Though a noun in Egyptian,ky frequently describes another noun, standing before it in apposition, and it is therefore often best translated into English as a determiner.
ky is an old dual noun, but its ‘dual’ forms are used with singulars when in apposition.
1 Archaic in Middle Egyptian when modifying a noun. 2 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.
By the end of Old Egyptian, the feminine plural fell out of use and the masculine plural became a general plural.
Whenky stands alone rather than in apposition, it has a different plural form,kt-ḫt
James P[eter] Allen (2010)Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,→ISBN,page64.
Gardiner, Alan (1957)Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, third edition, Oxford: Griffith Institute,→ISBN,§ 98,page78
Junge, Friedrich (2005)Late Egyptian Grammar: An Introduction, second English edition, Oxford: Griffith Institute, page61
Amanda Bohnert, Kelly Harper Berkson, Sui Hnem Par (2022) “Vowel Sounds in Hnaring Lutuv”, inIndiana Working Papers in South Asian Languages and Cultures[2], volume 3, number 1
