- published: 06 Jun 2009
- views: 12179
- author: sgyouthservant
Vimeo results:
Youtube results:
Loading...
Branches of Mathematics
Pure mathematics
Applied mathematics
- Dynamical systems and differential equations
- Mathematical physics
- Computing
- Information theory and signal processing
- Probability and statistics
- Game theory
- Operations research
Related Topics
- Electromagnetic Spectrum
- Linear Equations
- Applied Physics
- Nano Technology
- Engineering Sciences
- Mathematical Medicine
- Fluid dynamics
- Computational Mathematics
- Gamma Ray Optics
- Onfrared Optics
- Relative Velocity
- Iciam
- Intelligent Imaging Neuroscience
- Biomedical Engineering
- Neuroscience Research
- Quantum Cosmology
- Brain Research
Open Collage in a new Window
Email the Collage
- Loading...
Loading suggestions ...
- Adobe
- Affricate consonant
- Akhmim
- Alexander the Great
- Alveolar consonant
- Amarna letters
- American English
- Ancient Egypt
- Andalusi Arabic
- Anthony the Great
- Anubis
- Arab
- Arabic
- Arabic language
- Asyut
- Athanasius
- Australia
- Aziz Suryal Atiya
- Back vowel
- Barge
- Bible
- Biblical Hebrew
- Bilabial consonant
- Broken plural
- Caliph
- Canada
- Central vowel
- Chaîne, Marius
- Christianity
- Close vowel
- Close-mid vowel
- Copt
- Coptic alphabet
- Coptic architecture
- Coptic art
- Coptic calendar
- Coptic Catholic
- Coptic cross
- Coptic flag
- Coptic history
- Coptic identity
- Coptic language
- Coptic literature
- Coptic monasticism
- Coptic music
- Coptologist
- Coptology
- Copts
- Demotic (Egyptian)
- Demotic Egyptian
- Dialect
- Diocletian
- Diphthong
- Egypt
- Egyptian Arabic
- Egyptian hieroglyphs
- Egyptian language
- Egyptian languages
- Egyptians
- Egyptology
- Emphatic consonant
- Ethnologue
- Extinct language
- Faiyum
- Flap consonant
- Free variation
- Fricative consonant
- Front vowel
- Genitive case
- Gloss
- Glottal consonant
- Glottal stop
- Gnosticism
- Gospel of Luke
- Grammatical gender
- Grammatical number
- Grapheme
- Greek alphabet
- Greek language
- Greeks
- Hagiography
- Hans Jakob Polotsky
- Help IPA
- Hermopolis
- Hieratic
- Icelandic alphabet
- Inflection
- Injunctive
- Islam
- ISO 639-2
- ISO 639-3
- Jussive
- Koine Greek
- Lambdin, Thomas Oden
- Language family
- Language revival
- Late Egyptian
- Lexicon
- Liquid consonant
- Literary Arabic
- Liturgical language
- Macarius of Egypt
- Mamluk
- Manichaeism
- Mediterranean
- Memphis, Egypt
- Mid vowel
- Middle Egyptian
- Mojibake
- Monophthong
- Muslim conquests
- Nag Hammadi library
- Nasal stop
- Neuter
- New Kingdom
- Nile delta
- Nobiin language
- Nubia
- Old Egyptian
- Old Kingdom
- Old Nubian language
- Open vowel
- Open-mid vowel
- Optative
- Orthography
- Oxyrhynchus
- Pachomius
- Pafnuty Chebyshev
- Palatal consonant
- Palatalization
- Panopolis
- Paphnutius
- Periphrasis
- Persecution of Copts
- Pharyngeal consonant
- Phoneme
- Phonology
- Plosive
- Plosives
- Polotsky, Hans Jakob
- Ptolemaic Egypt
- Reborrowing
- Relative clause
- Rodolphe Kasser
- Romance languages
- Sacred language
- Semantics
- Sonorant
- Sonorization
- Sound change
- Subject–verb–object
- Syllable
- Syntax
- Tattam, Henry
- Template Copts
- Template talk Copts
- Thebes, Egypt
- Thorn (letter)
- Trill consonant
- Unicode
- United States
- Upper Egypt
- Velar consonant
- Vergote, Jozef
- Wikipedia
- Wikipedia IPA
- Wikisource
- Wolfgang Kosack
- WP IPA
- Writing system
- Ægyptus
- Пафнутий
-
Akhmim
Akhmim (Arabic اخميم; from Egyptian Khent-min; Coptic Khmin) is a city in the Sohag Governorate of Upper Egypt. Referred to by the ancient Greeks as Khemmis, Chemmis and Panopolis, it is located on the east bank of the Nile, 4 miles to the northeast of Sohag.
Akhmim was known in Ancient Egypt as Ipu, Apu or Khent-min. It was the capital of the ninth (Chemmite) nome of Upper Egypt. The city is a suggested hometown for Yuya, the official of Tuthmosis IV and Amenhotep III. The ithyphallic Min (whom the Greeks identified with Pan) was worshipped here as "the strong Horus." Herodotus mentions the temple dedicated to Perseus and asserts that Chemmis was remarkable for the celebration of games in honor of that hero, after the manner of the Greeks, at which prizes were given; as a matter of fact some representations are known of Nubians and people of Punt (southern coastal Sudan and the Eritrean coast) clambering up poles before the god Min. Min was especially a god of the desert routes on the east of Egypt, and the trading tribes are likely to have gathered to his festivals for business and pleasure at Coptos (which was really near Neapolis[disambiguation needed
], Qina) even more than at Akhmim. Herodotus perhaps confused Coptos with Chemmis. Strabo mentions linen-weaving and stone-cutting as ancient industries of Panopolis, and it is not altogether a coincidence that the cemetery of Akhmim is one of the chief sources of the beautiful textiles of Roman and Christian age, that are brought from Egypt.
wn.com/Akhmim -
Asyut
Asyut (Egyptian Arabic: أسيوط ʾAsyūṭ, IPA: [ʔɑsˈjuːtˤ]) is the capital of the modern Asyut Governorate in Egypt; the ancient city of the same name is situated nearby. The modern city is located at 27°11′00″N 31°10′00″E / 27.1833333°N 31.1666667°E / 27.1833333; 31.1666667, while the ancient city is at 27°10′00″N 31°08′00″E / 27.1666667°N 31.1333333°E / 27.1666667; 31.1333333.
The name of the city is derived from early Egyptian Zawty (Z3JW.TJ) (late Egyptian, Səyáwt) adopted into the Coptic as Syowt ⲥⲓⲟⲟⲩⲧ. In Graeco-Roman Egypt, it was called Lycopolis or Lykopolis (Greek: Λυκόπολις, "ἡ Λύκων πόλις"),Lycon, or Lyco.
Ancient Asyut was the capital of the Thirteenth Nome of Upper Egypt (Lycopolites Nome) around 3100 BC. It was located on the western bank of the Nile. The two most prominent gods of the Ancient Egyptian Asyut were Anubis and Wepwawet, both funerary deities.
During the First Intermediate Period, the rulers of "Zawty" (Khety I, Itefibi, and Khety II) were supporters of the Herakleopolitan kings, of whose domain the Nome formed the southern limits. The conflict between this Nome and the southern Nomes under the rule of the Eleventh dynasty ended with the victory of Thebes and the decline of Asyut's importance.
wn.com/Asyut -
Australia
Australia (
/əˈstreɪljə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent as well as the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.
For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.
wn.com/Australia -
Canada
Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km2 (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.
The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.
wn.com/Canada -
Egypt
Egypt
i/ˈiːdʒɪpt/ (Arabic: مصر, Miṣr, Egyptian Arabic: [mɑsˤɾ] ; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Kīmi ; Sahidic Coptic: ⲕⲏⲙⲉ, Kēme), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: جمهوريّة مصر العربيّة (help·info), is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.
Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its over 81 million people live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.
wn.com/Egypt -
Faiyum
Faiyum (Arabic: الفيوم Fayyūm, Coptic: 'Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ Phiom) is a city in Middle Egypt. Located 130 km (81 mi) southwest of Cairo, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum Governorate. The town occupies part of the ancient site of Crocodilopolis. Founded in around 4000 B.C., it is the oldest city in Egypt and one of the oldest cities in Africa .
Its name in English is also spelled as Fayum, Fayoum, Al Fayyum or El Faiyūm. Faiyum was previously officially named Madīnet el Faiyūm (Arabic for The City of Faiyum). The name Faiyum (and its spelling variations) may also refer to the Faiyum Oasis, although it is commonly used by Egyptians today to refer to the city.
The modern name of the city comes from Coptic 'Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ /Ⲡⲉⲓⲟⲙ efiom/peiom (whence the proper name Ⲡⲁⲓⲟⲙ payom), meaning the Sea or the Lake, which in turn comes from late Egyptian pA y-m of the same meaning, a reference to the nearby Lake Moeris.
Faiyum has several large bazaars, mosques, baths and a much-frequented weekly market. The canal called Bahr Yussef runs through the city, its banks lined with houses. There are two bridges over the river: one of three arches, which carries the main street and bazaar, and one of two arches, over which is built the Qaitbay mosque, that was a gift from his wife to honor the Mamluk Sultan in Fayoum. Mounds north of the city mark the site of Arsinoe, known to the ancient Greeks as Crocodilopolis, where in ancient times the sacred crocodile kept in Lake Moeris was worshipped.
wn.com/Faiyum -
Hermopolis
Coordinates: 27°46′53″N 30°48′14″E / 27.78139°N 30.80389°E / 27.78139; 30.80389
Hermopolis Magna or simply Hermopolis or Hermopolis Megale (Greek: Ἑρμοῦ πόλις μεγάλη) or Hermupolis is the site of ancient Khmun, and is located near the modern Egyptian town of El Ashmunein (from Coptic: Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛⲉⲓⲛ Shmounein) in Al Minya governorate.
Khmun, the Ancient Egyptian name of the city, means "eight-town", after the Ogdoad, a group of eight deities who represented the world before creation. The name survived into Coptic as Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛⲉⲓⲛ (Shmounein), from which the modern name, El Ashmunein, is derived. In Greek, the city was called Hermopolis, after Hermes, whom the Greeks identified with Thoth, because the city was the main cult centre of Thoth, the god of magic, healing and wisdom, and the patron of scribes. Thoth was associated in the same way with the Semitic Eshmun. Inscriptions at the temple call the god "The Lord of Eshmun".
wn.com/Hermopolis -
Nile delta
Coordinates: 30°54′N 31°7′E / 30.9°N 31.117°E / 30.9; 31.117
The Nile Delta (Arabic: دلتا النيل) is the delta formed in Northern Egypt (Lower Egypt) where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers 240 km of Mediterranean coastline—and is a rich agricultural region. From north to south the delta is approximately 160 km in length. The Delta begins slightly down-river from Cairo.
From north south the delta is approximately 160 km in length. From west to east it covers some 240 km of coastline. The delta is sometimes divided into sections, with the Nile dividing into two main distributaries, the Damietta and the Rosetta, flowing into the Mediterranean at port cities with the same name. In the past, the delta had several distributaries, but these have been lost due to flood control, silting and changing relief. One such defunct distributary is Wadi Tumilat. The Suez Canal runs to the east of the delta, entering the coastal Lake Manzala in the north-east of the delta. To the north-west are three other coastal lakes or lagoons: Lake Burullus, Lake Idku and Lake Maryut
wn.com/Nile_delta -
Oxyrhynchus
Oxyrhynchus (Greek: Ὀξύρρυγχος; "sharp-nosed"; ancient Egyptian Pr-Medjed; Coptic Pemdje; modern Egyptian Arabic el-Bahnasa) is a city in Upper Egypt, located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo, in the governorate of Al Minya. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered. For the past century, the area around Oxyrhynchus has been continually excavated, yielding an enormous collection of papyrus texts dating from the time of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian history. Among the texts discovered at Oxyrhynchus are plays of Menander and fragments of the Gospel of Thomas.
The town was named after a species of fish of the Nile River which was important in Egyptian mythology as the fish that ate the penis of Osiris, though it is not known exactly which species of fish this is. One possibility is a species of mormyrid, medium-sized freshwater fish that figure in various Egyptian and other artworks. Some species of mormyrid have distinctive downturned snouts or barbels, lending them the common name of elephantnoses among aquarists and ichthyologists. A figurine from Oxyrhynchus of one of these sacred fish has many attributes typical of mormyrids: a long anal fin, a small caudal fin, widely spaced pelvic and pectoral fins, and of course the downturned snout.
wn.com/Oxyrhynchus -
United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
wn.com/United_States
-
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας, Aléxandros ho Mégas from the Greek αλέξω alexo "to defend, help" + ανήρ aner "man"), was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders.
Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II of Macedon, to the throne in 336 BC after Philip was assassinated. Upon Philip's death, Alexander inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. He was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's military expansion plans. In 334 BC, he invaded Persian-ruled Asia Minor and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.
wn.com/Alexander_the_Great -
Anthony the Great
Anthony the Great or Antony the Great (ca. 251–356), also known as Saint Anthony, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Anthony of Thebes, Abba Antonius (Ἀββᾶς Ἀντώνιος), and Father of All Monks, was a Christian saint from Egypt, a prominent leader among the Desert Fathers. He is celebrated in many churches on his feast days: 30 January in the Old-Calendar Eastern Orthodox Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church; 17 January in the New-Calendar Eastern Orthodox Church, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Coptic Catholic Church.
The biography of Anthony's life by Athanasius of Alexandria helped to spread the concept of monasticism, particularly in Western Europe through Latin translations. He is often erroneously considered the first monk, but as his biography and other sources make clear, there were many ascetics before him. Anthony was, however, the first known ascetic going into the wilderness (about A.D. 270–271), a geographical move that seems to have contributed to his renown. Accounts of Anthony enduring supernatural temptation during his sojourn in the Libyan Desert inspired the often-repeated subject of the temptation of St. Anthony in Western art and literature.
wn.com/Anthony_the_Great -
Aziz Suryal Atiya
Professor Aziz Suryal Atiya (Arabic: عزيز سوريال عطية; July 5, 1898 - September 24, 1988) was a prominent Coptologist who was a Coptic historian and scholar and an expert in Islamic and Crusades studies.
Professor Atiya was the founder of the Institute of Coptic Studies in Cairo in 1950s, and was also the founder of the Middle East Center, University of Utah.
His library, The Aziz Atiya Library for Middle East Studies at University of Utah, is considered the fifth largest such collection in North America and is recognized internationally as a major research library in this field.
While at the University of Utah, Professor Atiya rediscovered ten lost papyri fragments related to the LDS scripture, Book of Abraham, in the archives of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He was married, and father of two children.
Professor Atiya published a large study The Crusades in the Later Middle Ages in 1938, and was also the first author of The Coptic Encyclopedia published in 1991.
The chapters on the Copts in his book The History of Eastern Christianity (1968, 1980) have become landmarks, not only for specialists but also for the general public.
wn.com/Aziz_Suryal_Atiya -
Diocletian
Diocletian (Latin: Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Augustus; c. 22 December 244 – 3 December 311), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305. Born to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia, Diocletian rose through the ranks of the military to become cavalry commander to the Emperor Carus. After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on campaign in Persia, Diocletian was proclaimed Emperor. The title was also claimed by Carus' other surviving son, Carinus, but Diocletian defeated him in the Battle of the Margus. With his accession to power, Diocletian ended the Crisis of the Third Century. He appointed fellow officer Maximian Augustus his senior co-emperor in 285.
wn.com/Diocletian -
Egyptians
Egyptians (Egyptian Arabic: مَصريين IPA: [mɑsˤɾejˈjiːn]; Arabic: مِصريّون miṣriyūn) are the inhabitants and citizens of Egypt sharing a common culture and a dialect of Arabic.
Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean and enclosed by desert both to the east and to the west. This unique geography has been the basis of the development of Egyptian society since antiquity. If regarded as a single ethnic group, the Egyptian people constitute one of the world's largest.
The daily language of the Egyptians is the local variety of Arabic, known as Egyptian Arabic or Masri, Also a sizable minority of Egyptian speak Sa'idi Arabic in Upper Egypt. Egyptians are predominantly adherents of Sunni Islam with a Shia minority and a significant proportion who follow native Sufi orders. A sizable minority of Egyptians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, whose liturgical language, Coptic, is the last stage of the indigenous Egyptian language.
wn.com/Egyptians -
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes (Greek: Ἕλληνες, [ˈelines]), are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and other regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world.
Greek colonies and communities have been historically established in most corners of the Mediterranean, but Greeks have always been centered around the Aegean Sea, where the Greek language has been spoken since antiquity. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were uniformly distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, Pontus, Egypt, Cyprus and Constantinople; many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of the ancient Greek colonization.
In the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), a large-scale population exchange between Greece and Turkey transferred and confined Christians from Turkey, except Constantinople (effectively ethnic Greeks) into the borders of the modern Greek state and Cyprus. Other ethnic Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and in diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church.
wn.com/Greeks -
Hans Jakob Polotsky
Hans Jakob Polotsky (Hebrew: הנס יעקב פולוצקי; also Hans Jacob Polotsky, Hans Jakob Polotzky; September 13, 1905 - August 10, 1991) was an Israeli orientalist, linguist, and professor for Semitic languages and Egyptology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Polotsky was born in Zürich, Switzerland, as the son of a Russian Jewish couple. He grew up in Berlin and studied Egyptology and Semitics at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen. From 1926 to 1931 he was a co-worker of the Septuaginta-Unternehmen of the Academy of Sciences at Göttingen. In 1929 he received his Ph.D. degree for the dissertation Zu den Inschriften der 11. Dynastie. He worked in Berlin editing Coptic Manichean texts from 1933 till 1934, with the Church historian Karl Schmidt. He left Germany in 1935 and settled in Mandate Palestine, where he taught and researched at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, becoming professor in 1948. He died in Jerusalem.
His main achievement was the Études de syntaxe copte published in 1944 which fundamentally changed the scientific view of the syntax of the Coptic and earlier ancient Egyptian languages. Polotsky's theory of the Egyptian verb (a particularly delicate argument, since Egyptians distinguished their different verb forms mainly by the vocalizations, and vowels were not written) had so much success that it has been called Polotsky's standard theory.
wn.com/Hans_Jakob_Polotsky -
Macarius of Egypt
Macarius of Egypt (ca. 300 – 391) was an Egyptian Christian monk and hermit. He is also known as Macarius the Elder, Macarius the Great and The Lamp of the Desert.
Macarius was born in Upper Egypt. A late tradition places his birthplace in the village of Shabsheer (Shanshour), in Al Minufiyah Governorate, Egypt around 300 A.D. At some point before his pursuit of asceticism, Macarius made his living smuggling niter in the vicinity of Nitria, a vocation which taught him how to survive in and travel across the wastes in that area.
At a young age, Macarius was forced to get married against his will. Thus, he pretended to be sick and ask for his parents' permission to go to the wilderness to relax. At his return, he found that his wife had died, and shortly after, his parents departed as well. Macarius subsequently distributed all his money among the poor and needy. Seeing his virtues, the people of his village brought him to the bishop of Ashmoun who ordained him priest.
A while later, a pregnant woman accused him of having defiled her. Macarius did not attempt to defend himself, and accepted the accusation in silence. However, when the woman's delivery drew near, her labor became exceedingly difficult. She did not manage to give birth until she confessed Macarius's innocence. A multitude of people then came asking for his forgiveness, but he fled to the Nitrian Desert to escape all mundane glory.
wn.com/Macarius_of_Egypt -
Mamluk
A Mamluk (Arabic: مملوك mamluk (singular), مماليك mamālīk (plural)), "owned"; also transliterated mamlouk, Turkish: Memlük, also called Kölemen; , mamluq, mamluke, mameluk, mameluke, mamaluke or marmeluke was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans or Kipchak and later Circassian and Georgian. The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior class, was of great political importance and was extraordinarily long-lived, lasting from the 9th to the 19th century AD. Over time, mamluks became a powerful military caste in various Muslim societies. Particularly in Egypt, but also in the Levant, Iraq, and India, mamluks held political and military power. In some cases, they attained the rank of sultan, while in others they held regional power as amirs or beys. Most notably, mamluk factions seized the sultanate for themselves in Egypt and Syria in a period known as the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517). The Mamluk Sultanate famously beat back the Mongols at the Battle of Ayn Jalut and fought the Crusaders effectively driving them out from the Levant by 1291 and officially in 1302 ending the era of the Crusades.
wn.com/Mamluk -
Manichaeism
Manichaeism ( /ˈmænɨkiːɪzəm/; in Modern Persian آیین مانی Āyin e Māni; Chinese: 摩尼教; pinyin: Móní Jiào) was a major gnostic religion, originating in Sassanid era Babylonia. Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani (in Persian: مانی, Syriac: ܡܐܢܝ, Latin: Manichaeus or Manes) (c. 216–276 CE) have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived.
Manichaeism taught an elaborate cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light from which it came. Its beliefs, based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements, contained elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism.
Manichaeism thrived between the third and seventh centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire. It was widespread among the legions of the Roman Empire, who considered it a soldier's religion, and it was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism. Manichaeism survived longer in the East than in the West, and it appears to have finally faded away after the 14th century in southern China, contemporary to the decline in China of the Church of the East – see Ming Dynasty.
wn.com/Manichaeism -
Nobiin language
Nobiin is a Northern Nubian language of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. ‘Nobiin’ is the genitive form of Nòòbíí ‘Nubian" and literally means ‘(language) of the Nubians". Another term used is Noban tamen, meaning ‘the Nubian language’.
Nubian peoples immigrated into the Nile Valley from the southwest, where other Nubian languages are still spoken, at least 2,500 years ago, and Old Nubian, the language of the Nubian kingdoms, is considered ancestral to Nobiin. Nobiin is a tonal language with contrastive vowel and consonant length. The basic word order is subject–object–verb.
Nobiin is currently spoken along the banks of the Nile river in southern Egypt and northern Sudan by approximately 495,000 Nubians. Present-day Nobiin speakers are almost universally bilingual in local varieties of Arabic—Egyptian and Sudanese. Many Nobiin-speaking Nubians were forced to relocate in 1963–1964 to make room for the construction of the Aswan High Dam at Aswan, Egypt and for the upstream Lake Nasser.
There is no standardized orthography for Nobiin. It has been written in both Latinized and Arabic scripts; also, recently there have been efforts to revive the Old Nubian alphabet. This article adopts the Latin orthography used in the only published grammar of Nobiin, Roland Werner's (1987) Grammatik des Nobiin.
wn.com/Nobiin_language -
Nubia
Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.
There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization of much of the Nubian population. Nubia was again united within Ottoman Egypt in the 19th century, and within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899 to 1956.
The name Nubia is derived from that of the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century, with the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë. The Noba spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, ancestral to Old Nubian. Old Nubian was used in mostly religious texts dating from the 8th and 15th centuries AD. Before the 4th century, and throughout classical antiquity, Nubia was known as Kush, or, in Classical Greek usage, included under the name Ethiopia (Aithiopia).
Historically, the people of Nubia spoke at least two varieties of the Nubian language group, a subfamily which includes Nobiin (the descendant of Old Nubian), Kenuzi-Dongola, Midob and several related varieties in the northern part of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan. A variety (Birgid) was spoken (at least until 1970) north of Nyala in Darfur but is now extinct.
wn.com/Nubia -
Pafnuty Chebyshev
Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev (Russian: Пафну́тий Льво́вич Чебышёв, IPA: [pɐfˈnutʲɪj ˈlʲvovʲɪt͡ɕ t͡ɕɪbᵻˈʂof]) (May 16 [O.S. May 4] 1821 – December 8 [O.S. November 26] 1894) was a Russian mathematician. His name can be alternatively transliterated as Chebychev (English translitteration), Chebysheff (English), Chebyshov (English), Tchebychev (French) or Tchebycheff (French), or Tschebyschev (German) or Tschebyscheff (German) or Tschebyschow (German).
One of nine children, he was born in the central Russian village of Okatovo near Borovsk, to Agrafena Ivanova Pozniakova and Lev Pavlovich Chebyshev. His father fought as an officer against Napoleon's invading army.
He was originally home-schooled by his mother and his cousin Avdotia Kvintillianova Soukhareva. He learned French early in life, which later helped him communicate with other mathematicians. A stunted leg prevented him from playing with other children, leading him to concentrate on studying instead.
Later he studied at Moscow University obtaining his degree in 1841.
wn.com/Pafnuty_Chebyshev -
Rodolphe Kasser
Rodolphe Kasser (born January 14, 1927), philologist and archaeologist, is a Coptic scholar. He is a Swiss national, and expert in translation of ancient Coptic language manuscripts.
Born in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland . Kasser obtained his higher education in theology in Lausanne and in Paris from 1946-1950. And a diploma from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Ph.D. equivalent) in Paris in 1964. He conducted pastoral ministry in Switzerland and in France from 1953 to 1959.
From 1963 to 1998 he was on the staff at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Geneva, lecturing in Coptic languages and literature. First as professor extraordinary from 1963 to 1976, then as professor from 1976 to 1998. Since 1965 he has been the head of the archaeological excavations of the Swiss Mission of Coptic Archaeology in the Kellia, Lower Egypt.
Since 1963 Kasser has done important research in the field of Coptic philology, including the preparation of a new Coptic dictionary. This work was done in parallel with reforms in Coptic dialectal classification. Kasser's numerous publications, from 1964 to 2005, illustrate his activity of research. He has published several important Greek and Coptic codices of the Bodmeriana Library, most of them biblical.
wn.com/Rodolphe_Kasser -
Wolfgang Kosack
Wolfgang Kosack (born October 29, 1943 in Berlin) is a German Egyptologist and author. He is one of the world's leading Coptic scholars. He is an expert in the translation of the ancient Coptic language; he lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
wn.com/Wolfgang_Kosack
Send this Playlist by SMS
Email this Page
Coptic Language Slide Show (up to First Grade)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:44
- Updated: 18 Feb 2013
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org)..
http://wn.com/Coptic_Language_Slide_Show_up_to_First_Grade
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org)..
Coptic Language Slide Show - the Lord's Prayer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:36
- Updated: 11 Feb 2013
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org).
http://wn.com/Coptic_Language_Slide_Show_the_Lord's_Prayer
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org).
- published: 10 Jun 2009
- views: 19036
- author: sgyouthservant
Coptic language - LESSON 1.WMV
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 68:33
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
learning the Coptic language
http://wn.com/Coptic_language_LESSON_1WMV
A prayer in Coptic language
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:28
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
Here Ros is reciting the Lord's paryer in Coptic
http://wn.com/A_prayer_in_Coptic_language
Here Ros is reciting the Lord's paryer in Coptic
- published: 29 Mar 2008
- views: 9527
- author: bashmory
Mahragan Alkeraza 2010 - Coptic Language - High School and Up (Part 1 of 3)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:36
- Updated: 20 Nov 2012
Provided by the Northern California Coptic Orthodox Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Coptic Language Studies for High School and Up participants (Part 1 of 3). Festival of the See of Saint Mark 2010 (Mahragan Alkeraza)
http://wn.com/Mahragan_Alkeraza_2010_Coptic_Language_High_School_and_Up_Part_1_of_3
Provided by the Northern California Coptic Orthodox Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Coptic Language Studies for High School and Up participants (Part 1 of 3). Festival of the See of Saint Mark 2010 (Mahragan Alkeraza)
- published: 03 Aug 2010
- views: 1741
- author: sgyouthservant
Mahragan Alkeraza 2010 - Coptic Language - High School and Up (Part 2 of 3)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:59
- Updated: 15 Jan 2013
Provided by the Northern California Coptic Orthodox Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Coptic Language Studies for High School and Up participants (Part 2 of 3). Festival of the See of Saint Mark 2010 (Mahragan Alkeraza)
http://wn.com/Mahragan_Alkeraza_2010_Coptic_Language_High_School_and_Up_Part_2_of_3
Provided by the Northern California Coptic Orthodox Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Coptic Language Studies for High School and Up participants (Part 2 of 3). Festival of the See of Saint Mark 2010 (Mahragan Alkeraza)
- published: 03 Aug 2010
- views: 629
- author: sgyouthservant
The coptic Language
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:19
- Updated: 08 Feb 2013
The Egyptian still use Coptic language
http://wn.com/The_coptic_Language
The Egyptian still use Coptic language
- published: 10 Jun 2010
- views: 2859
- author: Jehane abdel shahid
Coptic Hymn - oo nem nai (Egyptian language)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:00
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
"A Tribute to all Copts in Egypt and in the exile" Liturgical chant of the Coptic Orthodox Church "oo nem nai" (Ibrahim Ayad) A curious custom of the Coptic Church is the liturgy that prays and sings it in Coptic, the original language of ancient Egypt. The Church keeps alive the language of the pharaohs, which was written in hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic and now a modified version of the Greek alphabet, Egyptian written in Greek and demotic (the Copt) was gradually being forgotten, lost ground to the Arabic and thus became incomprehensible. However, the Coptic Church preserved the ancient Egyptian language by tradition thanks to its rites. The video shows images and also religious Copts of pharaonic Egypt, the Copts are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians who have become Christians.
http://wn.com/Coptic_Hymn_oo_nem_nai_Egyptian_language
"A Tribute to all Copts in Egypt and in the exile" Liturgical chant of the Coptic Orthodox Church "oo nem nai" (Ibrahim Ayad) A curious custom of the Coptic Church is the liturgy that prays and sings it in Coptic, the original language of ancient Egypt. The Church keeps alive the language of the pharaohs, which was written in hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic and now a modified version of the Greek alphabet, Egyptian written in Greek and demotic (the Copt) was gradually being forgotten, lost ground to the Arabic and thus became incomprehensible. However, the Coptic Church preserved the ancient Egyptian language by tradition thanks to its rites. The video shows images and also religious Copts of pharaonic Egypt, the Copts are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians who have become Christians.
- published: 18 Nov 2009
- views: 21056
- author: Egyptiancoptic
Coptic Language Slide Show (Elementary School) - Part 1 of 2
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:10
- Updated: 26 Jan 2013
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org).
http://wn.com/Coptic_Language_Slide_Show_Elementary_School_Part_1_of_2
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org).
- published: 10 Jun 2009
- views: 2545
- author: sgyouthservant
Mahragan Alkeraza 2010 - Coptic Language - Preschool to Grade 2
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:23
- Updated: 12 Sep 2012
Provided by the Northern California Coptic Orthodox Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Coptic Language Studies for Preschool to Grade 2 participants. Festival of the See of Saint Mark 2010 (Mahragan Alkeraza)
http://wn.com/Mahragan_Alkeraza_2010_Coptic_Language_Preschool_to_Grade_2
Provided by the Northern California Coptic Orthodox Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Coptic Language Studies for Preschool to Grade 2 participants. Festival of the See of Saint Mark 2010 (Mahragan Alkeraza)
- published: 03 Aug 2010
- views: 1422
- author: sgyouthservant
Mahragan Alkeraza 2010 - Coptic Language - Elementary School
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:32
- Updated: 27 Aug 2010
Provided by the Northern California Coptic Orthodox Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Coptic Language Studies for Elementary School (Grades 3-5) participants. Festival of the See of Saint Mark 2010 (Mahragan Alkeraza)
http://wn.com/Mahragan_Alkeraza_2010_Coptic_Language_Elementary_School
Provided by the Northern California Coptic Orthodox Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Coptic Language Studies for Elementary School (Grades 3-5) participants. Festival of the See of Saint Mark 2010 (Mahragan Alkeraza)
- published: 03 Aug 2010
- views: 703
- author: sgyouthservant
Mahragan Alkeraza 2010 - Coptic Language - Middle School
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:03
- Updated: 24 Aug 2010
Provided by the Northern California Coptic Orthodox Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Coptic Language Studies for Middle School (Grades 6-8) participants. Festival of the See of Saint Mark 2010 (Mahragan Alkeraza)
http://wn.com/Mahragan_Alkeraza_2010_Coptic_Language_Middle_School
Provided by the Northern California Coptic Orthodox Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Coptic Language Studies for Middle School (Grades 6-8) participants. Festival of the See of Saint Mark 2010 (Mahragan Alkeraza)
- published: 03 Aug 2010
- views: 281
- author: sgyouthservant
Coptic Language Slide Show (Elementary School) - Part 2 of 2
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:02
- Updated: 09 Feb 2013
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org).
http://wn.com/Coptic_Language_Slide_Show_Elementary_School_Part_2_of_2
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org).
- published: 10 Jun 2009
- views: 1553
- author: sgyouthservant
Coptic Hymn - Hos Erouf
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:03
- Updated: 20 Feb 2013
Liturgical chant of the Coptic Orthodox Church "Hos Erouf" A curious custom of the Coptic Church is the liturgy that prays and sings it in Coptic, the original language of ancient Egypt. The Church keeps alive the language of the pharaohs, which was written in hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic and now a modified version of the Greek alphabet, Egyptian written in Greek and demotic (the Copt) was gradually being forgotten, lost ground to the Arabic and thus became incomprehensible. However, the Coptic Church preserved the ancient Egyptian language by tradition thanks to its rites. The video shows images and also religious Copts of pharaonic Egypt, the Copts are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians who have become Christians.
http://wn.com/Coptic_Hymn_Hos_Erouf
Liturgical chant of the Coptic Orthodox Church "Hos Erouf" A curious custom of the Coptic Church is the liturgy that prays and sings it in Coptic, the original language of ancient Egypt. The Church keeps alive the language of the pharaohs, which was written in hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic and now a modified version of the Greek alphabet, Egyptian written in Greek and demotic (the Copt) was gradually being forgotten, lost ground to the Arabic and thus became incomprehensible. However, the Coptic Church preserved the ancient Egyptian language by tradition thanks to its rites. The video shows images and also religious Copts of pharaonic Egypt, the Copts are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians who have become Christians.
- published: 19 Jan 2009
- views: 88433
- author: Egyptiancoptic
Coptic Language Slide Show (Middle School, High School and up) - Part 1 of 2
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:41
- Updated: 19 May 2012
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org).
http://wn.com/Coptic_Language_Slide_Show_Middle_School,_High_School_and_up_Part_1_of_2
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org).
- published: 10 Jun 2009
- views: 1864
- author: sgyouthservant
Coptic Language Slide Show 2011 Middle School, High School, Adults Video
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:05
- Updated: 23 May 2012
http://wn.com/Coptic_Language_Slide_Show_2011_Middle_School,_High_School,_Adults_Video
Coptic Language Slide Show 2011 Sign of the Cross and Vocabulary Video
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:11
- Updated: 03 Mar 2012
http://wn.com/Coptic_Language_Slide_Show_2011_Sign_of_the_Cross_and_Vocabulary_Video
Coptic Language Slide Show (Middle School, High School and up) - Part 2 of 2
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:52
- Updated: 19 Aug 2011
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org).
http://wn.com/Coptic_Language_Slide_Show_Middle_School,_High_School_and_up_Part_2_of_2
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009 Coptic Vocabulary. Provided by the Coptic Churches of Northern California (www.norcalcopts.org).
- published: 10 Jun 2009
- views: 1434
- author: sgyouthservant
Coptic Hymns School - Alleluia Ae E Ae E
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 12:04
- Updated: 21 Dec 2012
This installment of Coptic Hymns School teaches the Coptic hymn from the Coptic Orthodox divine liturgy entitled "Alleluia Ae E Ae E." The hymn is prayed in the Coptic language, which is the last remaining form of the ancient Egyptian language. Learn more Orthodox Christian hymns on Logos TV America: www.logoschannel.com Instructor: Josef Seif
http://wn.com/Coptic_Hymns_School_Alleluia_Ae_E_Ae_E
This installment of Coptic Hymns School teaches the Coptic hymn from the Coptic Orthodox divine liturgy entitled "Alleluia Ae E Ae E." The hymn is prayed in the Coptic language, which is the last remaining form of the ancient Egyptian language. Learn more Orthodox Christian hymns on Logos TV America: www.logoschannel.com Instructor: Josef Seif
- published: 04 Feb 2011
- views: 2709
- author: LACopts
![Epouro [A beautiful Coptic hymn ]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130223083640im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WHJLfnHKMBE/default.jpg "Epouro [A beautiful Coptic hymn ]")
Epouro [A beautiful Coptic hymn ]
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:53
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
A beautiful hymn in Coptic language [LAST VERSION OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE].The hymn titled [Epouro] is performed by a duet .
http://wn.com/Epouro_A_beautiful_Coptic_hymn_
A beautiful hymn in Coptic language [LAST VERSION OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE].The hymn titled [Epouro] is performed by a duet .
- published: 30 Jul 2008
- views: 27723
- author: jack11anbar
Coptic Alphabet (Part 1 of 7)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:13
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009. The Coptic Alphabet provided by the Northern California Coptic Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Learn the letters of the Coptic alphabet and their pronunciation. Part 1: Introduction; letters that look like English and sound like English.
http://wn.com/Coptic_Alphabet_Part_1_of_7
Mahragan Alkeraza 2009. The Coptic Alphabet provided by the Northern California Coptic Churches (www.norcalcopts.org). Learn the letters of the Coptic alphabet and their pronunciation. Part 1: Introduction; letters that look like English and sound like English.
- published: 30 Jun 2009
- views: 13096
- author: sgyouthservant
Ancient Egyptian Coptic language lessons from a Coptic priest lesson 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 14:40
- Updated: 20 Feb 2013
http://wn.com/Ancient_Egyptian_Coptic_language_lessons_from_a_Coptic_priest_lesson_1
photo: AP / Photo
22 Feb 2013
MALINDI, Kenya — In a room by the stairs, Shukrani Malingi, a Pokomo farmer, writhed on a metal cot, the skin on his back burned off. Down the hall, at a safe distance, Rahema Hageyo, an Orma girl, stared blankly out of a window, a long scar above her thimble-like neck. She was nearly decapitated by a machete chop — and she is only 9 months old. Connect With Us on Twitter ... Twitter List. Reporters and Editors ... ... Op-Ed ... N.Y ... ....(size: 6.3Kb)
photo: AP
22 Feb 2013
Oscar Pistorius appears at the Magistrate Court in Pretoria on day four of his bail hearing. Photo. AFP. The lead lawyer prosecuting Oscar Pistorius on murder charges has told a Pretoria bail hearing the sprinter knows a long spell in jail is ‘‘almost guaranteed’’ and is a flight risk ... ‘‘He must realise that a long term of imprisonment is almost guaranteed ... AFP/AAP. ....(size: 3.0Kb)
photo: AP / Aijaz Rahi
22 Feb 2013
Indian Mujahideen group reported to have ties to Pakistan and may be behind dual bomb attack that killed 15. Officials look for evidence in the debris of one of the two bomb blast sites in Hyderabad, India. Photograph. Aijaz Rahi/AP ... India's recent execution of an Islamic militant is being examined as a possible motive for the bombings, he said ... They had also visited various spots in New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune ... ....(size: 4.8Kb)
photo: Creative Commons / Strike Eagle
22 Feb 2013
HYDERABAD. A trip to purchase books for the exam of sub-inspector in excise department proved to be the last outing of Vijay Kumar, who was among the five students killed in the twin blasts in the city. Among the other students killed was Rajasekhar, who was pursuing MBA, Harish, an engineering student from Kottapet locality in the city, and Swapna, another MBA student ... ....(size: 2.0Kb)
photo: UN / UNICEF, Marco Domino
22 Feb 2013
The United Nations has said it will not pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation claimed by cholera victims in impoverished Haiti, where an epidemic has killed thousands of people and been blamed on UN peacekeepers. Cholera - an infection causing severe diarrhoea that can lead to dehydration and death - has killed some 7,750 Haitians and sickened almost 620,000 since October 2010. It occurs in places with poor sanitation ... ....(size: 3.4Kb)
CNN
04 Jan 2013
King announced the findings of the 1.5-by-3 inch, honey-colored fragment in September at the International Association for Coptic Studies conference in Rome. In a draft version of the article submitted for publication in the January edition, King and her co-author said the scrap had written in Coptic, a language used by Egyptian Christians, "Jesus said to them, 'My wife," but was then cut off....(size: 13.5Kb)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
25 Dec 2012
Coptic Orthodox find place to worship in Pittsburgh ... But what about a Coptic Orthodox church in Pittsburgh?. My father was born and raised in Egypt as a member of the Coptic Orthodox church, the main Christian denomination in Egypt ... Coptics, or Copts for short, have a liturgy that is about three hours long and is traditionally said in all Arabic or Coptic (a language described as old Arabic)....(size: 3.5Kb)
Fox News
10 Dec 2012
“The first waves of immigration,” said Bishop Serapion of the Coptic Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California and Hawaii ... They perform sacraments like the Catholics and recite prayers many faithful Americans would recognize, including “Our Father” and “Hail Mary.” Mass is spoken in a mix of English, Arabic and the ancient Coptic language ... But as Islam grew in region, Coptic Christians held on, despite dwindling numbers....(size: 7.8Kb)
WorldNetDaily
10 Dec 2012
Canberra Times
19 Nov 2012
Dozens of Coptic clerics in flowing robes took part in the enthronement ceremony, the first in four decades ... Dozens of Coptic clerics in flowing robes took part in Sunday's ceremony, the first in four decades, as the Muslim Prime Minister looked on ... Arabic, English and Greek mingled with the ancient Coptic language of the church's liturgy in the psalms and prayers of the service and the tributes of well-wishers....(size: 2.3Kb)
Middle East Online
18 Nov 2012
CAIRO - Pope Tawadros II was enthroned as the new leader of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority on Sunday in a ceremony at Cairo's St Mark's Cathedral attended by Prime Minister Hisham Qandil ... Arabic, English and Greek mingled with the ancient Coptic language of the church's liturgy in the psalms and prayers of the service and the tributes of well-wishers ... The pope leads the country's Coptic Orthodox community....(size: 2.2Kb)
photo: AP / Roger Anis
18 Nov 2012
Pope Tawadros II was enthroned as the new leader of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority on Sunday in a ceremony at Cairo's St Mark's Cathedral attended by Prime Minister Hisham Qandil ... Arabic, English and Greek mingled with the ancient Coptic language of the church's liturgy in the psalms and prayers of the service and the tributes of well-wishers....(size: 3.5Kb)
Gulf News
18 Nov 2012
Pope Tawadros II was enthroned as the new leader of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority on Sunday in a ceremony at Cairo’s St Mark’s Cathedral attended by Prime Minister Hesham Qandil ... Arabic, English and Greek mingled with the ancient Coptic language of the church’s liturgy in the psalms and prayers of the service and the tributes of well-wishers ... The pope leads the country’s Coptic Orthodox community....(size: 20.2Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
15 Nov 2012
4, Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church again has a spiritual leader as the country goes through a turbulent transition that has been particularly difficult for Christians ... The Coptic language, which was spoken in Egypt before Arab con-querors introduced Arabic, is still used in the church's liturgy. The majority of Egypt's Christians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, though some belong to other churches and denominations....(size: 10.2Kb)
The New York Times
06 Nov 2012
This — after three days of fasting and hours of prayers and chanting in Coptic, a language only a few priests understand anymore — was how the next head of the Coptic Orthodox Church was chosen ... This raises inside the Coptic Church a question also relevant outside it ... The Coptic Church’s immediate crisis is political ... Appointments and Executive Changes, Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Tawadros II....(size: 7.7Kb)
BBC News
04 Nov 2012
On it was the name of Bishop Tawadros, who will be the new Coptic pope ... It might seem a strange way to choose a new leader for Egypt's eight to ten million Coptic Christians - and many more worldwide ... That is the view of Youssef Sidhom, editor of the Coptic Watani newspaper. ... The ancient liturgy is still performed in the Coptic language, little understood by most Egyptians....(size: 3.8Kb)
The Hindu
04 Nov 2012
Bishop Tawadros was selected Sunday as the 118th pope of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church ... Pachomius then held up the other two pieces of paper to show that they carried the names of the other candidates and the assembled priests chanted hymns in the ancient Coptic language ... Coptic Orthodox Church ....(size: 2.2Kb)
BBC News
03 Nov 2012
It is a remarkable ceremony ... This will be the new Coptic pope, the leader of Egypt's 10 million Coptic Christians, and of many more worldwide ... That is the view of Youssef Sidhom, editor of the Coptic Watani newspaper ... The ancient liturgy is still performed in the Coptic language, little understood by most Egyptians. Political role ... Yet so far the worst fears of Egypt's Coptic Christians have not been realised ... ....(size: 3.0Kb)
| Coptic | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ⲘⲉⲧⲢⲉⲙ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Μετ Ρεμνχημι Mad.Rmenkami | ||||
| Spoken in | Egypt, Canada, Australia, United States | |||
| Era | 2nd – 17th century. Survives as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church. | |||
| Language family |
Afro-Asiatic
|
|||
| Writing system | Coptic alphabet | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-2 | cop | |||
| ISO 639-3 | cop | |||
|
||||
 |
This article contains Coptic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Coptic letters. |
|
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian (ⲘⲉⲧⲢⲉⲙ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ Met Remenkēmi) is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century.[1] Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century.[2] The new writing system became the Coptic script, an adapted Greek alphabet with the addition of six or seven signs from the demotic script to represent Egyptian sounds the Greek language 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, which was written in the Hieroglyphic script. Coptic flourished as a literary language from the 2nd to 13th centuries, and its Bohairic dialect continues to be the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It was supplanted by Egyptian Arabic as a spoken language toward the early modern period, though revitalization efforts have been underway since the 19th century.
Contents |
Name[link]
The native name of the language is ⲙⲛⲧⲣⲙⲛⲕⲏⲙⲉ (ment rəm ən kēme) in the Sahidic dialect and ⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ (met rem ən kēmi) 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 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 name is more officially ϯⲁⲥⲡⲓ ⲛ̀Ⲣⲉⲙ ⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ti-aspi ən rem ən kēmi, 'the Egyptian language', aspi being the Egyptian word for language.
Geographic distribution[link]
| This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. |
Coptic is an extinct language, according to Ethnologue, in that is has no native speakers. Coptic no longer has any official status in Egypt. However, it is presently a liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox 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. Coptic's most noticeable linguistic impact has been on the various dialects of Egyptian Arabic, which is characterized by a Coptic substratum in terms of lexical, morphological, syntactical, and phonological features.[citation needed]
Influence on other languages[link]
In addition to influencing the grammar, vocabulary, and syntax of Egyptian Arabic, Coptic has lent to both Arabic and Biblical Hebrew such words as:
- timsāḥ, تمساح (Arabic), תמסח (Hebrew) – "crocodile"; ⲉⲙⲥⲁϩ emsaḥ.
- ṭūbah طوبة "brick"; Sahidic ⲧⲱⲃⲉ to:be; Bohairic ⲧⲱⲃⲓ to:bi; this subsequently entered Catalan and Spanish (via Andalusi Arabic) as tova and adobe respectively, the latter of which was borrowed by American English.
- wāḥah واحة "oasis"; Sahidic ⲟⲩⲁϩⲉ waḥe, Bohairic ⲟⲩⲉϩⲓ weḥi.
A few words of Coptic origin are found in the Greek language; some of these later were lent to various European languages (e.g., barge, from Coptic ⲃⲁⲁⲣⲉ bari, "small boat"). However, most words of Egyptian origin that entered into Greek, and subsequently into other European languages, came directly from ancient Egyptian (often Demotic). An example of this is the Greek ὄασις oasis, which comes directly from Egyptian wḥ3.t or demotic wḥỉ. Yet Coptic reborrowed 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.
The Coptic name ⲡⲁⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ, papnoute (from Egyptian pa-ph-nuti), means "the (man) of God". It was adapted into Arabic as Babnouda, which remains a common name among Egyptian Copts to this day. It was also borrowed into Greek as the name Παφνούτιος (Paphnutius). That, in turn, is the source of the Russian name Пафнутий (Pafnuty), e.g. the famous mathematician Pafnuty Chebyshev.
The Old Nubian language and the modern Nobiin borrowed many words of Coptic origin.
History[link]
Egyptian 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. Later Egyptian represented the colloquial language. It had analytic features like definite and indefinite articles and periphrastic verb conjugation. Coptic therefore is a reference both to the most recent stage of Egyptian after Demotic, and to the new writing system that was adapted from the Greek alphabet.
Coptic before the Islamic period[link]
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 period. Scholars frequently refer to this phase as Pre-Coptic. However, it is clear that by the late pharaonic period, demotic scribes regularly employed a more phonetic orthography, a testament to the increasing cultural contact between Egyptians and Greeks even before Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt. Coptic itself, or Old Coptic, takes root in the 1st 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, 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.
Under late Roman rule, Diocletian persecuted many Egyptian converts to the new Christian 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, 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 2nd and 3rd 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 during the Islamic period[link]
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 Abd al-Malik ibn 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 10th century, Coptic remained the spoken language of the native population outside the capital.
Persecutions under the Mamluks led to the further decline of Coptic[citation needed], until it completely gave way to Egyptian Arabic around the 17th century[citation needed], 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[link]
- 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[link]
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[link]
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.[3]
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.[4] 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[link]
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.[5]
Vowels[link]
There are some differences of opinion among Coptic language scholars on the correct phonetic interpretation of the writing system of Coptic. Differences center on how to interpret the pairs of letters ε/H and ο/ω. In Greek spelling the first member of each pair is a short closed vowel /e,o/ and the second member is a long open vowel /ɛː, ɔː/. In some interpretations of Coptic phonology (Plumley 1948, Lambdin 1983), it is assumed that the length difference is primary. Thus ε/H is e/eː and ο/ω is o/oː. Other scholars (Greenberg 1962/1990, Reintges 2004:25) argue for a different analysis in which ε/H and ο/ω are interpreted as e/ɛ and o/ɔ.
The following two charts show the two theories of Coptic vowel phonology.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iː | uː | |
| Close-mid | eː e | oː o | |
| Mid | ə | ||
| Open | a |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iː | uː | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Mid | ɛ | ə | ɔ |
| Open | a |
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 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 zero 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[link]
As with the vowels, there are differences of opinion over the correct interpretation of the Coptic consonant letters, particular the letters ϫ and Ϭ. The letter ϫ is transcribed as ⟨j⟩ in many older Coptic sources and Ϭ as /ɡ/ (Plumley 1947) or /tʃ/. Lambdin (1983) notes that the current conventional pronunciations are different from the probable ancient pronunciations: ϫ was probably pronounced [tʲ] and Ϭ was probably pronounced [kʲ]. Reintges (2004:22) suggests that ϫ was pronounced [tʃ].
The following chart shows the consonants that are represented in Sahidic Coptic orthography. Consonants that are rare, or found primarily in Greek loanwords are shown in parentheses:
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t (d) | k (ɡ) | ʔ | |||
| Palatalized plosive | tʲ | kʲ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Fricative | β | f | s (z) | ʃ | h | ||
| Affricate | (t͡ʃ d͡ʒ) | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
| Lateral | l |
Bohairic Coptic has an additional consonant, /x/, spelled Ϧ. It is possible that in the ancient pronunciation of Coptic that there were additional consonants which were not spelled in the writing system, such as /ʕ/.
Earlier phases of Egyptian may have contrasted voiceless and voiced bilabial plosives, 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 plosives 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 plosives. When the voiced plosives 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 [∅].
Grammar[link]
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[link]
All Coptic nouns carry grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine, usually marked through a prefixed definite article as in the Romance languages. Masculine nouns are marked with the article /pə, peː/ and feminine nouns with the article /tə, teː/.[6]
pə-roːme 'the man'
tə-ciɟ 'the hand'
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'.
Words of Greek origin keep their gender, except for neuter nouns, which become masculine in Coptic.
Pronouns[link]
![[icon]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130223083640/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} |
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[link]
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[link]
|
This section requires expansion. |
The verbal grade system[link]
Coptic, like Ancient Egyptian and Semitic languages, has root-and-pattern or templatic morphology, where the basic meaning of a verb is contained in a root and various derived forms of root are obtained by varying the vowel pattern. For example, the root for 'build' is kt. It has four derived forms: kɔt (the absolute state grade); ket- (the nominal state grade), kot= (the pronominal state grade), and kɛt (the stative grade). (The nominal state grade is also called the construct state in some grammars of Coptic.)
The absolute, nominal, and pronominal state grades are used in different syntactic contexts. The absolute state grade of a transitive verb is used before a direct object with the accusative preposition /ən, əm/, while the nominal state grade is used before a direct object with no case-marking. The pronominal state grade is used before a pronominal direct object enclitic. In addition, many verbs also have a neutral state grade, used to express a state resulting from the action of the verb. Compare the following forms (Lambdin 1983:39):
Absolute state grade
| a-i-kʲine | əm-p-a-eioːt |
| perfective-1sg-find.abs | prep-def:masc:sg-1sg-father |
| 'I found my father.' |
Nominal state grade
| a-i-kʲən | p-a-eioːt |
| perfective-1sg-find.nom | def:masc:sg-1sg-father |
| 'I found my father.' |
Pronominal state grade
| a-i-kʲənt=f |
| perfective-1sg-find.pronom=3msg |
| 'I found him.' |
For most transitive verbs, both absolute and nominal state grade verbs are available for non-pronominal objects. However, there is one important restriction, known as Jernstedt's rule (or the Stern-Jernstedt rule) (Jernstedt 1927) which states that present tense sentences cannot be used in the nominal state grade. Thus sentences in the present tense always show a pattern like the first example above (absolute state), and never show the second pattern (nominal state).
In general, the four grades of Coptic verb are not predictable from the root, and are listed in the lexicon for each verb. The following chart shows some typical patterns of correspondence:
| Gloss | Absolute state | Nominal state | Pronominal state | Neutral state |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| spread | poːrəʃ | pərʃ | poːrʃ | porəʃ |
| dig | ʃike | ʃekt | ʃakt | ʃoke |
| comfort | solsəl | səlsəl | səlsoːl | səlsoːl |
| roll | skorkər | skərkər | skərkoːr | skərkoːr |
| build | koːt | ket | kot | keːt |
It is hazardous to make firm generalizations about the relationships between these grade forms, but it is usually the case that the nominal state is shorter than the corresponding absolute and neutral forms. Absolute and neutral state forms are usually bisyllabic or contain a long vowel; the corresponding nominal state forms are monosyllabic or have short vowels.
Tense/aspect/mood inflection[link]
Coptic has a very large number of distinct tense/aspect/mood categories, expressed by particles which are either before the verb or before the subject. The future I /na/ is a preverbal particle, and follows the subject (Reintges 2010:210):
| Pə-tʲoeis | na-krine | ən-nə-laos |
| def:m:sg-lord | fut-judge | prep-def:pl-people |
| 'The lord will judge the nations.' |
In contrast, the perfective /a/ is a pre-subject particle:
| A | te-f-soːne | de | ol | ən-ne-f-keːs |
| perf | def:f:sg-3msg-sister | part | carry.abs | prep-def:pl-3msg-bone |
| 'His sister carried his bones.' |
There is some variation in the labels for the tense/aspect/mood categories. The chart below shows the labels from Reintges (2004), Lambdin (1983), Plumley (1948). (Where they agree, only one label is shown.) Each form lists the morphology found with a non-pronominal subject and a 3rd person singular masculine pronominal subject('he'):
| Tense name (Reintges) | Tense name (Lambdin) | Tense name (Plumley) | Nominal subject | 3rd masc sg pronominal subject |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Present | Present I | ø NP | f- | |
| Second Present | ere NP | ef- | ||
| Relative of First Present | etere NP | etəf- | ||
| Circumstantial | ere NP | ef- | ||
| Preterite Present | Imperfect | Imperfect | nere NP | nef- |
| Preterite Past | nea NP | neaf- | ||
| Future I | NP na- | fna- | ||
| Future II | ere NP na- | efna- | ||
| Future III | ere NP | efe- | ||
| Negative Future III | Negative Future III | ənne NP | ənnef- | |
| Imperf. of Future | Future Imperfect | nere NP na- | nefna- | |
| Perfect I | a NP | af- | ||
| Negative Perfect I | əmpe NP | əmpef- | ||
| Perfect II | ənta NP | əntaf- | ||
| Habitual I | ʃare NP | ʃaf- | ||
| Habitual II | eʃare NP | eʃaf- | ||
| Negative Habitual | mere NP | mef- | ||
| Jussive | Injunctive | Optative | mare NP | maref- |
| Conditional | erʃan NP | efʃan- | ||
| Conjunctive | ənte NP | nəf- | ||
| Inferential | Future Conjunctive of Result | Future IV | tare NP | taref- |
| Temporal | əntere NP | ənteref- | ||
| Terminative | "Until" | "Unfulfilled action" | ʃante NP | ʃantəf- |
| "Not yet" | "Unfulfilled action" | əmpate NP | əmpatəf- |
An approximate range of use for most of the tense/aspect/mood categories is shown in the following table:
| Tense name (Lambdin) | Approximate range of use |
|---|---|
| Present I | Present time in narrative (predicate focus) |
| Relative of Present I | Non-subject relative clause in present tense |
| Circumstantial | Background clauses; relative clauses with indefinite heads |
| Imperfect | Action in progress in the past |
| Future I | Simple future tense (predicate focus) |
| Future II | Simple future tense (adverbial focus) |
| Future III | Future tense conveyed as necessary, inevitable, or obligatory |
| Perfect I | Primary narrative tense (predicate focus) |
| Negative Perfect I | Negative of Perfect I |
| Perfect II | Primary narrative tense (adverbial focus); relative clause form of Perfect I |
| Habitual | Characteristic or habitual action |
| Negative Habitual | Negative of Habitual |
| Injunctive | Imperative for 1st and 3rd persons ('let me', 'let him', etc.) |
| Conditional | Protasis (if-clause) of a conditional (if-then) statement |
| Conjunctive | Event shares the TAM of a preceding initial verb |
| Future Conjunctive of Result | Used in clauses that express a resultant action |
| Temporal | Past action in a subordinate temporal clause ("when NP V-ed, ...") |
Second tenses[link]
An unusual feature of Coptic is the extensive use of a set of "second tenses", which are required in certain syntactic contexts. "Second tenses" are also called "relative tenses" in some work (Reintges 2004).
Prepositions[link]
|
This section requires expansion. |
Coptic has prepositions, rather than postpositions:
| hi | p-tʲoi |
| on | def:masc:sg-ship |
'on the ship'
Pronominal objects of prepositions are indicated with enclitic pronouns:
ero=k 'to you (m.sg)'
na=n 'for us'
Many prepositions have different forms before the enclitic pronouns (Lambdin 2003:30-31). Compare
e p-tʲoi 'to the ship'
ero=f 'to him'
Syntax[link]
Sentential syntax[link]
|
This section requires expansion. |
Coptic typically shows subject–verb–object (SVO) word order, as in the following examples:[7]
| A | tə-kʲamaule | mise | ən-u-ʃeːre | ən-shime |
| perfective | def:fem:sg-camel | deliver.abs | prep-indef:sg-girl | link-woman |
| 'The she-camel delivered a daughter.' | ||||
| Pə-tʲoeis | na-krine | ən-nə-laos |
| def:m:sg-lord | fut-judge | prep-def:pl-people |
| 'The Lord will judge the people.' | ||
| A-i-kʲine | əm-p-a-eioːt | |
| perfective-1sg-find.abs | prep-def:masc:sg-1sg-father | |
| 'I found my father.' | ||
The verbs in these sentences are in the absolute state grade (Reintges 2010:208), which requires that its direct object be introduced with the preposition /ən, əm/. This preposition functions like accusative case.
There is also an alternative nominal state grade of the verb in which the direct object of the verb follows with no preposition:
| a-i-kʲən | p-a-eioːt | |
| perfective-1sg-find.nom | def:masc:sg-1sg-father | |
| 'I found my father.' | ||
Dialects[link]
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[link]
Sahidic[link]
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[link]
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[link]
Bohairic[link]
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[link]
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.
See also[link]
- British Library Coptic Language Collection
- Coptic alphabet
- Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
- Egyptian language
- Egyptian Arabic
- Nag Hammadi library
References[link]
- ^ Coptic Encyclopedia; http://cdm15831.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/cce/id/520
- ^ Reintges, Chris H. (2004). Coptic Egyptian (Sahidic Dialect). Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe. ISBN 978-3-89645-570-3.
- ^ Girgis, WA (1963-64). Greek loan words in Coptic. Bulletin de la Société d’archéologie copte 17:63-73.
- ^ Gignac, Francis Thomas, p. 174
- ^ Sijpesteijn, Petra; Lennart Sundelin (2004). Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt. Leiden, Boston: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-13886-5.
- ^ Lambdin 1983:2
- ^ Reintges (2010:211) Lambdin (1983:39)
Further reading[link]
General studies[link]
- 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.
- Gessman, A. M. (1976). "The Birth of the Coptic Script". University of South Florida Language Quarterly 14 2-3.
- Gignac, Francis Thomas. 1991. "Old Coptic". 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. 169–188.
- Kasser, Radolphe. 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.
- Wolfgang Kosack. Lehrbuch des Koptischen.Teil I:Koptische Grammatik.Teil II:Koptische Lesestücke, Graz 1974.
- Loprieno, Antonio. 1995. Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Polotsky, Hans Jakob. 1971. "Coptic". In Afroasiatic: A Survey, edited by Carleton Taylor Hodge. (Jana Linguarum: Series Practica; 163). 's Gravenhage and Paris: Mouton. 67–79.
Grammars and grammatical studies[link]
- Chaîne, Marius. 1933. Éléments de grammaire dialectale copte: bohairique, sahidique, achmimique, fayoumique. Paris: Paul Geuthner.
- Eberle, Andrea, & Regine Schulz. 2004. Koptisch – Ein Leitfaden durch das Saïdische. LINCOM Languages of the World/Materials 07. Munich: LINCOM Europa.
- Jernstedt, Peter V. 1927. Das koptische Präsens und die Anknüpfungsarten des näheren Objekts. 'Comptes rendus de l'Academice des Sciences de l'Union République Soviétique Socialistes. 2, 69-74.
- Lambdin, Thomas Oden. 1983. Introduction to Sahidic Coptic. Macon: Mercer University Press.
- Layton, Bentley. 2000. A Coptic Grammar (Sahidic Dialect): With a Chrestomathy and Glossary. (Porta linguarum orientalium; N.S., 20). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
- Layton, Bentley. 2007. Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic with Exercises and Vocabularies. Peeters Publishers, ISBN 90-429-1810-1.
- Mallon, Alexis. 1956. Grammaire copte: bibliographie, chrestomathie et vocabulaire. 4th edition. Beyrouth.
- Mattar, Nabil. 1990. A Study in Bohairic Coptic. Pasadena: Hope Publishing House.
- Plumley, John Martin. 1948. Introductory Coptic Grammar. London: Home & Van Thal.
- Polotsky, Hans Jakob. 1987. Grundlagen des koptischen Satzbaus. American Studies in Papyrology 28. Decatur, Ga.: Scholars Press.
- Reintges Chris H. 2004. Coptic Egyptian (Sahidic dialect): a learner's grammar. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
- Reintges, Chris H. 2010. Coordination, converbs, and clause-chaining in Coptic Egyptian typology. in Isabelle Bril, ed. Clause linking and clause hierarchy Studies in Language Companion Series 128. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, ISBN 978-90-272-0588-9.
- Shisha-Halevy, Ariel. 1988. Coptic Grammatical Chrestomathy: a course for academic and private study. Orientalia lovaniensia analecta 30. Leuven: Peeters.
- Shisha-Halevy, Ariel. 1986. Coptic Grammatical Categories: Structural Studies in the Syntax of Shenoutean Sahidic. Analecta Orientalia 53. Roma: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum. ISBN 88-7653-255-2.
- Shisha-Halevy, Ariel. 2007. Topics in Coptic Syntax: Structural Studies in the Bohairic Dialect. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 160. Leuven – Paris – Dudley, MA: Peeters. ISBN 978-90-429-1875-7.
- Tattam, Henry, A compendious grammar of the Egyptian language as contained in the Coptic, Sahidic, and Bashmuric Dialects (London 1863)
- Till, Walter C. 1994. Koptische Dialektgrammatik. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter.
- Vergote, Jozef. 1973–1983. Grammaire copte. Leuven: Peeters.
- Younan, Sameh. 2005. So, you want to learn Coptic? A guide to Bohairic Grammar. Sydney: St.Mary, St.Bakhomious and St.Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church.
Dictionaries[link]
- Černý, Jaroslav. 1976. Coptic Etymological Dictionary. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Crum, Walter Ewing. 1939. A Coptic Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Reprinted by Sandpiper Books Ltd, London & Powells Books, Chicago, 2000.
- Vycichl, Werner. 1983. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue copte. Leuven: Éditions Peeters.
- Westendorf, Wolfhart. 1965/1977. Koptisches Handwörterbuch. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
Phonology[link]
- Depuydt, Leo. 1993. "On Coptic Sounds." Orientalia 62 (new series): 338–375.
- Greenberg, Joseph H (originally published 1962). The interpretation of the Coptic vowel system. In: On language: selected writings of Joseph H. Greenberg. Eds: K Denning & S Kemmer. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990: 428-438
- 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). Göttingen: Peust & Gutschmidt.
Bibliography[link]
- Kammerer, Winifred (compiler), A Coptic Bibliography, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950. (Reprint New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1969)
External links[link]
 |
Coptic language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |
 |
Coptic language repository of Wikisource, the free library |
- By Alin Suciu, a blog on Coptic literature and manuscripts
- France-copte.net By Mikhail David, French coptic site.
- Copticsounds – a resource for the study of Coptic phonology
- ⲡⲓⲥⲁϧⲟ: Coptic language internet links and bibliography
- Ethnologue entry for Coptic
- Coptica.ch Online library of Coptic texts at University of Geneva (site text in French)
- New Athena Unicode font; includes the new Coptic range
- Online Coptic tutorial
- A comprehensive Coptic language resource (Remenkimi)
- Coptic block in the Unicode 4.1 standard
- Heike Behlmer, Selected Bibliography on the Coptic Language
- Coptic texts and manuscripts at Leiden University Library
- Ifao N Copte – A professional Coptic font for researchers.
- a set of Coptic Unicode fonts
http://wn.com/Coptic_language
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Lingua copta
http://cs.wn.com/Koptština
http://es.wn.com/Idioma copto
http://ru.wn.com/Коптский язык
http://nl.wn.com/Koptisch (taal)
http://pl.wn.com/Język koptyjski
http://fr.wn.com/Copte
http://de.wn.com/Koptische Sprache
http://pt.wn.com/Língua copta
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_language
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
