The Coptic
Alphabet
The language that was spoken in Egypt at all times and until nearly the end
of
the ninth century A.D. (250 years after the Arab's conquest of Egypt) was
the
Egyptian language with many dialects thereof. Gradually, it started to
phase
out and got replaced by the Arabic language. By the end of the 12th
century,
the dominant language of the Northern part of the country was the Arabic
and
the South followed at the end of the 16th century. Three distinct phases
of
the Egyptian language can be identified:
1) Ancient Egyptian Language
2) Intermediate Egyptian Language
3) New Egyptian Language
The above languages were spoken in many dialects in different parts of
Egypt.
The new Egyptian language is different from the other two languages because
it
started as a colloquial spoken version of the Egyptian language. Later,
it
replaced the classical Egyptian written language as well.
Parallel to the changes in the language there were changes in the script.
The
Egyptian original script (Hieroglyphic) was time consumming because it
required
elaborate drawings. Over the centuries, its use became limited to
tomb
decoration and expensive artwork. A simplified version of the
Hieroglyphic
script, invented and used by the Priests and authorities, was called
the
"Heratic" script. The priests duties included writing down marriage
documents,
selling and buying documents,...etc. They used the Heratic script for
that
purpose.
For the purpose of exchanging written texts among people, a more
simplified
version of the script -- called the Demotic script -- was derived and
used
during the intermediate Kingdom. The demotic script was introduced about
the
same time the New Egyptian (colloquial) language started to be used
for
writing.
The latest Hyrogliphic script dates back to about 450 A.D. at the island
of
"Anas AlWegood", where Idols were still worshiped at this place till
this time.
The New Egyptian language is also known as the "Demotic" language
since it is
the colloquial Egyptian spoken by the people. The gradual replacement
of
Hieroglyphic by Demotic is similar to the replacement of Latin by
English
French, Italian, etc.
Coptic is the common colloquial Egyptian. Its roots stem from from the
New
Egyptian Language and has a large similitude with the version of the
the
Egyptian Language of the 25th Kingdom (Saees Kingdom named after its
Capital:
Sa-ElHahgar).
At about 200 BC, Greek was understood in places like Alexandria due to
the
influence of the Greek culture and religion. In fact many Greek words entered
the Egyptian (Coptic) language at that time. The Egyptians adopted a
phonetic
Greek alphabet for their language since about 200 BC. To suit their
language,
they incorporated some demotic letters that varied from 11 to 5 and
finally
settled for 7 ( +1 ) demotic letters, forming a 32 alphabet for the
Coptic
language.
It should be noted that the words "Hieroglyphic/Heratic/Demotic" are
scientific
names and are not the names of the scripts themselves as used by the
Egyptians.
The following are the characters of the Coptic Language. They are listed
in
their order in the Coptic Alphabet. The ASCII characters designated
to
represent each character (according to a standard developed by Copt-Net)
are
also given.
In addition to the above letters, the Coptic language uses a special
symbol
called the "Jenkem" as an apostroph. The Jenkem looks like the Latin
Apostroph.
The Coptic Language makes use of abbreviations as well, especially with
words
that are used frequently. An abbreviated word can be recognized by a bar on
its
top. For example, the words for "Jesus Christ" (pronounced Isoos
Pi'ekhrestos
in Coptic) are abbreviated as shown below (see also the Copt-Net Logo on top
of
this Newsletter):
___ ___
IHC nXC (Abbreviated forms of the words "Jesus" and
"Christ")