ẖnw

See also: hnw and ḥnw

Egyptian

Pronunciation

 

• (reconstructed) IPA^(key): /ˈçaːnaw/ → /ˈçaːnaw/ → /ˈçaːnə/ → /ˈçoːn/

• (Old Egyptian, c. 2500 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈçaːnaw/
• (Middle Egyptian, c. 1700 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈçaːnaw/
• (Amarna-period Late Egyptian, c. 1350 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈçaːnə/
• (latest Late Egyptian, c. 800 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈçoːn/

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /çɛnuː/
  • Conventional anglicization: khenu

Noun

 m

1. interior, inside (of a place, building, body part, etc.)
2. (Late Egyptian, as a genitive modifying another noun) inner, covering the interior [Late Period]
3. space between any number of points, enclosed space
4. home, residence, abode
   • c. 2000 BCE – 1900 BCE, Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor (pHermitage/pPetersburg 1115) lines 135–136:

     pḥ.k ẖnw wn.k jm.f m qꜣb n(j) snw.k

     You will reach home and be there in the midst of your siblings.

5. homeland, home, the interior of Egypt^?
   • c. 2000 BCE – 1900 BCE, Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor (pHermitage/pPetersburg 1115) lines 1–3:

     wḏꜣ jb.k ḥꜣt(j)-ꜥ m.k pḥ.n.n ẖnw

     Satisfy yourself (literally, “May your heart be sound”), high official: look, we have reached home.

6. residence of the king, with its associated administrative complex; palace, capitol, capital city, ‘the Residence’
7. temple or shrine as the residence of a god [chiefly Greco-Roman Period]
8. goods that a land or mountain contains or produces; products, contents, abundance

Usage notes

It is unclear whether this word can actually take on the sense of ‘homeland’ given above; some authors prefer to interpret the relevant passages as references to the royal residence instead. Allen in Middle Egyptian Literature argues for the former interpretation in the context of the tale of The Shipwrecked Sailor: ‘ẖnw — literally, “the inside”: in this case, “inside” Egypt. The term is also used to refer to the capital, Memphis, but the locale mentioned in col. 10 sets the scene in Aswan’.

Inflection

Declension of ẖnw (masculine)

singular	ẖnw
dual	ẖnwwj
plural	ẖnww

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of ẖnw  

ẖnw	ẖnw	ẖnw	ẖnw	ẖn
[Old Kingdom]	[Coffin Texts]	[since the Middle Kingdom]	[since the Middle Kingdom]	[New Kingdom]

In the sense ‘residence of the king’, this word may also occur with the determinative :

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of ẖnw  

ẖnw	ẖnw	ẖnw

Derived terms

• m ẖnw
• r ẖnw

Descendants

• Demotic: ⁠ (ẖn)
  • Akhmimic Coptic: ⳉⲟⲩⲛ (xoun)
  • Bohairic Coptic: ϧⲟⲩⲛ (xoun)
  • Fayyumic Coptic: ϩⲟⲩⲛ (houn)
  • Sahidic Coptic: ϩⲟⲩⲛ (houn)

References

• “ẖnw (lemma ID 854537)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae‎^[1], Corpus issue 18, Web app version 2.1.5, Tonio Sebastian Richter & Daniel A. Werning by order of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert & Peter Dils by order of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, 2004–26 July 2023
• Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1929) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[2], volume 3, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 368.17–370.14
• Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 202
• Wilson, Penelope (1991) A Lexicographical Study of the Ptolemaic Texts in the Temple of Edfu, Liverpool: University of Liverpool, pages 1363–1364, 1366
• Černý, Jaroslav (1976) Coptic Etymological Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 286
• James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 122, 138, 233.
• Hoch, James (1997) Middle Egyptian Grammar, Mississauga: Benben Publications, →ISBN, page 98