Bohairic
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Bohairic is a dialect of the
Coptic language Coptic () is a dormant language, dormant Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language. It is a group of closely related Egyptian dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Ancient Egyptian language, Egyptian language, and histori ...
, the latest stage of the
Egyptian language The Egyptian language, or Ancient Egyptian (; ), is an extinct branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts, which were made accessible to the modern world ...
. Bohairic is attested from the eighth century CE, and has been the chief liturgical language of the
Coptic Orthodox Church The Coptic Orthodox Church (), also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apo ...
since the eleventh century.


Terminology

The name Bohairic is derived from the Arabic place name , retained today in
Beheira Governorate Beheira ( ', , "the governorate of the Lake") is a coastal governorates of Egypt, governorate in northern Egypt. Located in the northern part of the country in the Nile Delta, its capital is Damanhur. Overview Beheira Governorate enjoys an impo ...
. The written form is generally believed to have originated in the western
Nile Delta The Nile Delta (, or simply , ) is the River delta, delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's larger deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the eas ...
. Like the other forms of Coptic, Bohairic is usually described as a "dialect". An alternate hypothesis supported by some scholars is that the various forms of Coptic do not represent speech variation but different orthographic traditions.


History

The earliest attestation of Bohairic is in the fourth century, but most texts are from the ninth century and later. Following the
Arab conquest of Egypt The Arab conquest of Egypt, led by the army of Amr ibn al-As, took place between 639 and 642 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. It ended the seven-century-long Roman Egypt, Roman period in Egypt that had begun in 30 BC and, more broa ...
, Coptic lost ground to Arabic. Various scholars posit different dates for the demise of spoken Coptic, ranging from the eleventh century to the fourteenth century. However, Bohairic has remained in consistent liturgical use through the present in the
Coptic Orthodox Church The Coptic Orthodox Church (), also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apo ...
. Before the tenth century, Sahidic was the form of Coptic with super-regional influence; however, by the eleventh century, Bohairic had become the dominant written form of Coptic throughout Fatimid-ruled Egypt. In 1858, the Coptic Orthodox Church effected a pronunciation reform under the leadership of ʿIryān Girgis Muftāḥ, a Coptic scholar supported by Pope Cyril IV of Alexandria. This reformed pronunciation is sometimes called 'Greco-Bohairic'.


Pronunciation


Church Pronunciations

Two systems of pronunciation predominate in the Coptic Orthodox Church today: The 'Greco-Bohairic' pronunciation supported by the Church, and 'Old Bohairic', systematised by Emile Māher Isḥāḳ in his 1975 doctoral thesis. The following table shows general correspondences between the pronunciation systems. Particularly for Old Bohairic much pronunciation is lexeme-specific, so any short list of correspondences is necessarily incomplete:


Historical Reconstructions

James Allen reconstructs the following phonemes for Bohairic: In Allen's reconstruction, in contrast to all other Coptic dialects, Bohairic maintains a strong opposition between aspirated and unaspirated plosives. Both Allen and Loprieno hold that here has been a shift from older Egyptian through which one new aspirated/unaspirated contrast exists: ϭ represents /kʲʰ/ in other dialects, but /tʲʰ/ in Bohairic; it thus alternates with ϫ in aspiration (as opposed to place of articulation, as it does in other dialects). Bohairic, along with Akhmimic, retains the phoneme /x/, which has collapsed into /h/ in other dialects. Loprieno sees the same series of opposing consonants as Allen, but holds that the unaspirated consonants were articulated as ejectives, while their counterparts carried optional aspiration. Loprieno also holds that , , and held voiced values /b/, /d/, and /g/ respectively, the latter two occurring solely in words borrowed from Greek and in post-nasal position. Allen considers vowel values to be more difficult to determine, but proposes the following matrix of
distinctive feature In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonology, phonological structure that distinguishes one Phone (phonetics), sound from another within a language. For example, the feature
Voice (phonetics), voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound productio ...
''distinguishes ...
s, common to all dialects of Coptic: Allen holds that stress may fall either on the ultimate or penultima. , , and are always fully stressed, while the other vowels may or may not carry stress. In many cases, stress must be determined from word structure.


Distinctive Grammatical Features

In recent decades, research on Coptic dialect variance has shifted from a phonological focus (as suggested through orthographic practice) to a morphosyntactic one. A few distinctive Bohairic features are listed below:


Word Forms and Derivational Morphology

* In feminine nouns, where Egyptian ''-t'' has become ''-e'' in some other dialects, Bohairic has - ''-i''. * Where feminine Egyptian weak verb infinitives have led to Coptic verbs that end in - ''-e'' in other dialects, this ending is absent in Bohairic. * Compound nouns where Sahidic uses the linker ''n̩-'' or ''ən-'', Bohairic uses ''ənte-''. * In words borrowed from Greek, where Sahidic often uses the Greek infinitive alone, Bohairic usually precedes it with the verb ''ər-'' "do".


Pronouns

* While other dialects may use the independent pronoun ''se'' as a third-person object pronoun, Bohairic always uses the clitic ''-u''. * Bohairic regularly uses full first- and second-person forms of pronouns in subject position, as opposed to the common use of reduced forms of pronouns in other dialects.


Verb Forms

* The conjunctive verbal form is default ''n̩-'' or ''ən-'' in Sahidic, but ''ənte-'' in Bohairic. * So-called "second" tenses may be used for adverbial predication in Sahidic, but not in Bohairic. * With prepositional predicates, Bohairic tends to employ the qualitative verb ''jəm'' where other dialects allow the prepositional phrase to stand alone. * Sahidic has a temporal or precursive verbal form ''n̩tere-'' or ''əntere-''. In contexts in which Sahidic uses the temporal, Bohairic employs the second perfect. * In lieu of the Sahidic future conjunctive, Bohairic uses the first future.


Sample Text

Bohairic Coptic: Ⲉ̀ⲫ̀ⲟⲩⲁⲓ ⲥⲉⲙⲓⲥⲓ ⲣⲉⲙϩⲉⲩ ⲛⲉⲙ ⲉⲧϣⲱϣ ⲉ̀ ⲁⲝⲓⲁ ⲛⲉⲙ ⲇⲓⲕⲁⲓⲟⲥⲩⲛⲏ. Ⲛ̀ⲑⲱⲟⲩ ⲥⲉⲉⲣϩ̀ⲙⲟⲧ ⲅⲛⲱⲙⲏ ⲛⲉⲙ ⲥⲩⲛⲏⲇⲏⲥⲓⲥ ⲟⲩⲟϩ ⲙ̀ⲡⲉⲛⲑⲣⲉⲩⲁⲣϣⲏⲧ ⲙ̀ⲙⲉⲧⲣⲱⲙⲓ ϩⲓⲛⲁ ⲛ̀ⲑⲱⲟⲩ ⲙ̀ⲫ̀ⲣⲏϯ ⲛ̀ⲥ̀ⲛⲏⲟⲩ. Transliteration: Ephouai semisi remheu nem etshōsh e axia nem dikaiosunē. Enthōou se’erehmot gnōmē nem sunēdēsis ouoh empenthreuarshēt em’metrōmi hina enthōou emephrēti enesnēou. English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.


External Links

Bohairic Coptic Dictionary: http://www.stshenouda.org/language/bohairic-coptic-dictionary Bohairic Textbook: https://theswissbay.ch/pdf/Books/Linguistics/Mega%20linguistics%20pack/Afro-Asiatic/Egyptian/Coptic%2C%20So%20you%20want%20to%20learn%20-%20A%20guide%20to%20Bohairic%20Grammar%20%28Younan%29.pdf


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * {{cite book , last1=الراهب أندرياس المقاري , title=قواعد اللغة القبطية: الجزء الأول , date=2003 , publisher=دير القديس أنبأ مقار , location=Wadi El Natrun , isbn=((9772411622)) Coptic language Christian liturgical languages Languages of Egypt Ancient Egyptian language