Mina, or whoever is responsible for the lyrics section:
a) Could u put the arabic/english/coptic-english/coptic on the same page?? Its just the coptic-english is at the end of the sheet.
b) I found actually the translation for the tamgeed. U already translated it. Well done man!! That's brilliant. Don't worry about translating more of it.
c) It would be good if your Church could do the tasbeha in coptic/english and upload it. If your church sounds that good together (with Anba Youssef) , then why not upload it? We need some good tasbeha (all of it) in English.
d) Also, could u have a section on "learning coptic"??
I was assuming it was mina who translated it, as it had his name next to it. If you wanted anonymity, why did you put your name next to it??
But I'm still very happy you did it, or whoever did it; my wife INSISTED on me teaching her Aikoti Enthok. So, i started to write the lyrics for her in Coptic-English, as i didnt think anyone would have done that in Coptic-English. But YOU DID! And it was very useful!!! DO U REALISE HOW MUCH TIME U SAVED ME!!???
Keep it up!!
Comments
I hope you don't get offended, and I hope anyone gets offended. What I understood is that Mina wrote the lyrics in English lyrics to pronounce Coptic language, is that right? If it is so, then please don't let me start. Please please please DON'T DO THAT AGAIN. This is a wrong way for anyone to learn any language. Please: it is not for the sake of singing hymns, that we don't know what we are talking about. We have to learn languages properly, and most of all the Coptic language, which is OUR OWN.
I saw people do that in Coptic churches in England, and it is very wrong. I don't know if it is the same case in America or any other country (even in Egypt they do this, and have whole kholagies with this), but please stop it because it is ruining the language further, not helping it at all. Please try to understand me, and again, don't get offended.
God bless you all and pray for us a lot
Dear QT_PA_2T,
I hope you don't get offended, and I hope anyone gets offended. What I understood is that Mina wrote the lyrics in English lyrics to pronounce Coptic language, is that right? If it is so, then please don't let me start. Please please please DON'T DO THAT AGAIN. This is a wrong way for anyone to learn any language. Please: it is not for the sake of singing hymns, that we don't know what we are talking about. We have to learn languages properly, and most of all the Coptic language, which is OUR OWN.
I saw people do that in Coptic churches in England, and it is very wrong. I don't know if it is the same case in America or any other country (even in Egypt they do this, and have whole kholagies with this), but please stop it because it is ruining the language further, not helping it at all. Please try to understand me, and again, don't get offended.
God bless you all and pray for us a lot
Hi Ophedece,
No. .i'm not at all offended. But don't you think you are exaggerating a tad bit? I mean, it is useful what Mina has done. I'll explain why:
In my marriage ceremony, there were many many French people there. They were all Chrisitans, and they would have loved to sing along with the deacons IF we had had a column for the transliteration (i.e. the coptic english).
The recording of Anba Youssef was brilliant as I did notice that he pronounced Coptic perfectly. I love that. Its a good example. Then again, a french person singing coptic will pronounce coptic WAY WAY better than an Egyptian, and i have no reservations in saying this, that there are some mo3alims that pronounce coptic badly; and if they had the transliteration, it would have helped them.
Its "dthoxa patri" - not "zoxa batri" - despite these people being able to read coptic, they don't pronounce it well, and they will never pronounce it well if they continue this way. They arabicise the coptic language (which REALLY frustrates me).
We have a mo3alim in the UK who takes this very seriously. Very very seriously. The coptic pronounciation has to be respected. Transliteration in English solves this problem. Its very useful. It is analagous to the stabilisers on a child's bike that helps him cycle alone until he is capable of cycling all alone anyway.
I respectfully disagree with you on this. We never learnt Coptic as a Coptic language, we learnt COptic to sing songs and praise God in our Church as all of our hymns was written in the Coptic language, it naturally sounds better in Coptic. So the best way is to learn the song in Coptic, understand the meaning (thanks again he who translated the words!! ) and sing in order to praise God with the hymns our CHurch has provided us.
We can go a step further and learn Coptic, as a language in its own right, not just as a language for hymns; however, this is beyond us right now. Is this a good idea to learn Coptic as a language in its own right!? YES! It is. But, my primary concern is giving someone the chance to praise God with our hymns, get them up and running asap, and then bit by bit, if they are interested, they can progress in learning Coptic.
I read coptic very well, and i must say, we used EVERY technique to learn, and this was one of them.
Trust me, I never mean learning Coptic as a language, but understanding the hymns that we sing rather. It is through understanding the hymns that we praise God, and not just repeat words rather blindly. Coptic language in its own right is a difficult one: although I love it, I can't see myself being like Fr. Bigol, or Fr. Shenouda, and communicate with it. I am sure other members may be in a similar position, and I agree strongly with what you said about those mo3alims, who although they read Coptic they pronounce it wrong. But again, it is like when you learn English or French, you have to learn phonetics used in this language (not in your own tongue first). That is my whole point. Learn the language through its own letters, and grammar, not through another's. It is ok for the sake of participating in some occasions that we have to ignore this, but generally that is wrong. Again, I agree that the French might even pronounce the Coptic better than Coptics themselves. That is true.
But tell me by the way, you seem to come to the UK quite often; which mo3alim did you mean? And when you attend church in the UK, which church do you attend? It will be lovely to see you one day.
God bless you and pray for us a lot
No double standards please: remember. No transliteration at all please :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
God bless you and pray for us a lot
Dear QT_PAT_2T,
Trust me, I never mean learning Coptic as a language, but understanding the hymns that we sing rather. It is through understanding the hymns that we praise God, and not just repeat words rather blindly. Coptic language in its own right is a difficult one: although I love it, I can't see myself being like Fr. Bigol, or Fr. Shenouda, and communicate with it. I am sure other members may be in a similar position, and I agree strongly with what you said about those mo3alims, who although they read Coptic they pronounce it wrong. But again, it is like when you learn English or French, you have to learn phonetics used in this language (not in your own tongue first). That is my whole point. Learn the language through its own letters, and grammar, not through another's. It is ok for the sake of participating in some occasions that we have to ignore this, but generally that is wrong. Again, I agree that the French might even pronounce the Coptic better than Coptics themselves. That is true.
But tell me by the way, you seem to come to the UK quite often; which mo3alim did you mean? And when you attend church in the UK, which church do you attend? It will be lovely to see you one day.
God bless you and pray for us a lot
"Learn the language through its own letters and phonetics"
Yep! THis is by far the best way. I couldn't agree more. And i'm not sure if you noticed, i asked for a coptic course to be added (the whole reason for this thread) as I realised that after using the transliteration method, it would be better to actually teach her the Coptic alphabet from scratch. But there wasn't time. SHe heard Aikoti enthok and wanted to sing it... man,.. we HAVE TO PLEASE OUR WIVES!! SO, i just thought, for the time being, why not spell the words out for her in Coptic English?
Ophadece, seriously, do u think it is that serious??
I think it is MORE serious to teach the basics to the Coptic mo3alims. Their voices are nice, but they've RUINED the Coptic language.
The great Coptic letter "Pi" is now "Bie" thanks to these people. Its an insult to the Coptic language.
"Vita" is now "Beta"
"Theta" is now "Sita" (sea-o-to-kos rather than Theo-to-kos)
this is all thanks to Coptic Egyptians. Correct these people 1st, and then someone just trying to pray in Coptic. Ya3ni... we are a simple family living all alone in Paris, with No coptic community, and so, i don't think we'll offend anyone other than the few icons we have in our apartment over looking the Eiffel Tower.
What??????????????????? Please our wives??????????????????????????????
I can't agree more :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
Well, I agree with you that English and French are more like the "modern" Coptic language, and I do agree also that Egyptian cantors are ruining the language, but transliteration is not a good idea at all in any case. For me the issue is really serious.
Another thing, I don't actually agree on all these examples you gave, and that is why I put the term "modern Coptic". I don't think vita was vita in the original language, nor was the thita, thita, but the latter is not an "s" at all definitely: rather a "t". I am a big fan of Fr. Shenouda Maher's theory, and I do support it.
You didn't answer my questions; sorry if you took it personal, or if I surpassed my limits.
God bless you and pray for us a lot
Dear QT_PA_2T,
What??????????????????? Please our wives??????????????????????????????
I can't agree more :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
Well, I agree with you that English and French are more like the "modern" Coptic language, and I do agree also that Egyptian cantors are ruining the language, but transliteration is not a good idea at all in any case. For me the issue is really serious.
Another thing, I don't actually agree on all these examples you gave, and that is why I put the term "modern Coptic". I don't think vita was vita in the original language, nor was the thita, thita, but the latter is not an "s" at all definitely: rather a "t". I am a big fan of Fr. Shenouda Maher's theory, and I do support it.
You didn't answer my questions; sorry if you took it personal, or if I surpassed my limits.
God bless you and pray for us a lot
Hmmm.. yes yes.. i see the issue of transliteration has affected your life. We just want to sing Aikoti Enthok. I don't have any Coptic books like i had when i learnt arabic. I had a book in arabic called "Amal, Omar, and biss-biss il otta" to help me learn arabic. We need the equivalent for the Coptic language, most likely, it will be something like "Nofer, Rano, Verte nem Chuchu the rabbit".
I can't find anything on the internet.
Ya ya3m, i never took it personally. Ya3ni, its not as if you are condemning me to death over this issue, and i don't feel i've sinned against God over it, so i am able to sleep at night still. Thanks.
Congratulations on your marriage.
You both pray for us a lot. God bless your new life, and your home, and may He and the saints stay in your house and bless it forever.
it would be interesting to see what Maged and others have to say about this. I feel Mina's coptic must be better than mine. Whatever he suggests then should be taken seriously. I read the coptic whilst anba Youssef was singing: neither did the deacons NOR anba Youssef make one mistake (yeah, ok, there was a part where they repeated the same verse as anba youssef, but that's because they were daydreaming), but their coptic was good.
Mina: what do u think?? I just wanted a quick way to teach my wife??
Secondly, I agree with ONE thing: PLEASE REMOVE THE TRANSLITERATION FROM ARABIC to save the Coptic language - But the transliteration from Coptic to English is BRILLIANT.
well with me....i like to read the way i learned and int he true coptic i know. i didn't study the coptic language as u guys think. i just learn to much orally from all the deacons we have here and from attedning all tasbeha's i can attend. another thing when i write coptic-english, i like to write it the way it's chanted and not the way u'd read normal coptic words.
Learn How To Read Coptic:http://www.orthodoxbookstore.org/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1569
Coptic/English Dictionary:http://www.orthodoxbookstore.org/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1564
So You Want To Learn Coptic? http://www.orthodoxbookstore.org/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1572
There's also a DVD's and VHS's that teaches Coptic:
http://www.orthodoxbookstore.org/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=614
http://www.orthodoxbookstore.org/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=615
http://www.orthodoxbookstore.org/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1695
and i also agree with mina, although the correct pronunciation is key when i myself write coptic-english i go for the chanting pronunciation so that they could be unified and it helps with the singing of the hymn. if the person teaching it is a bit better at coptic and will teach the hymn with better pronunciation then i will make the coptic-english more accurate to the coptic language.
Hope these links help someone!
and i also agree with mina, although the correct pronunciation is key when i myself write coptic-english i go for the chanting pronunciation so that they could be unified and it helps with the singing of the hymn. if the person teaching it is a bit better at coptic and will teach the hymn with better pronunciation then i will make the coptic-english more accurate to the coptic language.
the only reason am saying this is that we all know that the Coptic language will never be as it was before as a national language. (as much as QT_PA_2T and a lot of us here would love to be)
so since basically it's sole purpose is hymns and liturgical cases than lets deal with the language as it's used for currently.
THanks Mina,
So, could u put then the transliteration (which was very well done) alongside the coptic, english and arabic??
Cheers,
Good job
hmm....which one are we talking about again?!!
[quote author=QT_PA_2T link=topic=5762.msg77169#msg77169 date=1190190487]
THanks Mina,
So, could u put then the transliteration (which was very well done) alongside the coptic, english and arabic??
Cheers,
Good job
hmm....which one are we talking about again?!!
For the time being: Aikoti Enthok, but in all honesty, I was thinking about all of them.
Its a really good job Mina, and its a shame the transliteration is at the bottom of the screen.
Thanks
[quote author=minagir link=topic=5762.msg77191#msg77191 date=1190217111]
[quote author=QT_PA_2T link=topic=5762.msg77169#msg77169 date=1190190487]
THanks Mina,
So, could u put then the transliteration (which was very well done) alongside the coptic, english and arabic??
Cheers,
Good job
hmm....which one are we talking about again?!!
For the time being: Aikoti Enthok, but in all honesty, I was thinking about all of them.
Its a really good job Mina, and its a shame the transliteration is at the bottom of the screen.
Thanks
it's all there ya habibi......all of tasbeha except may be the morning doxology.
Mina,
I know its all there.. but the issue is this ya basha:
Can u have all 4 columns together:
ENGLISH | ARABIC | ENGLISH COPTIC | COPTIC
4 columns next to each other?? comme ca?
oh...but it's not mine to do so. it's the design of the page by the admins. i think having 4 columns would look a little weird because you'd than have like a word on every line which is not really nice.