Is there an emphatic no in Middle Egyptian? Something analogous to "no way," "absolutely not," or the modern usage of "nope?"
They don’t have an emphatic no (at least not as far as I’m aware), nor a general way of saying “no” as a single-word reply to a question.
Middle Egyptian uses various means of negation. And when I say “various” I mean they have an incredible lot of ways to negate things. Most grammatical constructions have their own specific way/form of negating them, for example the imperative (see below).
A verb is negated in one of three ways:
With negative particles n or nn
With the particle/construction n-sp
With one of the negative verbs tm or imi
hieroglyphic spellings for prosperity
WIthin these main negations there are variations. The imperative for example is negated by m, which itself is the imperative of the negative verb tm. So you’ll get a phrase such as:
The verb form nominal sDm=f, to use an other example, can be negated by the use of tm. But! since the nominal sDm=f is used in different constructions, the negation can differ somewhat between those, as well.
As an aside, I low-key hate negation (unless it’s negation of relative forms, that shit is whack and I’m up for whack). I’m sure you have an inkling as to why.
Back to the nominal sDm=f, in a negation of the emphatic construction the negative verb tm is the nominal sDm=f. The other verb in the sentence is the negative complement. You’ll get this:
tm=k here means as much as “you not”. sDm(.w) is the negative complement form of the verb sDm, “to listen”. This concept is the same for a nominal sDm=f construction in which this verb form is used as a noun.
However, when the nominal sDm=f is used as the predicate in a pw-sentence (a noun or independent pronoun followed by pw, which means as much as “It/he/she/this/etc. is” - so it=k pw, “he is your father”), tm is generally used without a suffix pronoun (“=k” is a suffix pronoun). Here’s a nice example from one of my precious medical papyri:
Now n-sp might actually be closest to a “no” Middle Egyptian has, because we translate it as “never”. But at the same time it’s not, because it cannot be used on its own, it has to negate a verb. n-sp is mostly used in negative confessions like “never did I do anyone harm” (I’m sorry, I’m not going to give you the hieroglyphs for this one because I’m kind of over JSesh and grammar right now).
Negative confessions are found in all sorts of texts to a) get the point across that the guy the text (usually a tomb biography) is talking about was a really swell guy and b) (in later times) to make sure his heart wouldn’t end up heavier than the feather of Ma’at when it was time to weigh it. Egyptians believed that even if you had done someone harm in life, writing down a negative confession would in a sense overrule that.
Okay, I need to stop talking about negation because it’s half twelve and it’s a work day tomorrow and also negations fucking suck.
TL;DR: Middle Egyptian is suffering.
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