Coptic Help

Christforlife7

I need the correct translation of:

"Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate: Archdiocese of North America"

I can't find the Coptic Font option so I'll insert it from memory so sorry if it doesn't come out right, but this is what I have so far:

[coptic]Pima `npatriar,yc `nrem`n,ymi `nor;odoxos@ pima `nar,y`epickopoc `nte ni;ws piamerika caqyt[/coptic]

Just in case the Coptic Font doesn't show up, transliterated it's:

Pima enpatriarshees enremenkeemi enorthodoxos: pima enarshiepiskopos ente nithosh piamerika sakheet.

I understand there is no real way to say North America so I wrote literally "The Northern of America". Is there an official name in Coptic of the Archdiocese? Thanks for the help everyone!

Blessed Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord.

P.S. My sources for coming up with this are:

http://copticpope.org/
http://nacopts.org
http://suscopts.org/
Coptic Dictionary
My fragments of knowledge about Coptic :)

Thanks again!

copticuser20

[quote author=Tishori link=topic=10450.msg126966#msg126966 date=1294962536]
I need the correct translation of:

"Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate: Archdiocese of North America"

I can't find the Coptic Font option so I'll insert it from memory so sorry if it doesn't come out right, but this is what I have so far:

[coptic]Pima `npatriar,yc `nrem`n,ymi `nor;odoxos@ pima `nar,y`epickopoc `nte ni;ws piamerika caqyt[/coptic]

Just in case the Coptic Font doesn't show up, transliterated it's:

Pima enpatriarshees enremenkeemi enorthodoxos: pima enarshiepiskopos ente nithosh piamerika sakheet.

I understand there is no real way to say North America so I wrote literally "The Northern of America". Is there an official name in Coptic of the Archdiocese? Thanks for the help everyone!

Blessed Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord.

P.S. My sources for coming up with this are:

http://copticpope.org/
http://nacopts.org
http://suscopts.org/
Coptic Dictionary
My fragments of knowledge about Coptic :)

Thanks again!



what does sakheet mean? i think its right up to there

Christforlife7

It literally translated to "The Northern Side".

Kheet is plainly just the word for North.

copticuser20

then what is nithosh?

Christforlife7

Province, District, Bordered Land.

ophadece

DEar tishori,
Too technical for me but I'll have a stab at it. First of all it should be embatriarshas rather than en. Secondly my understanding is that the expression nitwsh refers to the states (I guess it literally means the divisions), and therefore has no place in that sentence. So my tuppence worth is to say biamerica etcakhat, along the lines of etcawanam, etcabshoi, etc. Now I only answered to give you a quick hint, but I may so off, but your best bet is contacting Remenkimi even in a pm.
Oujai

epchois_nai_nan

I remember reading a Diocese website which called America: NiTosh etHotp (Ni,ws ethotp) - meaning literally, the 'joined provinces' or the 'United States'. With this translation, the entire name would be: NiTosh etHotp enAmerika I can't remember the website unfortunately but I think that's the closest you'll find to an 'official' name.

God bless and pray for me

SilentOne

[quote author=epchois_nai_nan link=topic=10450.msg127016#msg127016 date=1294985503]
I remember reading a Diocese website which called America: NiTosh etHotp (Ni,ws ethotp) - meaning literally, the 'joined provinces' or the 'United States'. With this translation, the entire name would be: NiTosh etHotp enAmerika I can't remember the website unfortunately but I think that's the closest you'll find to an 'official' name.

God bless and pray for me


I think you're referring to the Southern Diocese: suscopts.org

epchois_nai_nan

That's the one! Thanks :)

ophadece

That's right ebshois nai nan... thanks... and thanks DavidI, yes nitwsh refers to the states and ethotb means which are united. I guess there's no need to use either tishori...
Oujai

AikotiEnsok

ask mac daddy!

Christforlife7

Lol Chris there is more to Coptic than leading the Deacons.

Alrighty guys, so no Nithosh, but how would be indicate North America as opposed to just America since these are two different regions.

Thanks for all the help guys, and I'll be contacting Remenkimi soon :)

epchois_nai_nan

Well going on the same principle used by Suscopts:

The Northern United States of America would be: NiTosh ethotp enAmerika etsakhet (or etsakheet if you use GB) which literally would be 'The United States of America located in the North'  since 'sa' specifically implies place and location.

Pray for me,

TITL

What does GB stand for?

jydeacon

GB=Greco-Bohairic, apparently the incorrect dialect being used today for pronunciation of coptic.

epchois_nai_nan

Lol, yes - GB=Greco-Bohairic which is the pronunciation used by the Church today in all of our hymns - its a system which gives all Coptic letters the same sounds as Modern Greek. But many, including myself and ophadece agree that this pronunciation causes the language to lose its natural sound and is just plain wrong :)

We prefer Old Bohairic (which I use as well, but with some slight differences to remove the Arabic influence) which is the reconstructed pronunciation, i.e. Coptic as it used to be pronounced before the Church started using GB, based on the work of Fr Shenouda Maher. Most of the differences are small, but some are pretty significant.

That's why Ophadece and myself have been saying NiTosh and SaKhet (long 'e' as in 'pear') as opposed to Tishori who has been saying NiThosh and SaKheet.

minatasgeel

[quote author=epchois_nai_nan link=topic=10450.msg127071#msg127071 date=1295050075]
Lol, yes - GB=Greco-Bohairic which is the pronunciation used by the Church today in all of our hymns - its a system which gives all Coptic letters the same sounds as Modern Greek. But many, including myself and ophadece agree that this pronunciation causes the language to lose its natural sound and is just plain wrong :)


no. the dialect we use in church today (most of us) is Bohairic Coptic and not Greco-Bohairic. hear for yourself, Divine Liturgies H.G. Bishop Domatrios, Liturgy of St Basil in Coptic
make sure you hear the sermon which he says in coptic and arabic......which is not in "Greco-Bohairic".

epchois_nai_nan

It's important to distinguish between a dialect and a phonology. The dialect which our Church uses is Bohairic Coptic as opposed to the Akhmimic, Fayyumic, Sahidic and other dialects which are associated with particular regions of Egypt. The differences between these are similar to the differences between Al Fusha and Al3amma, they have different vocabularies, spelling systems and syntaxes.

Greco and Old Bohairic on the other hand are not dialects but phonologies. They are systems of pronunciation - a dialect is what is written, a phonology refers to how the written words are pronounced verbally. So nobody denies the validity of the Bohairic dialect, its the artificial pronunciation introduced in the 1850's which we take issue with.

PFM

minatasgeel

ok. I am sorry......what i am trying to get is what the way we pronounce coptic in most of our churches today is not strictly "Greco-bohairic" 

Remnkemi

Linguistically speaking, a dialect has 2 meanings
1. a language variety most often applied to regional speech patterns, but also social patterns. A dialect associated with a social class is called a sociolect. A regional variety is called a topolect.
2. A language socially subordinate to a regional language or the standard language. So American Indians in NY may speak Mohawk or English. Mohawk is a dialect subordinate to English.

So technically speaking, (and this is not so black and white), Bohairic Coptic, Akhmimic Coptic, Sahidic Coptic are by definition topolects, specific to regions. On the other hand, we are talking about Coptic used in the Coptic church which makes it a sociolect. So Bohairic Coptic used in the Coptic Church is no longer a topolect, but a sociolect.

The next to keep in mind, dialects of a language are varieties of vocabulary, grammar, and phonology. If it is phonology/pronunciation only - which is the difference between Greco-Bohairic and Old Bohairic - it is defined as accent, not dialect.

I would argue the varieties between Bohairic, Akhmimic, Sahidic are dialects. The Coptic dictionary describes about 15 or more dialects and subdialects. Most are topolects. Some topolects became sociolects: for example, Shenoutian Sahidic Coptic vs. Lycopolatian Gnostic Coptic. The difference between GB and OB is solely a variance of accents in the Bohairic Coptic sociolect. And by the way, I think both GB and OB have multiple varying accents each. There is no standard GB accent nor a standard OB accents.

Since there is no standard GB accent, we can't say our churches today do not pronounce in strict Greco-Bohairic. There is no strict GB.
George

ophadece

DEar tishori,
As per ebshois nai nan's explanation, nitwsh should be used. MY mistake I thought you meant north America as in the north America continent rather than north of USA which you'd probably be referring to. Remenkimi would support what ebshois nai nan pointed out as well...
Dear Mina,
Ebshois nai nan hit the nail on the head, and of course remenkimi gave his edifying take on the whole issue. HOWEVER, I'll still remain in disagreement with him as he seems to treat GReco-Bohairic as a valid accent, when it is not. Hence, the differences in pronunciations between many people adopting such a false teaching is just a matter of continuing on an invalid artificial path that everybody has their own theories. An example being the usage of English language in Indian accents, Arabic accents, French accents, etc (although English is still widely used and not subject to which of those latter dialects is right). MY point is that Greco-Bohairic is not an accent per se and therefore not eligible for, even if that's any other person's opinion, being called evolving, because it's artificial. If two Indians pronounce one word differently, or the new generation starts rectifying the pronunciation of "v" to "w" and vice versa, this cannot be called it's evolution. It's simply correction. Same goes for Greco-Bohairic: since its intention rules keep changing to a massive width if you compare kholagy books over the years especially in Egypt, you will find that some of them write "tovh" in the transliteration and others "tobh" and yet the correct pronunciation would either be "tobh" (here h close to the Arabic ha' letter) as in Sa'idic Coptic or "dob'" as in Bohairic topolect which started losing the ain-similar hore letter across the ages, or similar variations as remenkimi rightly said.
Oujai