Coptic or Coptic Egyptian[7] (ⲘⲉⲧⲢⲉⲙ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ Met Remenkēmi) is the final stage of the Egyptian language Egyptian is the indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 7th century AD in the form of Coptic. The national language of modern-day Egypt is, a northern Afro-Asiatic The Afroasiatic languages constitute a language family with about 375 living languages and more than 350 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Southwest Asia, as well as parts of the Sahel, and East Africa. The most widely spoken Afroasiatic language is Arabic, with 230 million speakers . In addition to languages language spoken in Egypt Egypt (pronounced /ˈiːdʒɪpt/ ; Arabic: مصر‎ Miṣr, pronounced [misˤɾ] ( listen); Arabic: مِصْر Miṣr [ˈmisˤɾ]; Egyptian Arabic: مَصْر Maṣr [ˈmɑsˤɾ]; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, kīmi; Egyptian: 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 Kemet), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula until at least the seventh century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It is the first and oldest alphabet in the narrow sense that it notes each vowel and consonant with a separate symbol. It is as such in continuous use to this day. The letters were also used to represent in the first century. The new writing system became the Coptic script The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Demotic and is the first Alphabetic Script used for the Egyptian Language. There are in fact several Coptic alphabets as the Coptic writing system may vary greatly among the various, an adapted Greek alphabet with the addition of six to seven signs from the demotic script to represent Egyptian sounds the Greek language Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of did not have. Several distinct Coptic dialects are identified, the most prominent of which are Sahidic and Bohairic.

Coptic and Demotic are grammatically closely akin to Late Egyptian Late Egyptian is the stage of the Egyptian language that was written by the time of the New Kingdom around the Amarna period. Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the Ramesside Period and later. Late Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplant Middle Egyptian as a literary language, which was written in the hieroglyphic Egyptian hieroglyphs (pronounced /ˈhaɪrəɡlɪf/ was a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that contained a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphics for religious literature on papyrus and wood. Less formal variations of the script, called hieratic and demotic, are technically not script. The main difference is in the writing. Coptic flourished as a literary language from the second to thirteenth centuries, and its Bohairic dialect continues to be the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the official name for the largest Christian church in Egypt. The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different position over Christological theology from that of the Eastern Orthodox and. It was supplanted by Egyptian Arabic Egyptian Arabic is a variety of the Arabic language of the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. It originated in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt around the capital Cairo. Descended from the spoken Arabic brought to Egypt during the seventh-century AD Muslim conquest, its development was influenced mainly by the indigenous Copto- as a spoken language toward the early modern period, though revitalization Language revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language[citation needed]. If the decline is severe, the language may be endangered, moribund, or extinct. In these cases, efforts have been underway since the nineteenth century. The number of people who speak Coptic today reaches around 300.[8][6][9]

Contents

Name

The native name of the language is ⲙⲛⲧⲣⲙⲛⲕⲏⲙⲉ (mentrmenkēmə) in the Sahidic dialect and ⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ (metremenkēmi) in Bohairic. The particle prefix ment-/met- is a construct of the verb ⲙⲟⲩϯ mouti ('to speak'), which forms all abstract nouns in Coptic (not only those pertaining to "language"). The expression literally means 'language of the people of Egypt', or simply 'Egyptian language'. Another name by which the language has been called is ⲙⲛⲧⲕⲩⲡⲧⲁⲓⲟⲛ ment kuptaion from the Copto-Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of form ⲙⲛⲧⲁⲓⲅⲩⲡⲧⲓⲟⲛ ment aiguption ('Egyptian language'). The term logos ən aiguptios ('Egyptian language') is also attested in Sahidic, although logos and aiguptios are both Greek in origin. (Greek vocabulary in Coptic is comparable to Latinate vocabulary in English.) In the liturgy of the Coptic Orthodox Church The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the official name for the largest Christian church in Egypt. The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different position over Christological theology from that of the Eastern Orthodox and, the name is more officially ϯⲁⲥⲡⲓ ̀ⲛⲢⲉⲙ ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ tiaspi en remenkimi, 'the Egyptian language', aspi being the Egyptian word for language.

Geographic distribution

This article contains IPA The International Phonetic Alphabet [note 1] is a system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language. The IPA is used by foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech pathologists and therapists, singers, phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols Mojibake , from the Japanese 文字 (moji) "character" + 化け (bake) "change", is the happenstance of incorrect, unreadable characters shown when computer software fails to render text correctly according to its associated character encoding instead of Unicode Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. Developed in conjunction with the Universal Character Set standard and published in book form as The Unicode Standard, the latest version of Unicode consists of a repertoire of more than 107,000 characters.

As a nearly extinct language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers. Extinct languages may be contrasted with dead languages, which are no longer spoken by anyone as his or her main language, Coptic no longer has any official status in Egypt Egypt (pronounced /ˈiːdʒɪpt/ ; Arabic: مصر‎ Miṣr, pronounced [misˤɾ] ( listen); Arabic: مِصْر Miṣr [ˈmisˤɾ]; Egyptian Arabic: مَصْر Maṣr [ˈmɑsˤɾ]; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, kīmi; Egyptian: 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 Kemet), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula. However, it is presently a liturgical language A sacred language, "holy language" , or liturgical language, is a language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life of the Coptic Orthodox The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the official name for the largest Christian church in Egypt. The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different position over Christological theology from that of the Eastern Orthodox and and Coptic Catholic churches (along with Arabic). Coptic Egyptian was spoken only in Egypt, and historically has had little influence outside of Egypt proper, with the exception of monasteries located in Nubia Nubia is the region in the south of Egypt, along the Nile and in northern Sudan. Most of Nubia is situated in Sudan with about a quarter of its territory in Egypt. In ancient times it was an independent kingdom. Coptic's most noticeable impact has been on the various dialects of Egyptian Arabic Egyptian Arabic is a variety of the Arabic language of the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. It originated in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt around the capital Cairo. Descended from the spoken Arabic brought to Egypt during the seventh-century AD Muslim conquest, its development was influenced mainly by the indigenous Copto-, whose lexicon has preserved a large number[citation needed] of Coptic words, in addition to Coptic morphological Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being (with clitics) the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words by rules. For example, English speakers recognize that the words dog, dogs, and dog, syntactical In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages, and phonological Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system. When describing the formal area of study, the term typically describes linguistic analysis either beneath the features.[citation needed]

Influence on other languages

Apart from Egyptian Arabic, there are a handful of words of Coptic origin that have been borrowed more generally into Classical Arabic Classical Arabic , also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times (7th to 9th centuries). It is based on the Medieval dialects of Arab tribes. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the direct descendent used today throughout the Arab World in writing and in formal and Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is the archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions were written. These include:

A few words of Coptic origin are found in Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of, some of which were ultimately borrowed into various European languages (e.g. barge A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Some barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats. Canal barges, towed by draft animals on an adjacent towpath, contended with the railway in the early industrial revolution, but were outcompeted in the carriage of from Coptic ⲃⲁⲁⲣⲉ bari "small boat"). However, most words of Egyptian origin that entered into Greek, and subsequently other European languages, come directly from ancient Egyptian Egyptian is the indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 7th century AD in the form of Coptic. The national language of modern-day Egypt is (often Demotic). An example of this is Greek ὄασις oasis, which comes directly from Egyptian wḥ3.t or demotic wḥỉ. Yet Coptic re-borrowed some words of ancient Egyptian origin back into its lexicon via Greek. For example, both Sahidic and Bohairic use the word ebenos, which was taken directly from Greek ἔβενος "ebony", originally from Egyptian hbny.

In addition, the Greek name Παφνούτιος Paphnutius finds its origin in Coptic ⲡⲁⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ papnoute 'the (man) of God' – still a common name (Babnouda) among Copts in Egypt. The name entered Russian as Пафнутий (for example, the famous mathematician Pafnuty Chebyshev). Finally, Old Nubian Old Nubian is an ancient variety of the Nubian languages, spoken until about the 15th century AD. It is ancestral to modern-day Nobiin and other Nubian languages spoken in Nubia. It is preserved in at least a hundred pages of documents, mostly of a Christian religious nature, written using a modified form of the Coptic script; the best known is and modern Nobiin Nobiin is a Northern Nubian language of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. "Nobiin" is the genitive form of Nòòbíí "Nubian" and literally means " of the Nubians" borrowed many words of Coptic origin.

History

5th-6th century Coptic liturgic inscription from Upper Egypt Upper Egypt is a strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur (which is south of modern-day Cairo). The northern section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Sohag is sometimes known as Middle Egypt. The designation Upper Egypt.

Egyptian Egyptian is the indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 7th century AD in the form of Coptic. The national language of modern-day Egypt is may have the longest documented history of any language, having remained in written use from c. 3200 BC to the Middle Ages and as a spoken language for longer. Coptic belongs to the Later Egyptian phase which started to be written in the New Kingdom The New Kingdom of Egypt, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period. It was. Later Egyptian represented the colloquial language. It had analytic features like definite and indefinite articles and periphrastic In linguistics, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical category or grammatical relationship is expressed by a free morpheme (typically one or more function words modifying a content word), instead of being shown by inflection or derivation. For example, the English future tense is periphrastic: it is formed with an auxiliary verb (shall or verb conjugation. Coptic therefore is a reference both to the final stage of Egyptian after Demotic, and to the new writing system that was adapted from the Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It is the first and oldest alphabet in the narrow sense that it notes each vowel and consonant with a separate symbol. It is as such in continuous use to this day. The letters were also used to represent.

Coptic before the Islamic period

The earliest attempts to write the Egyptian language using the Greek alphabet are Greek transcriptions of Egyptian proper names, most of which date to the Ptolemaic Ptolemaic Egypt began when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of queen Cleopatra of Egypt and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a powerful Hellenistic state, extending from southern Syria in the east, to Cyrene to the west, and south to the frontier with Nubia. Alexandria period. Scholars frequently refer to this phase as Pre-Coptic. However, it is clear that by the late pharaonic period The Late Period of Egypt refers to the last flowering of native Egyptian rulers after the Third Intermediate Period from the 26th Saite Dynasty into Persian conquests and ended with the death of Alexander the Great. It ran from 664 BC until 323 BC, demotic scribes regularly employed a more phonetic orthography, a testament to the increasing cultural contact between Egyptians Egyptians is the name of the nationality and the Mediterranean North African ethnic group native to Egypt and Greeks The Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world even before Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon , popularly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος, Mégas Aléxandros), was a Greeki[›] king (basileus) of Macedon. He is the most celebrated member of the Argead Dynasty and created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander received a classical's conquest of Egypt Egypt (pronounced /ˈiːdʒɪpt/ ; Arabic: مصر‎ Miṣr, pronounced [misˤɾ] ( listen); Arabic: مِصْر Miṣr [ˈmisˤɾ]; Egyptian Arabic: مَصْر Maṣr [ˈmɑsˤɾ]; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, kīmi; Egyptian: 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 Kemet), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula. Coptic itself, or Old Coptic, takes root in the first century. The transition from the older Egyptian scripts to the newly adapted Graeco-Coptic script was in part due to the decline of the traditional role played by the priestly class of ancient Egyptian religion Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the various religious beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Egypt over more than 3,000 years, from the predynastic period until the adoption of Christianity in the early centuries AD. These beliefs centered on the worship of multiple deities who represented various aspects of nature, ideas and functions of, who unlike most ordinary Egyptians, were literate in the temple scriptoria. Old Coptic is represented mostly by non-Christian texts such as Egyptian pagan prayers and magical and astrological papyri. Many of them served as glosses to original hieratic and demotic equivalents. The glosses may have been aimed at non-Egyptian speakers.

8th century Coptic manuscript of Luke The Gospel According to Luke , generally shortened to the Gospel of Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension. The author is traditionally identified as Luke the Evangelist 5.5—9

Under late Roman rule, Diocletian Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus , born Diocles (Greek: Διοκλῆς) and commonly known as Diocletian (pronounced /ˌdaɪ.ɵˈkliːʃən/), was Roman Emperor from 20 November 284 to 1 May 305. Born to an Illyrian family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia, he rose through the ranks of the military to become cavalry commander to persecuted many Egyptian converts to the new Christian Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament. Christianity comprises three major branches: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy (which parted ways with Catholicism in 1054 A.D.) and Protestantism (which came into existence during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th faith. This forced new converts to flee to the Egyptian deserts. In time, the growth of these communities generated the need to write Christian Greek instructions in the Egyptian language. The early Fathers of the Egyptian Church The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the official name for the largest Christian church in Egypt. The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different position over Christological theology from that of the Eastern Orthodox and, such as Anthony the Great, Pachomius, Macarius and Athanasius, who otherwise usually wrote in Greek, addressed some of their works to the Egyptian monks in Egyptian. The Egyptian language, now written in the Coptic alphabet, flourished in the second and third centuries. However, it was not until Shenouda the Archimandrite that Coptic became a fully standardized literary language based on the Sahidic dialect. Shenouda's native Egyptian tongue and knowledge of Greek and rhetoric gave him the necessary tools to elevate Coptic, in content and style, to a literary height nearly equal to the position of the Egyptian language in pre-Christian Egypt.

Coptic after the Islamic period

Egypt came under the dominance of Arab rulers with the spread of Islam in the 7th century. At the turn of the 8th century, Caliph Abdel al-Malik bin Marwan decreed that Arabic replace Koine Greek and Coptic as the sole administrative language. Literary Coptic gradually declined such that within a few hundred years, Egyptian bishop Severus Ibn al-Muqaffa found it necessary to write his History of the Patriarchs in Arabic. However, ecclesiastically the language retained its important position, and many hagiographic texts were also composed during this period. Until the tenth century, Coptic remained the spoken language of the native population outside the capital.

Persecutions under the Mamluks led to the further decline of Coptic, until it completely gave way to Egyptian Arabic in the 17th century, though it may have survived in isolated pockets for a little longer. In the second half of the 19th century, Pope Cyril IV of Alexandria started a national Church-sponsored movement to revive the Coptic language. Several works of grammar were published, along with a more comprehensive dictionary than had been previously available. The scholarly findings of the field of Egyptology and the inauguration of the Higher Institute of Coptic Studies further contributed to the renaissance. Efforts at language revival continue to be undertaken, both inside and outside the Church, and have attracted the interest of both Copts and Muslims in Egypt.

Writing system

Stone with Coptic inscription
Main article Coptic alphabet

Coptic uses a writing system almost wholly derived from the Greek alphabet, with the addition of a number of letters that have their origins in Demotic Egyptian. (This makes it comparable to the Latin-based Icelandic alphabet, which includes the runic letter thorn.) There is some variation in the number and forms of these signs depending on the dialect. Some of the letters in the Coptic alphabet that are of Greek origin were normally reserved only for words that are themselves Greek. Old Coptic texts employed several graphemes that were not retained in the literary Coptic orthography of later centuries.

In Sahidic, syllable boundary may have been marked by a supralinear stroke. Such words in the northern dialects have ⲉ ([e] or [ə]) in place of the superlinear stroke. Some scribal traditions use a diaeresis over /i/ and /u/ at the beginning of a syllable. Bohairic uses a superposed point or small stroke known as a djinkim. It may be related to the Sahidic supralinear stroke, or additionally, it may indicate a glottal stop. Most Coptic texts do not indicate a word division.

Literature

Main article: Coptic literature

The oldest Coptic writings date to the pre-Christian era (Old Coptic), though Coptic literature consists mostly of texts written by prominent saints of the Coptic Church such as Anthony the Great, Pachomius and Shenouda the Archimandrite. Shenouda helped fully standardize the Coptic language through his many sermons, treatises and homilies, which formed the basis of early Coptic literature.

Vocabulary

The core lexicon of Coptic is Egyptian, being most closely related to the preceding Demotic phase of the language. Up to 20% of the vocabulary of literary Coptic is drawn from Greek, though borrowings are not always fully adapted to the Coptic phonological system and may have semantic differences as well. There are instances of Coptic texts having passages that are almost entirely composed from Greek lexical roots. However, this is likely due to the fact that the majority of Coptic religious texts are direct translations of Greek works.

What invariably attracts the attention of the reader of a Coptic text, especially if it is written in the Sa'idic dialect, is the very liberal use which is made of Greek loan words, of which so few, indeed, are to be found in the Ancient Egyptian language. There Greek loan words occur everywhere in Coptic literature, be it Biblical, liturgical, theological, or non-literary, i.e. legal documents and personal letters. Though nouns and verbs predominate, the Greek loan words may come from any other part of speech except pronouns.[10]

Words or concepts for which no adequate Egyptian translation existed were taken directly from Greek so as not to alter the meaning of the religious message. In addition, other Egyptian words that would have adequately translated the Greek equivalents were not employed as these were perceived as having overt pagan associations. Old Coptic texts employ many such words, phrases and epithets; for example, the word ⲧⲃⲁⲓⲧⲱⲩ '(Who is) in (His) Mountain', is an epithet of Anubis.[11] There are also traces of some archaic grammatical features, such as residues of the Demotic relative clause, lack of an indefinite article and possessive use of suffixes.

Thus the transition from the 'old' traditions to the new Christian religion also contributed to the adoption of Greek words into the Coptic religious lexicon. It is safe to assume that the everyday speech of the native population retained to a greater extent its indigenous Egyptian character, which is sometimes reflected in Coptic non-religious documents such as letters and contracts.

Sounds

Coptic provides the clearest indication of Later Egyptian phonology thanks to its writing system, which fully indicates vowel sounds and occasionally stress pattern. The phonological system of Later Egyptian is also better known than that of the Classical phase of the language due to a greater number of sources indicating Egyptian sounds, including cuneiform letters containing transcriptions of Egyptian words and phrases, and Egyptian renderings of Northwest Semitic names. Coptic sounds, in addition, are known from a variety of Coptic-Arabic papyri in which Arabic letters were used to transcribe Coptic and vice versa. They date to the medieval Islamic period, when Coptic was still spoken.[12]

Vowels

Monophthong phonemes
Front Central Back
Close iː uː
Close-mid eː e oː o
Mid ə
Open a ɑ

In the Upper Egyptian dialects, a superlinear stroke is placed over sonorants to mark a reduced /e/. This vowel does not undergo reduction in northern dialects, where it is indicated by ⲉ in Bohairic and ⲏ or ⲩ in Fayyumic. For example, /ʃemʃə/ 'to worship' is Sah/Akh/Lyc ϣⲙ̅ϣⲉ, Bohairic ϣⲉⲙϣⲓ and Fayyumic ϣⲏⲙϣⲓ. The vowel quality of /e/ can vary: either [e] or [ɛ] depending on the dialect. In Sahidic and other Upper Egyptian dialects, word-final ⲉ corresponds to word-final ⲓ in the northern dialects.

The vowel /ɑ/ is typically represented by ⲁ—its presence may be an indicator of emphasis spread in the same syllable. For example, ⲥⲁ (used in in the construction 'man of [trade]') is transcribed [sˤɑ] in medieval Coptic-Arabic papyri. In some phonetic environments, /o/ is a more open [ɔ], and /a/ is a more forward [æ]. The vowel /ə/ is always unstressed and can be reduced to Ø as in earlier Egyptian scripts, which did not indicate unstressed and most stressed vowels.

Coptic also has three to four diphthongs — mainly [aj], [ɔj] and [aw] — although these may be interpreted as series of vowels and glides. In some dialects, they are monophthongized.

Consonants

IPA chart of Coptic consonants
Bilabial Labio- dental Alveolar Post- alveolar Palatal Velar Pharyngeal Glottal
Stop p b t d c ɟ k ɡ ʔ
Nasal m n
Trill r
Fricative f s z ʃ x ʕ ħ h
Affricate (t͡ʃ d͡ʒ)
Approximant w j
Lateral l

Earlier phases of Egyptian may have contrasted voiceless and voiced bilabial stops, but the distinction seems to have been lost. Late Egyptian, Demotic and Coptic all interchangeably use their respective graphemes to indicate either sound — for example, Coptic for 'iron' appears alternately as ⲡⲉⲛⲓⲡⲉ, ⲃⲉⲛⲓⲡⲉ and ⲃⲓⲛⲓⲃⲉ. This probably reflects dialect variation. Both letters were interchanged with ⲫ and ϥ to indicate /f/, and ⲃ was also used in many texts to indicate the bilabial approximant /w/. Coptologists believe that Coptic ⲃ was articulated as a voiced bilabial fricative [β]. In the present-day Coptic Church services, this letter is realized as /v/, though this is almost certainly a result of the pronunciation reforms instituted in the 19th century.

Whereas Old Egyptian contrasts /s/ and /z/, the two sounds appear to be in free variation in Coptic, as they were since the Middle Egyptian period. However, they are contrasted only in Greek loans; for example, Coptic ⲁⲛⲍⲏⲃⲉ (anzībə) and ⲁⲛⲥⲏⲃⲉ (ansībə) 'school'. Other consonants that sometimes appear to be either in free variation or to have different distributions across dialects are [t] and [d], [r] and [l] (especially in the Fayyumic dialect — a feature of earlier Egyptian) and [k] and [ɡ], with the voiceless stops being more common in Coptic words and the voiced ones in Greek borrowings. Apart from the liquid consonants, this pattern may indicate a phonological change in Later Egyptian leading to a neutralization of voiced alveolar and velar stops. When the voiced stops are realized, it is usually the result of sonorization in proximity to /n/.

Old Coptic texts graphically express the Egyptian pharyngeals in a variety of ways. For example, the Old Coptic grapheme ⳍ was occasionally used to convey a voiceless pharyngeal fricative. In literary Coptic, the two sounds are not indicated by separate letters, suggesting loss of phonemic status. Instead, the adapted demotic grapheme ϩ, which normally stands for /h/, is used to express either sound. In unstressed initial syllables and stressed final syllables, the voiced pharyngeal fricative is sometimes conveyed by ⲁ as in ⲁϣⲁⲓ (ʕšai) 'to multiply'. Similarly, different methods are employed to graphically express the glottal stop: with ⲁ word-initially, with ⲓ word-finally in monosyllabic words in northern dialects and ⲉ in monosyllabic words in Akhmimic and Assiutic, by reduplication of a vowel's grapheme, but mostly as [Ø].

Grammar

Coptic has a Subject Verb Object word order, but can be Verb Subject Object with the correct preposition in front of the subject. Number, gender, tense, and mood are indicated by prefixes that come from Late Egyptian. The earlier phases of Egyptian did this through suffixation. Some vestiges of the suffix inflection survive in Coptic, mainly to indicate inalienable possession and in some verbs. Compare the Middle Egyptian form *satāpafa 'he chooses' (written stp.f in hieroglyphs) to Coptic f.sotp ϥⲥⲱⲧⲡ̅ 'he chooses'.

Nouns

All Coptic nouns carry grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine, usually marked through the definite article as in the Romance languages. The definite and indefinite articles also indicate number — however, only definite articles mark gender. Coptic has a number of broken plurals, a vestige of Older Egyptian, though in the majority of cases the article marks number. Generally, nouns inflected for plurality end in /wə/, though there are some irregularities. The dual was another feature of earlier Egyptian that survives in Coptic in only few words, such as ⲥⲛⲁⲩ (snaw) 'two'.

Pronouns

This section requires expansion.

Coptic pronouns are of two kinds, dependent and independent. Independent pronouns are used when the pronoun is acting in a true noun state. This means that it is the subject of a sentence, object of a verb or indirect object of a verb or the object of a preposition. Dependent pronouns are a series of prefixes and suffixes that can attach to verbs and even other nouns. Coptic verbs therefore can be said to inflect for the person, number and gender of the subject. Coptic is also a pro drop language so a Pronoun subject need not and often is not directly stated. Coptic verbs do not inflect at the end of a verb but rather at the beginning. Since Coptic has moved to being a Subject Verb Object language this creates an unusual effect of someone saying "I I'have'it the ball." The pronoun prefix is for the subject and the pronoun suffix is usually for the object or indirect object.

Adjectives

The majority of Coptic adjectives are actually nouns that have the attributive particle n to make them adjectival. In all stages of Egyptian, this morpheme is also used to express the genitive — for example, the Bohairic word for 'Egyptian', ⲣⲉⲙ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ /remenkiːmi/, is a combination of the nominal prefix rem- (the reduced form of ⲣⲱⲙⲓ rōmi 'man'), followed by the genitive morpheme n ('of') and finally the word Egypt kīmi.

Verbs

This section requires expansion.

Verbs in Coptic change in two ways. First, a verb will have certain pronominal prefixes and suffixes attached to it to show the subject and object of the verb. Secondly, the vowel sound in the verb will change to show past tense or conditional state. Coptic has a number of conjugation patterns where certain kinds of constituent groups will have a similar series of vowel changes to effect the change in time, voice or mood for the verb.

Prepositions

This section requires expansion.

All nouns in a sentence except the Subject will almost always be preceded by a preposition. Prepositions in Coptic do not just denote adverbial usage as in English. The Direct object, indirect object, and any other use of a noun in a sentence except the subject is indicated by a preposition. Coptic in fact works similar to the declension system of Greek or Latin but instead of the grammar sounds coming at the end of noun, they precede the noun. Another example would be turning the postpositions of Japanese into prepositions that precede a noun. The sound does not really become a part of the word, it is only a grammar sound to tell you the function of the word it precedes. Some prepositions can be placed in front of independent pronouns but other require dependent pronouns.

Syntax

This section requires expansion.

Word order in Coptic is not free. Word order can be either Subject Verb Object or Verb Subject Object with the correct prepositions in place but can not usually place the object before the subject.

Dialects

Coptic and Arabic inscriptions in an Old Cairo church.

There is little written evidence of dialectal differences in the pre-Coptic phases of the Egyptian language due to the centralized nature of the political and cultural institutions of ancient Egyptian society. However, literary Old and Middle (Classical) Egyptian represent the spoken dialect of Lower Egypt around the city of Memphis, the capital of Egypt in the Old Kingdom. Later Egyptian is more representative of the dialects spoken in Upper Egypt, especially around the area of Thebes as it became the cultural and religious center of the New Kingdom.

Coptic more obviously displays a number of regional dialects that were in use from the Mediterranean coast in northern Egypt, south into Nubia, and in the western oases. However, while many of these dialects reflect actual regional linguistic (namely phonological and some lexical) variation, they mostly reflect localized orthographic traditions with very little grammatical differences.

Upper Egypt

Sahidic

Sahidic (also known as Thebaic) is the dialect in which most known Coptic texts are written, and was the leading dialect in the pre-Islamic period. It is thought to have originally been a regional dialect from the area around el-Ashmunein (Coptic Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛⲉⲓⲛ Shmounein), but around 300 it began to be written in literary form, including translations of major portions of the Bible (see Coptic versions of the Bible). By the 6th century, a standardized spelling had been attained throughout Egypt. Almost all native authors wrote in this dialect of Coptic. Sahidic was, beginning in the 9th century challenged by Bohairic, but is attested as late as the 14th century.

While texts in other Coptic dialects are primarily translations of Greek literary and religious texts, Sahidic is the only dialect with a considerable body of original literature and non-literary texts. Because Sahidic shares most of its features with other dialects of Coptic with few peculiarities specific to itself, and has an extensive corpus of known texts, it is generally the dialect studied by learners of Coptic, particularly by scholars outside of the Coptic Church.

Akhmimic

Akhmimic was the dialect of the area around the town of Akhmim, (Greek Panopolis), and flourished during the 4th and 5th centuries, after which no writings are attested. Akhmimic is phonologically the most archaic of the Coptic dialects. One characteristic feature is the retention of the phoneme /x/, which is realized as /ʃ/ in most other dialects. Similarly, it uses an exceptionally conservative writing system strikingly similar to Old Coptic.

Lycopolitan (also known as Subakhmimic and Assiutic) is a closely related dialect to Akhmimic in terms of when and where it was attested, though manuscripts written in it tend to be from the area of Asyut. The main differences between the two dialects seem to be only graphic in nature, though Lycopolitan was used extensively for translations of gnostic and Manichaean works, including the Nag Hammadi library texts.

Lower Egypt

Bohairic

The Bohairic (also known as Memphitic) dialect originated in the western Nile delta. The earliest Bohairic manuscripts date to the 4th century, but most texts come from the 9th century and later; this may be due to poor preservation conditions for texts in the humid regions of northern Egypt. It shows several conservative features in lexicon and phonology not found in other dialects. Bohairic is the dialect used today as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church, replacing Sahidic some time in the 11th century. In contemporary liturgical use, there are two traditions of pronunciation, arising from successive reforms in the 19th and 20th centuries (see Coptic pronunciation reform). Modern revitalization efforts are based on this dialect.

Fayyumic

Fayyumic (also written as Faiyumic; in older works it is often called Bashmuric) was spoken primarily in the Faiyum region west of the Nile Valley. It is attested from the 3rd to the 10th centuries. It is most notable for writing ⲗ, which corresponds to /l/, where other dialects generally use ⲣ /r/ (probably corresponding to a flap [ɾ]). In earlier stages of Egyptian, the liquids were not distinguished in writing until the New Kingdom, when Late Egyptian became the administrative language. Late Egyptian orthography utilized a grapheme that combined the graphemes for /r/ and /n/ in order express /l/. Demotic for its part indicated /l/ using a diacritic variety of /r/.

Oxyrhynchite (also known as Mesokemic or [confusingly] Middle Egyptian) is the dialect of Oxyrhynchus and surrounding areas. It shows similarities with Fayyumic and is attested in manuscripts from the 4th and 5th centuries.

Notes

  1. ^ "Exclusive: An Interview with the Only Egyptian Family that Still Speaks the Coptic Language inside Egypt". Coptic Assembly of America. http://www.copticassembly.org/showart.php?main_id=838. The number of people who speak Coptic reaches around 300, and no one is still in Egypt except the family of Titti Mouris
  2. ^ Mayton, Joseph (December 10, 2005). "Coptic language’s last survivors". Daily News. http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=106. Retrieved December 10, 2005.
  3. ^ Stettner, Rudi. "Will The Coptic Language Rise Again?". Rant Rave. http://www.rantrave.com/Rave/Will-The-Coptic-Language-Rise-Again.aspx. Retrieved December 10, 2005.
  4. ^ ([unreliable source?] – Scholar search) نفرتيتى تتحدث (published 2008-10), http://besara7a.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/عائلة-مصرية-جدا
  5. ^ "...إنهم يتحدثون القبطية". Canadian Coptic Association. http://copticnews.ca/a_jul2006/103_coptic.htm. [unreliable source?]
  6. ^ a b "إنهم يتحدثون القبطية". Theban Legion. http://www.katibatibia.com/Events/afamilytalkingonlycoptic.htm. [unreliable source?]
  7. ^ Reintges, Chris H. (2004). Coptic Egyptian (Sahidic Dialect). Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe. ISBN 978-3-89645-570-3.
  8. ^ ([unreliable source?] – Scholar search) نفرتيتى تتحدث (published 2008-10), http://besara7a.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/عائلة-مصرية-جدا
  9. ^ "...إنهم يتحدثون القبطية". Canadian Coptic Association. http://copticnews.ca/a_jul2006/103_coptic.htm.
  10. ^ Girgis, WA (1963-64). Greek loan words in Coptic. Bulletin de la Société d’archéologie copte 17:63-73.
  11. ^ Gignac, Francis Thomas, p. 174
  12. ^ Sijpesteijn, Petra; Lennart Sundelin (2004). Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt. Leiden, Boston: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 978 90 04 13886 5.

See also

Coptic language repository of Wikisource, the free library

References

General studies

Grammars

Dictionaries

Phonology

Bibliography

External links

Categories: Ancient Egyptian language | Coptic Orthodox Church | Medieval languages | Languages of Egypt

 

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