Hieroglyphs Tutorial: Pronouns

A pronoun can be defined as a substitute for a noun. There are three types of pronoun in ancient Egyptian; suffix pronouns, dependent pronouns and independent pronouns.

Suffix Pronouns

The Suffix Pronoun is always attached to a preceding word and is connected to it in transliteration by the symbol "=". It will always be placed immediately after the word it is attached to (see below on word order). The suffix pronouns are as follows:

The first person suffix pronoun ("I") is usually masculine (i.e. it is the glyph of a kneeling man) but this glyoh can be replaced with that of a woman, a god or a dignitary if the situation warrants this.

There are six main uses for suffix pronouns:

1: As the subject of a verb (but not an infinitive)
2: As the object after a preposition
3: As an indirect object of a verb
4: As the possessor or genitive of a noun
5: As the subject of a non-verbal statement beginning with the particle "iw"
6: As the subject following the word "djs" ("self")

Dependent Pronouns

Dependent pronouns are not as closely connected to the word so they are written with "-". The dependent pronou will always preceed the subject if it is a noun, but if the subject is a suffix pronoun the dependent pronoun will follow it.

There are three main uses for dependent pronouns:

1: As the object of a verb (but not an infinitive)
2: As the subject of a non-verbal statment beginning with a particle
3: as an object reflexively relating back to the subject of the verb

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