Coptic Revitalists?[sic.] [Coptic Revivalists?]

[AlexderFranke]

Hello,
I am fascinated by the coptic church and the old egyptian, christian people. On Wikipedia I have read outings which say that coptic is not completely dead as conversational language. Therefore I would like to hear if there are revitalists who make efforts to revive it as spoken language in conversation. Do you know of revitalists in Egypt who have begun to speak coptic among themselves and in their homes like the cornish revitalists in Cornwall? On the internet there is the platform Remenkimi but I would like to know if there are also revitalists who speak it from face to face. On Wikipedia there are persons who claim to be able to speak coptic in everyday speech and I have even found a site with everyday phrases. Is it possible that there are conversation groups where they speak coptic? I have read about one family in Egypt. Other coptic speakers might not admit it publically because they are fearing the fundamentalist muslims.
Thank you very much in advance. By the way: I do not speak arabic!
Glory to Jesus Christ, Alex

[Admin]

Hello,
First of all Welcome to our forum
here is the answers of your questions

Therefore I would like to hear if there are revitalists who make efforts to revive it as spoken language in conversation. Do you know of revitalists in Egypt who have begun to speak coptic among themselves and in their homes like the cornish revitalists in Cornwall?

In the last century there was an attempt to revive the language
A person called "Basnanty" from Alexandria, learned Coptic and made it the spoken language of his family
by the time the members of his families increased and became famous
but by the increase of their numbers only a few number continued to speak Coptic and it is decreasing by the time for many obvious reasons
1- those people need to marry and they marry from other Copts who can't speak Coptic
so Arabic becomes the spoken language at home and their children only know Arabic

2- many think what is the benefit of learning Coptic

3- even if those people succeed, they pronounce the Coptic language in the malformed way that was introduced by the church in the past century
http://kame.danacbe.com/index.php/topic,2.0.html
and they way of pronunciation is very hard for most Egyptians to pronounce

4- In an interview with a member of this family called "Mona Zaky" she said that when she was young children used to laugh at her when she speak in Coptic and that she is not going to teach it to her children

notice that the malformed pronunciation makes Coptic looks as if it is Western language rather than old eastern language because it introduces foreign letters to our tongue such as V and TH and drop letters that previously existed like D and sometimes J

On Wikipedia there are persons who claim to be able to speak coptic in everyday speech and I have even found a site with everyday phrases. Is it possible that there are conversation groups where they speak coptic?

This is "Mona Zaky" I have just mentioned

I have read about one family in Egypt. Other coptic speakers might not admit it publically because they are fearing the fundamentalist muslims.

Not true, the family I know is very famous and many of them are very proud of that
Fundamentalist Muslims don't really care about something like that

[AlexderFranke]

Thanks for the answer. Meanwhile I have found other texts on the Coptic revival and have looked on the names on Wikipedia. There were a few persons who claimed to speak Coptic outside the liturgy. It was not Mrs Zaki! One text has stated that in fact some Coptic speakers in Egypt do not admit it in fear of Muslim fundamentalists. Marrying is in fact a problem. This could be resolved by teaching Coptic to children within the church.  God bless you, Alex

[bashandy]

Earlier attempts of preservation of language (revitalisation) was the writing of the scalae in the 13th & 14th century by El-Sammanudi, and Ibn Kabbar.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the largest attempt of revival was at the hands of Claudius Labib, who wrote numerous educational books, magazines (Ain Shams), as well as typing many litirugical books, and writing the first Coptic-Arabic dictionary. This line of revival was continued with Pisenty Rizkallah, Maurice AbdelMessih and others where they have all started reviving Coptic as a spoken language. This conitnued with Fr Pigol Bassili & Abba Demetrius.

This attempt was the most successful in the 20th century albeit limited in the number of speakers. It was characterised by the utilisation of the Greco-Bohairic pronunciation with many variants. There is evidence of influence of French, English and Arabic on the syntax of Coptic instead of using traditional phrases in Coptic manuscripts, creating a Coptic pidgin.

It is also characterised by the markedly reduced number of Greek loanwords in favour of Coptic ones albeit obscure words, as well sometimes, favouring neologisms over using Greek loanwords.

Another feature was neologisms, which were invented by the necessity but, also at times to avoid using a Greek loanword or for lack of knowledge of the original word. Many neologisms were not grammatically sound as compared with classical Coptic.

While this attempt was the most successful in terms of producing a few bilingual speakers, it did not revive Coptic, but rather a pidgin form of Coptic. Another byproduct was a byproduct of malformed neologisms, poor grammatical constructs, and instability of pronunciation. In essence, since the emergence of Greco-Bohairic pronunciation, Coptic is being treated as a language for hobbyists and amateurs, with false folk etymology books, and a general attitude that Coptic is a constructed language that everyone is welcome to add words to it and reinvent it, which resulted in huge numbers of almost incomprehensible writings.

Later, there were books attempting to change grammar, and even the writing system and adopt Latin script, and the proposed outcome was closer to a new constructed language with a Coptic flavour.