r n kmt

Egyptian

Etymology

From r(ꜣ) (“mouth, speech”) +‎ n(j) (“of”) +‎ kmt (“Egypt”).

Pronunciation

 

• (reconstructed) IPA^(key): /ˈɾaʀ nij ˈkuːmat/ → /ˈɾaʀ nij ˈkuːmaʔ/ → /ˈɾaʔ nə ˈkuːma/ → /ˈɾaʔ nə ˈkeːmə/

• (Old Egyptian, c. 2500 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈɾaʀ nij ˈkuːmat/
• (Middle Egyptian, c. 1700 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈɾaʀ nij ˈkuːmaʔ/
• (Amarna-period Late Egyptian, c. 1350 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈɾaʔ nə ˈkuːma/
• (latest Late Egyptian, c. 800 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈɾaʔ nə ˈkeːmə/

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /ɛr ɛn kɛmɛt/
  • Conventional anglicization: er en kemet

Noun

 m

1. (rare) the Egyptian language [Middle Kingdom literature]

Usage notes

This term is only attested in versions of the Story of Sinuhe. Despite its presentation in popular literature as the basic native term for the Egyptian language, there is little evidence that this term had any particularly wide currency, or was anything but an ad hoc creation by the author of Sinuhe.

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of r n kmt  

r n kmt

Synonyms

• (Late Egyptian) mdwt kmt
• (Late Egyptian) mdwt rmṯ n kmt

References

• “rʾ-n-km.t (lemma ID 92900)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae‎, 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 (1928) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎, volume 2, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, page 391.25
• Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1931) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎, volume 5, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, page 127.15