jw.f pw

Egyptian

Etymology

jw (imperfective relative form of jwj (“to come”)) +‎ .f (“he, it”) +‎ pw (“this is...”), literally ‘it is that it comes’.

Pronunciation

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /iuːʔɛf puː/
  • Conventional anglicization: iu.ef pu

Phrase

1. formulaic statement made in the colophon or conclusion of a literary text; that’s how it goes, the end [Middle Kingdom to Late Period]
   • c. 1900 BCE, The Instructions of Kagemni (pPrisse/pBN 183) lines 2.8–2.9:

     ꜥḥꜥ.n rdj kꜣ-gm-n.j r jmj-r nwt ṯꜣt(j) jw.f pw

     Then Kagemni was made overseer of the city and vizier. That’s how it goes. / The end.

Usage notes

In literature of the Middle Kingdom this formula is often extended to jw.f pw ḥꜣt.f r pḥwj.fj (“that’s how it goes, its beginning to its end”); in the New Kingdom, it is instead often extended to jw.f pw m ḥtp (“that’s how it’s successfully concluded”, literally “it is that it comes in peace”).

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of jw.f pw  

jw.f pw

[Late Period]

Synonyms

• jw.s pw

References

• Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1926) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[1], volume 1, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 45.1–45.3
• Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 12
• James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 376.