"Real" pronunciation of Coptic H

[CЄTMOCЄ]

Is there a rule which says when Coptic H is pronounced as "aa" and when as "ii"?

How are the Egyptian Gods CHT (Seth) and HCЄ (Isis) pronounced in reconstructed/late Coptic pronunciation? Saat, Aasa? [or Siit, Iisa?]

[Admin]

I would recommend reading Emil Maher's research about letter pronunciation.
You will find a section for the letter H
http://copticsounds.wordpress.com/tag/fr-shenouda-maher-ishak/

[Admin]

anyway even until now differ Egyptians interchange the letters a and e .
so some would say "tala3" or "tele3" for the word "went up"
"nazal" or "nezel" for the word went.

For Isis her original name was most likely Ise or Isa not asa because Greek usually change end of the names not the beginning.
For Seth, probably it was sat or s(ae)t but I am not so sure.

By the way from where did you find the names of the God's in Coptic?

[Anaksunamun]

Is there a rule which says when Coptic H is pronounced as "aa" and when as "ii"?

How are the Egyptian Gods CHT (Seth) and HCЄ (Isis) pronounced in reconstructed/late Coptic pronunciation? Saat, Aasa? [or Siit, Iisa?]

From my personal research I've done I've understood that Coptic "H" many times comes from an original Ancient Egyptian "u", so for example:
CHT (Ancient Eg: Sútak = Coptic: Seet)
HCЄ (Ancient Eg: ?úsat  = Coptic Ee-seh or Eh-seh, variously pronounced)

Coptic,  I've learned has changed their own pronunciation through time diverging even further to the way it was originally pronounced and has no bearing on the Ancient Egyptian pronunciation which was not influenced by Greek, Persian or Arabic the way Coptic pronunciation was and still has been influenced with.
For example I'm not 100 percent certain when it comes to 'a vs ae'  between Coptic 'E'  only because Modern Egyptian Arabic utilizes it as a colloquial pronunciation, and who knows if that originally was because the ancient Egyptians pronounced "ae" under certain phonetic environments and it has indirectly influenced modern Arabic through Coptic or if it was ONLY used by Arabs, this is something I need to research further to have a better understanding.

[Admin]

Its the first time for me to know that H had original u sound in ancient Egypt.
Would you like to give some examples about that?
Also I am pretty sure hieroglyphics didn't write down the vowels so how did you know Seth's name was Sutak?

[Anaksunamun]

Both Isis and Seth's reconstructed ancient Egyptian names are in Wikipedia using scholar's approaches to reconstruct vowels based on Coptic, proto-semitic, Akkadian/canaaite tablets writing Egyptian words in their alphabets and some Meroitic and Nubian vocabulary borrowed from Egyptian.

Both Loprieno, Antonio, who wrote Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, and James P. Allen who recently wrote a similar book talk about how they reconstructed some of the vowels. It's hypothetical, but it makes sense at least to me if you really dissect the research they've put in.

Coptic 'H' = Egyptian (long)  'u' depends on the consonants surrounding the vowel and whether it is long or short and if the syllable was stressed or not.

The two examples ?usat and sutak are perfect examples of Coptic 'H'  from long 'u'.

Coptic 'H' also supposedly comes from an original Egyptian 'i'

(Fayyumic) KHNNI - to become fat = qinjit (Egyptian)
(Fayyumic and Bohairic)  CHINI - physician = zijniw (Egyptian)
(Coptic) aMPH(h)E - asphalt = m_rihjat (Egyptian, **h** has dot under it)


This is why I say "originally" I don't believe Coptic 'H' had an "ae" sound if it 'originally came from Egyptian 'u', 'i' or Late Egyptian schwa and/or 'e'.

I am uncertain about Greek original words or Arabic, maybe Coptic 'H' had an "ae" sound in these words originally?! Maybe that's where it comes from?!

[Admin]

CHT (Ancient Eg: Sútak = Coptic: Seet)
HCЄ (Ancient Eg: ?úsat  = Coptic Ee-seh or Eh-seh, variously pronounced)

Please give me any book with reputable author or any reliable website that would support your claim of pronunciation.

[Anaksunamun]

CHT (Ancient Eg: Sútak = Coptic: Seet)
HCЄ (Ancient Eg: ?úsat  = Coptic Ee-seh or Eh-seh, variously pronounced)

Please give me any book with reputable author or any reliable website that would support your claim of pronunciation.

http://www.academia.edu/3705616/_Scratchy_sounds_getting_smooth_the_Egyptian_velar_fricatives_and_their_palatalization._In_F._M._Fales_and_G._G._Grassi_eds._CAMSEMUD._Proceedings_of_the_13th_Italian_Meeting_of_Afro-Asiatic_Linguistics_held_in_Udine_Padova_2010_239-245

In Cuneiform/Akkadian, it shows Egyptian  'st(k)' as 'šuta', this is how the Akkadians overheard the Egyptian word (Late Egyptian)


http://www.naturalmoney.org/isis.html


The name Isis is the Greek version of her name, with a final -s added to the original Egyptian form because of the grammatical requirements of the Greek language (-s often being a marker of the nominative case in ancient Greek).

The Egyptian name was recorded as ỉs.t or ȝs.t and meant "(She of the Throne"). The true Egyptian pronunciation remains uncertain, however, because hieroglyphs do not indicate vowels. Based on recent studies which present us with approximations based on contemporary languages (specifically, Greek) and Coptic evidence, the reconstructed pronunciation of her name is *Usat [*ˈʔyːsəʔ]. Osiris's name, *Usir also starts with the throne glyph ʔs.[7]

7. The name "Isis" survived in Coptic dialects as Ēse or Ēsi, as well as in compound names such as "Har-si-Ese", which means "Horus, son of Isis".


**side note** doesn't the reconstructed names sound so beautiful, whether you believe it was a 'u' or 'a' or 'i' in these names?  I'm sure the language sounded so beautiful to the ear!!

[Admin]

so you are arguing that H is pronounced u because there is an Egyptian word that an ancient civilization over 2000km away from Egypt over heard it with u

[Anaksunamun]

No 
This was the original question:

Is there a rule which says when Coptic H is pronounced as "aa" and when as "ii"?

How are the Egyptian Gods CHT (Seth) and HCЄ (Isis) pronounced in reconstructed/late Coptic pronunciation? Saat, Aasa? [or Siit, Iisa?]

What I'm saying is based upon "all" of the aforementioned research, that Coptic "H" probably represented an original high vowel ('u' or 'i') or represented an original Egyptian dipthong ('aw',  'ew', 'iw') and these sounds (other than 'aw') are not related to a back vowel ('a') . Thus into the transition to Coptic for some reason the sounds were changed to 'ee'.  It is possible through Greek that the sounds may have been further altered. But at least to me it just doesn't make any sense, especially if 'H ' was pronounced 'ee', where does the 'a' sound come from?

As far as the Akkadians hearing st(k) as šuta, well it matches with ?úsat and the coincidences that both names in Coptic and Greek also spell it with a fronted or central vowel ('i', 'u' or 'ee') just makes further sense that ' H' isn't pronounced as an 'a' in these Egyptian words when they could have spelled it with an obvious 'a' if that was the pronunciation.

[Anaksunamun]

Its the first time for me to know that H had original u sound in ancient Egypt.
Would you like to give some examples about that?
Also I am pretty sure hieroglyphics didn't write down the vowels so how did you know Seth's name was Sutak?

You made me wrack my brain with some other examples of Coptic 'H' =Egyptian long "u", and I accidentally came across some more examples (these are examples from Loprieno Antonio 's book linguistic Egyptian language :

     Coptic  (h)H -  Egyptian h3.t (beginning) [hu: Rit] **h has a dot under it**
     Coptic  (h)H -  Egyptian h(w).t (body) [hu: wat]  **h has a  _ under it**
    
    

[Admin]

I don't know Coptic translation for the word "body".  what is the exact spelling of the Coptic word so that I can look it up?
as for the word beginning its proper spelling is ϩⲉ (pronounced ha or hae) and yes the ancient letter 3 was later replaced by any of the letters that had "a" sound (ⲁ, ⲉ, ⲏ) just like how English today replace 3 in Arabic names with the letter a. I don't see how does that example prove ⲏ was pronounced u

[Anaksunamun]

I don't know Coptic translation for the word "body".  what is the exact spelling of the Coptic word so that I can look it up?
as for the word beginning its proper spelling is ϩⲉ (pronounced ha or hae) and yes the ancient letter 3 was later replaced by any of the letters that had "a" sound (ⲁ, ⲉ, ⲏ) just like how English today replace 3 in Arabic names with the letter a. I don't see how does that example prove ⲏ was pronounced u

I'm sorry, I don't have access to Coptic letters on my device

But according to Loprieno Antonio, the spelling of the  Coptic word for "beginning" is the same spelling for "body", same word from two different hieroglyphic spellings with two different meanings in Coptic.

In my Coptic dictionary I am unable to find either word. I found that information within the book by Antonio Loprieno, it'sin my notes. 

Yes the 3 was later used as a vowel especially in Late Egyptian renditions of foreign words but according to the syllable structure there must be a vowel that precedes it or follows it if it was not used as a vowel in which case 'h3.t' was initially pronounced 'h_3 +_t'  not 'h3_t' and here I don't believe 3 represented a vowel but yet it was a consonant which did not make it to Coptic, as the Coptic rendition is (h)H with 3 and original feminine ending missing because it was no longer pronounced.

[Admin]

I checked Crum and you are right its ϩⲏ not ϩⲉ
http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/crum/ppages/CrumP164537.gif

Still as far as I am concerned that proves ⲏ was used for the ancient letter 3 . it doesn't prove ⲏ was pronounced u.

[Anaksunamun]

Here's another example of 'H' = long Egyptian 'u' :

(Sahairic) KHME,  XHMT -  Egypt = (Egyptian)  km.t [ k(h)u: mat]