nf

See also: .nf, 1NF, 2NF, 3NF, 4NF, 5NF, 6NF, NF, Nf., nF, and nf3

Egyptian

Pronunciation

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

Pronoun

distal demonstrative pronoun

that

Usage notes

This demonstrative is a pronoun, and so does not directly modify nouns. In Middle Egyptian it becomes used as a demonstrative for plural nouns in place of the old adjectives jpf and jptf. When used in this way, it precedes the noun, with the genitival adjective n(j) in between, e.g. "those feet" is nf n(j) rdw (literally "that of feet").

It forms a contrastive pair with the demonstrative pronoun nn, in which nf is distal.

Inflection

Old Egyptian demonstratives
	determiners						pronouns¹	adverbs
	singular		dual		plural		unmarked
	masculine	feminine	masculine	feminine	masculine	feminine	unmarked
proximal to speaker	pn	tn	*jpnj	jptnj, jptntj	jpn	jptn	nn	—
distal	pf	tf	*jpfj	jptfj, jptftj	jpf	jptf	nf	—
proximal to spoken of	pj, pw, p	tj, tw	jpwj	jptwj, jptwtj	jpw	jptw, jptwt	nw	—
vocative	pꜣ	tꜣ	—	—	—	—	nꜣ	ꜥꜣ

¹ Unmarked for number and gender, but treated syntactically as masculine plurals when used with participles and relative forms, and as feminine singulars when referred to by resumptive pronouns.

Middle Egyptian demonstratives
	determiners and pronouns			adverbs
	singular		plural¹
	masculine	feminine	plural¹
proximal	pn	tn	nn	ꜥn
distal	pf, pfꜣ	tf, tfꜣ	nf, nfꜣ	ꜥf
‘copula’ and vocative	pw, pwy	tw, twy	nw	—
anaphoric	pꜣ	tꜣ	nꜣ	ꜥꜣ

¹ Joined by n(j) to nouns they modify.

Late Egyptian demonstratives and articles
	masculine	feminine	plural	adverb
pronoun	pꜣw			dj
determiners and pronouns	pꜣj	tꜣj	nꜣj
possessive determiners¹	pꜣy	tꜣy	nꜣy
relational pronouns (‘possessive prefixes’)	p-n, pꜣ	t-nt, tꜣ	nꜣyw, nꜣ
definite articles	pꜣ	tꜣ	nꜣ²
indefinite articles	wꜥ²		nhꜣy²

¹ Used with suffix pronouns.
² Originally joined by n(j) to nouns they modify; later without it.

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of nf

nfꜣ

nfꜣj

nfj

njf

[since the Middle Kingdom]

[New Kingdom]

[Greco-Roman Period]

Noun

m

wrong, wrongdoing
something wrong, erroneous
- c. 2000 BCE – 1900 BCE, Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor (pHermitage/pPetersburg 1115) lines 149–150:
  
  ꜥḥꜥ.n sbt.n.f jm.j m nn ḏd.n.j m nf m jb.f ḏd.f n.j (j)n wr n.k ꜥntjw ḫpr.t(j) ⟨m⟩ nb sntr
  Then he laughed at me – and at this that I’d said – as being wrong to his mind, saying to me: Are you abundant in myrrh, turned into a lord of incense?^[1]

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of nf

nf

nfꜣ

nfj

[New Kingdom]

[Late Period]

References

“nf (lemma ID 851524)” and “nf (lemma ID 83280)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae‎^[1], Corpus issue 20, Web app version 2.5.0, ed. by Tonio Sebastian Richter & Daniel A. Werning […] and Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert & Peter Dils […], 2004–23 April 2026
Erman, Adolf; Grapow, Hermann (1928), Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[2], volume 2, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 251.9–252.2
Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962), A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, pages 130–131
James P[eter] Allen (2010), Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 54–55, 218.
Loprieno, Antonio (1995), Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 68–70

^ Or ‘You aren’t abundant in myrrh …’, if the initial particle is read as negative nj instead of interrogative jn. The expected negative particle for such a clause would be nn, so an interrogative is more plausible. For a detailed discussion see Scalf, Foy (2009) “Is That a Rhetorical Question? Shipwrecked Sailor (pHermitage 1115) 150 Reconsidered” in Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, volume 136, issue 2, pages 155–159.

[1] Or ‘You aren’t abundant in myrrh …’, if the initial particle is read as negative nj instead of interrogative jn. The expected negative particle for such a clause would be nn, so an interrogative is more plausible. For a detailed discussion see Scalf, Foy (2009) “Is That a Rhetorical Question? Shipwrecked Sailor (pHermitage 1115) 150 Reconsidered” in Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, volume 136, issue 2, pages 155–159.

[1]