Koptisch

Coptic, belonging to the Afro-Asiatic languages, is the final development of the ancient Egyptian language. It is derived from the popular tongue of the so called New Empire and uses the Greek alphabet complemented with six letters from Demotic, an earlier form of Egyptian writing since the 7th century B.C. Beginning with the 1st century A.D. Coptic writing started to replace the complicated Hieroglyphic system and became the official written language during the 3rd century by the spread of Christianity and Christian texts. In addition to this, gnostic, Manichaean and profane texts are important parts of Coptic literature. After the Arabian conquest of Egypt in 641 A.D. and the spread of the Islam, Coptic was abandoned as colloquial and written language in favour of Arabic even by the Christian population. Until now Coptic is used as liturgical language of the Coptic Church. The present volume is an introduction to Sahidic Coptic, the starting-point for any coptic study. The emphasis has been put on basic matters relevant to the needs of the beginner. The volume contains: the basic structure of the morphology with special reference to the verbal system; the principles of the different syntactical constructions (main and subordinate clauses - both with translated examples); a sample text with interlinear phonetic transcription and translation; an extensive bibliography with references to more specialized literature and an index. This comprehensive introduction in Coptic is based on the experience of almost a decade of continuous teaching and was also used successfully for self-studies. (written in German).