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Coptic Lesson 1: 'The'

epchois_nai_nanepchois_nai_nan
edited December 1969 in Hymns Discussion
All the recent discussions about Coptic in the liturgy have made me decide to post some really simple Coptic Lessons here, so that people who wish to learn can begin to do so. I've found from previous discussions that there are in fact quite a few people out there who want to learn but are put off by the sheer lack of resources and difficulty of self-teaching. This forum is a good medium for such lessons, because people can approach them at their own pace and even ask questions if they would like.

I also have resources such as a Coptic dictionary PDF and some basic lessons which I will gladly pass on to anyone who wishes: please PM me if you wish me to email them to you.

If people find the lessons useful, I will try and continue them - I'm not sure how far they'll get or how many people are interested at the moment so we'll have to see how it goes. At the very least, I hope that they will give people a good base with which to develop their knowledge further. I'll place the first lesson in the following post.


A quick disclaimer: I'm nowhere near an expert, but I have a working understanding of the language as it's used in the Liturgy, and have collected quite a few resources which I can draw from. The resource which I am drawing from the most is Sameh Younan's "So You Want To Learn Coptic?" which I recommend to anyone wishing to learn. It is a brilliantly written guide and very easy to follow. It can be purchased from: https://www.orthodoxbook.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=226?osCsid=3b2tkuqpupin0bve0hedssipd5
(and other sites too)

`ere `Vnou] `cmou `erwten tyrou
God bless you all

Comments

  • epchois_nai_nanepchois_nai_nan
    Coptic Lesson 1: 'The'

    The first thing you learn in any language is the definite article, i.e. 'the'. English has only one definite article ('the') however Coptic has five! Don't worry though, it's actually very simple. The reason for this number is because Coptic nouns, like Arabic ones, have different genders. There is a separate definite article for male, female and plural nouns.

    (Note: if you can't see Coptic letters below, you can download the font from this page: http://www.copticchurch.net/coptic_fonts/)

    Let's start with the male one: pi (pi)

    Now, in Coptic, there is no space between the definite article and the word its attached to. So if I wanted to say 'the king', I would take the Coptic word for 'king': ouro (ouro) and place pi in front of it:

    piouro (pi-ouro) = the king

    You'll probably notice that this is used VERY often in the Liturgy: picwma (pi-soma) = the Body, pi`cnof (pi-esnof) = the Blood, Pi,rictoc = the Christ etc.

    For FEMALE words, the definite article is ] (ti)

    So if I wanted to say: 'the mother', I would take the Coptic word for mother: mau (mav) and simply place ] before it:

    ]mau (ti-mav/di-maw) = the mother

    Examples in the liturgy: ];eotokoc (ti-theotokos/di-Te-odokos) = the Theotokos, ]`triac (ti-et-rias/di-ed-rias) = the Trinity


    For PLURAL words, the definite article is ni (ni).

    Now this is actually very useful! Let's say I wanted to say 'the kings' or 'the mothers'. In Coptic, you don't have to change the word to make it plural, only the article that precedes it! So in order to say, 'the kings', I would simply take the word for 'king': ouro and place ni before it:

    niouro (ni-ouro) = the kings

    The same goes for female plurals too - so 'the mothers' would simply be:

    nimau (ni-mav/ni-maw) = the mothers

    There are in fact some words which have special plural forms (e.g. alou (alou) = child vs. alwoui (alo-oui) = children) but fortunately, these are completely optional and not worth worrying about since you will detect all plural words by the ni that precedes them anyway.

    So for now, simply remember: pi (pi), ] (ti) ni (ni)

    If you recite the following examples every day for a while, you will have essentially got it:
    piouro (pi-ouro) = the king
    ]mau (ti-mav/di-maw) = the mother
    niouro (ni-ouro) = the kings

    So there you have it! With those three words, you have basically mastered the definite article in Coptic! I did say that there were FIVE definite articles, but the two that are missing are very simple and I will address them in a brief follow-up. For the moment, its best to learn these three well as they are the most important.

    Please feel free to leave any feedback or questions by replying in the thread :) God bless
  • bishoykhalibishoykhali
    This is awesome,
    God bless you and your service!
  • peterfarringtonpeterfarrington
    This will be useful for people. Well done.

    Which pronounciation will you be using?

    Father Peter

  • epchois_nai_nanepchois_nai_nan
    [quote author=Father Peter link=topic=10615.msg129386#msg129386 date=1296638305]
    Which pronounciation will you be using?


    I'm going to grit my teeth and use Greco-Bohairic simply because this is what most Churches use. Old Bohairic is more accurate and more aesthetically Egyptian, but its easy enough to switch between the two if it should become necessary. Either way, these lessons are mostly about grammar anyway, so it shouldn't be a massive issue.

    Pray for me
  • peterfarringtonpeterfarrington
    Why not provide both.

    I know that I would not want to learn GB if I thought, as I do, that I should use OB.

    God bless

    Father Peter
  • Unknown
    [quote author=epchois_nai_nan link=topic=10615.msg129381#msg129381 date=1296633791]
    Coptic Lesson 1: 'The'

    The first thing you learn in any language is the definite article, i.e. 'the'. English has only one definite article ('the') however Coptic has five! Don't worry though, it's actually very simple. The reason for this number is because Coptic nouns, like Arabic ones, have different genders. There is a separate definite article for male, female and plural nouns.

    (Note: if you can't see Coptic letters below, you can download the font from this page: http://www.copticchurch.net/coptic_fonts/)

    Let's start with the male one: pi (pi)

    Now, in Coptic, there is no space between the definite article and the word its attached to. So if I wanted to say 'the king', I would take the Coptic word for 'king': ouro (ouro) and place pi in front of it:

    piouro (pi-ouro) = the king

    You'll probably notice that this is used VERY often in the Liturgy: picwma (pi-soma) = the Body, pi`cnof (pi-esnof) = the Blood, Pi,rictoc = the Christ etc.

    For FEMALE words, the definite article is ] (ti)

    So if I wanted to say: 'the mother', I would take the Coptic word for mother: mau (mav) and simply place ] before it:

    ]mau (ti-mav) = the mother

    Examples in the liturgy: ];eotokoc (ti-theotokos) = the Theotokos, ]`triac (ti-trias) = the Trinity


    For PLURAL words, the definite article is ni (ni).

    Now this is actually very useful! Let's say I wanted to say 'the kings' or 'the mothers'. In Coptic, you don't have to change the word to make it plural, only the article that precedes it! So in order to say, 'the kings', I would simply take the word for 'king': ouro and place ni before it:

    niouro (ni-ouro) = the kings

    The same goes for female plurals too - so 'the mothers' would simply be:

    nimau (ni-mav) = the mothers

    There are in fact some words which have special plural forms (e.g. alou (alou) = child vs. alwoui (alo-oui) = children) but fortunately, these are completely optional and not worth worrying about since you will detect all plural words by the ni that precedes them anyway.

    So for now, simply remember: pi (pi), ] (ti) ni (ni)

    If you recite the following examples every day for a while, you will have essentially got it:
    piouro (pi-ouro) = the king
    ]mau (ti-mav) = the mother
    niouro (ni-ouro) = the kings

    So there you have it! With those three words, you have basically mastered the definite article in Coptic! I did say that there were FIVE definite articles, but the two that are missing are very simple and I will address them in a brief follow-up. For the moment, its best to learn these three well as they are the most important.

    Please feel free to leave any feedback or questions by replying in the thread :) God bless


    thanks this is really good! I like it!!

    Gb
  • epchois_nai_nanepchois_nai_nan
    [quote author=Father Peter link=topic=10615.msg129389#msg129389 date=1296643210]
    Why not provide both.

    I know that I would not want to learn GB if I thought, as I do, that I should use OB.

    God bless

    Father Peter


    Fair enough, and good choice btw :) I will gladly include both. I have written a lesson on the alphabet to give people a brief introduction to it, and the difference between OB and GB. It is not necessary to memorise all the letter values, as OB and GB transliterations will be provided consistently.

    Thanks BoJ :)

    Pray for me
  • TITLTITL
    How do know if a word is feminine or masculine?
  • ArchdeaconArchdeacon
    Just a quick correction to this lesson: some words are changed when in plural.  There's no way to figure it out; you kind of just have to know it or look it up in a book.  Here are some examples:

    Singular              Plural
    piouro                niourwou        king - kings
    picon                  ni`cnyou        brother - brothers
    `tve                    nivyoui            heaven - heavens
    pialou                nialwoui          boy - boys
  • RemnkemiRemnkemi
    [quote author=TITL link=topic=10615.msg129419#msg129419 date=1296670826]
    How do know if a word is feminine or masculine?


    8 times out of 10, if the noun or the object is masculine, then the definite article is masculine. So the noun, "man" is always a masculine thing. The definite article is pi. As in Piromi. If the noun is something to do with women, like the noun "woman", it is feminine. So the word is ties-himi.

    Why did I say 8 times out of 10?  Because sometimes, especially if you only know English, you won't know what gender the word is. So for example, is "trinity" a female or a male object? In English, you can't tell. And most Westerners will not see a Trinity as a female, but it is a feminine word. So it is Titrias. So how do you know if a new word is feminine or masculine? Just learn the gender along with the new vocabulary.

  • TITLTITL

    Just learn the gender along with the new vocabulary.

    That was my question: how?

    Is there a chart?
  • epchois_nai_nanepchois_nai_nan
    [quote author=TITL link=topic=10615.msg129439#msg129439 date=1296678130]

    Just learn the gender along with the new vocabulary.

    That was my question: how?

    Is there a chart?


    The easiest way is to learn the definite article together with the word itself - so when you learn the word: ouro (ouro), remember it as: piouro instead. That way when you memorise a word, the gender will stick.

    Even then though, you would only have to MEMORISE genders if you were planning on writing and speaking in Coptic yourself (which I would encourage actually) - but in the Liturgy, you can almost ALWAYS tell a word's gender by the grammar around it so it won't be a problem. Examples:
    ]soury (ti-shouree/di-shou-re) = the censer (female)
    pi`ehoou (pi-eho-oo) = the day (male)
    piouyb (pi-o-weeb/pi-web) = the priest (male)

    and so on ... Once we get to possessive/demonstrative and all the other types of articles, you'll see that you can almost always tell the gender just by reading.
    [quote author=Archdeacon link=topic=10615.msg129435#msg129435 date=1296677385]
    Just a quick correction to this lesson: some words are changed when in plural.  There's no way to figure it out; you kind of just have to know it or look it up in a book.  Here are some examples:

    Singular              Plural
    piouro                 niourwou         king - kings
    picon                   ni`cnyou         brother - brothers
    `tve                    nivyoui            heaven - heavens
    pialou                 nialwoui           boy - boys


    But the good thing is, you don't HAVE to use them for the sentence to be correct, which is why I didn't really bother explaining this in detail. In fact, in the Liturgy we often leave them out (but not always):
    e.g.
    na[oic `nio] `napoctoloc (na-chois en-yo-ti en-apostolos/na-chois en-yo-di en-aposdolos) = my lords and fathers the apostles
    Here, [oic remains singular (as opposed to [iceu {chi-sev/chi-sew} = lords) while the plural form of iwt (yot/yod) (father) is used: io] (yoti/yodi)

    So it really depends on what the original author felt like - you will always be able to tell from the articles though.

    God bless
  • abrahamfabrahamf
    THANK YOU!!! This is great, and very helpful! at last!!

    God Bless all your efforts!
  • mabsootamabsoota
    so if pi-ouro means the king, what does epouro mean?
  • jydeaconjydeacon
    If you go to the other lessons he explains the weak form articles. Weak form is used to distinguish the verb or show uniqueness. ep is part of the weak form, to show Uniqueness when speaking about the King of Peace. So its Epouro
  • mabsootamabsoota
    to answer my own post (!) i just saw this:
    http://tasbeha.org/content/community/index.php/topic,10625.0/topicseen.html
  • Cyril97Cyril97
    My guess it O King... of peace ;)
    God bless, Pray for me,
    Cyril
  • epchois_nai_nanepchois_nai_nan
    [quote author=Cyril97 link=topic=10615.msg129554#msg129554 date=1296765927]
    My guess it O King... of peace ;)
    God bless, Pray for me,
    Cyril


    Most of the time, the 'weak' definite article simply emphasises the specialness of the thing, but when you use it to directly address someone, its the equivalent of saying 'O ...'

    So `pouro (ep-ouro) is exactly the same as 'Ya Malek' in Arabic, because you are actually talking to the King and asking Him to 'grant us His peace ... etc.' In other circumstances, even when we're not directly addressing God, we still use the 'weak' article to emphasise the special place God has - not simply a father, but the Father, not simply a lord, but the Lord etc.

    God bless your efforts!

    Pray for me
  • kyrollos faheemkyrollos faheem
    Let me just begin by saying that this is awesome. May God bless your work.

    And now that we are talking about Coptic vocabulary, I was wondering if anyone knows the days of the week and the names of the hours (e.g. first, third, sixth, etc...) in Coptic. Thank you very much and God bless.
  • ophadeceophadece
    [quote author=epchois_nai_nan link=topic=10615.msg129619#msg129619 date=1296811793]
    Most of the time, the 'weak' definite article simply emphasises the specialness of the thing, but when you use it to directly address someone, its the equivalent of saying 'O ...'

    So `pouro (ep-ouro) is exactly the same as 'Ya Malek' in Arabic, because you are actually talking to the King and asking Him to 'grant us His peace ... etc.'



    Dear ebshoisnainan,
    I don't think this is right. In Coptic language, you don't usually use w to address the subject, neither do you use the 'weak' article for that end. Any sentence structure could be insinuated by its context as addressing someone, but this is not a particular usage of the 'weak' article as you say. I hope I am clear, and I am so interested in your opinion...
    oujai qen `P[C
  • epchois_nai_nanepchois_nai_nan
    Hi ophadece - I got this use of the weak article from Sameh Younana's book, this is what he says:

    "`p[oic doesn't just mean 'the Lord', but in some cases it means 'O Lord.' It's usually easy to tell when the construction being used for the definite article or for the vocative, as translating it as 'the' when it was intended for the vocative just doesn't make sense."

    Have you ever come across this in other resources? I have no way to verify it but I assume he is correct.

    Pray for me
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