Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Articles

Fai and the Two Layers of the Coptic Vocabulary

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Learn More
Fai and the Two Layers of the Coptic Vocabulary

Coptic carries a heavy load of Greek vocabulary. Estimates vary by text and genre, but a Coptic biblical, theological or monastic work can draw a substantial minority of its words from Greek, some fully naturalised and some retaining Greek endings. That did not happen by accident or by pressure. The people who created Coptic Christian literature were translating from Greek scripture, Greek liturgy and Greek theology, and they took over the vocabulary of that material rather than inventing Egyptian equivalents for terms whose meanings were already settled by centuries of use. The result is a language in which Egyptian grammar carries Greek terminology, and letters like fai and phi mark where the seam runs.

The seam is visible elsewhere too. Coptic words for the ordinary business of life are Egyptian; words for doctrine, for the offices of the church, for kinds of virtue and vice, are often Greek. Documentary Coptic, the enormous body of letters, contracts, accounts and receipts surviving from monastic settlements, shows a lighter Greek load than literary Coptic does, which is what one would expect if the borrowing came in with the scriptures. Reading Coptic is therefore an exercise in reading two histories at once, and the alphabet, half Greek and half Egyptian, is doing the same thing.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Article On

Sources
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.