Key to the exercises from Allen

Exercise 1

• 2b

  Note: In the key, in the second group from the left, switch the signs N16 and V30.

Exercise 2

• 1

  Note: Capitalized syllables in the key seem to indicate stress. Since Lesson 2 does not discuss stress, this issue can be safely ignored.

• 3

  Note: Both h and H in the transliteration alphabet appear in transcriptions as "h". Therefore, an "h" in transcriptions cannot be translated back to a letter from the transliteration alphabet in a unique way, unless one has available a bounded list of Egyptian names. A similar remark applies to A and a. However, the student may guess from no. 2f that the final part of the names in nos. 3a and 3c consists also of HAt; the transliteration wsr-hAt in the key to no. 3a is in fact an error and should be wsr-HAt.

Exercise 3

• 9

  Note: In the key, Xa should be xa.

Exercise 4

• 3 c

  Note: The translation "living" for anx is somewhat misleading. A more obvious translation for the singular form would be "living person", as on p. 456.

• 3 d

  Note: In English, "fish" can have both singular and plural meaning.

Exercise 5

• 1 a

  Note: In English, "offspring" can have both singular and plural meaning.

• 1 g

  Note: For the sake of consistency with the vocabulary (p. 467) and the key, read spAt instead of DAtt.

• 2 d

  Note: The reversal of the direction of writing in the key is to be ignored.

• 2 q

  Note: The reversal of the direction of writing in the key is to be ignored. An alternative solution with mwwt.T, "your (2fs) mothers", obtained by taking the exercise literally, makes little sense.

• 3 f

  Note: A more appropriate solution than that in the key is pA aA.

• 4 b

  Note: In the key, insert N35 in the hieroglyphic writing, so that the corresponding transliteration changes to nAy.sn n AHwt.

Exercise 6

• 2

  Note: A more obvious translation is "all good products ...", preserving the plural form from the original; alternatively, one may translate jnw in the singular, as "produce", following p. 454.

• 11

  Note: As indicated on p. 459, mnw can also have plural meaning.

Exercise 7

• 8

  Note: In the key, ignore ``).thethe''.

• 11

  Note: Transposition of w and j; cf. footnote 4 on p. 79.

• 27

  Note: Taking the second occurrence of sign I9 as the determinative for jtj (see footnote 1 on p. 71) would lead to a translation that makes little sense.

• 33

  Note: The transliteration mAjr in the key, which includes both j and r, renders the consonants represented by phonograms, rather than the actual forms mAr or mAj as found in dictionaries.

• 40

  Note: r(m)T is to be translated as "people" (singular), and therefore in the key the plural form in "peoples' worth" is incorrect. Read instead "people's worth".

Exercise 8

• 18

  Note: "Retenu" should be "Retjenu".

• 23

  Note: In the key, (j)m(j) r should be (j)m(j)-r.

• 24

  Note: In the key, Hrj should be Xrj.

Exercise 9

• 2 c

  Note: In the key, one may add a form of "to be": "its one path was under water...". This is an example of an adverbial sentence, to be discussed in Lesson 10.

• 2 g

  Note: In the key, mH 10 should be mH-10.

• 2 k

  Note: In the key, mHt 13 should be mHt-13.

• 2 n

  Note: This is an adverbial sentence (Lesson 10, see in particular § 10.6), and may also be translated with a form of "to be": "my heart was my companion". The translation in the key is however fully satisfactory in the actual context; cf. the first example on p. 215.

• 3

  Note: mH 437, mH 10, ... in the key should be mH-437, mH-10, ....

Exercise 10

• 3

  Note: The key assumes the m of predication. An alternative offered by § 8.2.3 (fourth item) leads to the translation: "Indeed, the river consists of blood".

• 23

  Note: The transliteration xt instead of xwt is explained by the note on p. 122.

• 42

  Note: In the exercise, read Xrd for Xrdw. In the key, read Xrdw for Xrdww.

Exercise 11

• 5

  Note: bAg is the infinitival form of bAgj; see Lesson 14. In the key, ``negated A pw B nominal sentence'' should be ``negated A B nominal sentence''; the construction here is the negation of the construction underlying st nfA nt xnt from § 7.7.

• 12

  Note: In the key, "that lump" should be "those lumps".

• 21

  Note: In a negation, nb is to be translated as "any" rather than as "all" or "each". The literal translation is therefore: "There aren't any evil things in it".

• 25

  Note: In the key, "the high official's things" should be "the things of the high official's house".

Exercise 12

• 1

  Note: In the key, sSm should be sSmw.

• 8 and 13

  Note: In the key, jmj jb should be jmj-jb.

• 18

  Note: In the dictionary, under jAdr (p. 453) and jdr (p. 455), we find writings with plural determinative treated as singular. Therefore one may well replace the plural jAdrw, "herds", in the key by the singular jAdr, "a herd".

• 20

  Note: In the dictionary, under stt (p. 468), we find a writing with plural determinative treated as singular. Therefore one may well replace the plural stwt, "boils", in the key by the singular stt, "a boil".

• 22

  Note: zA.k implies that the person who is addressed is masculine. Therefore, mr.T cannot be a sDm.f form but is likely to be read as stative mr.tj; cf. § 17.17.2.

• 25

  Note: In the key, Xr should be Hr.

• 30

  Note: In the key, jmj should be jm(j).

Exercise 13

• 7

  Note: It is not obvious that "fight" is primarily transitive in English; consider "John and Mary are fighting" versus "The soldiers are fighting the enemy".

• 29 versus 30

  Note: The two entries in the key should be switched.

• 32, 33, 34 and 35

  Note: For the entries in the key, no. 32 should be no. 33, no. 33 should be no. 34, no. 34 should be no. 35, and no. 35 should be no. 32.

• 43

  Note: Cf. no. 8.

• 44

  Note: From aq, "enter"; cf. p. 456.

• 58

  Note: In the key, ``3-lit'' should be ``3ae-inf''; cf. p. 468.

Exercise 14

• 3

  Note: One may be confused by § 14.11.2 and footnote 1 on p. 161, which seem to imply that infinitives and verbal nouns are disjoint concepts. This is however not the case, since § 14.2 clearly states that the infinitive is a special kind of verbal noun. Therefore, where the key states that nftft must be a verbal noun, technically this does not exclude the possibility that nftft may be more specifically an infinitive. Yet, according to § 14.11.2 it is more likely that nftft is a kind of verbal noun other than the infinitive.

• 13

  Note: In the key, jtj should be jty or perhaps jtjj.

• 17

  Note: Hsq is a passive participle, a verb form to be discussed in Lesson 23.

Exercise 15

• 2

  Note: In the key, HHj should be H(j)Hj.

• 4

  Note: In the key, tjmHw should be tjmH(j)w.

• 5

  Note: For Hm, see § 16.7.8, which suggests rather the translation "And look, ...".

• 6

  Note: The use of sign A17 in place of the expected A21 in sr(j)w is explained by the fact that the original text is in hieratic, and in hieratic, A17 is a variant of A21. (Following p.c. with Mr. Allen; however, DepuydtI on p. 327 conjectures that this writing is ``erroneous''.)

• 10

  Note: In the key, zt-Hmt should be zt Hmt.

Exercise 16

• 16

  Note: In the key, psSt should be pzSt.

• 19

  Note: In the key, the correct transliteration may be m snD m(j) m snD m(j) nDs.

• 22

  Note: One may obtain a translation in a more direct way than in the key by alternatively using the nisbe Axtj, "of the Inundation season", from p. 453, which allows the translation "shade of the Inundation season" for Swt Axtt.

• 33

  Note: In the key, the justification for writing w in the transliteration of the negative complement jtw seems to be the plural determinative, which amounts to a false plural (see § 4.6).

• 34

  Note: The exercise is difficult to solve completely without consulting the key, due to the writing of jAw in the fifth line, by means of A30, for which the meaning as determinative is given on p. 424, but no transliteration.

Exercise 17

• 6

  Note: In the key, tmHjw should be tjmHjw. By using the entry Hrj, "chief", from p. 463, one can translate m Hrj jrj by "as chief with respect to it", or simply "as its chief".

• 27

  Note: It is somewhat puzzling that the key has xpr.(w), rather than either xpr or xpr.(wj), since § 17.2 tells us that the full form for 3pl would be xpr.wj.

• 29

  Note: In the key, m should be Hr.

• 30

  Note: In the key, TAw should be TAww.

• 32

  Note: As above at no. 27, one would expect mn.(wj) instead of mn.(w).

• 35

  Note: In the key, jwtj sw should be jwtj-sw; cf. § 12.9. A more literal translation is "the one who had nothing" following Hannig, rather than "the one who had none".

Exercise 18

• 2

  Note: In the key, (j)m(j) r should be (j)m(j)-r.

• 4

  Note: In the key, rn.f-snb zA should be zA-rn.f-snb, and jtj mH(j) should be jtj-mH(j). One could just as well transcribe zA-nb as "Sa-neb" or "Za-neb", following § 2.7, rather than as "Si-neb" in the key.

• 5

  Note: Since the singular zXA, "writing", is already written with the plural determinative (cf. p. 466), one could transcribe the word in the exercise also as zXA, instead of zXAw in the key. More or less independent from this choice, the translation could also simply have "writing", instead of "the writings" in the key, which is a matter of interpretation and style.

• 6

  Note: In the key, qd.j should be qd(w).j. Apparently, the Egyptian verb mtr/mtj is transitive, whereas the English translation "testify" is intransitive and can be used together with preposition "about".

• 9

  Note: The translation of jsr by "tamarisk-wood" instead of by "tamarisk", as on p. 455, is due to interpretation.

• 22

  Note: In the key, "although" reflects a certain interpretation of the unmarked adverb clause, following § 12.17.

• 23

  Note: The translation with "couldn't" is less likely than one with "didn't". As explained in § 18.14, the negated perfect may denote negation of ability ("couldn't"), but also negation of action ("didn't"); negation of necessity does not come into consideration for this sentence. Another option here is "wouldn't", although this is a less literal translation.

Exercise 19

• 1

  Note: In the key, Smsw should be Smsww. Concerning "May you make your seat", the literal translation is "May you make a seat". Literally, the translation of m grH is "at night" instead of "in the evening"; cf. p. 247.

• 2

  Note: It seems to me that in principle jm.f can also be translated as "with it", where "it" refers to "image".

• 9

  Note: r gs, literally "at the side", is a compound preposition; cf. § 8.3.1.

• 16

  Note: In the key we find the passive "won't become humiliated" rather than the active "won't humiliate", which we would expect given the syntactic structure of the sentence and the dictionary entry on p. 471. It is not clear what accounts for this passive form. This problem disappears if we replace "humiliate" in the dictionary by "be humble", following Hannig. Something similar occurs on p. 253, in the fourth example, where the translation has "lest he become flooded", rather than "lest he flood".

• 17

  Note: This sentence is an exception to the normal word-order: a dative that is not pronominal here occurs before the object; cf. § 14.6.

• 19

  Note: As an alternative to sjm(A), one may transliterate sjmAm, given the second example in § 15.12 as precedent, and the fact that sign M1 may represent phonogram jmA; the meaning of the combination of M1 and G17 as jm(A), given under M1 on p. 434, is explained in n. 11 on p. 181. That the translation contains the plural "teachings" is a matter of style. The entry for sxr on p. 468 should be interpreted to allow sxrw to be translated similarly, by the singular words "position", "advice", etc.

• 20

  Note: In the key, mj mj should be mj m(j).

• 21

  Note: m of predication (§ 10.6) in an adverbial sentence (§ 10.4.4). For the infinitival form sxnj, see § 14.3.2.

• 30

  Note: Apart from "beauty" in the entry for the noun nfrw on p. 461, other translations, such as "perfection" and "goodness", can be derived from the adjective-verb nfr as well. A good alternative translation to "office" here is "profession".

Exercise 20

• 1

  Note: In the key, Smsw should be Smsww. The dictionary in the book does not fully suffice to obtain the translation "going above" for sHr, neither from Hrj, "go far away" (p. 464), nor from sHrj, "distance, distance oneself" (p. 467).

• 5

  Note: In the key, Awt-a should be Awt a.

• 12

  Note: In the key, (j)m(j) r should be (j)m(j)-r, and r(m)Tw should be r(m)T.

• 15

  Note: In the key, aHa should be aHa(w). It seems that the use of the verb "can" in the translation is a matter of interpretation; it is not imposed by any syntactic considerations.

• 17

  Note: In the key, zj should be z(j).

• 18

  Note: It remains unexplained in the book why a double occurrence of R11 (reed column) would have the same transliteration Dd as a single occurrence, in Dd-^s^n^f^r^w. For Ddj however, the double occurrence can be argued to be the writing of a dual or false dual.

Exercise 21

• 2

  Note: In the key, jmj should be jm(j); the same in no. 9.

• 5

  Note: The noun snDw, "fearful (person)", is derived from the verb snD, "become afraid", and the noun sxm-jb, "violent (person)", is derived from the adjective sxm jb, "violent" (cf. § 6.5).

• 12

  Note: In the key, sSm should be sSm(w). The literal translation is "If you will be a leader ..." (§ 21.7).

• 16

  Note: In the key, nt a should be nt-a; the same in no. 17. In the sequel, inconsistent use of hyphens will no longer be reported. The second clause, dj rx.sn ..., has no expressed subject (§ 21.9), and literally means "(it) was made that they know"; cf. the second example of § 19.10, with the subjunctive dj.tw instead of the passive dj.

Exercise 22

• 1

  Note: In the key, rx-nswt should be rx-(n)swt.

• 4

  Note: Literally, m xd means "going downstream"; "sailing" is due to interpretation.

• 10

  Note: For reasons of style, "barley" and "emmer" are not rendered in the plural in the translation.

• 11

  Note: An adjective-verb such as wab, listed as meaning "clean" in the dictionary (p. 456) for its use as adjective, has the meaning "become clean" if used as verb; cf. p. 147, line -2: ``Adjective verbs describe a change in quality''.

• 12

  Note: In the key, Hrj-tjwnj should be Hrj.tjwnj.

• 13

  Note: For wnt, see the final paragraph of § 22.15.

• 15

  Note: tp, "top", literally means "head".

• 18

  Note: For r in the meaning of "spell", see p. 316. In the key, kAwt should be kA(w)t, nbt should be nb or nb(t), and jmnt should be jmntt. The reference to § 5.10.2 in the key should be ignored, in favor of the remark in the exercise itself on p. 318.

• 19

  Note: In the key, jmj should be jm(j).

Exercise 23

• 1

  Note: In the key, at col. (2) for "divine of birth" read "divine of evolution". At col. (3) wrr(j)t should be wrrt and r-aw should be r-aw(j). At col. (4) for r-awj.f we either have transposition of j and f (scribal error?), or the transliteration should rather be r-aw(j).fj, with dual awj; cf. § 5.7. At col. (10) Ssp should be Szp. Next to those mentioned in the key, one further active participle is xmw, "those who do not know", in col. (7), from xm, "not know" (p. 465).

• 2

  Note: Given the entry sdgA, "conceal", in the dictionary (p. 468), we cannot obtain the desired translation by choosing the most obvious syntactic analysis (§ 19.10), which would have the verb as subjunctive, giving "...that lets it conceal", rather than "...that lets it be concealed". However, we can also take the verb to be the infinitive, as object of rdj (§ 14.12), so that we obtain "...that causes its concealing (or concealment)", which concurs with the preferred translation in the key.

• 4

  Note: Literally, dd(j) pr.s means "one who causes that it emerges", rendered by "one who issues it" in the key.

• 14

  Note: In the key, for ``§ 21.17'' read ``§ 21.7''.

• 19

  Note: In the key, "the heart" is literally "his heart", and "every part" is literally "every limb".

• 21

  Note: In the first line of the transliteration in the key, insert m.k before nn, and in the translation, insert "look," before "I am not".

• 25

  Note: In the key, "his arrow" is literally "his arrows". The use of the verb "can" is due to interpretation.

Exercise 24

• 3

  Note: In some constructions with the negative verb tm, nominal subjects follow the negatival complement; cf. § 14.18 and § 19.11.3. Apparently, this does not hold in the case of relative forms, as the example shows.

• 5

  Note: In the key, the use of the verb "can" is due to interpretation. This we have seen before in the case of a perfective form in Exercise 23, no. 25, and possibly an imperfective form in Exercise 20, no. 15. See also no. 29 below.

• 10

  Note: In the key, the comment ``(2ms stative)'' should not be interpreted as that the stative would have a special form for 2ms as opposed to 2fs. That we know the subject is masculine is due to the suffix .k.

• 13

  Note: In the key, for the second occurrence of r read n.

• 18

  Note: Given the entry for Hrw in the dictionary on p. 464, with the same hieroglyphic writing as in the exercise, it seems preferable to transliterate Hrw, rather than Hrww as in the key, and translate by "a plot", in the singular, rather than "plots".

• 22

  Note: In the key, jmj should be jm(j).

• 28

  Note: In the key, for j.zj read j.z(j) r.k.

• 30

  Note: dp, "taste", is here used metaphorically. Since rS is given as adjective on p. 462, it may not be the most direct analysis to take the form rSwj to consist of a participle of the verb rSj/rSw used as adjective.

• 36

  Note: Literally, "One did not know ...".

• 37

  Note: Cf. § 14.14.7.

• 38

  Note: In the key, for Hnwt read Hnwwt.

• 40

  Note: In the key, after "lord of Abydos" insert "the great god". For Ssr read Ssrw.

Exercise 25

• 3

  Note: In the key, ``preposition m'' should be ``preposition r sA''.

• 5

  Note: For m ktkt, see § 14.11.2.

• 9

  Note: One may argue that nfr should be read as nfr(w); see above at Exercise 19, no. 30.

• 17

  Note: In the key, for stjw read sttjw. In English, "Beduin" can have both singular and plural meaning.

• 25

  Note: For zj jSst, either j is represented only once in the hieroglyphic spelling for both occurrences in the transliteration, as an instance of haplography (cf. Gardiner, § 62), or the transliteration should be rather z(j) jSst; cf. p. 371 for z(j).