The events in Egypt have taken us away from the group's activity. It is not
surprising since what is happening now may affect one way or the other our
nation's future, and consequently its chances of reviving our language.
I have been busy with developing a new Blog: ON COPTIC NATIONALISM. If you are
interested, please, visit it at:
http://copticliterature.wordpress.com/
And if you visit, please do leave a comment.
Regards.
Dioscorus Boles
-----Original Message-----
From: sam tadros <samtadros2...@hotmail.com>
To: remenkimi@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:12
Subject: RE: [RemEnKimi] [copticsounds] Coptic sounds before Arabic
احبائي مجموعه ريمنكامي
معلش اتاخرت عليكم شويه و في الوقت اللي فات كنت مشغول
في عملي اليومي وكمان كنت باتابع الاحداث اللي بتحصل في مصر
و انا طبعا مش مبسوط من اللي بيحصل و عايز مصر ترجع مره
تانيه دوله مدنيه فيها سياده القانون و ان يكون كل المصريين متساويين
في الحقوق و الواجبات نرجوا ان تتحقق هذه الاماني بمشيئه الرب .
كمان انا مشغول بالانتهاء من ترجمه كتاب سير بعض الشهداء
الي اللغه العربيه وارجوا ان يكون يكون جاهز علي عيد القيامه .
و كمان بافكر في تكمله موضوع اللغه القبطيه المعاصره و سوف اكتب
في بعض هذه الموضوعات في المستقبل القريب بمشيئه الرب ..
ارجوا من جميع الاقباط الاتحاد في المرحله القادمه و تبني فكره الدوله
المدنيه و الاهتمام بالاتخابات
و العمل الايجابي من اجل افشال الخطط التي تريد تدمير الحضاره المصريه
.
اوجاي خان ابشويس
صموئيل تادرس جرجس
To: RemEnKimi@yahoogroups.com
From: abo.dokh...@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 23:05:02 +0200
Subject: Re: [RemEnKimi] [copticsounds] Coptic sounds before Arabic
GOOD WORK
ايه رأيكم في الاحداث التي تمر بها مصر؟
هل من الممكن ان تؤثر على مشروع احياء اللغة القبطية؟
مجرد سؤال(عشان المجموعة شكلها نامت خااااااااص) تحياتي
----- Original Message -----
From: Ambrose Boles
To: Remenkimi
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 6:49 AM
Subject: [RemEnKimi] [copticsounds] Coptic sounds before Arabic
William H Worrell (Coptic sounds, 1934, p 122 ff, view) divides
Coptic-Arabic transliterations into three kinds, representing three stages:
Coptic in full vitality, but taking up Arabic words;
Coptic still a living language, but Arabic in Coptic letters also used;
Coptic a dead language, represented in Arabic letters.
The two documents I am adding to the site today, the medical text of Émile
Chassinat and the alchemistic text of Ludwig Stern, belong to the first stage
and in Worrell’s words are the “latest reliable evidence that can be used” for
deducing Coptic pronunciation without Arabic influence. As such, these are two
of the most important surviving documents for the study of Coptic sounds before
Arabic. Later texts such as those published by Casanova (1901, view), Sobhy
(1926, view) and Galtier (1906, view) suffer from both Arabisation of Coptic
phonetics and the conventionalisation of Coptic-Arabic transcription. This
makes the deduction of actual Coptic sounds very difficult.
The first document is a medical text found at Mashaich (Lepidontopolis),
opposite Girga, in 1892-1893. The text is written in Sahidic and is dated to
the ninth or tenth century. The scribe reproduces in Coptic letters the actual
pronunciation of Arabic words rather than their fixed orthographic form. This
makes the text very useful for studying the sound of Sahidic Coptic letters
during that time, before they were affected by Arabic pronunciation.
Chassinat, Émile (1921). Un papyrus médical copte. Mémoires publiés par les
membres de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire, 32. [Selected
sections only: introduction, discussion of Coptic phonology, and index of
Arabic words transcribed in Coptic.] View
The second document is the alchemistic text from Sohag, near Akhmim, published
by Stern. Worrell and Chassinat both date the document to around the tenth
century; although Stern thought it was written significantly later. The
document is written in Sahidic with some Akhmimic influence. As with the
medical text published by Chassinat, this text uses a number of vernacular
Arabic words written in Coptic script.
Stern, Ludwig (1885). Fragment eines koptischen Tractates über Alchimie.
Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 23: 102–119. View
Both these texts are widely discussed in subsequent studies of Coptic
phonology, but for a quick useful English description of the texts and a
discussion of what conclusion may be drawn from them, see Worrell’s Coptic
sounds (1934), particularly chapter 4 (view).
This is a new blog post from http://copticsounds.wordpress.com. Please visit
the site for more resources on Coptic phonetics.
Thanks, Ambrose.
