Coptic is an endangered Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken natively in Egypt from roughly the third century CE until Arabic took over as the official language of the government (Tikkanen,2009). Coptic no longer has native speakers, but it is still utilized in both the Coptic Orthodox and Coptic Catholic Churches’ liturgies on a regular basis. The Coptic alphabet is based on 24 Greek letters and six extra characters taken from the Demotic Egyptian script (depending on the dialect). The Coptic alphabet varies by dialect, but it is commonly written left to right in a straight series. It is also remarkable for being the first Egyptian script to properly designate vowels, and it is classified as a bicameral script, which means it has both capital and lowercase letters (Richter, 2022).It can not be transformed into slang, nor are there abbreviations for words. Coptic initially did not discriminate between uppercase and lowercase letters, but throughout time, the script grew to include these case distinctions. Verbs in Coptic can have several forms depending on their function in a sentence. The “absolute” form is the default in dictionaries; the “construct” form is used when a noun object follows the verb (and only applies to transitive verbs); the “pronominal” form is used when a pronoun suffix is added to the verb (again, only for transitive verbs); and the “qualitative” form expresses a state resulting from the verb’s action (Lance Eccles).
As the last phase of the ancient Egyptian language, Coptic has several dialects that reflect regional variations within Egypt, which happened to evolve after the adoption of the Greek alphabet. They, enriched with some demotic symbols, served as a bridge between ancient Egyptian and the early Christian and Hellenistic cultures in Egypt. They include the Sahidic/Theban- this type of Coptic dialect that is the most commonly and widely known and studied as it originated in Upper Egypt around the region of Thebes and turned out to be the dominant literary dialect by the 3rd century AD. It was mostly used by a relatively large body of religious and secular texts, where it served as the standard dialect of early Coptic Christianity and managed to remain influential until the decline of Coptic as a spoken language (Allen, 2020). Bohairic/ Memphitic- this dialect emerged in the Nile Delta region, specifically around the areas of Alexandria and Memphis, where today, it is being used as a Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria for liturgical purposes (Winand, 2022). After the Islamic conquest of Egypt in the 7th century, the Bohairic dialect gradually managed to replace Sahidic for church usage and kept on as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church. Akhmimic- this dialect is native to the Akhmim region in Upper Egypt, where its manuscripts provide evidence of early Coptic texts, such as biblical translations and apocryphal literature, but it was not extensively used as Sahidic, where it eventually faded in favor of the latter (Allen, 2020). Lycopolitan- this type of dialect is closely linked to Akhmimic, but it happens to possess or exhibit different linguistic features, and it was spoken in the areas around Lycopolis in Upper Egypt. Despite its less widespread use, it plays a significant role in understanding regional linguistic diversity and the evolution of Sahidic since the text in this dialect offers essential insights regarding the early development of Coptic. Fayyumic- this dialect was spoken in the Fayyum region southwest of Cairo, where it plays a significant role in portraying unique phonological and lexical features distinguishing it from other dialects, and it is considered relatively rare (Winand, 2022). Mesokemic/ Oxyrhynchite- this dialect was commonly used in the Oxyrhynchus region of Middle Egypt, and it is primarily known from fragments of manuscripts such as the biblical and liturgical texts (Allen, 2020). In addition, the dialect affinities with both Sahidic and Fayyumic happen to remain distinct in their linguistic features.
