mjnj

mjnj

Egyptian

FWOTD – 10 January 2018

Pronunciation

 

• (reconstructed) IPA^(key): /ˈmijnit/ → /ˈmijniʔ/ → /ˈmeʔnaʔ/ → /ˈmeʔnə/

• (Old Egyptian, c. 2500 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈmijnit/
• (Middle Egyptian, c. 1700 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈmijniʔ/
• (Medio-Late Egyptian, c. 1350 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈmeʔnaʔ/
• (Late Egyptian, c. 800 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈmeʔnə/

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

Verb

 4ae inf.

1. (intransitive) to moor (a boat)
   • 12th Dynasty, Tomb of Sarenput I, great biographical inscription, line 7:[1]

     […] ḥr(j) dmjw m tꜣ-ztj nꜥꜥw mjnw ẖr st ḥr.f

     […] Supervisor of the Harbours in Ta-Seti, the one who sailed and the one who moored were under his inspection.

2. (intransitive, euphemistic) to die
   • 12th Dynasty, Tomb of Djefaihapi (Asyut Tomb 1), great hall, east wall, north side of door, line 267:[2]

     jw.j sḫꜣ.j spr.j r nṯr hrw pf n(j) mjnj gm.f wj

     I was thinking about the fact that I would reach (my) god on that day of dying (literally: mooring), when he would find me.

   • c. 1900 BCE, The Instructions of Kagemni (pPrisse/pBN 183) lines 2.7–2.8:

     ꜥḥꜥ.n ḥm n(j) nswt-bjtj ḥwnj mjn(.w) n.f

     Then the majesty of the Dual King Huni moored for him (i.e. died).[3]

Usage notes

The written order of the radicals of this word transposes the n and the first j for aesthetic reasons.

Inflection

Conjugation of mjnj (fourth weak / 4ae inf. / IV. inf.) — base stem: mjn, geminated stem: mjnn

infinitival forms			imperative
infinitive	negatival complement	complementary infinitive1	singular	plural
mjn	mjnw, mjnyw, mjn	mjnt, mjnwt, mjnyt	mjn	mjn, mjny

‘pseudoverbal’ forms
stative stem	periphrastic imperfective2		periphrastic prospective2
mjn8	ḥr mjn	m mjn	r mjn

suffix conjugation
aspect / mood	active	contingent
		aspect / mood	active
perfect	mjn.n	consecutive	mjn.jn
terminative	mjnt
perfective3	mjn	obligative1	mjn.ḫr
imperfective	mjn, mjny
prospective3	mjnw, mjn, mjny	potentialis1	mjn.kꜣ
subjunctive	mjn, mjny

verbal adjectives
aspect / mood	relative (incl. nominal / emphatic) forms	participles
	active	active	passive
perfect	mjn.n	—	—
perfective	mjnw1, mjny, mjn	mjn	mjny, mjn
imperfective	mjnn, mjnny, mjnnw5	mjnn, mjnnj6, mjnny6	mjnn, mjnnw5
prospective	mjnw1, mjny, mjn, mjntj7	mjnwtj1 4, mjntj4, mjnt4
Used in Old Egyptian; archaic by Middle Egyptian. Used mostly since Middle Egyptian. Archaic or greatly restricted in usage by Middle Egyptian. The perfect has mostly taken over the functions of the perfective, and the subjunctive and periphrastic prospective have mostly replaced the prospective. Declines using third-person suffix pronouns instead of adjectival endings: masculine .f/.fj, feminine .s/.sj, dual .sn/.snj, plural .sn. Only in the masculine singular Only in the masculine. Only in the feminine. Third-person masculine statives of this class often have a final -y instead of the expected stative ending.

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of mjnj  

mjnj	mjnj
in the sense ‘to die’	in the sense ‘to die’

Derived terms

• mjnt
• mjnj zp

Descendants

• Bohairic Coptic: ⲁⲙⲟⲛⲓ (amoni)
• Sahidic Coptic: ⲙⲟⲟⲛⲉ (moone)

References

• James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, 270, 279 page 242, 270, 279.

1. Sethe, Kurt (1935) Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums VII: Historisch-biographische Urkunden des Mittleren Reiches, Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, page 2
2. Griffith, Francis Llewellyn (1889) The Inscriptions of Siûṭ and Dêr Rîfeh, plate 6.
3. If the end of this sentence is instead a perfect verb ending, mjn.n.f, it could instead read ‘the Dual King Huni, he moored (i.e. died).’ Allen prefers the stative, as given here, for reasons of the verb’s intransitivity; cf. Allen, James (2015) Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 167.