TheCoptic alphabet is thescript used for writing theCoptic language, the most recent development ofEgyptian. The repertoire ofglyphs is based on theuncialGreek alphabet, augmented by letters borrowed from the EgyptianDemotic. It was the first alphabetic script used for theEgyptian language. There are severalCoptic alphabets, as the script varies greatly among the various dialects and eras of theCoptic language.
The Coptic script has a long history going back to thePtolemaic Kingdom, when the Greek alphabet was used totranscribeDemotic texts, with the aim of recording the correct pronunciation of Demotic. As early as the sixth century BC and as late as the second century AD, an entire series ofpre-Christian religious texts were written in what scholars termOld Coptic, Egyptian language texts written in theGreek alphabet.
In contrast to Old Coptic, seven additional Coptic letters were derived from Demotic, and many of these (though not all) are used in “true” form of Coptic writing. Coptic texts are associated withChristianity,Gnosticism, andManichaeism.
With the spread ofearly Christianity in Egypt, knowledge ofEgyptian hieroglyphs was lost by the late third century, as well as Demotic script slightly later, making way for a writing system more closely associated with theCoptic Orthodox Church. By the fourth century, the Coptic script was "standardized", particularly for the Sahidic dialect. (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 Orthodox Church to write their religious texts. All the Gnostic codices found atNag Hammadi used the Coptic script.
The Old Nubian alphabet—used to writeOld Nubian, aNilo-Saharan language—is anuncial variant of the Coptic script, with additional characters borrowed from the Greek andMeroitic scripts.
The Coptic script was the first Egyptian writing system to indicatevowels, making Coptic documents invaluable for the interpretation of earlier Egyptian texts. Some Egyptian syllables hadsonorants but no vowels; in Sahidic, these were written in Coptic with a line above the entire syllable. Various scribal schools made limited use of diacritics: some used an apostrophe as aword divider and to markclitics, a function ofdeterminatives inlogographic Egyptian; others useddiereses overⲓ andⲩ to show that these started a new syllable, others acircumflex over any vowel for the same purpose.[2]
The Coptic script's glyphs are largely based on the Greek alphabet, another help in interpreting older Egyptian texts,[3] with 24 letters of Greek origin; 6 or 7 more were retained fromDemotic, depending on the dialect (6 in Sahidic, another each in Bohairic and Akhmimic).[2] In addition to the alphabetic letters, the letter ϯ stood for the syllable/ti/ or/di/.
As the Coptic script is simply atypeface of the Greek alphabet,[4] with a few added letters, it can be used to write Greek without any transliteration schemes. Latin equivalents would include theIcelandic alphabet (which likewise has added letters), or theFraktur alphabet (which has distinctive forms). While initially unified with the Greek alphabet byUnicode, a proposal was later accepted to separate it, with the proposal noting that Coptic is never written using modern Greek letter-forms (unlike German, which may be written with Fraktur or RomanAntiqua letter-forms), and that the Coptic letter-forms have closer mutual legibility with the Greek-based letters incorporated into the separately encodedCyrillic alphabet than with the forms used in modern Greek. Because Coptic lowercases are usually small-caps forms of the capitals, a Greek would have little trouble reading Coptic letters, but Copts would struggle more with many of the Greek letters.[5][6]
These are the letters that are used for writing the Coptic language. Coptic did not originally have case distinctions—they are a modern convention, as is the case with other classical languages likeLatin.
In Old Coptic, there were a large number ofDemotic Egyptian characters, including some logograms. This was reduced to seven such characters, used for sounds not covered by the Greek alphabet (plus their modern lowercase forms):
Coptic numerals are analphabetic numeral system in which numbers are indicated with letters of the alphabet, such asⲫ for 500.[10]The numerical value of the letters is based onGreek numerals. Sometimes numerical use is distinguished from text with a continuousoverline above the letters, as with Greek andCyrillic numerals.
InUnicode, most Coptic letters formerly shared codepoints with similarGreek letters, but a disunification was accepted for version 4.1, which appeared in 2005. The new Coptic block is U+2C80 to U+2CFF. Mostfonts contained in mainstreamoperating systems use a distinctive Byzantine style for this block. The Greek block includes seven Coptic letters (U+03E2–U+03EF highlighted below) derived from Demotic, and these need to be included in any complete implementation of Coptic.
Coptic abbreviations useU+0305◌̅COMBINING OVERLINE to draw a continuous line across the remaining letters of an abbreviated word.[12][13] It extends from the left edge of the first letter to the right edge of the last letter. For example,ⲡ̅ⲛ̅ⲁ̅, a common abbreviation forⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁ 'spirit'.
A different kind of overline usesU+FE24◌︤COMBINING MACRON LEFT HALF,U+FE26◌︦COMBINING CONJOINING MACRON, andU+FE25◌︥COMBINING MACRON RIGHT HALF to distinguish the spelling of certain common words or to highlight proper names of divinities and heroes.[12][13]For this the line begins in the middle of the first letter and continues to the middle of the last letter. A few examples:ⲣ︤ⲙ︥,ϥ︤ⲛ︦ⲧ︥,ⲡ︤ϩ︦ⲣ︦ⲃ︥.
Sometimes numerical use of letters is indicated with a continuous line above them usingU+0305◌̅COMBINING OVERLINE as inⲁ͵ⲱ̅ⲡ̅ⲏ̅ for 1,888 (where "ⲁ͵" is 1,000 and "ⲱ̅ⲡ̅ⲏ̅" is 888). Multiples of 1,000 can be indicated by a continuous double line above usingU+033F◌̿COMBINING DOUBLE OVERLINE as inⲁ̿ for 1,000.
^abRitner, Robert Kriech. 1996. "The Coptic Alphabet". InThe World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 1994:287–290.
^Campbell, George L. "Coptic." Compendium of the World's Writing Systems. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Biddles LTD, 1991. 415.
^"Coptic".Ancient Scripts. Retrieved2 December 2017.
^For example: The composer's name "Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich" is Дмитрий Дмитриевич Шостакович in Cyrillic, and Ⲇⲙⲏⲧⲣⲓⲓ Ⲇⲙⲏⲧⲣⲓⲉⲃⲓϭ Ϣⲟⲥⲧⲁⲕⲟⲃⲓϭ in Coptic.
Quaegebeur, Jan. 1982. "De la préhistoire de l'écriture copte."Orientalia lovaniensia analecta 13:125–136.
Kasser, Rodolphe. 1991. "Alphabet in Coptic, Greek". InThe Coptic Encyclopedia, edited byAziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Volume 8. 30–32.
Kasser, Rodolphe. 1991. "Alphabets, Coptic". InThe Coptic Encyclopedia, edited by Aziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Volume 8. 32–41.
Kasser, Rodolphe. 1991. "Alphabets, Old Coptic". InThe Coptic Encyclopedia, edited by Aziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Volume 8. 41–45.
Wolfgang Kosack:Koptisches Handlexikon des Bohairischen. Koptisch – Deutsch – Arabisch. Verlag Christoph Brunner, Basel 2013,ISBN978-3-9524018-9-7.
Ifao N Copte – A professional Coptic font for researchers, students and publishers has been developed by the French institute of oriental archeology (IFAO). Unicode, Mac and Windows compatible, this free font is available through downloading from the IFAO website (direct link).
Coptic fonts; Coptic fonts made by Laurent Bourcellier & Jonathan Perez, type designers
