mdw jꜣw
Egyptian
FWOTD – 19 March 2018
Etymology
mdw (“staff”) + jꜣw (“old age”) in a direct genitive construction, thus literally ‘staff of old age’.
Pronunciation
- (modern Egyptological) IPA(key): /mɛduː iɑuː/
- Conventional anglicization: medu iau
Noun
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m
- a son who assumes the duties of his aged father, allowing the father to remain in office, supported by his son, who carries out the father’s responsibilities as deputy [Middle Kingdom and 18th Dynasty]
- c. 1900 BCE, The Instructions of Ptahhotep (pPrisse/pBN 186–194) lines 5.2–5.3:
- wḏ.t(w) n bꜣk jm jrt mdw jꜣw jḫ ḏd.j n.f mdw sḏmyw sḫrw jmjw-ḥꜣt pꜣw sḏm n nṯrw
- May your humble servant (i.e. the father) be commanded to make his son his deputy (lit. a staff of old age); then I will tell him the speech of the listeners, the advice of ancestors who once listened to the gods.
Alternative forms
Alternative hieroglyphic writings of mdw jꜣw
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| mdw jꜣw | mdw n jꜣw | mdw jꜣw | ||||||||||||
| 18th Dynasty | 18th Dynasty |
References
- Allen, James (2015) Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 168–169
- Erman, Adolf; Grapow, Hermann (1928) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, volume 2, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, page 178.11
- Faulkner, Raymond (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 122