DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1167#0032
literary variety of Coptic throughout Egypt because the center of Coptic culture was
situated in the north-west of the country (Alexandria was the residence of the Coptic
patriarch, the monasteries of the WadT 'n-Natran were major sites of book production).
Bohairic is the dialect in which all Coptic liturgical texts have been written from
medieval times until today. Local traditions about the pronunciation have been largely
superseded by the Bohairic dialect propagated by the Coptic church. Traces of other
dialects can, however, be found in the onomastic material (see Vycichl 1936: 170). For
example, the modern name of the town /?ax'mi:m/ in middle Egypt < Egyptian hnty-mnw
lacks the palatalization <h> /x/ > /J/ (cf. Sahidic/ Bohairic UfAlti) and can only be
explained from the Akhmimic dialect of the Coptic language where /x/ was regularly
preserved (Kg" §3.8.4).
Patriarch Cyrillus IV (1854-1861) introduced another change in the way liturgical texts
are read. He inaugurated a so-called "reformed pronunciation" of the Coptic letters
which is modelled on the pronunciation the equivalent letters have in Modern Greek.
This reformed pronunciation is prevalent among Copts in Modern Egypt.
Coptic loans and place names which were taken over into modern Arabic nowadays fit
into the phonological system of the Arabic vernacular, and there are no phonological or
phonetic traits specific to them. However, the case might have been different with older
habits of pronouncing Coptic liturgical texts. Prince (1902: 291) emphasizes the phonetic
peculiarity of the Coptic liturgical pronounciation of his days:
"In spite of the ignorance of the priesthood, they have for ceremonial
reasons been at great pains to hand down the traditionally correct pronunci-
ation of their religious language. Indeed, so different to the intonation of
Arabic is the tone of the Coptic as uttered by the priests of to-day that no
one can reasonably assert that Arabic has had any influence on the pronun-
ciation of the church language."
Sobhy (1915: 15) makes a somewhat ambiguous statement on the pronunciation of Coptic
liturgies:
"I believe that an ordinary uneducated priest [...] has the inherent power of
forming the sounds of the different characters in the language of his
forefathers. Indeed he pronounces the Arabic language itself as if it were
Coptic. Often and often this fact struck me while I was at Church, standing
at a distance from the officiating priest, when it was impossible for me —
and I believe for many others - to decide whether he was chanting in Arabic
or in Coptic."
It is unclear whether what struck these authors was the presence of specifically Coptic
sounds, or simply the absence of typically Arabic sounds in the Coptic recitations. In
§ 3.12.5 I discuss evidence which seems to indicate that Late Coptic indeed retained a
specific pronunciation /pY, unfamiliar to Arabic, of the letter 6 until quite recently. But
this sound has ultimately been replaced by /w/ in the modern liturgical pronunciation of
Coptic in Egypt.
situated in the north-west of the country (Alexandria was the residence of the Coptic
patriarch, the monasteries of the WadT 'n-Natran were major sites of book production).
Bohairic is the dialect in which all Coptic liturgical texts have been written from
medieval times until today. Local traditions about the pronunciation have been largely
superseded by the Bohairic dialect propagated by the Coptic church. Traces of other
dialects can, however, be found in the onomastic material (see Vycichl 1936: 170). For
example, the modern name of the town /?ax'mi:m/ in middle Egypt < Egyptian hnty-mnw
lacks the palatalization <h> /x/ > /J/ (cf. Sahidic/ Bohairic UfAlti) and can only be
explained from the Akhmimic dialect of the Coptic language where /x/ was regularly
preserved (Kg" §3.8.4).
Patriarch Cyrillus IV (1854-1861) introduced another change in the way liturgical texts
are read. He inaugurated a so-called "reformed pronunciation" of the Coptic letters
which is modelled on the pronunciation the equivalent letters have in Modern Greek.
This reformed pronunciation is prevalent among Copts in Modern Egypt.
Coptic loans and place names which were taken over into modern Arabic nowadays fit
into the phonological system of the Arabic vernacular, and there are no phonological or
phonetic traits specific to them. However, the case might have been different with older
habits of pronouncing Coptic liturgical texts. Prince (1902: 291) emphasizes the phonetic
peculiarity of the Coptic liturgical pronounciation of his days:
"In spite of the ignorance of the priesthood, they have for ceremonial
reasons been at great pains to hand down the traditionally correct pronunci-
ation of their religious language. Indeed, so different to the intonation of
Arabic is the tone of the Coptic as uttered by the priests of to-day that no
one can reasonably assert that Arabic has had any influence on the pronun-
ciation of the church language."
Sobhy (1915: 15) makes a somewhat ambiguous statement on the pronunciation of Coptic
liturgies:
"I believe that an ordinary uneducated priest [...] has the inherent power of
forming the sounds of the different characters in the language of his
forefathers. Indeed he pronounces the Arabic language itself as if it were
Coptic. Often and often this fact struck me while I was at Church, standing
at a distance from the officiating priest, when it was impossible for me —
and I believe for many others - to decide whether he was chanting in Arabic
or in Coptic."
It is unclear whether what struck these authors was the presence of specifically Coptic
sounds, or simply the absence of typically Arabic sounds in the Coptic recitations. In
§ 3.12.5 I discuss evidence which seems to indicate that Late Coptic indeed retained a
specific pronunciation /pY, unfamiliar to Arabic, of the letter 6 until quite recently. But
this sound has ultimately been replaced by /w/ in the modern liturgical pronunciation of
Coptic in Egypt.