Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 17:37:25 +0100 (CET) From: "omezzab@tin.it" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk Subject: AEL Sinuhe: line 5 of 7 (Berlin 3022, 2-7) Hi all! I'm re-reading Sinuhe and there is a line which puzzles me. "rdt wi imytw bAty r irt wAt Smw s(.y) [or Smw =s]" [ it is line 5 of 7 (Berlin 3022, 2-7) which is on AEL site] I went through old AEL messages on this subject [october 2002] and I saw there were different opinions about it. But, since a lot of time has passed, I wonder whether ideas have changed. The difficult part is the second half of the sentence: " r irt wAt Smw s(.y)" Some people read "irt" as "iwd". I'd like to stick to "irt" and to read "s" as a third singular dependent pronoun. So my translation would be: "I put myself in the midst of the bushes so that I could open my way through them." (It's not literal, it goes without saying, but I'm trying to grasp the meaning. I think he leaves the main road and cuts his way through the bushes.) Where "Smw" is Sinuhe (the traveller) who makes his way through the bushes. The question is: does that conform to grammar rules? Thank you Orlando Mezzabotta ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 21:11:17 +0000 Subject: Re: AEL Sinuhe: line 5 of 7 (Berlin 3022, 2-7) From: Mark-Jan Nederhof To: Ancient Egyptian Language List This passage is problematic. What doesn't make it easier is that the text variants differ widely. I give my interpretation, including transliteration, of versions R, B, and AOS in: http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~mjn/egyptian/texts/ However, my translation, especially that of version B, is no more than an educated guess. > The difficult part is the second half of the sentence: > " r irt wAt Smw s(.y)" > > Some people read "irt" as "iwd". I'd like to stick to "irt" > and to read "s" as a third singular dependent pronoun. If you want to see s as dependent pronoun, then you have some explaining to do beyond giving a (non-literal) translation. > The question is: does that conform to grammar rules? By which grammar rules can you justify your claim that s is a dependent pronoun? Mark-Jan ==============================================================================