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New questions about the Coptic language in Egypt
Admin:
When it is heard again in the streets I will start think about their response, but right now this seems like a far fetched dream
AlexderFranke:
So it can be that some other Copts are right now careful and thinking in advance even if hearing Coptic in the streets is a far-fetched dream.
Mona Zaki and Titi Mouris are evidently not thinking like this as there has been an article about them. Others could prefer not to tell about using Coptic and being very careful in Egypt.
Are you living in Egypt? Where do they teach it in Egypt? Are teaching books available in Egyptian book shops
Do you? believe the story about cutting out the tongue for speaking Coptic during a period?
By the way: Do you believe that nearly all Copts could leave Egypt in the near future unless the fearful settings will change?
Admin:
--- Quote ---So it can be that some other Copts are right now careful and thinking in advance even if hearing Coptic in the streets is a far-fetched dream.
Mona Zaki and Titi Mouris are evidently not thinking like this as there has been an article about them. Others could prefer not to tell about using Coptic and being very careful in Egypt.
--- End quote ---
In south Egypt there is other people called the Nubians ( Nuba was a country between Egypt and Sudan), They still use their language and no one touched them
Believe me, the time were u get killed for speaking a language almost never existed
--- Quote ---Are you living in Egypt? Where do they teach it in Egypt? Are teaching books available in Egyptian book shops
--- End quote ---
I live in Egypt, many churches teach Coptic, but they (in my opinion) use wrong method (which is making students study/memorize hundreds of words + grammatical rules)
Catherdral is almost the only place that offer a place for teaching old pronunciation in addition to new pronunciation, I studied there
--- Quote ---Do you? believe the story about cutting out the tongue for speaking Coptic during a period?
--- End quote ---
its not important because that fact is, Coptic language continued to existence long after this khalif, so it wasn't him who killed it
--- Quote ---By the way: Do you believe that nearly all Copts could leave Egypt in the near future unless the fearful settings will change?
--- End quote ---
Copts have lived in a much much darker ages, and yet they remained so I don't think so
AlexderFranke:
Thank you very much for your information!
Are Coptic lessons limited to Copts and adults?
Are there lessons by post for those who want to study true Bohairic and do not have lessons around them ?
I could imagine that some families see it as first step of apostasy from Islam if a Muslim wants to learn Coptic.
The teaching methods remind me of stories from Irish lessons in Ireland where they wasted time on matters useless for ordinary students. In my point of view, language lessons ought to aim at passing on skills to understand, write and speak in quite short time with grammar as helping tool. Yes, Coptic lessons ought to handle it a bit like a living language for the sake to set an impuls.
Well, I know that Berber had been banned in Northern African countries (in Libya the longest) as well as Kurdish in Turkey. Speaking it publicly, selling and printing books in it, teaching it and broadcasting in it were more or less strict forbidden. For Libya, it is stated that they had cut phone calls if they found Berber speech.Such could come back and been taken up in Egypt as well for Nubians if Salafists would gain power.
If I were a young Copt with a child, I would think that it is worth speaking Coptic to my child even if only a handful are doing either. He or she would have an even deeper link to the Coptic Church and easily understand texts and liturgy.
I find it being non-sense to want to romanize Coptic or bring hieroglyphes back into use at which aim a few activists. The link to hieroglyphs is totally lost since centuries now. And Roman script as a new one has no traditional link at all. As I have read, there are links rather between Coptic and Greek than Roman culture. It is Western Europe that has close links to Roman culture.
There had been worse times for born Copts indeed. For converts, it is more than evil. But in former times, there had been no cheap flight tickets for leaving Egypt. I am in fear that similar could happen in Egypt as in Iraq. A Copt from California to whom I had talked even fears a new Holocaust.
Sorry for going a bit off from topic.
Admin:
Reviving a language requires a will of a country or at least a well funded organization,
take hebrew for example, its a sacred language for jews yet it remained dead until israel came back to existance.
mona zaki, is another example. she is not a native speaker what happened is that her father (
or grandfather) learned coptic and decided to use it at home so that their children can learn it and thats how she learned it, but she says should wouldnt pass it to her children because there is no point since no one else uses it and even if she passed it her children will grow up and marry from other families and use the common language "Arabic"
yet we continue here to learn it, at the hope one day a well funded organization will use us to revive it
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