i learned before that coptic is made up from the greek letters, with, 7 heratic letters added(shai, fai, khai, hori, jenja, chima, tee) and the words themselves are heratic( the egyptian langueage used after heiroglyphic and demotic) atleast thats what i learned from a teacher in our church
when Alexander the great invaded Egypt, at the time the egyptians were writing hyeiroglyphics and speaking the demotic language, but to understand the Greeks and communicate with them they started to adapt the greek language, since it was much easier/simpler than the one they were speaking, however some letters that the ancient egyptians had did not have an equivelance in the Greek language, that is why as Bron3 said, we added about 7 letters to the Greek alphabet, but the rest are the same
But most of the words are really just ancient Egyptian, it is the last form of ancient Egyptian language. It has A LOT of Greek-borrowed words, mostly in Theology, because the old words of ancient Egypt like Trinity were used for pagan religion and so people when hearing the word would understand it paganlly (if that makes sense...) so they associated with it a new understanding with new words. Like "Pi-nifi" is Coptic for Spirit, and "Pi-epnevma" is also Coptic for Spirit. Pi-epnevma is used much more often because it is Greek, and we use it for Church purposes. Pi-nifi is ancient Egyptian rooted, and was used in their pagan religion, so you won't find this word a lot in the church whether in the liturgy, the Hymns. or teh Midnight praise. (I think its in the Fourth Hoos)
Coptic came from Greek yes but didn't Greek come from like Hieratic or Demotic because if you look at the letters from greek and demotic you see some similiarities.
The last written Egyptian script came into existence at around the 5th-6th century BC (The Demotic script). The Greeks learned their own writing system from the Egyptians through the phonecians, who in their commercial dealings with the anicent Egyptians imported the demotic script into a more accessible form, handing down their reformation of the demotic script to those living in the greek isles who in turn revised it even further to form the basis of the Coptic script. Thus, many of the commonalities between the Coptic and Greek can be explained by the fact that both languages are derived from the ancient Egyptian demotic script.
Coptic is a mixture of the the egyptian language at its start (not all people spoke hieroglyphics), and some Greek letter were added later that today form up the Coptic Language.
[quote author=bron3 link=board=4;threadid=2200;start=0#msg33624 date=1122531915] i learned before that coptic is made up from the greek letters, with, 7 heratic letters added(shai, fai, khai, hori, jenja, chima, tee) and the words themselves are heratic( the egyptian langueage used after heiroglyphic and demotic) atleast thats what i learned from a teacher in our church
[quote author=Johannes(John) link=board=4;threadid=2200;start=0#msg33850 date=1122776480] and...wats da diff (egyp.. copts
if u mean wats the diff between egyptian and coptic then: nothing the word coptic is derived from a greek word "aigyptos" meaning egyptian the rest has very well put by our friends here
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Coptic came from the pharoahnic language back then
Peace.
i learned before that coptic is made up from the greek letters, with, 7 heratic letters added(shai, fai, khai, hori, jenja, chima, tee) and the words themselves are heratic( the egyptian langueage used after heiroglyphic and demotic) atleast thats what i learned from a teacher in our church
thats what i learned too!!2weeks ago!
and...wats da diff (egyp.. copts
if u mean wats the diff between egyptian and coptic then: nothing
the word coptic is derived from a greek word "aigyptos" meaning egyptian
the rest has very well put by our friends here