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Coptic Alphabet

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Coptic letters in a florid Bohairic script
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Coptic letters in a florid Bohairic script

The Coptic alphabet is an alphabet used for writing the Coptic language. It is based on the Greek alphabet, but contains some extra letters for sounds used in Coptic but not in Greek. Those letters are derived from the Demotic script, a highly cursive writing system used to write the Egyptian language.

Contents

History of the Coptic Alphabet

History of the Alphabet
Middle Bronze Age 19–15th c. BC
Meroitic 3rd c. BC
Complete genealogy
The Coptic alphabet came into general use in Egypt during the 4th century AD. It is still used 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 Coptic alphabet did not appear overnight. There was 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 Common Era, an entire series of magicial 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.)

The Old Nubian alphabet—used to write the Old Nubian language [unrelated to the Coptic language]—is written mainly in an uncial Greek alphabet, but it borrows Coptic and Meroitic letters of Demotic origin into its inventory. It is often incorrectly thought that Old Nubian used the entire Coptic alphabet directly, but this is not the case.

Coptic in 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 ... U+2CFF. See also: [Coptic block in Unicode (PDF)], [Greek block in Unicode (PDF)] (which includes 7 Coptic letters derived from Demotic, and needing to be included in any complete implementation of Coptic).

Alphabet table

 Letter    Name1     Name2   Transliteration
Ⲁⲁ alfa alfa a
Ⲃⲃ vida beta b, v
Ⲅⲅ gamma gamma g
Ⲇⲇ dalda delta d
Ⲉⲉ eie eie e
Ⲋⲋ sou sou (so)
Ⲍⲍ zata zeta z
Ⲏⲏ hate eeta ē
Ⲑⲑ thete theta th
Ⲓⲓ iauda iota i, y
Ⲕⲕ kapa kapa k
Ⲗⲗ laula lavla l
Ⲙⲙ mi mi m
Ⲛⲛ ni ni n
Ⲝⲝ ksi exsi ks, x
Ⲟⲟ o o o
Ⲡⲡ pi pi p
Ⲣⲣ ro ro r
Ⲥⲥ sima sima s
Ⲧⲧ tau tav t
Ⲩⲩ ua epsilon v, u, y
Ⲫⲫ fi fi ph, f
Ⲭⲭ khi ki kh
Ⲯⲯ psi epsi ps
Ⲱⲱ oou oou ō
Ϣϣ shei shai sh
Ϥϥ fei fai f
Ϧϧ khei khai h
Ϩϩ hori hori h
Ϫϫ gangia janja g, j
Ϭϭ shima chima c, kj, ch
Ϯϯ dei ti ti
Note: the letter sou was used only for its numerical value, 6.

\"Old Bohairic\" Alphabet table

See also

Coptic pronunciation reform

References

External links

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