Looking for Ancient Egyptian terms of endearment

March 30, 2009 9:42 PM

Anyone know of a good phrase/term of endearment in Egyptian Hieroglyphics that I can inscribe on a necklace?

I’m making a Djed necklace (similar to these) for a close friend and I’m trying to find something appropriate for the inscription. Any suggestions?

posted by Tenuki to Society & Culture (10 answers total)

This should provide some interesting reading for you.

"The issue of the pronunciation of the Ancient Egyptian language has recently become confused by popular presentations that ignore some of the essential and undoubted characteristics of Egyptian hieroglyphics, most importantly that Egyptian, just as today is usually the case with Arabic and Hebrew, did not write vowels -- except in late transcriptions of foreign (mainly Greek) words. This is typically not explained to people who are told that their names can be written in such and such a way in hieroglyphics, or who are simply told that the name of the Egyptian sun god is "Ra" -- the pronunciation we find in the recent entertaining but historically absurd movies Stargate (1994) and The Mummy (1999). Well, "ra" may be Tahitian for "sun," but it is not Ancient Egyptian."

So you can't just pop in "habibi/habibti" into an online hieroglyph converter and get anything really useful.

Having said that, this dictionary might be of some help.
posted by HopperFan at 10:43 PM on March 30, 2009

And I meant popping in current Egyptian dialect (mainly Arabic).
posted by HopperFan at 1:39 AM on March 31, 2009

"She for whom the sun doth shine". Ramses inscribed it near the entrance to Hathor/Nefertari's temple at Abu Simbel. I don't know where you'd find the glyphs online, though.

The titles of the Great Wives might turn up useful phrases. For example, from Wikipedia:

"[Nefertiti] had many titles; for example, at Karnak there are inscriptions that read Heiress, Great of Favours, Possessed of Charm, Exuding Happiness, Mistress of Sweetness, beloved one, soothing the king's heart in his house, soft-spoken in all, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt, Great King's Wife, whom he loves, Lady of the Two Lands, Nefertiti'."

You could also just translate English phonetically into glyphs.
posted by Leon at 3:18 AM on March 31, 2009

Best answer: I'm an Egyptologist, so I can let you know how to write your chosen epithet in hieroglyphs, but it would be good if you could choose one in translation first or at least specify more precisely what you're trying to convey in the message (e.g. do you want to praise your friend's kindness or beauty or something else?) because hieroglyph fonts can be a pain! Also relevant to the message and how it's written: is your friend female?

Some of Leon's suggestions are nice. Other possibilities: beloved friend, great of friendship, great of heart, one who gladdens the heart, favourite of her/his friend, the beautiful one, generous (literally 'long of hand'), joyful (literally broad of heart).
posted by Kirjava at 8:38 AM on March 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

I copied the phrase "all my love" from the Egyptian Book of the Dead in a Valentine's Day card for my mother, years ago.
posted by Restless Day at 9:44 AM on March 31, 2009

Kirjava: and you blog, too. Awesome. Subscribed. Are there any other Egyptian History blogs you'd recommend?
posted by Leon at 11:53 AM on March 31, 2009

Nefertari's name means beautiful companion. You can see two version of the hieroglyphics here and here.
posted by eye of newt at 12:24 PM on March 31, 2009

Thanks Leon! I have to admit that with all the library reading that I do, I generally just read egyptology.blogspot.com which usefully collects all the latest best/noteworthy Egyptology news stories and blogposts. If you're looking for more Egyptian history blogs, I'm sure you'll be able to find some good stuff there!
posted by Kirjava at 3:30 PM on March 31, 2009

Response by poster: Sorry it's taken me so long to reply, I've been stuck offline.
Kirjava woukd you happen to have the translation for "one who gladdens the heart," the necklace is for a female by the way.
posted by Tenuki at 5:48 AM on April 5, 2009

Well now I'm sorry for taking so long to reply too! When you didn't post anything that week I just assumed that you'd already found something or changed your mind. Hopefully it's better late than never! Here's a link to an uploaded image of the glyphs for my favourite way of writing "one who gladdens the heart" (it also has a certain aspect to it that means to illuminate or brighten).

It pronounced roughly along the lines of sehedj ib.

If you're trying to write it using a hieroglyphic font or need to know the precise signs, these are the sign according to Gardiner's sign list: S29 T3 I10 N5 F34 (that's the heart, though it looks a little funny in this font) and Z1.
posted by Kirjava at 8:47 AM on April 27, 2009