Lesson 22: Nisbes

• Overview
• Inflection
• Prepositional nisbes
• The nisbe 𓌨𓐰𓂋𓏭 ẖrj
• Reverse nisbes
• Prepositional phrases vs. nisbes as modifiers
• Summary
• Vocabulary
• Exercises
• Sidebar: How the genitival adjective may have worked

A few lessons ago we learned about the three types of adjectives in Egyptian: the primary “quantifier” adjective nb; the secondary adjectives which are participles of verbs, even when they seem like obvious adjectives to us (“good”, “red”, “strong”); and the derived adjectives, often referred to as nisbes, formed by adding -j to a noun or preposition. We also said that nisbes are a very important and useful part of Egyptian. Let us learn how.

Inflection and more birds

The feminine form of a nisbe generally replaces the -j with -t rather than appending the -t. In this it’s just like a feminine noun, adding its -t to its root: zt njwtt “local woman”. The plural will add a -w to the -j, so if the root the nisbe was built from ended in a -t, you get a word ending -tjw: 𓊃𓐰𓀀𓅱𓏪𓊖𓅂𓏪 zjw njwtjw “local men”

Pay careful attention to the bird glyph in the plural 𓊖𓅂𓏪 njwtjw, which is is the triliteral tjw. It looks a lot like G1 𓄿, the uniliteral for Ꜣ, but it is not the same bird. It has a rounder back of the head, and often is drawn so that it leans forward a bit more. Because a nisbe from a feminine noun ends in -tj and then becomes -tjw when plural, you may see it from time to time. Here they are, bigger, with G1 at left, G4 right:

𓄿𓅂

Prepositional nisbes

A nisbe formed from a preposition creates an adjective meaning “in X location”, where X is what the preposition describes. For example, ḥrj “uppermost, atop” from ḥr “upon”, and jmj “in, inside” from m “in”. If you have two cats, one inside the house and one on top of the house, you can describe them with nisbes:

𓏇𓇋𓅱𓃠𓇋𓏶𓅓𓏭 mjw jmj
“the cat which is inside”, “the ‘inside’ cat”

𓏇𓇋𓅱𓃠𓁷𓐰𓂋𓏭𓐰𓇯 mjw ḥrj
“the cat which is on top”, “the ‘topside’ cat”

Remember, nisbes are adjectives and therefore they inflect to agree with a noun when they modify it. For example, ḥwt is feminine, so:

𓉗𓏏𓐰𓉐𓇋𓏶𓅓𓏏 ḥwt jmt
“the enclosure which is inside”

𓉗𓏏𓐰𓉐𓁷𓐰𓂋𓏏𓐰𓇯 ḥwt ḥrt
“the enclosure which is on top”

And most importantly, like other adjectives, a nisbe can be a noun itself: jmj as a noun means “that which is in(side)”. And that can form a genitive with another noun, like jmj ḥwt-nṯr, “the ‘that which is inside’ belonging to the temple”, or simply, “something that is in the temple.” Now add the noun wꜤb “wab-priest” in front of that phrase, in apposition to it:

𓃂𓈗𓀀𓇋𓏶𓅓𓏭𓊹𓉗𓏏𓐰𓉐 wꜤb jmj ḥwt-nṯr
“the wab-priest, the one which is in the temple”
or simply “the wab-priest who is in the temple”

Another useful nisbe is that of ḫft “opposing, against, facing”, which is the adjective ḫftj, meaning “which is opposite”, in a sentence like “Paint the opposite wall blue”. When used as a noun and written with the “bound prisoner” determinative, it becomes 𓐍𓐱𓏏𓐰𓆑𓀏 ḫftj “enemy”!

Perhaps the most important prepositional nisbe is the genitival adjective which we use to make indirect genitive phrases: from n “to, for” we get nj. If you want to see speculation about how this nisbe comes to act as the genitival adjective, see the Sidebar for this lesson.

The nisbe 𓌨𓐰𓂋𓏭 ẖrj

Because the preposition ẖr “under” can mean “carrying the object of the preposition”, its nisbe 𓌨𓐰𓂋𓏭 ẖrj “lower, under” has some special meanings.

• It can indicate possession, such as 𓎛𓌨𓃀 ẖrj-ḥꜢbt “lector priest”, the priest who reads rituals; literally “the one who is under the festival scroll.”
  • Note the weird writing; here the 𓌨 ẖr is written between the ḥ and b of “festival (scroll)” because it fits more neatly, framed by them.
• It can be a location, like 𓊹𓌨𓐰𓂋𓈉 ẖrt-nṯr “the god’s domain”, literally “that which is under the god”, the usual term for a cemetery.
  • This is also done in conjunction with the word 𓃀𓅱 bw “place”, as bw ẖr(j).f “the place where he is”, lit. “the place, the one which is under him”.

Reverse nisbes

Let’s translate the phrase 𓅓𓍑𓏏𓐰𓏛𓇋𓏶𓅓𓏭𓐰𓏏𓉐𓐰𓏤 mḏꜢt jmt pr. Well, mḏꜢt “scroll” is in apposition to the genitive phrase jmt pr “that which is inside the house”; jmt is feminine to agree with mḏꜢt; so, the phrase means “the scroll which is in the house”, right? But there’s another way to translate it.

Since nisbes are adjectives, they can use the nfr ḥr construction. In general, a nfr ḥr construction of an adjective X and qualifying noun Y means “with an X Y”. nfr ḥr means “with a good face.” Remember that a nisbe is not always a noun but it is an adjective. So if you use jmj as the adjective “X”, and pr as the noun “Y”, then the phrase jmj pr could mean “with an internal house.”

So then the whole phrase mḏꜢt jmt pr could mean “a scroll inside the house”, which was our first reading; or it could mean “a scroll with an internal house”, or more simply put, “a scroll with a house inside it.” (We use jmt rather than jmj because the whole phrase is modifying mḏꜢt in this context.)

A house inside a scroll makes no literal sense, but Egyptian is rich in idioms, and pr can mean “estate” as well as “house”. So it turns out, jmt pr is the Egyptians’ expression for one’s will and testament: “that which the estate is in”, and it’s said with feminine jmt because “scroll” is understood. So it really is a scroll with a house inside!

So in other words, both are valid readings. We call the “backwards” reading a reverse nisbe.

For another example of a reverse nisbe in common use: A frequent title for an overseer is 𓅓𓐰𓂋𓀀 jmj-r. (The spelling is contracted because it’s such a common term.) The might be an jmj-r of bakers, an jmj-r of stonecutters, and so forth. In the “normal” nisbe reading, that would mean “that which is inside the mouth”. That seems a bit odd. But if it’s a reverse nisbe, like the house inside the scroll, then it would be “the one with a mouth inside”, which makes a lot more sense: the overseer is the one who does the talking, after all, and the underlings do as the overseer says.

As is so often the case, the existence of reverse nisbes means that, when you encounter a two nouns linked by a nisbe, you should consider both possibilities for the “direction” of the relationship between the two nouns.

Prepositional phrases vs. nisbes as modifiers

Egyptian usually reserves its prepositional phrases for functioning as an adverb that modifies the whole sentence: “The birds flew in the sky.” English also uses prepositional phrases to modify nouns, like adjectives: “The gods in the sky are watching.” In Egyptian, if you want to modify a noun with a prepositional concept, usually you need to use a nisbe: **nṯrw m pt “the gods in the sky” would be wrong. Instead, one says nṯrw jmjw pt “the gods, (the ones who are) in the sky”.

Allen does give two expressions in which 𓇋𓅓 jm rather than the nisbe is used, however:

• 𓅡𓎡𓀀𓇋𓅓 bꜢk jm “the servant therein”, which means “yours truly” or “your humble servant”
• 𓌡𓐰𓂝𓐱𓏤𓇋𓅓𓎟 wꜤ jm nb “every one of them”

There is also an odd construction with the preposition 𓈖 n. If one is expressing possession by a pronoun, normally one just adds the suffix pronoun to the noun: pr.k “your house”. But infrequently, it is the possessed noun, then n with the correct pronoun as its object, then the nisbe jmj:

𓄟𓋴𓁒𓀀𓈖𓐰𓆑𓇋𓅓𓇋𓇋 ms n.f jmj
“a child of his” (Urk. IV, 1068, 10)
(lit. “a child to him, the one therein”)

Note that this uses n in its base form as the preposition and not its nisbe form as the genitival adjective.

Summary: Nisbes

Vocabulary

• 𓇋𓏶𓅓𓏭 jm.j (nisbe) “in, inside”
  • 𓅓𓂋𓀀 jmj-r “overseer”, lit. “one with a mouth in them”
• 𓅡𓎡𓀀 bꜢk “servant, underling”
  • 𓅡𓎡𓀀𓇋𓅓 bꜢk-jm “yours truly, your humble servant”
• 𓃀𓅱 bw “place”
• 𓅓𓍑𓏏𓐰𓏛 mḏꜢ.t “book, letter, scroll, document”
• 𓊖𓐰𓏏𓐱𓏭 njw.tj “local”
• 𓁷𓐰𓂋𓏭𓐰𓇯 ḥr.j (nisbe) “uppermost, top”
• 𓌨𓐰𓂋𓏭 ẖr.j (nisbe) “lowermost, bottom”
  • 𓊹𓌨𓐰𓂋𓈉 (var. 𓊻) ẖr.t-nṯr “cemetery, necropolis”, lit. “that which is under the god”
  • 𓎛𓌨𓃀 ẖrj-ḥꜢbt “lector priest”, lit. “the one under the ritual scroll”

Exercises

(forthcoming)

Sidebar: How the genitival adjective may have worked

This is how I think the genitival adjective worked. This is just the author of this website “thinking out loud”; I cannot cite a source specifically saying this is how it happened. A number of sources say the genitival adjective came from/is the nisbe of n, but they don’t explicitly spell out the process from there. So this is what I think.

Let’s walk through an indirect genitive phrase. We’ll give the first noun an adjective to help illustrate what’s going on, since that’s one of the biggest points of the indirect genitive: using adjectives on the first noun. So: pr nfr n(j) zj “house of a man”.

1. Break each word down in order: pr “house”, nfr “good”, nj (the nisbe of n), zj “man.”
2. pr nfr is no problem to combine: that’s a noun followed by an adjective, so the adjective modifies the noun. Our phrase now has three parts: “good house”, nj, “man”.
3. In general, the nisbes of prepositions can be interpreted as an adjective meaning “which is (the preposition)”, which can then become a noun meaning “that which is (the preposition)”. Therefore, if nj is the nisbe of n, it means “that which is to or for something”.
4. So our phrase is “good house”, “that which is for something”, “man.”
5. What if we thought of the nisbe as being attached, not to pr nfr, but to zj, as a direct genitive phrase? Then we have a phrase nj zj, “a ‘that-which-is-for-something’ of the man”.
6. In other words, nj zj would mean “a thing which is for the man”, and thus “a thing which belongs to or is associated with the man”.
7. Now consider we have these two phrases: “a good house”, and “a thing belonging to a man”. Put them in apposition: (pr nfr) (nj zj), “a good house, one belonging to a man”, or in the simplest phrasing, “a man’s good house.”

And that also explains why nj has to come after all the other adjectives on the first noun of an indirect genitive phrase; it’s so nj can form something like a direct genitive phrase with the second noun!