How Greek Shaped Coptic, Egypt’s Final Ancient Language

Papyrus Bodmer VI with each Coptic alphabets. Credit: Bodmer Lab / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

A caller survey examines however centuries of interaction betwixt Greek and Egypt’s autochthonal connection shaped Coptic, the last signifier of past Egyptian, influencing some its operation and vocabulary.

In a survey published successful the Journal of Greek Linguistics, Sonja Dahlgren of the University of Helsinki explores however Greek power connected Egyptian-Coptic transformed mundane language, spiritual texts, and administrative documents.

Dahlgren situates her investigation wrong Egypt’s extraordinarily agelong written tradition—the oldest successful the world. She notes that the Egyptian connection evolved done successive phases of contact, opening with Semitic tongues and continuing nether centuries of Greek dominance.

This enactment produced what she describes arsenic a bilingual continuum: astatine 1 end, axenic Greek; astatine the other, axenic Egyptian. Most speakers, however, occupied a mediate crushed wherever the 2 languages blended.

Her probe demonstrates that Greek vocabulary was introduced into Coptic successful systematic ways. Adjectives led the shift. Because Coptic lacked a nonstop equivalent, translators of the Greek Bible imported these forms wholesale. Over time, they dispersed from scripture into autochthonal literature, indicating that they had go portion of mundane language.

Regional saltation successful Greek verb integration and the power connected Egyptian-Coptic

Greek verbs followed, though their adoption differed crossed regions. Dahlgren explains that the Sahidic dialect incorporated Greek verbs straight into Coptic sentences without utilizing auxiliaries, whereas the Bohairic and Lycopolitan dialects employed a light-verb operation with the Coptic er- (“to do”) to accommodate them.

Coptic magic substance utilized successful past Egypt. Credit: CC BY 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons / P.Mich.inv. 599; Verso astatine APIS astatine the University of Michigan

Sound changes, Dahlgren notes, eroded the endings of these borrowed verbs, astatine times making an infinitive dependable similar an imperative. She argues that specified variations stemmed from a azygous archetypal signifier gradually worn down implicit time, alternatively than from aggregate autarkic borrowings.

The survey besides draws attraction to the Fayum region, 1 of the astir bilingual areas successful Roman Egypt. Late Coptic letters from the country diagnostic greetings derived from Greek, specified arsenic “peace beryllium with you,” and employment shortened hybrid verbs similar er-deki (“to receive”).

According to Dahlgren, these forms punctual papyrologists that unconventional spellings should not beryllium dismissed arsenic errors but recognized arsenic grounds of living, evolving speech.

Coptic dependable patterns shaped Greek usage

Dahlgren besides explores however Greek sounds unfamiliar to Egyptian speakers were adapted to Coptic phonological patterns.

Final vowels often shifted to i, and voiced and voiceless stops alternated successful unpredictable ways. She observes that akin patterns look successful aboriginal Arabic loanwords, demonstrating however Coptic phonology shaped the Greek forms utilized successful Egypt.

Her survey advocates for person collaboration betwixt Egyptologists and interaction linguists, emphasizing that Egyptian-Coptic provides a uncommon glimpse into however 2 large past languages interacted and evolved together.