Once you can read a word's consonants, you can look it up. Middle Egyptian dictionaries are ordered by transliteration, in the alphabet you learned in Transliteration and Its Order.
Key idea
Dictionaries list words in the order ꜣ j y ꜥ w b p f m n r h ḥ ḫ ẖ z s š q k g t ṯ d ḏ, letter by letter. Look up the base word: a verb under its full root (jr.n=f under jrj), a noun under its singular masculine form (nṯrw under nṯr), an adjective under its masculine (nfrt under nfr).
Why it works
A dictionary cannot list every form of every word; it lists each word once, under a headword. For verbs that means the root, with weak consonants put back, since those are what change from form to form. Endings like .n, .tw, -t, -w and suffix pronouns belong to the grammar, not the dictionary. So before you look a word up, strip it down: take off suffixes and endings, restore any weak j, and you have the headword.
| Form in a text | Strip | Headword |
|---|---|---|
| sḏm.n=f | .n, =f | sḏm |
| jr.n=f | .n, =f; restore j | jrj |
| dj=f | =f; restore r | rdj |
| nṯrw | plural -w | nṯr |
| nfrt | feminine -t | nfr |
| jj.kj | stative ending | jj |
Worked example: Which comes first?
Put nfr, ꜣḫ and qd in dictionary order.
- Compare first letters: ꜣ is first in the alphabet, n in the middle, q near the end.
- So ꜣḫ, then nfr, then qd.
Answer: ꜣḫ → nfr → qd
Worked example: Same first letter
Which comes first, ḥm or ḥtp?
- Both begin with ḥ; compare the second letters.
- m comes before t in the alphabet.
Answer: ḥm, then ḥtp.
The standard tools are Raymond O. Faulkner's A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (1962), small and arranged exactly this way; the great Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache of Adolf Erman and Hermann Grapow (1926–1931), in German, covering all periods; and today the online Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae. In older books z and s are merged, and yod may be written ꞽ or i; check the book's alphabet on its first pages.
Common mistake
Looking up words with their endings. Students search for nfrt or sḏm.n=f and find nothing, or find the wrong entry. Check: before you open the dictionary, strip suffixes and endings and restore weak consonants. Then search for the root.