In order to help understand a language. One has to have a clear view about it, its classification, its current status, its strength and weaknesses. Coptic language is no exception. There are clear definitions to living languages, endangered languages and dead languages. Coptic belongs to the latter. A dead language is a language that does not have native speakers communicating with it. Bohairic dialect was dead as a spoken by the 12th Century at best. Sahidic died obscurely somewhere between 1500-1800 CE.
Having a couple of families speaking Coptic language at home, does not mean that it is alive; singing, chanting in Coptic in Church does not mean that it is alive. Teaching it in universities or having Ph.D in Coptic language does not mean that it is alive. Having an array of Coptic loan words in colloquial Egyptian Arabic does not mean that it is alive. Latin is a well studied dead language, that has influenced Romance languages and Germanic languages.
The importance of admitting this, is that if we pretended Coptic to be a living language, then, we would be lacking any direction to do proper efforts towards it. The process to revive a language is called revival or revitalisation in general. To date the only successful example is the revival of Hebrew language.
There is a difference between a dead language and an extinct language. The latter means that the usage of this language is completely gone.
