ẖn

See also: hn, HN, hN, .hn, h*n, Hn., ḥn, and ḫn

Egyptian

Pronunciation

(modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /çɛn/
- Conventional anglicization: khen

Verb

2-lit.

(intransitive) to approach (+ m or n: to approach (someone or some place)) [since the Middle Kingdom]

Inflection

Conjugation of ẖn (biliteral / 2-lit. / 2rad.) — base stem: ẖn, geminated stem: ẖnn

infinitival forms			imperative
infinitive	negatival complement	complementary infinitive¹	singular	plural
ẖn	ẖnw, ẖn	ẖnt	ẖn, j.ẖn	ẖn, j.ẖn

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

suffix conjugation
aspect / mood	active	contingent
aspect / mood	active	aspect / mood	active
perfect	ẖn.n	consecutive	ẖn.jn
terminative	ẖnt	consecutive	ẖn.jn
perfective³	ẖn	obligative¹	ẖn.ḫr
imperfective	ẖn, j.ẖn¹	obligative¹	ẖn.ḫr
prospective³	ẖn	potentialis¹	ẖn.kꜣ
subjunctive	ẖn, j.ẖn¹	potentialis¹	ẖn.kꜣ

verbal adjectives
aspect / mood	relative (incl. nominal / emphatic) forms	participles
aspect / mood	active	active	passive
perfect	ẖn.n	—	—
perfective	ẖn	ẖn	ẖnn, ẖnnj⁶, ẖn², ẖnw^{2 5}, ẖny^{2 5}
imperfective	j.ẖn¹, ẖn, ẖny, ẖnw⁵	j.ẖn¹, j.ẖnw^{1 5}, ẖn, ẖnj⁶, ẖny⁶	ẖn, ẖnw⁵
prospective	ẖn, ẖntj⁷	ẖntj⁴, ẖnt⁴

¹ Used in Old Egyptian; archaic by Middle Egyptian.
² Used mostly since Middle Egyptian.
³ 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.
⁴ Declines using third-person suffix pronouns instead of adjectival endings: masculine .f/.fj, feminine .s/.sj, dual .sn/.snj, plural .sn. ⁵ Only in the masculine singular.
⁶ Only in the masculine.
⁷ Only in the feminine.

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of ẖn

ẖnw

[since the 19th Dynasty]

Descendants

Akhmimic Coptic: ⳉⲛⲁⲛ (xnan)
Fayyumic Coptic: ϩⲱⲛ (hōn)
Sahidic Coptic: ϩⲱⲛ (hōn)

Noun

m

tent [since the Pyramid Texts]
- c. 1900 BCE, The Instructions of Kagemni (pPrisse/pBN 183) lines 1.1–1.2:
  
  wn ẖn n grw wsḫ st nt hr m mdww
  The tent is open to the quiet man; the place of the man calm in speech is broad.^[1]

Inflection

Declension of ẖn (masculine)

singular

ẖn

dual

ẖnwj

plural

ẖnw

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of ẖn

ẖn

[Pyramid Texts]

[19th Dynasty]

References

“ẖn (lemma ID 123110)” and “ẖn (lemma ID 123090)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae‎^[1], Corpus issue 18, Web app version 2.1.5, 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, 2004–26 July 2023
Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1929) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[2], volume 3, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 368.1–368.8, 373.9–373.18
Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 201
Loprieno, Antonio (1995) Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 48

^ Alternatively, taking

as imperative (j)m: ‘…the place of the calm man is broad. Don’t speak!’ The first clause can also be interpreted in two different ways. If

represents the preposition n, then ‘The tent is open to the quiet man’; but if it represents the genitival adjective n(j), then ‘The tent of the quiet man is open’. The first interpretation is more appealing semantically, but the second is favored by parallelism with the following clause.

[1] Alternatively, taking

as imperative (j)m: ‘…the place of the calm man is broad. Don’t speak!’ The first clause can also be interpreted in two different ways. If

represents the preposition n, then ‘The tent is open to the quiet man’; but if it represents the genitival adjective n(j), then ‘The tent of the quiet man is open’. The first interpretation is more appealing semantically, but the second is favored by parallelism with the following clause.

[1]