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Coptic Authentic Pronunciation

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Coptic Authentic Pronunciation

Coptic Demotic Egyptian are grammatically closely akin to Late Egyptian, which was written in Hieroglyphic script. Coptic flourished as a literary language from the second to 13th centuries, and its Behairic dialect continues to be the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It was supplanted by Egyptian Arabic as a spoken language toward the early modern period, though revitalization efforts have been underway since the 19th century .

The Coptic accent, its history, Originality and Superiority:

An overview about the old Coptic accent and the emergence of the new accent:

There were five or six main Coptic accents, in addition to them there were many other sub accents, each of which is derived from the Conversational language in specific distination of the Egyptian Country.

The main Coptic accents are the Upper Egypt(tribal) which is named Saidy.

The old accent was considered the cultural language in Egypt, and continued as the conversational language in upper Egypt till the end of the sixteenth century.

The Maqrizi, who lived in the fifteenth century said while he was talking about Moshe Monastery the following:

” And mostly on Egypt’s Christians is the knowlege of Saidy Coptic which is the origin ofCoptic language, followed by the Behairy Coptic language, and the Christian women in Al -Said and their children still not talking except with the Saidy Coptic language and have full knowlege of the “Greek language” . The use of Behairy accent became invalid as conversational language much earlier. But it continued the language of Churches’s prayers in lower Egypt especially in the region of Wadi Al Natrun.

The author: Fr. Shenouda Maher Ishak ( previously Deacon Dr. Emil Maher Eshak).

                              
Translated by Dr.Mariam Michael

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Ancient dialect

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The use of Lacustris ancient dialect

The use of the old Bohairic accent spread

in the church’s prayers in all the Egyptian towns. There was for the people inUpper Egypt, their churches, books of Masses…

etc., written in the Bohairic accent). And it was used when the Saidic accent was a living language to communicate in daily life. When it became weak it is substituted by the church books imported from the Monasteries of Wadi el Natrun due to the boom of monasticism and the great number of scribes there.

As the accent that was used in Monasteries

of Wadi el Natrun was the Bohairic, so the scribes were copying about their church’s books which were written in the Bohairic accent, and these churche’s Bohairic manuscripts reach to all the churches of the Egyptian country from the north to the far south because their abundance and accuracy also due to their cheap price.

Also what helps that is that Abu Makar Monastey was considered for long generations Patriarch’s office from which graduaded many of the Patriarchs and they were spending long periods in it both for praying and residence. Most of the bishops

were choosen from Wadi Al Natrun.
All these factors combined together helped the spread of the use the Bohairic accent in the prayers of the church gradually to include all the parts of the country of Egypt from Alexandria up to Aswan.

For this the old Bohairic accent became the assumptive one for us by tradition, spoken by it in the church’s prayers in all parts of the Saint Mark Evangelism. for it is present and it is used in Upper Egypt exactly as it is present and is used in the lower Egypt. The

modern pronunciation appeared. reach to all the churches of the Egyptian country from the far North to the far south because if their accuracy, also due to their cheap price.

The Authur:

Fr.Shenouda Maher Ishak ( previously Deacon Dr. Emil Maher Eshak)

Translated by Dr. Mariam Michael