nj

See also: Nj, NJ, nJ, .nj, and N.J.

nj U+01CC, nj LATIN SMALL LETTER NJ ← Nj [U+01CB] Latin Extended-B Ǎ → [U+01CD]

Nj in upper- and lowercase

Albanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɲ/

Letter

nj (upper case Nj)

1. The twentieth letter of the Albanian alphabet, written in the Latin script.

See also

• (Latin-script letters) shkronjë; A a, B b, C c, Ç ç, D d, Dh dh, E e, Ë ë, F f, G g, Gj gj, H h, I i, J j, K k, L l, Ll ll, M m, N n, Nj nj, O o, P p, Q q, R r, Rr rr, S s, Sh sh, T t, Th th, U u, V v, X x, Xh xh, Y y, Z z, Zh zh

Avokaya

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ⁿd͡z/

Letter

nj (uppercase Nj)

1. A letter of the Avokaya alphabet.

Egyptian

Etymology 1

n (“to, for”) +‎ -j (nisba ending).

Pronunciation

 

• (reconstructed) IPA^(key): /nij/ → /nij/ → /nə/ → /nə/

• (Old Egyptian, c. 2500 BCE) IPA^(key): /nij/
• (Middle Egyptian, c. 1700 BCE) IPA^(key): /nij/
• (Amarna-period Late Egyptian, c. 1350 BCE) IPA^(key): /nə/
• (latest Late Egyptian, c. 800 BCE) IPA^(key): /nə/

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /ni/
  • Conventional anglicization: ni

Adjective

1. of, belonging to
2. made of (a material or composition)
3. of, possessing (a quality)
4. introduces the agent of an infinitive when it is a personal pronoun

Usage notes

This genitival adjective can be used to express the indirect genitive. In this case, it indicates that the noun preceding it, with which it agrees in gender and number, is possessed by the noun which follows it.

In Late Egyptian the functional contrasts of characterization versus specification that distinguished the indirect and direct genitive disappeared, and outside a restricted set of particular words the indirect genitive with nj largely supplanted the direct genitive without it.

Inflection

Declension of nj (nisba adjective)

	masculine	feminine
singular	, nj, n	nt
dual	njwj, nwj	ntj
plural	, njw, nw	nwt1, nt2
Archaic in Middle Egyptian when modifying a noun. From Middle Egyptian, this feminine singular form was generally used for the plural. In Late Egyptian, the masculine singular form was used with all nouns.

In Late Egyptian nj is usually not inflected by gender and number but invariably appears as n. Sometimes the writings of the former feminine and plural forms are used interchangeably with the masculine singular without distinction. The exception is in more formal texts, where the old distinctions and inflections are sometimes still used.

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of nj  

n	nj	nj
	[Old Kingdom]	[Middle Kingdom]

Derived terms

• nj-jb
• n-wsr-rꜥ
• nḥḥ
• n-st-jb
• ntj
• nt-ꜥ
• nt-ḥsb
• nt-ḥtrj
• nḏt
• sn-n-mwt

 

Descendants

• Coptic: ⲛ̄- (n̄-), ⲙ̄- (m̄-)

Etymology 2

Oréal hypothesizes that nj originated as a verb expressing nonexistence or absence in a stative construction, drawing a speculative connection with the attested verb nj (“to rebuff, to drive away”).

A cognate relation to Proto-Semitic *lā (“no, not”) has also been suggested.

Particle

 proclitic

1. (Old Egyptian, with a following noun or pronoun) there is no, there are no; introduces an independent negated existential clause
2. (Old Egyptian) not; negates any sentence
3. (Middle Egyptian) not; negates a nominal sentence, an adjectival sentence of possession, or the rheme of an emphatic clause (used with js; see Usage Notes below)
4. (Middle Egyptian) not; negates most verbal predicates besides infinitival, imperative, and subjunctive forms; forms the negation of the perfect, perfect passive, terminative, perfective, imperfective, prospective, and prospective passive.
5. no, not any; negates an individual noun
6. not; negates other individual words

Usage notes

• When used alone, nj negates the individual word or verbal predicate following it.

• When negating (nonverbal) nominal sentences, adjectival sentences of possession (which start with the genitival adjective n(j) ), and rhemes of emphatic clauses, this particle is typically followed by the first element of the negated clause and then the negative particle js. In Middle Egyptian it cannot negate adjectival sentences which do not indicate possession, nor adverbial sentences, which are instead negated by nn. It also cannot negate verbal sentences that are not emphatic, so the presence of a verb between nj and js always indicates an emphatic clause.

• nj combines with a number of other words to form negative particles with more specialised meanings, for which see the next section.

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of nj  

ny

[Old Kingdom]

Derived terms

• nj js (“and not, but not”)
• nj wn
• nj wnt (“since X did not exist”)
• nj zp (“never”)
• nj grt
• nn

 

Descendants

• >? Late Egyptian: bw

Etymology 3

n (“to, for”) +‎ -j (adverbializing suffix).

Adverb

1. for it, to it, thereto, therefor
2. because of it, therefore

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of nj  

n	ny
	[Old Kingdom]

Derived terms

• jmjtw-nj
• m-jmjtw-nj
• r-jmjtw-nj

 

Etymology 4

Preposition

1. Alternative form (before a noun) of n (“to, for”)

References

• “n.j (lemma ID 850787)”, “n (lemma ID 850806)”, and “n.y (lemma ID 79970)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae‎^[1], Corpus issue 18, Web app version 2.1.5, Tonio Sebastian Richter & Daniel A. Werning by order of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert & Peter Dils by order of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, 2004–26 July 2023
• James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 43, 66, 71–72, 86–87, 127, 169, 194, 413–414.
• Hoch, James (1997) Middle Egyptian Grammar, Mississauga: Benben Publications, →ISBN, pages 117–118
• Junge, Friedrich (2005) Late Egyptian Grammar: An Introduction, second English edition, Oxford: Griffith Institute, pages 60–61, 63–64
• Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1926) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[2], volume 1, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 45.7–45.11
• Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1928) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[3], volume 2, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 195.6–195.11, 196.3–197.8, 200, 201.2
• Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, pages 10, 124–125

Fula

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ⁿdʒ/

Letter

nj (lower case, upper case Nj)

1. A letter of the Fula alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Usage notes

• Common to all varieties of Fula (Fulfulde / Pulaar / Pular).

See also

• (Latin-script letters) karfeeje; ', A a, B b, Mb mb, Ɓ ɓ, C c, D d, Nd nd, Ɗ ɗ, E e, F f, G g, Ng ng, Ɠ ɠ, H h, I i, J j, Nj nj, K k, L l, M m, N n, Ŋ ŋ, Ñ ñ, Ɲ ɲ, O o, P p, R r, S s, T t, U u, W w, Y y, Ƴ ƴ

Serbo-Croatian

Alternative forms

• Nj (uppercase)

Pronunciation

• (phoneme) IPA^(key): /ɲ/

Letter

nj (Cyrillic spelling њ)

1. The 20th (digraph) letter of the Serbo-Croatian Latin alphabet (gajica), preceded by n and followed by o.

Pronoun

nj (Cyrillic spelling њ)

1. him (clitic accusative singular of ȏn (“he”))
2. it (clitic accusative singular of òno (“it”))

Declension

    Inflection of 3rd-person pronouns

	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
nominative	ȏn	òna	òno	òni	òne	òna
genitive	njȅga, ga	njȇ, je	njȅga, ga	njȋh, ih	njȋh, ih	njȋh, ih
dative	njȅmu, mu	njȏj, joj	njȅmu, mu	njȉma, im	njȉma, im	njȉma, im
accusative	njȅga, ga, nj	njȗ, ju, je	njȅga, ga, nj	njȋh, ih	njȋh, ih	njȋh, ih
vocative	—	—	—	—	—	—
locative	njȅm, njȅmu	njȏj	njȅm, njȅmu	njȉma	njȉma	njȉma
instrumental	njȋm, njíme	njȏm, njóme	njȋm, njíme	njȉma	njȉma	njȉma