Hieroglyphs Addenda · Signs

𓀀A1 · seated man — classifier: man, I

person

Where it comes from

A man seated on the ground, one knee up, one hand forward — the script’s generic human. Silent, it classifies men, names, and professions; and it stands alone as the suffix ≡j, “I, me, my” — the writer pointing at himself.

How to remember it

The person sits at the end of a word like a signature: a human is meant here — and when the text says “I,” the little seated figure IS the speaker, drawn in person.

In the wild

Piece by piece:

• ḏd≡j — shall I speak: the seated man as “I”
• n m — to whom?
• mjn — today

The refrain of Egyptian literature’s loneliest poem — a man with no one left to talk to, and the seated figure is him. The classifierEgyptology's name for a determinative — the silent sign closing a word to say what kind of thing it is: person, speech, plural, idea is taught in 101’s chapter 09.