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As another ethnic Copt, I'm also very fascinated by the language and history, particularly the differences between the Bohairic and Sahidic dialects. > Copts d
by alpha_squared 2mo ago
As another ethnic Copt, I'm also very fascinated by the language and history, particularly the differences between the Bohairic and Sahidic dialects.
> Copts do also maintain a significant amount of syncretism with ancient Egyptian religion as well, both within language (typically, Egyptian Arabic words that are “odd” to middle eastern speakers are pulled from Coptic or earlier stages of Egyptian)
This is true and also many of the characters in the language are believed to be derived from hieroglyphs.
- bradrn 2mo ago> also many of the characters in the language are believed to be derived from hieroglyphs This is true insofar as all Western writing systems are ultimately descended from Egyptian Hieroglyphics, via the Phoenician script. In the case of Coptic most of the letters are rather transparently borrowed from Greek. Of course, Coptic is unusual in having added seven letters to the Greek alphabet for sounds not in Greek (Ϣ, Ϥ, Ϧ, Ϩ, Ϫ, Ϭ, Ϯ), and these were taken directly from the indigenous Egyptian writing system of the time, namely Demotic, itself a direct descendant of the Hieroglyphic script: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_script#Letters_derived_from_Demotic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_script#Letters_derived_....