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Coptic alphabet

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Coptic alphabet
Type Alphabet
Spoken languages Coptic language
Time period c. 300 AD to 14th century AD (Still used today in coptic churches in Egypt and abroad)
Parent systems Phoenician and Egyptian hieroglyphs
 → Greek and Demotic
  → Coptic alphabet
Sister systems Old Nubian
Latin
Cyrillic
Armenian
Unicode range U+2C80 to U+2CFF
U+03E2 to U+03EF
ISO 15924 Copt
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
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ⲛⲓⲣⲉⲙ'ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ
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The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Demotic and is first Alphabetic Script used for the Egyptian Language. There are in fact several Coptic alphabets as the Coptic writing system may vary greatly among the various dialects and subdialects of the Coptic language.

Contents

[edit] History

Coptic letters in a florid Bohairic script

The Coptic alphabet has a long history, going back to the Hellenistic period, of using the Greek alphabet to transcribe Demotic texts, with the aim of recording the correct pronunciation of the Demotic. During the first two centuries of the Common Era, an entire series of magical texts were written in what scholars term Old Coptic, Egyptian language texts written in the Greek alphabet. A number of letters, however, were derived from Demotic, and many of these (though not all) are used in "true" Coptic writing. With the spread of Christianity in Egypt, by the late 3rd century CE knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost, as well as Demotic slightly later, making way for a writing system more closely associated with the Christian church. By the 4th century the Coptic alphabet was "standardised", particularly for the Sahidic dialect. (It should be noted that there are a number of differences between the alphabets as used in the various dialects in Coptic.) Coptic is not generally used today except by the members of the Coptic Church to write their religious texts. All the Gnostic codices found in Nag Hammadi used the Coptic alphabet.

The Old Nubian alphabet—used to write Old Nubian, a Nilo-Saharan language —is written mainly in an uncial Greek alphabet, which borrows Coptic and Meroitic letters of Demotic origin into its inventory.

[edit] Form

The Coptic alphabet was the first Egyptian writing system to indicate vowels, making Coptic documents invaluable for the interpretation of earlier Egyptian texts. Some Egyptian syllables had sonorants but no vowels; in Sahidic, these were written in Coptic with a line above the entire syllable. Various scribal schools made limited use of diacritics: some used an apostrophe as a word divider and to mark clitics, a function of determinatives in logographic Egyptian; others used diereses over ⲓ and ⲩ to show that these started a new syllable, others a circumflex over any vowel for the same purpose.[1]

Coptic is largely based on the Greek alphabet, another help in interpreting older Egyptian texts,[2] with 24 letters of Greek origin; 6 or 7 more were retained from Demotic, depending on the dialect (6 in Sahidic, another each in Bohairic and Akhmimic).[1]

[edit] Alphabet table

image maj. image min. majuscule minuscule numeric value name translit. (IPA)
Image:CopteAmaj.png Image:CopteAmin.png Ⲁ ⲁ 1 alpha a
Image:CopteBmaj.png Image:CopteBmin.png Ⲃ ⲃ 2 bēta w
Image:CopteCmaj.png Image:CopteCmin.png Ⲅ ⲅ 3 gamma k
Image:CopteDmaj.png Image:CopteDmin.png Ⲇ ⲇ 4 dalda t
Image:CopteEmaj.png Image:CopteEmin.png Ⲉ ⲉ 5 ei i
Image:Copte6.png Image:Copte6.png Ⲋ ⲋ 6 sou –
Image:CopteZmaj.png Image:CopteZmin.png Ⲍ ⲍ 7 zēta s
Image:CopteYmaj.png Image:CopteYmin.png Ⲏ ⲏ 8 ēta eː
Image:CopteTHmaj.png Image:CopteTHmin.png Ⲑ ⲑ 9 thēta tʰ
Image:CopteImaj.png Image:CopteImin.png Ⲓ ⲓ 10 iōta iː
Image:CopteKmaj.png Image:CopteKmin.png Ⲕ ⲕ 20 kappa k
Image:CopteLmaj.png Image:CopteLmin.png Ⲗ ⲗ 30 laula l
Image:CopteMmaj.png Image:CopteMmin.png Ⲙ ⲙ 40 mē m
Image:CopteNmaj.png Image:CopteNmin.png Ⲛ ⲛ 50 nē n
Image:CopteKSmaj.png Image:CopteKSmin.png Ⲝ ⲝ 60 ksi ks
Image:CopteOmaj.png Image:CopteOmin.png Ⲟ ⲟ 70 ou u
Image:CoptePmaj.png Image:CoptePmin.png Ⲡ ⲡ 80 pi p
Image:CopteRmaj.png Image:CopteRmin.png Ⲣ ⲣ 100 rō r
Image:CopteCCmaj.png Image:CopteCCmin.png Ⲥ ⲥ 200 sēmma s
Image:CopteTmaj.png Image:CopteTmin.png Ⲧ ⲧ 300 tau t
Image:CopteUmaj.png Image:CopteUmin.png Ⲩ ⲩ 400 he uː
Image:CopteVmaj.png Image:CopteVmin.png Ⲫ ⲫ 500 phi pʰ
Image:CopteXmaj.png Image:CopteXmin.png Ⲭ ⲭ 600 khi kʰ
Image:CoptePSmaj.png Image:CoptePSmin.png Ⲯ ⲯ 700 psi ps
Image:CopteWmaj.png Image:CopteWmin.png Ⲱ ⲱ 800 ō oː
Image:CopteSmaj.png Image:CopteSmin.png Ϣ ϣ šai ʃ
Image:CopteFmaj.png Image:CopteFmin.png Ϥ ϥ 90 fai f
Image:CopteKHmaj.png Image:CopteKHmin.png Ϧ (Ⳉ) ϧ (ⳉ) xai x
Image:CopteHmaj.png Image:CopteHmin.png Ϩ ϩ hori h
Image:CopteJmaj.png Image:CopteJmin.png Ϫ ϫ ḏanḏia dʒ
Image:CopteTSHmaj.png Image:CopteTSHmin.png Ϭ ϭ qima q
Image:CopteTImaj.png Image:CopteTImin.png Ϯ ϯ ti ti
Image:Copte r barre.png Image:Copte r barre.png Ⳁ ⳁ 900 psis ənše —

Letters derived from the demotic:

hieroglyph   demotic   coptic
SA
→ Image:demotique sh.png → Ϣ š
f
→ Image:demotique f.png → Ϥ f
M12
→ Image:demotique kh.png → Ϧ x
F18
Y1
→ Image:demotique h.png → Ϩ h
U29
→ Image:demotique j.png → Ϫ dʒ
k
→ Image:demotique tsh.png → Ϭ q
D37
t
→ Image:demotique ti.png → Ϯ ti

The additional letter xai is Ⳉ ⳉ in Akhmimic and Ⳋ ⳋ in Bohairic, both for a velar fricative /x/.

[edit] Unicode

In Unicode, most Coptic letters formerly shared codepoints with similar Greek letters, but a disunification has been accepted for version 4.1, which appeared in 2005. The new Coptic block is U+2C80 to U+2CFF. The Greek block includes seven Coptic letters derived from Demotic, and need to be included in any complete implementation of Coptic.

Coptic
Unicode.org chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+2C8x Ⲁ ⲁ Ⲃ ⲃ Ⲅ ⲅ Ⲇ ⲇ Ⲉ ⲉ Ⲋ ⲋ Ⲍ ⲍ Ⲏ ⲏ
U+2C9x Ⲑ ⲑ Ⲓ ⲓ Ⲕ ⲕ Ⲗ ⲗ Ⲙ ⲙ Ⲛ ⲛ Ⲝ ⲝ Ⲟ ⲟ
U+2CAx Ⲡ ⲡ Ⲣ ⲣ Ⲥ ⲥ Ⲧ ⲧ Ⲩ ⲩ Ⲫ ⲫ Ⲭ ⲭ Ⲯ ⲯ
U+2CBx Ⲱ ⲱ Ⲳ ⲳ Ⲵ ⲵ Ⲷ ⲷ Ⲹ ⲹ Ⲻ ⲻ Ⲽ ⲽ Ⲿ ⲿ
U+2CCx Ⳁ ⳁ Ⳃ ⳃ Ⳅ ⳅ Ⳇ ⳇ Ⳉ ⳉ Ⳋ ⳋ Ⳍ ⳍ Ⳏ ⳏ
U+2CDx Ⳑ ⳑ Ⳓ ⳓ Ⳕ ⳕ Ⳗ ⳗ Ⳙ ⳙ Ⳛ ⳛ Ⳝ ⳝ Ⳟ ⳟ
U+2CEx Ⳡ ⳡ Ⳣ ⳣ ⳤ ⳥ ⳦ ⳧ ⳨ ⳩ ⳪          
U+2CFx                   ⳹ ⳺ ⳻ ⳼ ⳽ ⳾ ⳿

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Ritner, Robert Kriech. 1996. "The Coptic Alphabet". In The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 1994:287–290.
  2. ^ CampBell, George L. "Coptic." Compendium of the World's Writing Systems. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Biddles LTD, 1991. 415.
  • Quaegebeur, Jan. 1982. "De la préhistoire de l'écriture copte." Orientalia lovaniensia analecta 13:125–136.
  • Kasser, Rodolphe. 1991. "Alphabet in Coptic, Greek". In The Coptic Encyclopedia, edited by Aziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Volume 8. 30–32.
  • Kasser, Rodolphe. 1991. "Alphabets, Coptic". In The Coptic Encyclopedia, edited by Aziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Volume 8. 32–41.
  • Kasser, Rodolphe. 1991. "Alphabets, Old Coptic". In The Coptic Encyclopedia, edited by Aziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Volume 8. 41–45.

[edit] External links

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