The spoken and literary language of the Egyptians changed throughout the almost 4 thousand-year history of the people and went through five successive stages of its development. In the scientific literature they distinguish: the language of the Ancient Kingdom - the ancient Egyptian language; Middle Egyptian is a classical language, so called because the best literary works, which were later considered role models, were written in it; New Egyptian language (XVI-VIII centuries BC); demotic language (8th century BC - 5th century AD); Coptic language (III-VII centuries AD). Despite the continuity between these languages, each of them was a distinct language with a different grammatical and lexical structure. The relationship between them was approximately the same, for example, as between the Old Slavic, Old Russian and Russian languages. In any case, the Egyptian of the New Kingdom could hardly understand the speech of his ancestor living during the Middle Kingdom, not to mention more ancient eras. The Egyptian language was the spoken living language of the indigenous population of the Nile Valley and practically did not go beyond its borders even during the creation of the great Egyptian Empire in the era of the New Kingdom. The Egyptian language became dead (that is, it was not spoken) already in the 3rd century. n. e., when it was replaced by the Coptic language. From the 7th century n. e. Coptic began to be replaced by the language of the conquerors - the Arabs and gradually began to be forgotten. Currently, about 4.5 million Copts (Christian Egyptians) live in the Arab Republic of Egypt, who speak Arabic, but services are conducted in Coptic, the last relic of the ancient Egyptian language.
Writing of Egypt
For fixation various phenomena diverse life and economic activity the ancients created a unique and complex writing system that could convey different shades of thought and complex movements human soul. Egyptian writing originated at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e., went through a long path of formation and as a developed system emerged by the time of the Middle Kingdom. Its original basis was pictorial writing, pictography, in which each word or concept (for example, “sun,” “house,” or “capture”) was depicted in the form of corresponding drawings (sun, house, or people with tied hands).
Over time, as control became more complex and the need for more frequent use of writing for various needs, picture signs began to be simplified. Individual drawings began to depict not only these specific concepts of the sun, house, bull, etc., but sound combinations, syllables, with the help of a set of which many other words and concepts could be expressed.
Egyptian writing was composed of a certain set of signs that convey the sounds of spoken words, symbols and stylized drawings that explain the meaning of these words and concepts. Such written signs are called hieroglyphs, and Egyptian writing is called hieroglyphs. By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. The most commonly used hieroglyphs numbered about 700, and in the Greco-Roman era - several thousand. Thanks to the organic combination of signs denoting syllables, ideograms explaining the meaning of the word, and determinative drawings, as if finally clarifying the concept as a whole, the Egyptians were able to accurately and clearly convey not only simple facts of reality and economics, but also complex shades of abstract thought or artistic image .
The materials for writing hieroglyphs were: stone (walls of temples, tombs, sarcophagi, steles, obelisks, statues, etc.), clay shards (ostracons), wood (sarcophagi, boards, etc.), leather scrolls. Widely used papyrus. Papyrus “paper” was made from specially prepared stems of the papyrus plant, which grew in abundance in the backwaters of the Nile. Individual sheets of papyrus were glued together into scrolls, the length of which usually reached several meters, but we know of scrolls 20 m and even 45 m long (the so-called Great Harris Papyrus). Scribes usually wrote with a brush made from the stem of the marsh plant calamus, one end of which the scribe chewed. A brush soaked in water was dipped into a recess with red or black paint (ink).
If the text was written on solid material, the scribe carefully traced each hieroglyph, but if the recording was made on papyrus, then the hieroglyphic signs were deformed and modified beyond recognition compared to the original sample. This is how it turned out to be a kind of italic hieroglyphic writing, which is called hieratic writing or hieratic. The relationship between hieroglyphics and hieratics can be compared to the difference between printed font and handwritten writing.
From VIII B. BC e. appeared the new kind writing, in which several characters, previously written separately, now merge into one character, which speeds up the process of writing texts and thereby contributed to the spread of writing. This type of writing is called demotic, demotic (i.e., folk) writing.
The gradual improvement of writing led to the identification of 21 simple signs depicting individual consonant sounds. Essentially, these were the first alphabetic signs. On their basis, alphabetic writing developed in the southern kingdom of Meroe. However, in Egypt itself, alphabetic characters did not supplant the more cumbersome, but more familiar hieroglyphic system. Alphabetic characters were used in this system as its organic part.
Egypt is a state located on two continents at once: in Africa (southeastern part) and Asia. This is one of ancient countries, having a rich and interesting story and culture. Initially, the ancient Egyptian state was located only along the lower part of the Nile, but over time it grew, increasing its territory many times over.
Factors influencing language diversity
When wondering what language its inhabitants speak in Egypt, it is impossible to immediately settle on just one. Of course, Arabic is the official language in the country. However, one cannot overlook the fact that the state, which originally existed as an ancient Egyptian civilization, was influenced by the Roman Empire. When Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire, the development of speech was also affected by the Islamic conquest. Nowadays, the spread of Western values, the emergence modern technologies also influenced the development of the linguistic abilities of the Egyptians. This is noticeable not only in Cairo, Alexandria and other famous tourist resorts, but also in the most remote corners of the state.
Of course, tourists traveling to this wonderful, hospitable country need to know its location, visa nuances, flight duration and, of course, what language is spoken in Egypt. After all, when you are in another country, it is very important to have information about the correct communication with local residents and hotel staff. And although Arabic is the official language in Egypt, it differs significantly from the Arabic known in other countries. And French and English are very often used by the population in everyday life.
Arabic
In today's speech of Egyptians there are many archaisms and foreign words. What language is used in Egypt on television, radio, print media, jurisprudence, and business communication during negotiations? Of course - Arabic.
His classic shape based on the Koran as early as the seventh century AD. Knowing it, you can safely and confidently visit most Arab countries.
Egyptian dialects
Egypt is very beautiful in its cultural uniqueness. What language do native Egyptians speak? Mainly in the local characteristic dialect - Masri. It is used by the population to communicate more often in everyday life and in markets. It is also used in folk songs.
Egypt is very rightly considered the “Arab Hollywood”, because the majority of music and films are created here in Arabic. In this regard, residents of countries such as Syria, Tunisia, Algeria are also familiar with Masri, which stimulates its study in the future. Among the various dialects in English, it is the most popular.
Understanding which language is the least spoken in Egypt, we can come to the conclusion that it is Coptic. It is used only occasionally during church ceremonies.
English, French or Russian
It should be noted that since their school years, Egyptian youth have been responsibly studying foreign languages. First of all, English is one of them.
Historically, under the influence of former neighbors in Egypt, it is still widespread French. In some aristocratic circles, speaking Arabic is not accepted - it is considered a sign of lack of education.
As surprising as it may sound, many Egyptians are also familiar with the Russian language. A large flow of tourists from Russia forces resourceful local residents to study it for more pleasant communication with vacationers and improve the level of service.
In fact, it is not so important what language locals and vacationers speak in Egypt. The most important thing is human relationships leading to mutual understanding, friendliness and responsiveness.
The first records of the Egyptian language date back to 4200. BC The Egyptian language belongs to the Afro-Asiatic group of languages and is related to the Hamitic (North African) and Semitic (Arabic and Hebrew) groups of languages. The language survives as part of the Coptic language, which is used as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church, and as the mother tongue of many Egyptian Copts and the diaspora. Thus, the Egyptian language is the oldest fixed language known to modern man.
Development of the Egyptian language
No language can exist without changes for several thousand years. The reasons for these changes may be borrowings, attempts to simplify the language, etc. The Egyptian language was no exception. Scientists identify 5 periods of formation of the Egyptian language:
Ancient Egyptian
Language of the period I-VIII Dynasties, approximately 4200-2240 BC. This includes the language of the pyramid texts. Basically, the surviving documents of this period are of an official nature: these are grave inscriptions with biographical texts, burial rules. Ancient Egyptian, with minor changes, passes into Middle Egyptian.
Middle Egyptian
Perhaps this is a local dialect of the period IX-XI Dynasties 2240-1990 BC, which was later polluted by new folk elements. In its later form it survived in literary monuments until the time of the Greco-Roman Empire, while its earlier form survived as a religious language.
Late Egyptian
The vernacular language of the period of the XVIII-XXIV Dynasties, approximately 1573-715 BC, is clearly represented in business documents and letters, as well as in histories and other literary works, and to some extent in official inscriptions early XIX Dynasties. However, there are several texts in which the vernacular language is not mixed with the classical expressions of Middle Egyptian.
Demotic
This term is widely applied to book language and the language of handwritten documents. The Demotic language is known from the time of the XXV Dynasty to the time of the Roman Empire (715 BC - 470 AD). Here too, ancient classical expressions are intertwined with later folk elements.
Coptic
The ancient Egyptian language, in its latest revision, is recorded in Coptic manuscripts from the end of the first millennium AD: it has this name because it was spoken by Copts, the Christian descendants of the ancient Egyptians. After Arab conquest 641 AD, Coptic was gradually replaced by Arabic and almost ceased to exist as a spoken language in the 16th century. In the Greek alphabet, Coptic is represented by seven special letters derived from hieroglyphs. Over the last century, the Coptic language has received increasing attention.
Ancient Egyptian language
Egyptian is a typical Afro-Asiatic language. Egyptian word formation is based on a root of three consonants. Sometimes there are only two letters, as in the word “rA” (sun); sometimes the number of consonants reaches five, for example "sxdxd" (upside down). Vowels and other consonants are added to this root to form words. However, it is unknown what kind of vowels these were, since the Egyptians, like other Afro-Asiatic languages, did not write vowels: for example, the word “ankh” can mean “live”, “life”, “dwelling”. In transcription, the sounds /a/ , /i/ and /u/ indicate consonants: for example, the name Tutankhamun is written in Egyptian as /twt "nkh ymn/ (the apostrophe indicates a glottal pause).
The usual word order in Egyptian is predicate-subject-object: for example, in Russian we would say “a man opens a door,” an Egyptian would say “a man opens a door.” In the early stages of development, Egyptian did not have articles; in later forms the words /pA/, /tA/ and /nA/ can be found as articles. Egyptian has two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine, like French and Irish; three grammatical numbers, as in Afro-Asiatic languages: singular, dual and plural. For example, in the sentence “the apple is red,” the adjective “red” plays the role of the nominal part of the predicate. The phonological system of the Egyptian language consists of bilabial, labio-dental, alveolar, palatal, velar, pharyngeal and glottal consonants. This system is very similar to the phonological system of Arabic.
Ancient Egyptian writing
The ancient Egyptians invented writing to record their spoken language about 60 centuries ago. It appears to have been first used to write a calendar. The system was that each word was assigned a symbol called a hieroglyph. Most people mean hieroglyphs when they talk about Egyptian writing. A hieroglyph is a picture/image of a specific object. Hieroglyphs can be used in three different ways: to designate the object that they symbolize; to denote a concept associated with the object that they symbolize; or to denote the sound of the word that they symbolize. For example, the hieroglyph of the word “sun” can mean the sun itself, light and heat (since the sun is a luminary and emits heat), or as the sound “sun”. In the later stages of language development (Middle and Late Egyptian), hieroglyphs were used to represent sounds. In the Demotic and Coptic languages, hieroglyphs completely cease to be used. This is because the use of hieroglyphs could lead to the formation of dictionaries gigantic size. Therefore, the Egyptians took a different path: they took several hieroglyphs and began to use them to indicate sounds. The sound meaning of hieroglyphs depended on the sound of the word they represented. Thus, the hieroglyph for the word "mouth" was pronounced "ro" and came to represent the sound "r" in the new system. Approximately 130 hieroglyphs were used to represent sounds. Some denoted one sound, others two, and some even three sounds. Many hieroglyphs were added to indicate an idea or to manifest the meaning of a word. These were ideograms and due to them the number of hieroglyphs increased to 4000. This letter, called hieroglyphic, was beautiful in writing and colorful in design. It was used for inscriptions on Egyptian monuments, as well as in papyri texts.
Judging by the records, hieroglyphic writing underwent significant changes during the Ancient Egyptian period. During the Middle Egyptian period, hieroglyphics stabilized and hieroglyphs remained unchanged until their disappearance. Hieroglyphs were widely used in all forms of written texts throughout the Ancient and Middle Egyptian era. However, hieroglyphics were reserved only for important religious texts during the Demotic era and are therefore very rare throughout the Coptic period. The latest hieroglyphic inscription was found at Philae and dates back to 394 AD. It records the names of the Roman Emperors Diocletian (295) and Trojan Decius (249-251). As mentioned above, most hieroglyphs are not used to designate an object. They usually designate sounds, or are used as determiners, showing what type of word is used. Hieroglyphs can be written as follows:
- Horizontal, left to right
- Horizontally, from right to left
- Vertical, top to bottom
- Vertically from bottom to top
Cursive characters are usually written in columns, top to bottom or horizontally, bottom to top. In later surviving examples, cursive characters are written horizontally from right to left; and vertical hieroglyphs are read from top to bottom. It is very easy to determine in which direction the hieroglyphs are read, even if you do not understand their meaning. Hieroglyphs with a clearly defined beginning and end (for example, a human hieroglyph) usually:
- facing the beginning of the sentence
- facing the same direction as the image of a person or large object. For example, if the picture shows a seated person facing to the right, then all hieroglyphs with a certain beginning and end will also be facing to the right. Real hieroglyphs will always be read from right to left because their images almost always face the beginning of the sentence. Hieroglyphs that do not comply with this rule are called inverse.
In order to simplify reading, or because of the aesthetic sense of the Egyptians, hieroglyphs are grouped according to a special principle. For example, two or more narrow and small characters (depending on the direction in which they are written) will be written in the same block with each other. Sometimes a large and wide hieroglyph can be depicted in a reduced form and written next to another narrow and small one. And finally, there is no standard punctuation in hieroglyphs. In religious texts there are no punctuation marks at all, while later texts of the ancient Egyptian language are provided with periods between complete thoughts. Parallel to the development of hieroglyphic writing, another script arose. It was a simplification of the complex and intricate hieroglyphic writing. It was developed by priests to record temple inscriptions and then came to be used by government officials who were trained by priests to record state events. Due to the priestly origin of this letter, the name hieretic was attached to it. It uses the same symbols, just in a simplified form. There is no indication that this letter contained as many ideograms as the hieroglyphic one.
With the development of the state, the use of such a clumsy recording method became simply impossible. Therefore, in the 5th century BC. a new handwritten font was developed that was much simpler and included 10 percent of the previously used hieroglyphs. This font is referred to as demotic. The cursive and relatively ugly letters were compensated by the compactness of this font. Many surviving manuscripts are written in this script, but there is not a single inscription on the temple walls that was written in this script.
Deciphering Ancient Egyptian Language
Until recently, deciphering hieroglyphs was difficult due to attempts to attribute emotional meaning to hieroglyphs instead of the one they actually have. For example, people believed that the hieroglyph for the word "son" was depicted as a goose because their sons loved geese more than any other animal. It turns out that this hieroglyph was chosen because only the word “goose” had the same sound as the word “son”. Another difficulty was the lack of additional materials. Athanasius Kircher, a Coptic student, developed the idea that the latter stage of the development of the Egyptian language could be related to the earlier stages of its development. But he was unable to prove this idea, since he was not able to translate or transliterate hieroglyphs. However, in 1799, with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, scientists finally received samples of hieroglyphic, demotic and ancient Greek writing. And they were sure that these inscriptions on the Stone were translations of the same passage of text. In hieroglyphic script, the name of the King or Pharaoh or the names of God were surrounded by a circle called a cartouche. Jean-François Champollion, a young French scientist, showed how the name Cleopatra could be written in hieroglyphs. Moreover, using his deep knowledge of the Coptic language, he suggested that some hieroglyphs symbolizing everyday objects might sound the same as in Coptic. Applying this discovery to other well-known hieroglyphic records confirmed Champollion's theory, and linguistic scientists could now identify nouns, verbs, prepositions, and other parts of speech in the language.
Modern resources
Interest in the ancient Egyptian language continues to grow. For example, it is still being studied at Oxford University in London and elsewhere. Most studies are written in French, Italian and German, but very few are written in English language. In the movie Stargate, a linguist was tasked with developing a language that would be similar to the language of the ancient Egyptians, who lived for thousands of years on another planet. Egyptian culture, through Greek civilization, had a profound impact on Western culture, and the English language contains some words of Egyptian origin. But these ancient Egyptian words were transmitted in Greek form.
Definition
Coptic language is called ancient Egyptian written language late period. It would be more accurate to use the word Coptic in relation to the handwritten script than to the language itself. Although this script appeared in the 2nd century BC, it is usually mentioned from the 1st century AD as the written Egyptian language.
Origin of Coptic writing
In 313 BC. Alexander the Great conquered Egypt. The commander-in-chief Ptolemy became his successor. Alexander's legacy had a universal culture. It was a Hellenistic culture; a mixture of Greco-Hellenic culture with East Egyptian. With culture came a new language, so the educated classes began to learn Greek and encouraged their children to learn the language because... knowledge of Greek was an advantage in economic and social terms. In writing, Greek predominated over Demotic, the last remaining Egyptian script of the time. Greek had 24 pronounceable symbols, as opposed to the 400 symbols of the Egyptian language, of which only a small percentage were sounds, and all the remaining symbols were ideograms. It is important to note here that the Greeks borrowed their writing from the Egyptians through the Phoenicians, who frequently traveled throughout the ancient world. While trading with the Egyptians, the Phoenicians improved Egyptian writing and formed an alphabet with a much smaller number of characters, all of which were consonant and easy to pronounce. Traveling around the Mediterranean and trading with the inhabitants greek islands, they gave the Greeks their version of the Egyptian writing system. The Greeks, in turn, revised the spelling and added vowel sounds. This system became the basis for a new Egyptian script: Coptic.
Egyptian priests were disadvantaged by the introduction of the Greek language. The source of their power and income from the temples depended on the manufacture and sale of sacred amulets. Now the Egyptian inscriptions on the amulets could not be reproduced by potential buyers. And if it was not possible to use them, then naturally no one would buy them. To prevent this economic and religious crisis, the priests turned to transliteration of amulets. This new system used Greek symbols along with demotic symbols to represent sounds not found in Greek. The economic success of this system contributed to its spread in other areas, for example, in the preparation of horoscopes. The number of borrowed demotic symbols was eventually reduced. The resulting script was highly standardized according to the general traditions of the ancient Egyptians.
Coptic writing in Christian Egypt
Christianity appeared in Egypt thanks to the preaching of St. Evangelist Mark. He came to Alexandria at the beginning of the 15th century. first century AD, accompanying his uncle, St. Barnabas. After the death of St. Barnabas in Cyprus, St. Mark returned to Egypt and began preaching the Holy Gospel among the Jews. St. Mark left a Christian community in Egypt, consisting mainly of converted Hellenized Jews. But at that time in Alexandria Christianity was eclipsed by the powerful Jewish community. After the Jewish revolt in the first half of the 2nd century AD and the subsequent extermination of the Jews in Alexandria, Christianity in Egypt was revealed to the world.
But along with the rise of Christianity, various heresies began to appear. In the middle of the 2nd century AD. two Gnostic teachers appear, Basilides and Valentinus. The latter earned a bad reputation due to his claims to the Roman episcopal see. These teachers facilitated the arrival of Pantan, a missionary who spread Orthodox teaching and smashed the Gnostic heresy. Upon his arrival in Alexandria, he discovered a powerful Orthodox community there, which was the result of the evangelical preaching of St. Mark and his followers. Since he was a famous Christian teacher, he was entrusted with the Christian School of Alexandria. This was a rather small school in which those who wanted to serve God and the establishment of Christianity were trained. Soon after his arrival, around 189, St. Demetrius, the first bishop of Egyptian origin, became Patriarch of Alexandria. Friendship between Pantan, the missionary, and St. Demetrius, who was the Patriarch of a vast, and for the most part, non-Christian Egypt, was truly blessed. As a result, a missionary movement began to convert Egyptian peasants. The Alexandria School trained missionaries and managed their activities.
But here the missionaries were faced with one significant problem: how to convey the sermon to the Egyptians. The fact is that the missionaries could read Greek, but did not know demotic writing. The Egyptians also could not read, but they understood the Egyptian language, i.e. language written in demotic script. In order for the Holy Gospel to be preached equally accurately by different missionaries, it was necessary to write it down. But in such a way that the missionaries could read it and the Egyptians could understand it. Therefore, the missionaries translated the Scripture into Egyptian, but wrote it down in Greek letters that they understood. But unlike the pagan priests, the missionaries did not use a single demotic letter. Eventually this shortcoming was taken into account, and 6 or 7 demotic letters were added to the new system, which were preserved in the Sahidic and Bohair dialects. Some Cyrillic letters may be of Coptic origin.
Dialects
We now see two independent ways of writing Egyptian in the new script. Each medium is unique in its motivation, approach and audience. As a result of the spread of population along the Nile River, many different dialects arise. A characteristic feature of each dialect is the use of different vowels when pronouncing the same words, as well as the peculiarity of the vocabulary. From the very beginning, the pagans tried to develop a single written language in a neutral dialect, Sahidic. They succeeded in their attempts and almost succeeded in eliminating the influence of local dialects on their version of Coptic. On the other hand, Christians put the benefit of people above the development of their language and captured all local dialects in written form. Eventually most of the dialects fell into disuse, while a single Sahidic became more widespread.
All dialects were largely geographically dependent. They were distributed throughout the vast Nile River valley. Based on literary sources, we know of such dialects as the Akhmim and Lycopolitan (Asyutic) dialects of Upper Egypt, Middle Egyptian and Fayum of Middle Egypt, and the Bohair dialect of the Nile Delta. Along with them there was also the Sahidic dialect, which from an early time became a single dialect, which was used throughout Egypt and eventually acquired literary influence with the appearance of the works of St. Shenoud Archimandrite. There are also many minor dialects or subdialects.
Today Bokhair is the only surviving dialect of the Coptic language. First of all, it was preserved thanks to the strong monastic communities of Wadi Natrun (Scythis), which made extensive use of it. Then, with the move of the Patriarch from Alexandria to Cairo in the 11th century, Bokhair, the local dialect, became the official dialect of the church, replacing Sahidic.
Golden Age of Coptic
From the end of the second century AD, with the spread of Christianity and until the severe persecution of Diocletian at the beginning of the fourth century, Coptic was the main language of mediation between the Greeks and Egyptians. After a wave of persecution, the life of the monasteries was revived with renewed vigor. For the Copts it was the only way show your great love for God, which was previously expressed in the voluntary sacrifice of all earthly treasures. These monastic communities were numerous and mostly consisted of Egyptians. In this situation, there was an urgent need for the abbots of the monasteries to write rules for their communities in the Egyptian language. In addition, the Egyptian Church Fathers, who usually wrote in Greek, addressed some of their works to the Egyptian Coptic monks.
So, from such teachers of monasticism as St. Anthony, St. Pachomius, and Rev. Macarius and their great disciples writing for monks and church fathers: St. Athanasius, St. Fiophila, and St. Cyril, who addressed the flock in Coptic, and the golden age of the Coptic language begins.
It reaches its greatest prosperity under the holy Archbishop Chenaud. Saint Shenoda (348 to 466 AD) made Coptic from the language of instructions into a rich literary language in which not only monastics, clergy and laity, but also representatives of the authorities could communicate. His bright charismatic personality, command of Greek and rhetoric, new non-standard thinking, all this served to improve the content and style of the Coptic language and led him to an unprecedented literary rise. Coptic scholars are still amazed by his unsurpassed works, study and publish them.
This literary tradition was continued, although to a lesser extent, by the works of his disciple, Saint Beza, in the second half of the fifth century. But almost all of his works are addressed to the numerous brethren of white monasteries. Later, in the sixth and seventh centuries, such Fathers as Rufinus Sootep, Constantine Asiatus, and Pisencius Kyft wrote a lot in Coptic.
Coptic early Arabic period (7th to 10th century AD)
In the mid-seventh century, Egypt fell under Arab rule. The Arabs tried to force Copts to learn Arabic, which became necessary for government jobs. This policy slowly but surely reduced the number of lay people reading Coptic, who for the most part belonged to precisely this class of civil servants or to their families. In other words, knowledge of Arabic provided a stable job, which could be passed on to children. This cooled the desire to raise children with Coptic literature. It was during this difficult time, aware of these irreversible changes, that Bishop Severius Al-Ashmunen found it necessary to write his History of the Patriarchate in Arabic.
But the language of worship continued to be strictly preserved at this time. In fact, a huge number of hagiographies were compiled at the beginning of this period. Coptic continued to be used in the Church along with Greek, the second most important language of worship. Unfortunately, a fairly small number of liturgical texts from this period have survived. The reason for this: poor use, poor storage conditions during the period of decline, and the parchment on which they were written did not withstand these tests.
During the same period, some Arabic borrowings also penetrated into Coptic. But this does not concern the Church at all; there is no sign of Arabic being used there. There are no Coptic-Arabic manuscripts or literary sources on which this could be asserted. Coptic still remains spoken language villagers and clergy.
Coptic vs. Arabic (11th to 14th centuries AD)
At the beginning of the 11th century, the cordial relationship between the rulers of Egypt and the Church changed dramatically with the beginning of the reign of Hakem bi-Amr-Allah. His cruel sentiments were poured out on Christians, with waves of repression and persecution, closing churches for periods of up to two years and banning their language. But by the grace of God, this difficult stage of history was not the last for the Coptic language, although it predetermined its future extinction.
At the same time, Europe is waging crusades against Muslim rule in the Middle East in order to preserve Christendom. This in turn provoked a new wave of persecution and oppression of the Copts. For Muslims, the cross-banner of the Crusaders was associated with the Copts, and in this similarity they saw a huge threat and danger. Of course, in reality there could be no talk of any alliance, since the crusaders considered the Copts to be heretics and treated them even worse than the Muslims themselves. Already in the 12th century, Patriarch Gabriel ibn Turek tried to explain to the Muslim world that the Copts had nothing in common with their enemies,
Subsequently, this will predetermine the flourishing of Christian Arabic literature. In a later period, Arabic appeared in liturgical books, and not only took the place of Greek in bilingual texts, but also penetrated into purely Coptic ones. Even Arabic liturgical texts will appear, from which we can conclude that Arabic has gone from being a language exclusively of translation to being actively used in the Church. Only psalms and prayers remained primordially Coptic in worship. And the only exclusively Coptic literary text from the end of this period is the sufferings of St. John Phanidiot, written in Coptic in order to maintain secrecy from Muslims and as another attempt to revive the language. Further evidence of the progressive oblivion of Coptic as a reading language is the numerous lexicographic works of this time. Maqadimat's Grammar and Salalem Studies. An equally striking example is Arabic texts written in Coptic letters, widespread among monastic circles that do not yet understand Arabic script. Eventually, writing Coptic texts in Arabic letters became common, as we see to this day.
So, in this period of decline of the literary Coptic language, only the Church is the last restraining bulwark. Therefore, the weakening of the Church naturally and irreversibly led to the oblivion of the language. Persecution and the preaching of Islam reduced the number of Christians. It is possible that the Coptic language served as a cultural barrier between the Copts and the Arab Muslim culture. But now, Arabic has spread so much that it has overcome this barrier and blurred the border between the two worlds.
Decline of spoken Coptic (before the 17th century AD)
After the 14th century, the Church declined both spiritually and numerically. Dominion Ottoman Empire over Egypt in the early 16th century only intensifies this destruction. The production of Coptic manuscripts is slowly declining. This is an indication that Coptic books have ceased to be used as often as previously in the Church, and the need for their further production has ceased. There was still a tradition of using Coptic in church services, but only as a tribute to tradition.
Ultimately, the French traveler Vansleb, seeing an old man speaking Coptic, stated that the language would die along with this old man. One may not entirely agree with this statement, but the fact is that Arabic has become the main, if not the only, spoken language replacing Coptic.
Revival of Coptic in the 19th century
But the Lord, in His mercy, did not allow final oblivion. And shed a bright light of life in the darkness of hopelessness. This light appeared to Saint Cyril IV, Patriarch of Alexandria at the beginning of the second half of the 19th century. Saint Cyril began the active restoration of the Church with the training of clergy and the younger generation. For which an absolutely necessary measure was the revival of Coptic. So, the study of the Coptic language was adopted in all the schools he built along with the new generation of curricula.
Saint Cyril did not remain on the throne of Saint Mark for long. In fact, this is a very short episode in the history of the Church. His death played into the hands of opponents of his reforms. But he laid such a strong foundation for the reforms that they continued even after his death. In the subsequent part of the century, the active revival of the Coptic language continued. The Greeks made a significant contribution to this process of standardization of Coptic pronunciation. Greek retains many native Coptic sounds, which it absorbed over the years of past close communication. Although the Greek language has undergone some changes due to 150 years of Turkish (Ottoman) rule. Therefore, having no living role models, the new pronunciation, adopted through Greek, did not sound as Egyptian as it should have been.
Despite the difficulties, educated people spread the language among the masses. They published preserved manuscripts that had previously only been in handwritten form. They revived the tradition of using Coptic in worship. Research in the field of grammar has resulted in versatile and accessible dictionaries. And the authorities of theological schools supported these endeavors in every possible way.
Coptic in the 20th century
Coptic continued to take root and grow both within the Church and among theologically educated groups that existed in the early 20th century. Coptic schools, founded by Saint Cyril and modeled on him, continued their varied work among Coptic society. Theological schools continued the 19th century tradition of language revival. And yet, the officially adopted pronunciation system was an obstacle to the spread of the language among the masses. With the advent of the 1952 revolution, Arabs became more influential in Egypt, which led to the formation of new classes among the Copts. Called to support the Church by participating in church life, people of this class brought with them the spirit of Muslim edification, the custom of sermons, which again gave a place to the Arabic language in worship. Unfortunately, although unintentionally, the good intentions and love for the traditions of the Church of these people again led to the extinction of the linguistic revival. And if this process is not reasonably stopped, then probably in the future the Coptic Church will lose its uniqueness.
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE, a language spoken by the ancient Egyptians who inhabited the Nile Valley north of the first of the Nile cataracts. Forms one of the branches of Afroasiatic languages, called Egyptian. It has a number of similarities in phonetics and morphology with the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic family, and therefore at one time some authors classified it as Semitic; another fairly popular point of view at one time was to recognize it as an intermediate link between the Semitic, Berber-Libyan and Cushitic branches; both of these interpretations are currently rejected.
The oldest documents known to us in the ancient Egyptian language date back to the reign of the 1st dynasty and date back to the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Almost all stone monuments of this period are covered with hieroglyphic verbal-syllabic writing, which retains the features of pictographic writing. Since ancient times, business documentation has used a special kind of hieroglyphic cursive writing; After the period of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2500 BC), to which the oldest papyrus records date, this cursive writing began to be called hieratic writing. After the 7th century BC. On the basis of hieratic writing, a super-cursive form was formed - demotic writing, which remained in use until the end of the 5th century. AD The monumental (pictorial) form of Egyptian writing was rarely used after the advent of hieratic.
It is customary to distinguish several periods in the history of the ancient Egyptian language. The oldest, called Old Egyptian, dates from the 32nd–22nd centuries. BC.; it is represented in the phonetically recorded hymns and spells found in the pyramids; for centuries these texts were transmitted orally. The next period in the history of the ancient Egyptian language is the Middle Egyptian language, which remained the literary language of Egypt from the 22nd to the 14th centuries. BC.; for some purposes it continued to be used during Roman rule. After about 1350 BC Middle Egyptian is giving way to Late Egyptian (or New Egyptian) in both literary texts and official documents. Late Egyptian remained in use until around the 7th century. BC. did not replace demotic with Egyptian - the language of demotic texts. Around the 2nd century. AD The Greek alphabet began to be used to record ancient Egyptian texts, and from that time on the ancient Egyptian language began to be called Coptic. The last known record in hieratic writing dates back to the 3rd century. AD; demotic – 5th century. AD; from this moment on, the ancient Egyptian language is considered dead.
During the Middle Ages, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were forgotten, but with the development of science, numerous efforts began to be made to decipher them. All these attempts, based mainly on the treatise of Gorapollo (c. 5th century AD), were unsuccessful. It was discovered in 1799
In scientific literature, both in our country and in foreign countries, the term “ancient Egyptian language” is sometimes used, which means the language of the population of Ancient Egypt.
This term is inaccurate, since when calling a language ancient (for example, ancient Chinese, ancient Greek), they mean the existence of the same new, modern language, in other words, the definition of “ancient” creates the impression that we are talking about the ancient stage of living modern language.
With the Egyptian language the situation is different. The Egyptian language became dead already at the beginning of our era, when it was replaced by Coptic, which represents the last stage of development of the Egyptian language and is organically connected with it, but at the same time differs from it so much that in linguistics it is considered independent language. Coptic is related to the late Egyptian language in much the same way as Italian is to Latin. But the Coptic language is also already a dead language. Currently, the people of Egypt speak Arabic. Therefore, we call the Egyptian language only the language that was used by the population of Ancient Egypt from time immemorial until the 3rd century. n. e.
Since the monuments of the Egyptian language have been preserved over a huge period, estimated at no less than three and a half millennia, it is quite natural to assume that during this time the Egyptian language has changed. Indeed, the monuments of the language show that over the course of more than thirty-five centuries it went through the following stages of development:
- 1. The language of the era of the Old Kingdom (XXXII--XXII centuries BC; in English scientific literature this stage of language development is called Old Egyptian, in French - ancien еgyptien, in German - Altдgyptisch. It would be perfect to designate this period the Russian term "ancient Egyptian", but since it is incorrectly used to designate the entire Egyptian language, it would be unclear what we're talking about: about the ancient stage of language development or about language in general. Therefore, to designate the ancient period of the history of the language, it is advisable to adopt the term proposed by the largest Soviet Egyptologist Yu. Ya. Perepelkin - “Old Egyptian”.
- 2. Middle Egyptian, or classical, language (XXII-XVI centuries BC); in English scientific literature - Middle Egyptian, in French - moyen еgyptien, in German - Mittelеgyptisch.
- 3. New Egyptian language (XVI--VIII centuries BC); in English scientific literature -
Late Egyptian, in French - nйоgyptlen, in German - Neuдgyptisch.
- 4. Demotic language (8th century BC - 5th century AD)
- 5. Coptic language (from the 3rd century AD)
The history of the Egyptian people, the creator and speaker of the Egyptian language, begins very early - at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Such an early beginning of Egyptian history (in comparison, for example, with the history of European peoples) was facilitated by favorable geographical conditions, i.e. climate, soil fertility, abundance of plants, animals, fish, etc. This, in the words of K. Marx, is a “natural wealth of means of life" accelerated the development of Egyptian society in the early stages of its development. Already at the end of the 4th millennium BC. the development of productive forces, an increase in labor productivity, and hence the possibility of obtaining and appropriating surplus product and its exchange led to the emergence of private ownership of the means of production and property inequality, to the possibility of appropriating other people's labor. Egyptian society is divided into classes hostile to each other. The first class society appears - the slave system. At the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Slave states emerge in the Nile Valley as “a product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions.” From that time on, the history of Ancient Egypt is the story of the three-thousand-year development of the oldest slave-owning society and state and its death under the blows of the invaders. In its development, the Egyptian people created the greatest cultural values that entered the general treasury of world culture. The achievements of the Egyptians include, for example, the creation of the first written language in world history, the soul of which was the sound, phonetic principle. Without a doubt, the Egyptian language developed long before the era of slavery, i.e. long before the 3rd millennium BC. But the language of this ancient period is not possible to study due to the lack of written monuments. In relation to literature, one can wholeheartedly agree with the opinion of Academician. B. A. Turaev, who called this period the time of creation of a “stock of folk literature.” Only with the organization of the state and the advent of writing does it become possible to study the Egyptian language. In its millennia-long development, it went through a number of stages: Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian, New Egyptian, Demotic, Coptic.