Coptic language
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| Coptic (te met rem en kēme ["the language of the people of Egypt"]) | |
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| Spoken in: | Egypt [extinct] |
| Region: | North Africa |
| Total speakers: | Extinct |
| Ranking: | — |
| Genetic classification: | Afro-Asiatic Egyptian |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | Liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church (Bohairic dialect) |
| Regulated by: | — |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | — |
| ISO 639-2 | cop |
| SIL | COP |
| See also: Language – List of languages | |
The Coptic Language is the last phase of the Egyptian languages, and is the direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian language written in the hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts. Coptic itself is, however, written in a slightly modified form of the Greek alphabet. As a living language of daily conversation, Coptic flurished from circa AD 200 to 1100. It survives today as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
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Classification
Coptic is a member of the Afro-Asiatic language family and the Egyptian language sub-family. In the Sahidic dialect, the language is known as te met rem en kēme [lit. "the language of the people of Egypt"] and met kuptaion [lit. "Egyptian language"]; the latter is sometimes encountered in the Graecising form met aiguption. The term logos ne aiguptios (lit., "Egyptian language") is also attested in Sahidic, but this is composed almost entirely of Greek loanwords.
Coptic is written in the Coptic alphabet.
Geographic distribution
Template:IPA notice Coptic was spoken only in Egypt, and historically has had little influence outside of Egypt proper, with the exception of monasteries located in Nubia. Coptic's most noticeable impact has been on various dialects of Egyptian colloquial Arabic where an immense amount of Coptic lexicon has been preserved. Most of these borrowings are, however, restricted to semantic fields such as agriculture and the natural environment. Additionally, there are a handful of words of Coptic origin that have been borrowed more generally into Standard Arabic. These include:
- timsāḥ تمساح "crocodile" (Sahidic te-msaḥ; Bohairic t-emsaḥ "the crocodile")
- ṭūbah طوبة "brick" (Sahidic tōōbe */toːʔbe/; Bohairic tōbi */toːbi/); this subsequently entered Spanish (via Andalusi Arabic) as adobe, whence it was borrowed by American English
- wāḥah واحة "oasis" (Sahidic ouaḥe */waħe/; Bohairic oueḥi */weħi/)
A few words of Coptic origin are found in Greek, some of which where ultimately borrowed into various languages of Europe. It should be noted, however, that most words of Egyptian origin that entered into Greek, and subsequently other European languages, come directly from ancient Egyptian (often demotic), and not Coptic. An example of this is Greek ὄασις oasis, which comes directly from Egyptian wḥ3t or demotic wḥỉ, and not Coptic ouaḥe. Interestingly, 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.
Finally, Old Nubian (and modern Nubian languages) borrowed many words of Coptic origin.
Official status
As an extinct language, Coptic does not have any official status. The mediaeval Boharic dialect is, however, presently used as a liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church (along with Arabic and Greek).
Dialects
Coptic possesses a number of regional dialects that were in use from the Mediterranean coast and south into Nubia, as well as the western oases. However, while many of these dialects reflect actual regional linguistic variations, some are more probably localised orthographic traditions and likely should not be taken as a true indication of linguistic variation.
The major dialects of Coptic are:
Sahidic
Sahidic (formerly called Thebaic) is 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 al-Ashmunayn (ancient Hermopolis magna), but around AD 300 it began to be written in literary form, including translations of major portions of the Bible. By the 6th century a standardised spelling had been attained, and it was highly influential as the standard dialect for the Coptic Orthodox Church throughout Egypt. Almost all native authors in Coptic wrote in this dialect. 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 Coptic shares most of its features with other dialects of Coptic and has 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.
Bohairic
The Bohairic (or Memphitic) dialect is generally believed to originate in the western Nile delta. The earliest Bohairic manuscripts date to the 4th century AD, but most texts come from the 9th century and later; this may, however, 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 dialect used in the liturgy of the Coptic Orthodox Church, replacing Sahidic some time in the 11th century. As a contemporary liturgical language, Bohairic is generally pronounced using the so-called "reformed pronunciation" mandated by Pope Cyrillus IV (1854–1861), modelling the pronunciation of Coptic letters after their equivalents in Modern Greek.
Some members of the Church have attempted to revive the Bohairic dialect as a language of daily usage, and a number of booklets and grammars have been published to this end. (For one thorough example, see Mattar 1990.) Unfortunately, beyond the activities of a few enthusiasts, there has been little realistic achievement in this regard.
Akhmimic
Akhmimic was localised around the town of Akhmim (ancient Panopolis), and flourished during the 4th and 5th centuries, after which it became extinct. Akmimic is phonologically the most archaic of the Coptic dialects. One characteristic feature is the retention of the phoneme /x/, which is realised as /ʃ/ in most other dialects. Similarly, it uses an exceptionally conservative writing system strikingly similar to "Old Coptic".
Lycopolitan
Lycopolitan (also known as Subakhmimic and Assiutic) is similar to Akhmimic in terms of when and where it was attested, though manuscripts written in it tend to be localised in the area of Asyut, ancient Lycopolis. The main differences between the two dialects seem to be only graphical in nature, though Lycopolitan was used extensively for translations of gnostic and Manichaean works, including the Nag Hammadi texts.
Fayyumic
Fayyumic (or Faiyumic; in older works it is often called Bashmuric) was utilised primarily in the Fayyum region, west of the Nile valley. It is attested from the 3rd to the 10th centuries. It is most notable for writing λ <l> where other dialects generally use ρ <r>.
Oxyrhynchite
Oxyrhynchite (also called Mesokemic or (confusingly) Middle Egyptian) was localised in Middle Egypt around Oxyrhynchus, and shows similarities with Fayyumic. It is attested in manuscripts from the 4th and 5th centuries.
Vocabulary
The core lexicon of Coptic is derived from the ancient Egyptian language, being most closely related to the demotic phase of the language. Approximately one-third of Coptic vocabulary 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, it must be remembered that the majority of Coptic texts are direct translations of Greek works.
Writing system
- Main article Coptic alphabet
Coptic uses a writing system almost wholly derived from the Greek alphabet, with the addition of a number of additional letters—six in the case of Sahidic—that have their origins in Demotic. There is some variation in the number and forms of these demotic signs depending on the dialect of Coptic involved. Some of the letters in the Coptic alphabet that are of Greek origin were normally reserved only for words that are themselves Greek in origin.
In Sahidic, syllables may have been indicated by a supralinear stroke, though many scholars hold that it was used to indicate /e/; there is currently no agreement on this issue. 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 is thought to be unrelated to the Sahidic supralinear stroke, and may possibly indicate a voiceless glottal plosive.
Most Coptic texts do not indicate a word division.
History
Coptic was predominantly used from its Christian beginnings in the late 2nd century till the time of the Great persecution of Diocletian in the late 3rd century as a translational tool from Greek to Egyptian. After the persecution, the monastic movement picked up tremendous steam. The monastic communities were large and mostly Egyptian. This generated the need for the abbots of these communities to write their rules in their Egyptian language. Furthermore, the Fathers of the Egyptian Church, who otherwise usually wrote in Greek, addressed some of their works to the Egyptian monks in Coptic. Hence, with monastic fathers like Saint Anthony the Great, Saint Pachomius, and Saint Macarius and their respective disciples writing to their monks; and with Church Fathers like Saint Athanasius, Saint Theophilius, and Saint Cyril writing also to them in Coptic, the Golden Age of the Coptic language was about to begin.
It was not until Saint Shenouda the Archimandrite came on the scene that Coptic really achieved its literary excellence. Saint Shenouda was able to transform the language from a tool to communicate instructions to the monks to a wide-variety literary language that addressed monks, ecclesiastic authorities, laymen, and even government officials. His charisma, knowledge of Greek language and rhetoric, as well as his innovative mind gave him the necessary tools to elevate the Coptic language, in content and style, to a literary height never achieved before nor equaled since. The Coptic scholars are constantly astounded by his great writings as more and more of them are being studied and accurately published.
This literary legacy continued to a lesser degree through the writings of his disciple Saint Besa in the second half of the 5th century. But such writings were mostly for the edification of the large monastic community in the White Monastery. Later in the 6th and 7th centuries other fathers wrote many works in Coptic like Rufus of Shotep, Constantine of Asyut, and Pisentius of Qift.
Coptic During the Early Arabic Period (7th to 10th Century A.D.)
Coptic_luke.jpg
By the middle of the 7th century, Egypt came under the dominance of Arab rulers that eventually tried to force the Copts to learn Arabic to keep their government jobs. This policy slowly eroded the number of Coptic lay readers who were mostly from the ranks of these government workers and their families. In other words the pressure put on such families to learn Arabic to ensure their continuing service in the government and the inheritance of such work by their offspring, made them slowly neglect educating their children in literary Coptic. Within a few hundred years, Bishop Severus of Al-Ashmunain found it necessary to write his History of the Patriarchs in Arabic to address such a drastic decline.
Ecclesiastically, the language continued strong. In fact, a great number of Hagiographic texts were composed during the early parts of this period. Coptic continued to be used in the Church with Greek as the second language, as seen from the texts that survived from the period. However a relatively small number of liturgical manuscripts survived from such period to show how it was being used. This was due to the heavy use to which such manuscripts were subjected, poor preservation during the period of decline in use, and the parchment material they were written on that did not lend itself to such heavy use.
During this period some Arabic loan-words made their way into the language. But there was no indication that the Arabic language was used in the Church. There were no Coptic-Arabic manuscripts that belong to this period or any literary citation to indicate its possible use. Coptic also remained the spoken language of the peasants and probably the clergy.
Coptic versus Arabic (from 11th to 14th Century A.D.)
As the 11th century approached, the relatively good relations between the rulers of Egypt and the Church were drastically changed as the Hakem b'Amr Allah became the ruler. His violent mood swings took their toll on the Christians who were periodically subjected to open persecutions, had their churches closed for up to two years at time, and saw their language being prohibited from use. This period did not last long, but it definitely left open the door for further decline in Coptic use. During the same period, the European Crusaders waged their wars against the Muslim rulers of the Middle East in an effort to secure the holy places. Their presence in the area generated waves of persecutions and oppressions against the Copts. Introduction of Arabic in the 12th century by the Patriarch Gabriel ibn Turaik was probably an attempt to show the Muslims that the Copts are different from the enemy they were fighting.
Such move may have been considered wise at the time but it actually opened the flood gates. Christian Arabic literature flourished afterward. Later in the period, Arabic invaded the liturgical books, replacing Greek in bilingual texts and intruding on traditionally non-bilingual ones. Even purely Arabic liturgical texts began to appear, indicating that Arabic moved from a mere reference translation to actual use in the churches. Original composition in Coptic became limited to liturgical hymns and prayers. The only Coptic literary texts composed in the later part of the period were the martyrdom of Saint John of Phanidijoit, written as such to shield from the eyes of the Muslims, and compositions, urging the Copts to revive their language.
Further testimony to the gradual decline of the language as a reading tool was supplied by the many lexicographic works that were introduced during the period. They were in the form of Muqadimat (Grammar) and Salalem (Scalae or word lists). Another sign of decline were Arabic texts circulating among the monks but written in Coptic characters, as they could not still read the Arabic script. This was eventually replaced with the writing of Coptic text in Arabic letters that we see nowadays in the Coptic Church.
In summary, this period saw the decline of Coptic literary use in its last stronghold, the Church. Eventually, it led to the weakening of the Church which subsequently weakened the language more, a natural chain reaction. The number of Christians declined due to persecution and forced conversion to Islam. This can probably be attributed to the decline in Coptic which represented a cultural barrier for the Copts from the Arabic-Muslim Culture. But now the increasing use of Arabic bridged that barrier and made it easier for the border-line Christians to cross to seemingly greener grounds!
Coptic Decline as a Spoken Language (to 17th Century A.D.)
After the 14th century the Church experienced a decline spiritually and numerically. The dominance of the Ottoman Empire over Egypt in the early 16th century seemed to accelerate such decline. Production of Coptic Manuscripts slowed down to a trickle. This is an indication that Coptic books were not used as often as before in the Church, so there was no need to produce more. Tradition still mandated that Coptic be used in Church services but in a decaying fashion. Eventually Vansleb, the French traveler, concluded upon seeing an old man speaking in Coptic that with his death (the man's) Coptic will die. Such observation may not have been completely accurate but it gave an indication that Arabic has replaced Coptic as the primary spoken language among the Copts, if not the only one.
Revival of Coptic in the 19th Century A.D.
In the beginning years of the second half of the 19th century, Pope Cyril IV of Alexandria started a Church-sponsored movement to educate the clergy and the new generations. Revival of Coptic seemed to be a necessary tool for such a movement. So Coptic language education was offered in all the schools that he built alongside the other curriculums that was needed to make a new, better, and educated generation.
Pope Cyril IV of Alexandria did not last long on the throne of Saint Mark. His death was in part brought upon by opponents of his reforms. But he had laid the ground work for such movement to continue. In the last half quarter of that century, the movement to revive the Coptic language intensified. The eyes of those in that movement turned to Greece in an effort to establish a standardized method of pronouncing Coptic. It was felt that Greek preserved the original sound value of many of the characters in Coptic because of its close association with Coptic in its early days. However the Greek tongue underwent some modifications due to the effect of 150 years of Ottoman dominance. Because of the lack of any other available means, a new pronunciation system was established for Coptic that made it sounds not as Egyptian as it should have sounded.
In spite of the above shortcoming, those dedicated people spread the language among the masses. They printed many of the Coptic service books for the first time, as they were only extant in manuscript form, thus reviving the use of Coptic in the Church services. Several works of grammar were produced as a result, along with a more comprehensive dictionary than was then available. The establishment of the Clerical College also aided in the propagation of the movement.
Coptic in the 20th Century
Coptic continued its growth in the Church and among the Ecclesiastically-educated groups that were produced in the early parts of the 20th century. Coptic schools, instituted by Pope Cyril VI and others that emulated them, continued their valuable work among the Coptic community. The clerical college also continued the tradition of the 19th century revival of Coptic. However, the pronunciation system established seemed to be a hindrance to the spread of the language among the masses. With the advent of the revolution of 1952, the Arabic language became more prominent in Egypt and had eventually an influential effect on the new educated classes among the Copts. As members of these groups were called upon to serve the Church, they brought with them a preaching spirit that put Arabic in a new prominent position in the services, i.e. sermons. Unintentionally, and in spite of the good will of such people and their love of the tradition of the Church, they introduced again an element that eventually weakened the revival process. If such process is not wisely put in check and eventually reversed, they are liable to face in the future a Church with a lost identity.
Related Articles
References
General Studies
- Emmel, Stephen. 1992. "Languages (Coptic)". In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman. Vol. 4 of 6 vols. New York: Doubleday. 180–188
- Kasser, Rodolphe. 1991. "Dialects". In The Coptic Encyclopedia, edited by Aziz Suryal Atiya. Vol. 8 of 8 vols. New York and Toronto: Macmillian Publishing Company and Collier Macmillian Canada. 87–96
- Loprieno, Antonio. 1995. Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Polotsky, Han Jakob. 1971. "Coptic". In Afroasiatic: A Survey, edited by Carleton Taylor Hodge. Jana Linguarum (Series Practica) 163, ser. ed. Cornelis Hendrik van Schooneveld. 's Gravenhage and Paris: Mouton & Co. N. V. 67–79
Grammars
- Lambdin, Thomas Oden. 1982. Introduction to Sahidic Coptic. Macon: Mercer University Press
- Layton, Bentley. 2000. A Coptic Grammar (Sahidic Dialect): With Chrestomathy and Glossary. Porta linguarum orientalium 20 (new series), ser. eds. Werner Diem, and Franz Rosenthal. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag
- Mattar, Nabil. 1990. A Study in Bohairic. Pasadena: Hope Publishing House
- Plumley, J. Martin. 1947 An Introductory Coptic Grammar (Sahidic Dialect). London: Horne &van Thal. On-line version (http://www.metalog.org/files/plumley/html/home.htm)
Dictionaries
- Černý, Jaroslav. 1976. Coptic Etymological Dictionary. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press
- Crum, Walter Ewing. 1939. A Coptic Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press; On-line version (http://www.metalog.org/files/crum.html)
- Vycichl, Werner. 1983. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue copte. Leuven: Éditions Peeters
- Westendorf, Wolfhart. 1965/1977. Koptisches Handwörterbuch. Heidelberg: Carl Winter - Universitätsverlag
Phonology
- Depuydt, Leo. 1993. "On Coptic Sounds." Orientalia 62 (new series):338–375.
- Loprieno, Antonio. 1997. "Egyptian and Coptic Phonology". In Phonologies of Asia and Africa (Including the Caucasus), edited by Alan S. Kaye. Vol. 1 of 2 vols. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. 431–460
- Peust, Carsten. 1999. Egyptian Phonology: An Introduction to the Phonology of a Dead Language. Monographien zur ägyptischen Sprache 2, ser. eds. Holger Gutschmidt and Carsten Peust. Göttingen: Peust & Gutschmidt Verlag GbR
External Links
- Learn the Coptic language online (in English, Arabic including video tutorials) (http://st-takla.org/Learn_Languages/01_Learn_Coptic-ta3leem-2ebty/Learn-Coptic_00-index_El-Fehres.html): from Saint Takla Haymanout Coptic Orthodox Church - Alexandria, Egypt
- Learn Coptic Websites (http://st-takla.org/Links/Coptic-Links-08_Coptic-Language.html)
- Remenkimi (http://www.geocities.com/remenkimi): An extensive Coptic language-site from enthusiasts attempting to revive spoken Bohairc
- Coptic Standard Fonts (http://www.copticchurch.net/coptic_fonts/): ASCII-based fonts
- The History of the Coptic Language (http://www.stshenouda.com/coptlang/copthist.htm)
- Learn Coptic (http://www.andrewfanous.com/CopticLanguage.htm)
- The Coptic Gospel of Thomas (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9068/)als:Koptisch
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