Coptic

Also known as Coptic Egyptian, Coptic language, cop

latest stage of the Egyptian language

AI overview

Coptic is the final form of the ancient Egyptian language, used primarily by the Coptic Christian church in Egypt. It matters because it provides a direct linguistic link to pharaonic Egypt and helps scholars understand the evolution of one of humanity's oldest written languages.

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Wikidata facts

Image: CopticLetters.png

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native label: ⲧⲙⲛ̄ⲧⲣⲙ̄ⲛ̄ⲕⲏⲙⲉ
Commons category: Coptic language
number of speakers, writers, or signers: 0
start time: 0150-00-00
Wikimedia language code: cop
exact match: publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/language/COP
Wikimedia Incubator URL: incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/cop
P10369: Wikimedia Foundation
P13311: Pointe-au-Père

Sources (9)

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Article

Coptic (Bohairic Coptic: ϯⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, romanized: Timetremənkʰēmi) is a dormant Afroasiatic language. It is a group of closely related Egyptian dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Egyptians, starting from the third century AD in Roman Egypt. Coptic was supplanted by Arabic as the primary spoken language of Egypt following the Arab conquest of Egypt and was slowly replaced over the centuries.

Coptic has no modern-day native speakers, and no fluent speakers apart from a number of priests although it remains in daily use as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church and of the Coptic Catholic Church. It is written with the Coptic alphabet, a modified form of the Greek alphabet with seven additional letters borrowed from the Demotic Egyptian script.