nhj

See also: nḫj

Egyptian

Pronunciation

(modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /nɛhi/
- Conventional anglicization: nehi

Noun

m

some, a few, a little, a bit (+ n(j) or m: of) [since the Old Kingdom]
- c. 1900 BCE, The Instructions of Kagemni (pPrisse/pBN 183) line 1.6:
  
  jw nfrt jdn bw nfr jw nh(j) n(j) ktt jdn wr
  For a good thing serves for goodness, for a bit of a little thing serves for a big thing.

Usage notes

Though a noun in Egyptian, this word frequently describes another noun by serving as the first element in an indirect genitive construction with n(j) (thus literally “some of”), and it is often best translated into English as a determiner. Less commonly, it may be linked to the following noun with the preposition m. In either case, nhj is typically used with a singular noun in Old and Middle Egyptian, while in Late Egyptian the accompanying noun may also be plural.

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of nhj

nh

Descendants

Late Egyptian: nhꜣy
- Akhmimic Coptic: ϩⲉⲛ- (hen-), ϩⲛ- (hn-)
- Bohairic Coptic: ϩⲁⲛ- (han-)
- Fayyumic Coptic: ϩⲉⲛ- (hen-), ϩⲛ- (hn-)
- Lycopolitan Coptic: ϩⲉⲛ- (hen-), ϩⲛ- (hn-)
- Sahidic Coptic: ϩⲉⲛ- (hen-), ϩⲛ- (hn-)
Coptic: ϩⲟⲉⲓⲛⲉ (hoeine)

References

“nh(ꜣ)j (lemma ID 851516)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae‎^[1], Corpus issue 17, Web app version 2.01 edition, 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, 2004–15 December 2022
Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1928) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[2], volume 2, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 280.4–280.10
Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 135
James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 64.