Coptic language
| Coptic | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Egypt |
| Era | 2nd – 17th century. Survives as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church. |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
Early forms | |
| Coptic alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | cop |
| ISO 639-3 | cop |
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the latest stage of the Egyptian language. It is a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century.[1]
Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century.[2] The new writing system became the Coptic script, an adapted Greek alphabet with the addition of six or seven signs from the demotic script to represent Egyptian sounds the Greek language did not have.[3] The two most common dialects are Sahidic and Bohairic.
Coptic and demotic Egyptian are very similar to the earlier Egyptian language written in the hieroglyphic script. Coptic flourished as a literary language from the 2nd to 13th centuries, and its Bohairic dialect continues to be the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It was supplanted by Egyptian Arabic as a spoken language toward the early modern period. The Copts have tried to revive the language since the 19th century.