bjt

See also: BJT

Translingual

Symbol

bjt

1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Balanta-Ganja.

See also

• Wiktionary's coverage of Balanta-Ganja terms

Egyptian

Etymology 1

Bee hieroglyph from the tomb complex of Senusret I (d. 1,926 BC)

Heavily disputed. The final -t is usually considered a separate feminine ending in origin rather than a part of the root, but this is not wholly certain. Etymological hypotheses include:

• Cognate with Beja wíyu.
• From an earlier form *brt, in which case there are a number of mutually exclusive possibilities:
  • Cognate with El Molo póruat (“bee”).
  • Cognate with Western Rift *baʾara (“bee”) and its descendants: Iraqw baʾārmō (“bee”), Burunge băʾălĭmŭ (“bee”), Alagwa baʾaramo (“fly, bee”).
  • Cognate with Mofu-Gudur béber (“horsefly”).
  • Cognate with Pévé b̰úr (“honey (?)”)
• From an earlier form *blt, cognate with Kulere ʾabyál (“honey”), Mazagway bŏlŏ́m (“honey”), Musey mbulyuma (“honey”), Lele (Chad) bùlò (“hive”).

Several linguists have also proposed an areal connection with Proto-Indo-European *bʰey- (“bee”), noting the existence of a number of parallels between Afroasiatic and Indo-European bee-keeping terminology.

Pronunciation

 

• (reconstructed) IPA^(key): /biˈjat/ → /biˈjaʔ/ → /bəˈjaʔ/ → /βəˈjaʔ/

• (Old Egyptian, c. 2500 BCE) IPA^(key): /biˈjat/
• (Middle Egyptian, c. 1700 BCE) IPA^(key): /biˈjaʔ/
• (Amarna-period Late Egyptian, c. 1350 BCE) IPA^(key): /bəˈjaʔ/
• (latest Late Egyptian, c. 800 BCE) IPA^(key): /βəˈjaʔ/

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /bit/
  • Conventional anglicization: bit

Noun

 f

1. honey bee

Usage notes

Commonly used as a symbol of Lower Egypt.

Derived terms

• bjtj
• pr-bjt
• nswt-bjtj
• ḥwt bjt

 

Noun

Egyptians gathering honey

 f

1. honey

Descendants

• Demotic: ⁠⁠⁠ (jby)
  • Coptic: ⲉⲃⲓⲱ (ebiō)

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /bit/
  • Conventional anglicization: bit

Noun

 f

1. a kind of flat loaf of bread [since the Medical Papyri]
2. flat cake (of some given substance) in general

Inflection

Declension of bjt (feminine)

singular	bjt
dual	bjtj
plural	bjwt

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of bjt  

jbt	jwbt	bꜣjt	bꜣj	bjꜣt
[Medical papyri]	[Medical papyri]	[Medical papyri]	[18th Dynasty]	[New Kingdom]

References

• “bj.t (lemma ID 54200)”, “bj.t (lemma ID 54210)”, and “bj.t (lemma ID 54150)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae‎^[1], Corpus issue 18, Web app version 2.1.5, Tonio Sebastian Richter & Daniel A. Werning by order of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert & Peter Dils by order of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, 2004–26 July 2023
• Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1926) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[2], volume 1, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 51.13, 61, 433.1–433.10, 434.1–434.12
• Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, pages 13, 79
• Takács, Gábor (2001) Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, volume 2, Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, pages 107–110, →ISBN