Dialect Priority

[Anok]

Ⲛⲟϥⲣⲓ,

I think that it is good that we include dialectical variations. However the words in the index seem to be listed according to Sahidic spelling. Is this just because it is how Crum lists them?

I am not so sure that we should organize our new resources based on Crum. It is a primarily academic work, and since most texts are in Sahidic, it makes sense that Crum would have Sahidic ordering. However, we are part of a revival effort, and Sahidic is dead while Bohairic is still alive (if only barely).

Also, having all the dialects be equal causes problems like ⲛⲑⲟϥ (B) = ⲛⲧⲟϥ (S) "he," but ⲛⲧⲟϥ (B) means "below..." Eventually these little details will require a huge amount of variance and redirect-page work. I am not sure that this is worth it, when only Bohairic is truly alive still. In this case it would be best to have the ⲛⲧⲟϥ page mean primarily

So I think that we should organize the wiki by Bohairic, and order the dialects by Bohairic > Sahidic > other dialects. If a word only exists in a non-Bohairic dialect, then that is fine, and it can be added into the index - if Coptic is revived it can then use re-borrow that word into Bohairic.

If I am missing something important, let me know. I actually know more Sahidic than Bohairic, but am trying to learn Bohairic because, as I have said, it is still alive.

Thoughts?

[Admin]

I wouldn't agree that Bohairic is alive. just because people pray with it in church without understanding what they are saying doesn't make it alive.
its like saying latin is alive.
There are no native Coptic speaker anymore Bohairic or Sahidic.
There is only one family that claims they speak Coptic at home but that's only because the grandfather of this family decided to learn Coptic and talk in it at home. although children learned Coptic there are only as good as their grandparent not a native speakers in anyway. the grandchildren are abandoning Coptic again.

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About using Bohairic as the word index. I like Bohairic more than Sahidic but Sahidic has a much richer vocab. than Bohairic.
Trying to use Bohairic as main index will result an index half in Bohairic and half in Sahidic - because really so many words in Sahdic not in Bohairic -

Also if we follow Crum we avoid duplication of entries. I can tell people to use Crum as reference for the word entry.
if I adopt mixed Bohairic/Sahidic index we will have no reference and probably end up with lots of duplications.

for end user the index is not at all important because he will just use the search feature to find the word he is looking for.

What do you think?

[Anok]

I think that is reasonable. I would also like to see Coptic revived... I understand that there are fewer Bohairic words though, so what you are saying is reasonable. If anything, if a revival effort does succeed,  it will likely be generally Bohairic due to the influence of the Church, but borrow heavily from the richer vocabulary of Sahidic.

I will change the main entries to Sahidic. If, however, there are not contradictions, I will keep the redirect pages for Bohairic words, so that if people that speak Bohairic (most people, right?) want to search that way, they can. If there are contradictions (which there should not be too many of) I can make a disambiguation page.

I think that your point is correct, but I am not sure we can ignore that most people interested in Coptic are more familiar with Bohairic.

How about that?

[Admin]

Index names is not important to the user at all, its like page names.
a user either have Coptic word he wants to know its meaning or has English word and want to know its Coptic meaning.
in either case the user will not look in any indexes, he will do a search and he will find his word through search.

using Crum index names is to ensure two people will not write two different pages for the same word.

[ophadece]

I still disagree.. Coptic is not dead and hence Bohairic used in the church. Yes it's ignorantly used and probably no one knows the correct original dialect anymore, although I doubt that, but that doesn't make it a dead language..
Oujai

[Anok]

Either way it is worth treating it like it's alive. We need to think of more ways to spread the language. If there are more people here looking to focus on reviving Coptic through Bohairic, it will be easy to transition the wiki to Bohairic since all the entries will be there.

I was thinking of making a category for each dialect... This would allow me to put the Bohairic redirect pages into their own listed pages... Therefore it would create a Bohairic dictionary page, while maintaining main wiki in Sahidic.

Thoughts?
 I tend to agree with Ophadece that Bohairic will be increasingly useful of Coptic becomes more popular. Nobody will argue that Sahidic is dead. I think it's value is mostly for enriching what is still spoken with its vocabulary.

[Admin]

From the English dictionary:

dead lan·guage
noun
noun: dead language; plural noun: dead languages
    a language no longer in everyday spoken use, such as Latin.

Reviving Bohairic in the way it is now is very hard because of the introduction of letters many Egyptian still can't pronounce like [ Th and V ]. Teaching the old pronunciation is even harder - because most people want to learn to pray in the Church.
lake of none Christian books in Bohairic is another obstacle. if you learn Bohairic you are stuck with the bible - not even all of it - and some saint story and Church prayers

still I am not against reviving Bohairic and would support any effort in that direction

[Anok]

Indeed, I am merely saying Bohairic because the majority of people interested in learning Coptic are in the Coptic Church and it uses Bohairic. I agree that the traditional pronunciation should be restored because it flows more naturally with the language, is more easily easily pronounced by speakers of Egyptian Arabic... And since I have heard there is a Coptic lexicon borrowed into Egyptian Arabic it would obviously be in the old pronunciation (as Maher points out in his pronunciation work)  and therefore more easily learned in every way by modern Egyptians.

I see some good steps as follows :

1. Try to spread the old pronunciation, its merits and importance to revival, especially to the church officials who are preserving the language and teaching it.

2. Spread interest in the language however possible. Make it clear that it is the Egyptian language and not just a Christian language, that the church has simply been preserving it.

3. Translate Sahidic and other works into Bohairic, and use words that do not exist  or are unknown in Bohairic to enrich is vocabulary.

4. Produce new Coptic media ; books, blogs, zines, music, video, anything. Make it a viable option to be exposed to Coptic throughout the day. Translate modern things into Coptic.

All of these things are projects that any of us could do no matter where we live.

[ophadece]

Dear admin,
Don't rely on the internet English dictionary definition. By scientific standards neither Coptic or Latin is dead.
Oujai

[Anaksunamun]

What about the other dialects too, like Akhmimic, Lycopolitan and Fayyumic?
Some of the vowels differ throughout the dialects and Fayyumic favors the letter 'L' in lieu ofCoptic 'P' (the English letter 'r') in most of their words. Fayyumic vocabulary is very difficult to find and it adds to the iintegral history of the pronunciation between ancient Egyptian and Coptic and thus just as important as Sahidic and Bohairic.

[Anok]

All entries should include the Akhmimic, Fayyumic, Lycopolitan, and any other known Coptic dialects. I will probably end up using disambiguation pages to make it so that any dialect can be used to search the wiki.

It is, however, a much more involved process. New pages and redirects need to be made for every word variation.
 
Once I get back to this project in a couple of weeks I will begin this and write guidelines so that everyone can use the same system.

[Admin]

You could make an entry for each dialect and link them but its would be easier if you just put all the dialects in one page like this
http://wiki.danacbe.com/index.php/%E2%B2%80%E2%B2%83%E2%B2%B1

[Anok]

Yes, I intend to keep it so that there is only one main entry for each word, but make it so that searching in any dialect will lead to the same unified page.

The only way I know to do this now is to make redirects, but I will look for better ways before I begin. Still, I have already done this for the pronouns and it looks clean and functional to me. You?

[Admin]

I am not sure I understand
If you search for  ⲁⲃⲱ, ⲁⲃⲟⲩ or ⲁⲃⲟⲟⲩⲉ you will land in the same page

[Anok]

Yes, and also abw, abou, and abooue. But I have only done this for pronouns so far; ⲛⲑⲟⲕ, ⲛⲧⲟⲕ, ⲛⲧⲁⲕ, ntok, n;ok etc. will all land in the same page, for example.