORTIVE ATTEMPT TO MAKE SENSE OF PLURAL SIGNS

When a plural marker indicates plurality and when ‘entity’ might be something that only the context can really reveal. Consider an inscription such as this fragment below from Agkila Island, the relocated site of the temple of Philae after the raising of the waters of the Nile from the Aswan High Dam:

In particular consider this detail featuring several plural signs:

The first challenge in this detail is to identify the signs, and then to try to read the actual words. In this picture there are four different plural signs. An analysis is attempted

Left-hand column:

fish: bent	khA	khAk can mean ‘truncate’
cup	k
heartx3	ibu
egg: ears PLURAL	[khep(A) / Heseb / weHA gA [?]	< egg: ears> is a common determinative to do with the body, and here it follows ‘hearts’
pot	nu	of
heeler: flag  bun pair	khefeti [?] nu [?]	<heeler: flag> reads ‘khefeti’. Consequently  <bun pair>  [ti] below it probably belongs to it. ‘khefet-i’ means ‘opposite-agent’, i.e. ‘enemy’
horizon	AKHet	horizon: this could be part of some religious reference, especially if coupled with <flag>: ‘god’, ‘divine’, below it.
flag	netjer	[see comment in the row above]

Possible meaning

... truncate the hearts of the enemies of the god of the horizon [??]

Right-hand column — many doubtful elements:

sky [?]
ear: ox [?]	sedjem	hear [?]
duck [?] [or <jabiru?] PLURAL	sA / wu [?] / bA / wu [?]	sons? spirits?
line [?]
sun [?] stroke / star / PLURAL	re / sebA / duwA / wenut /  wu [?]
chisel	em	in connection with [?]
town town	[niyut]
<sky> [?]		IF <sky>, then could be part of <face stroke> and hence perhaps ‘upon’, ‘on account of’
face [?] stroke / detonator / spoon [?] PLURAL	Her / wedja / KHeru / Hepet	upon / evaluate/judge / offerings

Meaning

There are too many unknowns here for your amateur researcher to attempt a translation.

Comment

It would seem that most of the plural signs in this fragment might actually indicate plurality rather than the abstraction ‘entity’.

Be that as it may, it seems clear that the 'plural' sign can indicate 'entity' as well as plurality.