The appearance of Coptic writing is closely connected with the spread of Christianity in the II-III centuries. ad. The reason for the founding of a new written language was the need to translate the Bible.
Who are Copts?
Coptic - derived from the word "Copts" (Egyptian Christians). The ancient Egyptians are considered the direct descendants of this people. Mark the Evangelist is considered the founder of the Coptic Church (47-48 AD). In the 2nd century, Christianity spread more and more among the population of Egypt.
The history of the emergence of Coptic writing
Believers needed religious literature that they could read and understand. The Bible at that time was written in Greek. The reason for the creation of a new script was that the Egyptian language was limited to pronouncing ritual conspiracies. It had no vowels, making the test difficult to reproduce. But the Greek language did not fit either: it lacked someEgyptian sounds.
The history of Coptic writing began at the moment when scribes had to combine two scripts for a more consonant pronunciation of words. Then a mixed alphabet was used for translation. The Egyptians could understand the written text, which made it possible to distribute the Bible among the people in order to promote Christianity. Initially, this option was not used for communication in everyday life, it was used only in religious rituals and ceremonies.
So the Coptic alphabet was created - an alphabetic script that includes 24 letters of the Western Greek uncial alphabet and 6-8 consonants of the Egyptian demotic language (depending on the dialect used). In total, 32 characters are written in it.
Development of Coptic writing
At the end of the 3rd c. hieroglyphic writing was completely forgotten, after which, from the 4th century. Coptic writing became widespread. It has been used in daily communication for centuries.
Interestingly, the year 284 is considered the beginning of the era of the Copts. At that time, the Egyptian territory was part of the Roman Empire. Emperor Diocletian ascended the throne and ordered the persecution of believers.
In V c. The Coptic Church was completely excommunicated from the family of Christian churches. The reason for this was the difference of opinion regarding the nature of Jesus Christ. The Christian Church has accepted the dogma that Jesus is both God and man. The Copts claimed that he had only a divine essence. Excommunication from Christianity andthe isolation of the Coptic Church allowed the uniqueness of the people's culture to be preserved.
Gradually, after the Arabs conquered Syria, Palestine and Egypt in 640 and included them in the Caliphate, the language began to disappear. On the territory of the country, instead of it, the Arabic script was introduced and used, which almost completely replaced the Coptic script. Despite this, in Egypt it existed until the 14th century, but was used only in church use. Today, followers of the Coptic Church, who number about 8% of the population, still use this type of writing to reprint religious texts.
First archaeological finds
Coptic writing was first discovered during the existence of Napoleon Bonaparte. At the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. Bonaparte participated in an expedition to Egypt. In 1799, near the city of Rosetta, his detachment built fortifications. One of the officers, Bouchard, noticed a wall covered with ancient text that belonged to the ruined Arab fort (a closed fortification that is part of the fortress). The inscription was written in mixed characters of the ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek alphabets. Later, scientists correlated the carved text with the end of the 1st century, more specifically, 196.
Part of the text written in Greek was easily translated. But it was much more difficult to translate hieroglyphs similar to the Coptic script. Coptic writing, according to the scholar Champollion, really turned out to be the key to reading the hieroglyphs. After applying it for decryption, scientificthe workers were able to translate the entire inscription.
Types of Coptic
Egyptian writing was divided into the Old Coptic alphabet (belongs to the 3rd century BC) and Coptic (originated in the 2nd century).
Old Copst is an unapproved variant that appeared as a result of the first attempts to rewrite the Egyptian text into Greek, adding to it the missing sounds that were taken from the ancient Egyptian alphabet. The Old Coptic script gradually developed.
More later - the Coptic script - is used by the followers of this church today. In addition, the list of alphabets available for computer typing includes Coptic characters (Unicode version 4.1).
Spelling difference
In Russian, we are used to seeing pairs of uppercase and lowercase printed characters as the same. The difference is only in the pair A-a. The situation is similar in Coptic writing. Almost all lowercase letters repeat the spelling, except for one single pair: Ϧ - ϧ.
Given the existence of dialects in Egypt, the writing of the text was also slightly different. Some schools used an apostrophe, others required a tremble (looks like "/") and a capital Y.
The first attempts of the ancient Egyptians to create a more consonant alphabet were made back in the 3rd century BC. BC. But the final version of the Coptic letter was ready only by the 2nd century. In Egypt, he received a widespread along with Christianity until Coptic writing was replaced by Arabic. Then the Coptic script disappeared from daily use, but continued to be used in church ceremonies and has come down to our time.
