mdw-jꜣw

Egyptian

FWOTD – 19 March 2018

Etymology

mdw (“staff”) +‎ jꜣw (“old age”) in a direct genitive construction, thus literally ‘staff of old age’.

Pronunciation

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /mɛduː iɑuː/
  • Conventional anglicization: medu-iau

Noun

 m

1. a son who assumes the duties of his aged father, allowing the father to remain in office, supported by his son, who carries out the father’s responsibilities as deputy [Middle Kingdom and 18th Dynasty]
   • c. 1900 BCE, The Instructions of Ptahhotep (pPrisse/pBN 186–194) lines 5.2–5.3:

     wḏ.t(w) n bꜣk jm jrt mdw-jꜣw jḫ ḏd.j n.f mdw sḏmyw sḫrw jmjw-ḥꜣt pꜣw sḏm n nṯrw

     May your humble servant (i.e. the father) be commanded to make his son his deputy (literally, “a staff of old age”); then I will tell him the words of the listeners, the advice of ancestors who once listened to the gods.

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of mdw-jꜣw  

mdw-jꜣw	mdw n jꜣw	mdw-jꜣw
	18th Dynasty	18th Dynasty

References

• Allen, James Peter (2015) Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 168–169
• Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1928) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[1], volume 2, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, page 178.11
• Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 122