mjnj

Egyptian

FWOTD – 10 January 2018

Pronunciation

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

Verb

4ae inf.

(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.
- c. 1859 BCE – 1800 BCE, The Eloquent Peasant, version B2 (pAmherst 2 and pBerlin 3025) lines 101–103:
  
  jr sqdd ẖr.f nj sꜣḥ.n.f tꜣ nj mjn.n dpwt.f r dmj.s
  As for him who sails with it, he cannot set foot on land, and his boat cannot moor at its harbor.
(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	aspect / mood	active
perfect	mjn.n	consecutive	mjn.jn
terminative	mjnt	consecutive	mjn.jn
perfective³	mjn	obligative¹	mjn.ḫr
imperfective	mjn, mjny	obligative¹	mjn.ḫr
prospective³	mjnw, mjn, mjny	potentialis¹	mjn.kꜣ
subjunctive	mjn, mjny	potentialis¹	mjn.kꜣ

verbal adjectives
aspect / mood	relative (incl. nominal / emphatic) forms	participles
aspect / mood	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	mjnwtj^{1 4}, mjntj⁴, mjnt⁴

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.
⁸ 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

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, pages 242, 270, 279.

^ Sethe, Kurt (1935) Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums VII: Historisch-biographische Urkunden des Mittleren Reiches, Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, page 2
^ Griffith, Francis Llewellyn (1889) The Inscriptions of Siûṭ and Dêr Rîfeh, plate 6.
^ 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 Peter (2015) Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 167.

[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 Peter (2015) Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 167.

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