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From: alderson@netcom15.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: What's the deal with Coptic?
In-Reply-To: "Troy N. Terry"'s message of Wed, 16 Oct 1996 10:43:49 -0700
Message-ID: <ALDERSON.96Oct16152005@netcom15.netcom.com>
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References: <32651ED5.6107@eventus.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 22:20:05 GMT
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In article <32651ED5.6107@eventus.com> "Troy N. Terry" <troyt@eventus.com>
writes:

>I'm wondering if anyone out there has some basic information on the Coptic
>language of Egypt.

Probably the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, among others.

>Is it still the church language of Egyptian Christians?

Can't say, but the _EB_ probably has accurate info.

>How many Coptic speakers are there? [snip]  Is it anyone's native language?

None.  No.  It's been dead for a long time, used only in liturgy.  To the best
of my knowledge, it was never used a language of learning, unlike Latin or
Sanskrit or Hebrew, and therefore did not have a life extended beyond its own
time in that manner.

>Is Coptic a Semitic language?

No.  Along with Classical Egyptian, it forms a sister branch of Afro-Asiatic (a
family like Indo-European) to the Semitic languages.  At one time, the Berber
languages were classified with Coptic and Egyptian as "Hamitic", but I think
that classification has been dropped and the Berber languages are a separate
branch of AA as well.

>And also, are there some good web sites where I can bone up on all things
>Coptic?

Try http://www.AltaVista.digital.com/ ...
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
