honorific transposition

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English

Examples
The Egyptian idiom ḥm-nṯr (priest, literally servant of the god) is written
nTrHm
, which would appear to read *nṯr-ḥm. However, this phrase shows honorific transposition of the nṯr glyph.

Other examples of this same phenomenon include:

  • The word nswt (king) is written
    swt
    n
    A40
    instead of the incorrect
    nswtA40
    .
  • The term mdw-nṯr (hieroglyphs, literally god’s speech) is written
    nTrmd
    instead of the incorrect
    mdnTr
    .
  • The royal name z-n-wsrt (Senwosret) is written
    <
    wsrr
    t
    z
    n
    >
    instead of the incorrect
    <
    z
    n
    wsrr
    t
    >
    .
  • The royal name mry-rꜥ (Meryre) is written
    <
    ramri i
    >
    instead of the incorrect
    <
    mri i ra
    >
    .

Noun

honorific transposition (countable and uncountable, plural honorific transpositions)

  1. (linguistics, Egyptology) A shift in the sign order of a compound word or common phrase, to make certain religiously significant terms (e.g. nswt, nṯr, rꜥ) appear at the front of the word or phrase.

References

  • James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 44.