Coptic alphabet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coptic alphabet | ||
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Type | Alphabet | |
Languages | Coptic language | |
Time period | c. 300 AD to 14th century AD (Still used today in coptic churches in Eygpt and abroad) | |
Parent systems | Phoenician and Egyptian hieroglyphs → Greek and Demotic → Coptic alphabet |
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Sister systems | Old Nubian Latin Cyrillic Armenian |
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Unicode range | U+2C80 to U+2CFF |
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ISO 15924 | Copt | |
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. |
The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Demotic. There are in fact several Coptic alphabets as the coptic writing system may vary greatly among the various dialects and subdialects of the Coptic language.
Contents |
[edit] History
History of the alphabet |
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Middle Bronze Age 19th c. BCE
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Meroitic 3rd c. BCE |
Ogham 4th c. |
Hangul 1443 |
Canadian Syllabics 1840 |
Zhuyin 1913 |
complete genealogy |
The Coptic alphabet has a long history, going back to the Hellenistic period, of using the Greek alphabet to transcribe Demotic texts, with the aim of recording the correct pronunciation of the Demotic. During the first two centuries of the Common Era, an entire series of magical texts were written in what scholars term Old Coptic, Egyptian language texts written in the Greek alphabet. A number of letters, however, were derived from Demotic, and many of these (though not all) are used in "true" Coptic writing. With the spread of Christianity in Egypt, by the late 3rd century AD knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost, as well as Demotic slightly later, making way for a writing system more closely associated with the Christian church. By the 4th century the Coptic alphabet was "standardised", particularly for the Sahidic dialect. (It should be noted that there are a number of differences between the alphabets as used in the various dialects in Coptic.) The alphabet is still used by the members of the Coptic Church to write their religious texts. All the Gnostic codices found in Nag Hammadi used the Coptic alphabet.
The Old Nubian alphabet—used to write Old Nubian, a Nilo-Saharan language —is written mainly in an uncial Greek alphabet, which borrows Coptic and Meroitic letters of Demotic origin into its inventory.
[edit] Unicode
In Unicode, most Coptic letters formerly shared codepoints with similar Greek letters, but a disunification has been accepted for version 4.1, which appeared in 2005. The new Coptic block is U+2C80 to U+2CFF. The Greek block includes seven Coptic letters derived from Demotic, and need to be included in any complete implementation of Coptic.
Coptic Unicode.org chart (PDF) |
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0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
U+2C8x | Ⲁ | ⲁ | Ⲃ | ⲃ | Ⲅ | ⲅ | Ⲇ | ⲇ | Ⲉ | ⲉ | Ⲋ | ⲋ | Ⲍ | ⲍ | Ⲏ | ⲏ |
U+2C9x | Ⲑ | ⲑ | Ⲓ | ⲓ | Ⲕ | ⲕ | Ⲗ | ⲗ | Ⲙ | ⲙ | Ⲛ | ⲛ | Ⲝ | ⲝ | Ⲟ | ⲟ |
U+2CAx | Ⲡ | ⲡ | Ⲣ | ⲣ | Ⲥ | ⲥ | Ⲧ | ⲧ | Ⲩ | ⲩ | Ⲫ | ⲫ | Ⲭ | ⲭ | Ⲯ | ⲯ |
U+2CBx | Ⲱ | ⲱ | Ⲳ | ⲳ | Ⲵ | ⲵ | Ⲷ | ⲷ | Ⲹ | ⲹ | Ⲻ | ⲻ | Ⲽ | ⲽ | Ⲿ | ⲿ |
U+2CCx | Ⳁ | ⳁ | Ⳃ | ⳃ | Ⳅ | ⳅ | Ⳇ | ⳇ | Ⳉ | ⳉ | Ⳋ | ⳋ | Ⳍ | ⳍ | Ⳏ | ⳏ |
U+2CDx | Ⳑ | ⳑ | Ⳓ | ⳓ | Ⳕ | ⳕ | Ⳗ | ⳗ | Ⳙ | ⳙ | Ⳛ | ⳛ | Ⳝ | ⳝ | Ⳟ | ⳟ |
U+2CEx | Ⳡ | ⳡ | Ⳣ | ⳣ | ⳤ | ⳥ | ⳦ | ⳧ | ⳨ | ⳩ | ⳪ | |||||
U+2CFx | ⳹ | ⳺ | ⳻ | ⳼ | ⳽ | ⳾ | ⳿ |
[edit] Alphabet table
Letters derived from the demotic:
hieroglyph | demotic | coptic | ||||
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→ | → | Ϣ š | |||
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→ | → | Ϥ f | |||
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→ | → | Ϧ ḫ | |||
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→ | → | Ϩ h | |||
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→ | → | Ϫ ḏ | |||
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→ | → | Ϭ č | |||
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→ | → | Ϯ ti |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Quaegebeur, Jan. 1982. "De la préhistoire de l'écriture copte." Orientalia lovaniensia analecta 13:125–136.
- Ritner, Robert Kriech. 1996. "The Coptic Alphabet". In The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 287–290.
- Kasser, Rodolphe. 1991. "Alphabet in Coptic, Greek". In The Coptic Encyclopedia, edited by Aziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Volume 8. 30–32.
- Kasser, Rodolphe. 1991. "Alphabets, Coptic". In The Coptic Encyclopedia, edited by Aziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Volume 8. 32–41.
- Kasser, Rodolphe. 1991. "Alphabets, Old Coptic". In The Coptic Encyclopedia, edited by Aziz S. Atiya. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Volume 8. 41–45.
[edit] External links
- The Coptic Alphabet (omniglot.com)
- Michael Everson's Revised proposal to add the Coptic alphabet to the BMP of the UCS
- Coptic Unicode Fonts Unicode 4.1.0 compliant fonts
- Download Free Coptic Fonts