Our Coptic language > Old pronunciation vs new debate
Classical Coptic Pronunciation
Andrew:
Hi Canis Majoris:
< I hope that Egyptians can reclaim their native language. >
I hope so, too. You provided a very good summary of revival of Classical languages and modern pronunciations.
< Greco-Bohairic is most useful for continuation of the Orthodox Church's pronunciation of liturgy. Mostly priests, Coptic Christians, and clergy would learn this pronunciation. >
I completely agree. Coptic language is in danger of being used less and less in the liturgy. It would be very useful to teach congregations how to follow prayers in Greek and Bohairic without confusing them with the AB pronunciation. Teaching people to converse in Bohairic should be of secondary importance.
Ⲟⲩϫⲁⲓ ϧⲉⲛ Ⲡ̀ϭⲥ
Ⲁⲛⲇⲣⲉⲁⲥ
bashandy:
With respect to pronunciation. I would like to clarify my terminology first. I'll use classic Bohairic for the proposed scholarly one, old Bohairic (documented by Worrell, Sobhy & Ishak) and Greco-bohairic. The three of them cannot be equated or compared properly.
Classical Bohairic is a system proposed by scholars based on ancient Greek. It is speculative in nature and does not aim to provide a comprehensive framework for speaking, it is stated as standard for scholars working with manuscripts and not for talking or praying.
Old Bohairic was recorded by phonetic linguists compared with manuscripts and bilingual texts in 20,19,18,17,16 and 10th century. In addition to correlation with ancient Egyptian. There's staggering amount of evidence to it from bilingual and monolingual manuscripts. Yes, there's influence of Arabic and Greek but this applies to OB and GB this is inevitable, it's not as simple as v or p sound. It has to do with the quality of aspiration of consonants, vowel morphology and sound, overall power, nasal tones, the quality of fricatives, stresses of speech and intonation.
As for GB it's important to define which Greco-bohairic one is talking about. Iryan Moftah proposed a system where theta ⲑ is pronounced as th unless preceded by shai or sima ⲥ, ϣ later tav ⲧ was added to list.
Moftah also proposed that sima ⲥ is to be pronounced as a except when preceded by mi ⲙ it is to be pronounced as z. This applies to all vocabulary. Later, Claudius Labib restricted this rule to Greek words. Moftah also proposed that tav ⲧ is to be pronounced as t except when preceded by ni ⲛ it is to be pronounced as d in all words irrespective of their etymology. Claudius Labib later restricted this rule to Greek words only. Moftah stated that phi ⲫ is pronunciation as f. Claudius Labib in his Akhomvat books stated clearly that it is only pronounced as f in Greek words and v in Coptic words. Others proposed that in words with two djandjia both are to be pronounced as dj as in ϫⲁϫⲓ, ϫⲓϫ, etc. Many proposed that the alpha ⲁ is to be pronounced as â as in far, while abba Demetrios postulated many words to be pronounced as a as in fat.
Practically, the repetitive changes in the rules of GB create a certain degree of chaos. Also, in real life what's mostly pronounced in Egyptian churches is a different thing so ⲃ can vary from v to f, delta ⲇ is almost invariably pronounced as z not dh. Theta ⲑ is pronunsed as s instead of th. Pi ⲡ is pronounced as b. Sima became a mess of s, z because of contradiction, the same with ⲫ phi (v & f).and a bit of lack of clarity about djandjia ϫ.
What I hear in churches would be ⲉⲑⲃⲉ ezve, ⲉⲩⲗⲟⲅⲉⲙⲉⲛⲟⲥ eflofemenoa, ⲡⲁⲡⲁ baba, ⲫⲏⲉⲧⲁϥⲑⲁⲙⲓⲟ fyetafsamio or vyetafsamio etc
On balance OB seems to be the supported and well documented by evidence, it is been live so as compared to others it's the only one that didn't start as a hypothetical pronunciation. Trying to pronounce coptic like Greek is a process of affectation Arabic words in Swahili, Turkish, Persian do not follow neither the grammar nor the pronunciation of the source language. The same with English pidgins and creoles. No linguist would say that they are pronouncing "wrong" because the indigenous system of pronunciation is different from the source language.
Andrew:
Hi Bashandy:
< Practically, the repetitive changes in the rules of GB create a certain degree of chaos. Also, in real life what's mostly pronounced in Egyptian churches is a different thing so ⲃ can vary from v to f, delta ⲇ is almost invariably pronounced as z not dh. Theta ⲑ is pronunsed as s instead of th. Pi ⲡ is pronounced as b. Sima c became a mess of s, z because of contradiction, the same with ⲫ phi (v & f).and a bit of lack of clarity about djandjia ϫ. >
Thank you for the thoughtful analysis. We know that majority of Egyptians do not pronounce "dh", "th", and "p" sounds, even though the former 2 sounds do exist in Arabic. Unfortunately, they replace these 2 with "z" and "s" sounds, respectively. In Koine Greek, and most probably Coptic, Delta was pronounced as "d" and Theta was close to a "t" sound. Both of these should be easy enough to learn.
The lack of clarity about Pi, Sigma, phi, and djandjia is bound to persist, again due to Egyptians' habits of pronunciation, especially in Cairo.
The issue with Beta and Phi is of particular interest. In Modern Greek, they are pronounced like "v" and "f," respectively. It is very unlikely that they were pronounced this way in Coptic. We cannot find the sound "v" in Ancient Egyptian. And the Ancient Egyptians added the letter fay for "f" sound. It would have been redundant to add this Demotic letter if Greek Alphabet already included the "f" sound.
So, it's more likely that Beta was pronounced "b" and Phi was pronounced "p-h" as in Classical Greek. A return to "b" sound is easy to teach. But the "p-h" sound is not easy to learn. You said that it is being alternately pronounced as "v" or "f". Perhaps it is best to leave it this way.
< On balance OB seems to be the supported and well documented by evidence, it is been live so as compared to others it's the only one that didn't start as a hypothetical pronunciation. >
Arabi-Bohairic may be "supported and well documented by evidence." It may, indeed, be the pronunciation that existed in 1600 AD. But I believe the attempt to change liturgical pronunciation would increase the chaos that you described so convincingly in your post. The goal is finding the most effective way to revive liturgical Greek and Bohairic among younger generations.
Thank you again.
Ⲁⲛⲇⲣⲉⲁⲥ
bashandy:
Thank you for your reply.
Redundancy of letters is a phenomenon that is non-existent in most planned languages e.g. Esperanto, Toki Pona etc. With natural languages, redundancies occur. In English language for example:
The letter C could be completely substituted by S, KThe letter Q could be subtituted with KThe letter S is pronounced as S (sad), Z (as), Sh (Sure, Sugar), J (television) or silent (island)The sound z is produced mostly by S, while Z occursThe sounds Ch, Th, Dh, Sh, are commonly occuring with no specific letter to correspond with that.The letter Y, could sound like IThe double letter OO, could be U (blood), or O (door), or OO (poor)
In Greek there are six ways to give the voice of IIn Russian the theta letter was pronounced as F, only in 1918 they removed it. There are no evidence to support that it was pronounced otherwise.
In short what I am trying to say is that, writing system develop over decades and sometimes hundreds of years, it develops in different geographical areas and once a generation, gets used to writing something in a certain manner, or important texts are written or distributed it can persist, writing systems are very difficult to work in backward engineering manner, and try to find a logic to what happened exactly as the input is so complicated, multifaceted, with no apparent logic(s) at times.
OB pronunciation is a bit older than 1600 AD, there are manuscripts that are older, up to manuscripts written as Arabic in Coptic letters around the 9th & 10th century. Older texts show mixing between Delta & Daw, Wida & ha, Bashmuric dialect (written entirely in only Greek letters) used phi to denote fai. This is not to say that OB was the one and only pronunciation that was used everytime and everywhere. It just provide sufficient evidence towards its authenticity. I am relying on the PhD by Dr Emile Maher and other resources from Coptic sounds.
I have no inclination of changing the church's pronunciation or anyone's pronunciation for what it matters. This is none of my business, the church is lead by church leaders, they decide on these matters. I guess I am concerned with providing supporting evidence for the OB pronunciation. Language revival would require a goal, motivation, proper pedagogical approach, time and money. Chaos inevitably happens if there is lack of proper planning and proper implementation, this applies to any aspect of life.
I am reciting attempts to address chaos; with respect to language reform towards OB, or other pronunciations Dr Emile Maher proposed starting with Deacon's responses as they are sung solo, then moving forward. Dr Kamal Farid Isaac, proposed a middle pronunciation which he sees as an authentic one in his rejected PhD to the Higher Institute of Coptic Studies (2009), where each unit of time (decade) one letter pronunciation is changed. I do not necessarily endorse anyway of these methods. I guess it is people's right to know exactly the history of their language. What any person does with it, or what people agree on, is a matter for public decision and organisational implementation.
Andrew:
Hi Bashandy:
Thank you for the thoughtful comments.
< I have no inclination of changing the church's pronunciation or anyone's pronunciation for what it matters. This is none of my business, the church is lead by church leaders, they decide on these matters. I guess I am concerned with providing supporting evidence for the OB pronunciation. Language revival would require a goal, motivation, proper pedagogical approach, time and money. >
Most people would agree with this. Proposing to completely change Church Bohairic to AB would cause quite a bit of chaos. However, one may suggest that pronunciation of certain letters needs to be adjusted (I suggested ⲃ, ⲇ, and ⲑ). One should accept that we will never be able to understand the authentic redundancy of letters in Coptic.
< What any person does with it, or what people agree on, is a matter for public decision and organisational implementation. >
Exactly.
ⲁⲛⲇⲣⲉⲁⲥ
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