Our Coptic language > Old pronunciation vs new debate
Ancient Coptic Plurals pronunciation
Anaksunamun:
I am a little confused about Coptic Plural pronunciation, no information I've found is very direct with the letter "U" (I don't have Coptic letters so hopefully you know the letter I'm referring to).
For instance:
If "u" follows "o" it is pronounced like Spanish 'u' in "tu" :
àmou = ah-mu (come masc.)
If you have "oou" or "wou" it is then pronounced 'o-u' or 'oo-u', short vs long vowel.
àTooui = ah-toh-u-wee (morning)
Ńøwou = ehn-thoo-u (they/themselves)
Okay, so I think I understand those rules.
But what about these plurals :
ame (herd masc.) = amhu (herd pl.)
ampe (baker masc.) = amphu (bakers)
cabe (wiseman) = cabeeu (wisemen)
Hwe (thing) = Hbhue (things)
Hï (house) = Hou (houses) **I don't know how to pronounce neither of these words**
(I'm sorry about the Coptic letters not showing, hopefully you guys know what I'm spelling :/)
Are these considered dipthongs?!
I read somewhere that "au" is pronounced "av", like "mau = mav - mother) but I believe that is incorrect because the original Ancient Egyptian language didn't have the letter " v" afterall mau" comes from hieroglyphics "mwt" not through Greek borrowings. So I would think "au" is a dipthong pronounced "aw" something like in the English word "town".
Can anyone shed some light on these questions.
Admin:
ou is pronounced oo as in moon
themselves is pronounced en-tho-ou
th is of course is pronounced literally as t + h and not the English th
plural is easy,
Sab(ae) - Sa-b(ae)(ae)w
same for all other plurals you mentioned
Admin:
As for V you are right.
V never existed in Egyptian language but a century ago the Coptic church adopted modern Green pronunciation of the Coptic alphabet as a result B became V or B. same for u which is now (according to the Church's pronunciation) is V instead of W
B has the sound of B and W in Bohairic. We know that for sure because it does frequently interchange with the letter ou in some bohairic words.
In Sahidic however and according to Crum it seems to be pronounced B or F
so the word slave would be pronounced ouok (same as English word "woke") while in Sahidic it becomes foke.
for more details please read Crum's intro on the letter B
Anaksunamun:
--- Quote from: Admin on 25 September , 2014, 08:46:49 PM ---ou is pronounced oo as in moon
themselves is pronounced en-tho-ou
th is of course is pronounced literally as t + h and not the English th
plural is easy,
Sab(ae) - Sa-b(ae)(ae)w
same for all other plurals you mentioned
--- End quote ---
I thank you for your response :)
So basically you just pronounce it 'vowel + u'. I think that's what I started to understand while I typed out the examples haha!!
Funny as I study Coptic the simplest of things can really wrack my brain.
What do you mean by 't + h'... Oooooohhh, you speaking in terms of ' aspirations' (like 't' in English word 'tea' or 'toy' vs Spanish 'taco' or English 'the'?
Isn't that another debate between Old Bohairic and Greco-Bohairic?
Admin:
In Sahidic ⲑ is literally ⲧ + ϩ
You will never find any Sahidic word or sentence where ⲧ is followed by ϩ because when that happen the two letters are replaced by ⲑ
In Bohairic ⲑ is always pronounced t as in (tea)
ⲧ is frequently used as "d" and in many manuscripts ⲧ and ⲇ interchange but ⲧ is also known to be pronounced t especially at the end of the word.
Greko Bohairic says ⲑ is always "th" as in english word the
We know ⲑ and ⲧ have close pronunciation (though not the same) because they tend to serve the same meaning
For example:
We say ⲑ.ⲙⲁⲩ the mother but ⲧ.ⲥⲱⲛⲓ the sister. its ⲧ or ⲑ depending on the first letter of the following noun.
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