You know the suffix pronouns (Suffix Pronouns) and their uses on nouns and prepositions. Put one on a verb stem and you have the most common verb form of all, the sḏm=f.
Key idea
The sḏm=f is the verb stem followed by its subject: sḏm=f "he hears", sḏm=s "she hears", sḏm=j "I hear". With a noun subject, the noun follows the verb: sḏm z "the man hears".
Why it works
On a noun a suffix shows the owner; on a preposition, the object; on a verb, the doer. The pronoun is the same little word in all three places; its job comes from what it is attached to. So pr=f is "his house", n=f "to him", and sḏm=f "he hears". The grammarians named this whole family of forms the suffix conjugation, after the suffix that carries the subject.
| Suffix | sḏm=f | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| =j | sḏm=j | I hear |
| =k | sḏm=k | you hear (said to a man) |
| =ṯ | sḏm=ṯ | you hear (said to a woman) |
| =f | sḏm=f | he hears |
| =s | sḏm=s | she hears |
| =n | sḏm=n | we hear |
| =ṯn | sḏm=ṯn | you hear (more than one) |
| =sn | sḏm=sn | they hear |
Worked example: Write a sḏm=f
Write "they say" with ḏd "say".
- Start with the stem ḏd.
- Add the suffix for "they": =sn.
Answer: ḏd=sn
Worked example: A noun subject
Translate ꜥnḫ nsw.
- ꜥnḫ "live" is the verb; nothing stands between it and the next word.
- nsw "the king" is the subject.
Answer: "The king lives."
Common mistake
Reading sḏm=f as "his hearing". The habit from nouns (pr=f "his house") is strong. But when the stem is a verb at the head of its clause, the suffix is the subject. (An infinitive with a suffix can mean "his hearing", as in the last lesson; it stands where a noun goes, after a preposition or another verb.) Check: is the word at the head of the clause? Then read the suffix as the doer.
Worked example: From the hieroglyphs
Read ḏd=s: the cobra, the hand, then the folded cloth.
- The cobra and the hand write ḏd "say".
- The folded cloth after the verb is the suffix =s "she".
Answer: "She says."
The same shape works for every strong verb: rḫ=k "you know", ꜥnḫ=n "we live", sḥtp=sn "they satisfy". Learn the eight suffixes once and you can make the sḏm=f of any verb.
Egyptologists write the sḏm=f with an equals sign before the suffix, following the Leiden convention, and older books write a dot (sḏm.f). Either way, the answer boxes on this site accept sḏm=f, sḏm.f or sDm=f.