Coptic alphabet

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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.

[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 Christian 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 AD 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] Methods of Encoding Language

The Coptic alphabet was very different from previous writing systems of Egypt. Whereas previous writing systems used by Egyptians relied on pictographs, images of the ideas or things represented, Coptic was an alphabetic system. This made Coptic the first writing system of Egypt that distinguished vowels from other parts of the writing system. However, not all syllables in Coptic needed a vowel. Each syllable without a vowel contained a sonant, or a sound that is capable of representing a vowel. These syllables were written in Coptic with a supralinear stroke, “ ̅”, above the letters. In addition to the supralinear stroke, Coptic used some other symbols beyond letters. The diaresis was used at the beginning of some syllables, an apostrophe was used to separate words and a circumflex to show that a vowel represents an independent syllable.^[1]
The majority of the Coptic alphabet is based on the Greek alphabet, with 24 letters of Greek origin, since Coptic was originally an attempt to write Demotic using Greek. Most of these letters borrowed from Greek are nearly exact copies of their Greek counterparts with the exception of alpha and sigma which are written significantly differently in the Greek and Coptic writing systems. Beyond the Greek letters, other letters were needed to write sounds in Coptic that are not part of the Greek language. To represent these sounds, Coptic borrowed letters from Demotic (Egyptian). The number of Demotic symbols used in Coptic is dependent on the dialect and in the standardized dialect six Demotic signs are used. ^[2]. Since coptic is based largely of off Greek, its pronunciation is known. This relationship makes Coptic very important in the study of Egyptian linguistics. ^[3]

[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.

[edit] Alphabet table

[edit] Alphabet table

image maj.	image min.	majuscule	minuscule	numeric value	name	translit. (IPA)
		Ⲁ	ⲁ	1	alpʰa	a ([ɑ, ʕ, ʔ])
		Ⲃ	ⲃ	2	bēta	b, v, w
		Ⲅ	ⲅ	3	gamma	g (/k/, /g, ŋ, ɣ/)
		Ⲇ	ⲇ	4	dalda	d (/d, ð/)
		Ⲉ	ⲉ	5	ei	e
		Ⲋ	ⲋ	6	sou	–
		Ⲍ	ⲍ	7	zēta	z (/s/, /z/)
		Ⲏ	ⲏ	8	ēta	ē (/eː, ɛː, i/)
		Ⲑ	ⲑ	9	tʰēta	tʰ (/tʰ, θ/)
		Ⲓ	ⲓ	10	iōta	i (/i, j/)
		Ⲕ	ⲕ	20	kappa	k, q
		Ⲗ	ⲗ	30	laula	l
		Ⲙ	ⲙ	40	mē	m
		Ⲛ	ⲛ	50	nē	n
		Ⲝ	ⲝ	60	kˢi	kˢ (/ks/)
		Ⲟ	ⲟ	70	ou	o
		Ⲡ	ⲡ	80	pi	p, b
		Ⲣ	ⲣ	100	rō	r
		Ⲥ	ⲥ	200	sēmma	s
		Ⲧ	ⲧ	300	tau	t (/t, d/)
		Ⲩ	ⲩ	400	he	u (/u, w, i, v/)
		Ⲫ	ⲫ	500	pʰi	pʰ (/pʰ, f/)
		Ⲭ	ⲭ	600	kʰi	kʰ (/kʰ, χ, ʃ/)
		Ⲯ	ⲯ	700	pˢi	pˢ (/ps/)
		Ⲱ	ⲱ	800	ō	ō (/oː/)
		Ϣ	ϣ		šai	š (/ʃ/)
		Ϥ	ϥ	90	fai	f
		Ϧ	ϧ		ḫai	ḫ (/x/)
		Ϩ	ϩ		hori	h, ḥ
		Ϫ	ϫ		ḏanḏia	ḏ (/ʤ, g, ɟ/)
		Ϭ	ϭ		čima	č (/q, ʧ, gʲ, ʃ/)
		Ϯ	ϯ		ti	ti (/ti, c/)
		Ⳁ	ⳁ	900	pˢis ənše

Letters derived from the demotic:

hieroglyph		demotic		coptic
	→		→	Ϣ š
	→		→	Ϥ f
	→		→	Ϧ ḫ
	→		→	Ϩ h
	→		→	Ϫ ḏ
	→		→	Ϭ č
	→		→	Ϯ ti

[edit] See also

• Coptic pronunciation reform
• Institute of Coptic Studies
• Coptic Orthodox Church

[edit] References

• 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

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Coptic script

• The Coptic Alphabet (omniglot.com)
• ⲡⲓⲥⲁϧⲟ: Coptic font support - how to install, use and manipulate Coptic ASCII and Unicode fonts
• Michael Everson's Revised proposal to add the Coptic alphabet to the BMP of the UCS
• Download Free Coptic Fonts
• Ifao N Copte - A professional Coptic Unicode font for researchers, students and publishers has been developed by the French institute of oriental archeology (IFAO). Unicode, Mac and PC compatible, this free font is available through downloading from the IFAO website (direct link).
• Coptic Unicode fonts ; Coptic fonts made by Laurent Bourcellier & Jonathan Perez, type designers