mꜥbꜣ

Egyptian

**Egyptian numbers ^(edit)**
^{[a], [b]} ← 20	𓎈 30	40 →
	3
Cardinal: mꜥbꜣ Ordinal: mḥ-mꜥbꜣ

Pronunciation

(reconstructed Old Egyptian) IPA^(key): /ˈmaʕbaʀ/

(modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /mɑːbɑ/
- Conventional anglicization: maba

Etymology 1

Unclear. Presumably consisting of the unattested root *ꜥbr with prefix m-.

Semantically, this word might have originally referred to a “lunar month of thirty days” as suggested by A. Ember (1926); cf. Nefusa u-yěr (“moon; thirty”). Based on this, Takacs (2007) compares the root *ꜥbr ~ *ꜥrb (via metathesis) to Proto-Agaw *ʔärb- ~ ʔärf- ("moon"), and further to Proto-Semitic *ʿ-r-p (“cloud”) (whence Hebrew ערפל).^[1]

Numeral

thirty

Inflection

	masculine	feminine
singular	mꜥbꜣ	mꜥbꜣt

Derived terms

mꜥbꜣjw (“ the Thirty, a group of judges”)
mꜥbꜣjwt (“courthouse”)

Etymology 2

Noun

m

kind of hunting spear

Inflection

Declension of *mꜥbꜣ* (masculine)
singular	mꜥbꜣ
dual	mꜥbꜣwj
plural	mꜥbꜣw

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of mꜥbꜣ

mꜥbꜣ

References

^ Takács, Gábor (2007) Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, volume 3, Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 176, →ISBN

James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 102.
Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN

[1] Takács, Gábor (2007) Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, volume 3, Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 176, →ISBN

[1]