Nouns and their endings

A noun names a person, place, thing or idea. Egyptian nouns have grammatical gender and number. These features help you recognise which words belong together. ^{6, 7}

Masculine and feminine

Many masculine singular nouns have no separate gender ending. A common feminine ending is .t. It can distinguish related words, as in sn, “brother”, and sn.t, “sister”. Grammatical gender also applies to objects and abstract ideas.

Do not assume that every final t is a feminine ending. It may belong to the word’s root. Learn a noun’s gender with its vocabulary entry. ⁶

One two and more than two

Middle Egyptian distinguishes singular, dual and plural. The dual refers to two; the plural normally refers to more than two.

These are regular patterns for recognition. Written forms may abbreviate endings. Repeated signs and plural strokes can also convey number. Three plural strokes normally indicate plurality rather than an exact count of three. ⁷

Supplying English articles

Classical Middle Egyptian has no ordinary article system directly matching English “a” and “the”. A word such as pr can be translated “house”, “a house” or “the house”, according to its setting. Do not insert a supposed Egyptian word for “the” every time English needs one. Later Egyptian developed articles, so keep examples from different language stages distinct. ⁸