#coptic — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #coptic, aggregated by home.social.
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Today for St. Patrick's day I wanted to share some research which explores the Coptic Christian connection in Egypt to early Celtic Christianity. I think it is important to remember that nothing developed alone and just how connected the medieval world was
I'm also including a link to this wonderful lecture which explores the connection between Celtic and Coptic monastics:
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Prochaine séance du séminaire Manuscrits en Méditerranée jeudi 12 février avec Korshi Dosoo, Les parchemins magiques coptes du Collège de France
https://manuscrits.hypotheses.org/8466
Également accessible en ligne
#papyrus #magic #coptic -
Sahidic #Coptic: An introductory textbook
http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.com/2026/01/sahidic-coptic-introductory-textbook.html Open access PDF, too! -
Coming up in December!
'Rays of Language: Linguistic Perspectives on Non-Literary Papyri and Related Sources' brings together studies on #multilingualism, scribal practices, syntactic structures, and socio-pragmatic features of #ancient texts. Edited by Klaas Bentein and Marja Vierros, the volume explores the #linguistic dimensions of non-literary #papyri, highlighting recent advances in #digitalhumanities and linguistic #research.
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I also wrote a #SPARQL query to see the linguistic composition of the periodical press until 1930 at all locations with titles published in languages of the Eastern Mediterranean: #Arabic, #Ottoman, #Armenian, #Coptic, #Greek, #Farsi, #Ladino, #Azerbaijani
As a table: https://query-chest.toolforge.org/redirect/iDOqXyQ6u8ciKSGCYUkEoS02maygCMy8EccoSa8yuWw
As a map with layers for each language, because sometimes geographic distribution is interesting: https://query-chest.toolforge.org/redirect/XvayrLG3RwUiau4MWWuUEkkuccWmusCSy4gO888Q489
#Wikidata #PeriodicalStudies #ArabPeriodicalStudies #الصحافة_العربية #Multilinguality #multilingualDH
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Got into a really long conversation about Copts and Arabic language with @shufei so thought it was a sign to share my favorite Coptic resource, the online Coptic dictionary by Coptic Scriptorium.
https://coptic-dictionary.org/
Its literally the best thing ever with language maps with commonly used words, links to various language dictionaries and quotes where the words are used.
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Some talks from Formulaic Language in Historical Linguistics
Since last April, I’ve been working part-time on the AlUla Inscriptions Corpus Analysis Project (AICAP) at Ghent University. The researchers are spread out over four different countries, but this week, we all converged on Helsinki, Finland, to take part in a workshop on formulaic language—a major feature of the North Arabian corpora we’re working on.
Helsinki’s iconic Tuomiokirkko, the Lutheran cathedral (there’s a separate Orthodox one that is also very nice). Can you spot the four-horned altars?To my slight disappointment, most of the presenters seemed to be asking very different questions than the kind I normally associate with historical linguistics. Was it just me?
https://bsky.app/profile/bnuyaminim.bsky.social/post/3lqop6jn5ik2g
While most of the replies went for my preferred answer A, there were a few B’s too. Since my followers probably skew towards agreeing with me, that supports the possibility that a large chunk of scholars use “historical linguistics” to mean “linguistics but on texts from history times”. Which is fine! Maybe we should start using a different term for A, as done here by the Venerable Bate.
https://bsky.app/profile/dannybate.bsky.social/post/3lqormvmcjs2m
Regardless of terminology, it’s the type A research that I tend to be most interested in. So I’d like to highlight the couple of talks that did focus on those kinds of diachronic questions, together with a few others.
On Monday, Francesca Schironi talked about how Hipparchus (2nd c. BCE) used formulaic language to present a bunch of astronomical data in a way that makes it easier for the reader to navigate. Where later authors put data in tables, Hipparchus has set formulas to let you know what star in what constellation he’s talking about, what star culminates at its rising and setting, and so forth.
Jorge Alejandro Wong Medina talked about the use of different Greek dialects in the Homeric epics. Wong showed that some forms with Aeolic features, like néessi ‘ships (dat.)’, could only have been created by speakers of an Ionic dialect. This shows that they are not retentions from a hypothesised “Aeolic phase” of the epic tradition, but were artificially created to fit the metre.
This is about as dark as Helsinki gets this time of year.On Tuesday, I got to chair our project’s panel, not having anything of my own to present yet. Although these talks were nearly the only ones that were fully about non-European languages, it was good to see them attract a very sizeable audience (other outliers included Riccardo Ginevra, Erica Biagetti et al. on Homeric Greek and Vedic Sanskrit and a talk by Daniele Di Pasquale on Old Korean that I missed).
Jérôme Norris introduced the various pre-Islamic epigraphic corpora of Northern Arabia and talked about how they used different formulas. While some are limited to just one writing tradition (like Nabataean šlm ‘may he be well’), others occur in different corpora and may have been borrowed or inherited between scripts/languages.
Julia Maczuga investigated the origins of the formulas seen in Early Islamic inscriptions from the region. While many are new (and usually explicitly Islamic in meaning), there’s also a large set of formulas that show continuity with pre-Islamic corpora. Some of these have even wider-ranging connections, being used in non-Arabian languages like Greek too.
Fokelien Kootstra-Ford, the project’s PI, presented some of her work on Dadanitic, where formula usage is just one way in which the corpus shows considerable variety. AICAP’s fieldwork has also turned up a previously unknown formula, attested in inscriptions at one site only, prompting a discussion of what it might mean and how we can figure that out in the first place.
(I’ve got some nice pictures of these presentations but I haven’t asked the speakers for permission to use them. Maybe they’ll appear on the project’s Instagram page at some point.)
Finally, I also enjoyed Samuel Peter Cook‘s talk on Greek calquing in Coptic legal texts. The two main examples he discussed were e-u ōrej ‘as a security’ which accurately follows the semantics, not the form of the equivalent Greek pròs aspháleian, and the first person singular performative e-i-sōtm, a finite verb, which Cook argues started out as a non-finite circumstantial present calquing Greek participles.
#AncientNorthArabian #Arabic #conference #Coptic #Greek #linguistics #Nabataean #news
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Today is Sham al-Naseem. It is calculated on the Monday after Coptic Easter and is traditionally celebrated by all Egyptians by eating salted fish and going out to gardens and parks by the Nile to celebrate the coming of spring. Its a holiday with pharonic roots and out of Egypt, the diaspora celebrates near large bodies of water like the ocean.
To everyone else also celebrating, Happy Sham al-Naseem!
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Bentley Layton, author of the major #Coptic grammar in English, has died.
https://iacs-coptic.org/in-memoriam-bentley-layton-1941-2025
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During the March #SustainableDSE network meeting, Samuel Cook presented the Tool for the Analysis of Information Transfer in Manuscript Cultures (#TInTraMaC), developed at the University of Oslo's Faculty of Theology.
👉 Read about the tool on the official website: https://www.tf.uio.no/english/research/projects/tintramac/.
⬇️ Download from #GitHub https://github.com/TInTraMaC/TInTraMaC.
Interested in what we are up to? Join us: https://www.ub.uio.no/english/libraries/dsc/berut/!
#DigitalScholarlyEdition #DigitalHumanities #Manuscripts #Coptic #MaterialPhilology -
#CatchOfTheDay
#OpenAccess on
#MENAdoc:
"Athanasius von Qūṣ Qilādat at-taḥrīr fī ʿilm at-tafsīr [...]" by Gertrud Bauer[Freiburg (im Breisgau): Schwarz, 1972]
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Better late than never, pt. 2: We have published the (very long) blog post summarising our research seminar in Oslo last April.
👉 Read it on our blog!
https://dsenetwork.hypotheses.org/146A group of textual scholars & software engineers discussed challenges of #DigitalScholarlyEditions regarding #Sustainability, mainly from a Norwegian perspective.
Headlined by @helling_patrick, we looked at #Coptic #Manuscripts, #Runes in #RelationalDatabases & #XML, #Mycenean #Inscriptions & #Norwegian #ArchivalEditions
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The Kyprianos Database has announced the start of a new project, #Coptic Magical Formularies, to produce a second volume of the Papyri Copticae Magicae, this one containing dozens more magical texts written in Coptic.
@histodons @historikerinnen @antiquidons
#anthropology #geschichte #histodons #ReligiousStudies #magic #magick @anthropology #Egyptology #egypt -
2024 Review: The Beginning of the Coptic Magical Formularies Project – #Coptic Magical Papyri
https://www.coptic-magic.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/index.php/2024/11/11/2024-review-the-beginning-of-the-coptic-magical-formularies-project/ -
Sharing from the Coptic Magical Papyri project: "For anyone in need of some Hallowe'en reading, there is a 40% discount on any De Gruyter and Brill titles (including the first volume of Papyri Copticae Magicae) with the code DGBSPOOKY, until midnight of the 31st October!" https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111080109/html?fbclid=IwY2xjawGQi8JleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHTCsEpJP0vm8-ntw9INS2o6rI2owD8p619B7G4kgLth0hdzGYV9YYU0KUg_aem_mZtpFNWikQWGa_UDKGh4NA #coptic #magic #papyri
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FUN FACT
#Ethiopia is the only country to use a 13 month calendar. Each month, except the last, has 30 days. The last month known as, Pagume, has only 5 days; 6 days, if falling on a leap year.
Tracing its origin to Ancient Coptic (Egyptian Orthodoxy). Which was itself derived from the Julian Calendar. The extra month serves to align with the Solar Cycle.
New Year falls on SEPTEMBER 11th.
#Funfact #funfacts #calendar #newyear #Coptic #egypt #ancienthistory #ancientegypt #ancientegyptian
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Another #bookbinding experiment last sunday, tried #coptic-stich this time. As usual I did several mistakes, but i like the final result.
The book is #hardcover with a #zelda picture in the centre.Full story on my free blog post on #kofi https://ko-fi.com/post/A-windy-sunday-doing-crafting-Y8Y71447VU
#craft #crafts #artandcraft #handmade #diy #hobby #hardcover #handmadebook #crafting #handcraft #handbound #artist #art #bookarts #coptic #copticbinding #paper -
The Nag Hammadi Library Complete Transcription
https://www.academia.edu/122868314/Nag_Hammadi_Library_Complete_Transcription
Every single text of the NHL presented in the original diplomatic Coptic, with words separated by space
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The #Coptic Scriptorium project is pleased to announce an online workshop Tuesday July 16 at 12 noon Eastern (USA) time on searching and querying its #database of richly annotated Coptic #literature.
The workshop will be held on Zoom and run by Amir Zeldes and Carrie Schroeder.
Please preregister here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSciKvbqI9gJgFJj2XE2VRdqUpRLw3r9XZEpc8XXdouIqh8T-g/viewform.
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#Coptic: A Grammar of Its Six Major Dialects — ANCIENT JEW REVIEW
https://www.ancientjewreview.com/read/2023/12/30/coptic-a-grammar-of-its-six-major-dialects -
#Christianity continues in #Africa. Egypt's prime minister in 1908 to 1910 was a #Coptic Christian named Boutros Ghali. His grandson Boutros Boutros-Ghali was Secretary General of the United Nations (1992-1996).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boutros_GhaliChristianity plays a big role in Nigerian politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nigeria
The newest country in the world, South Sudan, seceded fr/ Sudan in part because it is majority-Christian, unlike the rest of the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sudan -
Earlier, starting in the 1200s, there was a literary revival of #Coptic Christian authors writing in #Arabic in Egypt. Al-Safi Ibn al-Assal and his brother al-Mu'taman Ibn al-Assal wrote apologetics for #Christianity , canon law, and theology. Al-Makin Jirjis Ibn al-Amid wrote a world history. Ibn al-Rahib wrote chronology, grammar, Christology, & theodicy. Ibn Kabar (d.1324) wrote an encyclopedia of church matters.
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The Islamic conquests did lead to the eventual adoption of Arabic and the loss of the #Coptic language. An #apocalyptic text from the 10th C or so, the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Samuel, warns that adopting the Arabic language will destroy #Christianity in Egypt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_of_Samuel_of_Kalamoun
Coptic continues as a liturgical language for church services, but the last new Coptic text is perhaps the Martyrdom of John of Phanijoit, an odd story.
