![]() ![]() We often forget that Alexandria, Egypt was one of the most influential early centers of Christianity and that many influential church fathers were Egyptian.) (See here for a helpful history of the Coptic Orthodox Church. However, Bohairic continues to be used in the liturgical life of the Coptic Orthodox church. With the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7 th century, Arabic began to overtake Coptic as the spoken language, and by the 15 th century Coptic ceased to be a spoken language. Sahidic was the standard literary dialect from the 4 th-10 th century AD, and Bohairic began to replace Sahidic starting in the 9 th century. ![]() ![]() There are a number of different dialects of Coptic, the most important being Sahidic and Bohairic (Lambdin, vii-ix). (For example, my own interest in Coptic stems from the fact that one of the earliest manuscripts of the Didache is a Coptic fragment from around the 5 th century, pictured below.) In addition, there is a rich history of early Christian sources that were either written in or translated into Coptic. Coptic is important for the textual criticism of the New Testament because it (along with Latin and Syriac) is one of the earliest languages into which the New Testament was translated. Coptic majuscule manuscripts therefore look like ancient Greek manuscripts, except for the presence of the letters ϣ, ϥ, ϫ, ϭ, and ϩ. ![]() Coptic is a form of Egyptian written using Greek letters with some letters brought in from Demotic. ![]()
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