Coptic Translations

Comments

• minatasgeel

  January 2022

  Hey.
  
  Welcome to the forum.
  
  I would want to ask, what would be the purple of needing the Coptic translation of such words?!
• mabsoota

  January 2022

  yes, it needs to be translated in context as the coptic language is very rich and context is important.

  (i have only passed 1 class, no not advanced enough to help you yet!)
• Daniel_Kyrillos

  January 2022 edited January 2022

  Hello! Welcome to the forum.

  My Coptic knowledge is limited, but through comparison to Church texts we can get a primitive translation. If I get something wrong, please correct me!

  
  "Glory" can be translated pretty straightforwardly- Piwou (lit. 'the glory', since the noun needs an article.) It's used in many texts and hymns, so you can look up "glory" in the Lyrics Library search bar and find lots of examples in writing (not all will have Coptic translations, since you'd be searching the English texts. I also wouldn't recommend searching the Coptic root, -wou, since it's not unique and you'll get lots of confusing results).
  
  

  Victory is translated as Pi`[ro (again, lit. 'the victory'). To take victory to victorious, you add the prefix ref- to form ref[ro, literally meaning "to have the quality of victory"- victorious. This can be made into a noun (Pi/}/Ni)ref[ro to mean 'the victorious (one[s])' (masculine, feminine, and plural definite articles respectively) Ex: Piref[ro qen nibwtc ("The victorious [one] in wars", from the Doxology of St. Severus). 

  
  

  Glorious is a bit harder- I suppose technically you could say refwou, but that phrase doesn't seem to be used outside the compound word refwou`nhyt, which could be literally translated as "having the quality of glory of heart", although the English and Arabic translations say "long-suffering" or "patient". When searching "glorious" in the Lyrics Library, you find a couple words that all have slightly different meanings and connotations:

  > Paradoxon- This is a Greek loan word, and has the same root as the English word "paradox". The way it's used, it's more like "paradoxical", "miraculous, or "astounding", as in beyond our human comprehension. 

  > -taiyout, or some variation on that root- this is translated in some instances as "honored" or "revered", but other times as "glorious".

  > "`nte /`m`pwou"- this one is confusing to me. In lots of contexts, what is translated as "glorious" is unclear or at times nonsensical. In my extremely unqualified opinion, the more clear way to translate most instances of that clause is not as "glorious" but as "the ___ of glory". The same with pefwou, which means "His (usually God's) glory". Ex: f`cmarwout `nje piran e;ouab `nte pef`wou sa `eneh `nte pi`eneh@ =a=l is the Coptic for Psalm 72:19 as written here, which is translated as "blessed be His glorious name forever. Alleluia". However, there are 2 issues (again, in my extreeeeemely underqualified opinion) with this translation: the omission of "holy", and changing "glory" from a noun (His glory) to an adjective (glorious) in English. A literal translation of that verse could be, "Blessed be the holy name of His glory unto the age of ages, Alleluia". This is closer to the translation used in the 3rd Hoos, which appears to reference this exact verse!

  
  

  It appears that any time "glorious" could be used, the sentence is changed to either say "full of glory" (meh `nwou) or use one of these other words, but never refwou.
  
  Hope this helped!
• ophadece

  January 2022

  Dear @Daniel_Kyrillos,
  Thank you very much for your input. I think @AltHistoryWriter787 and all (including myself above all) benefit so much from your very nice efforts and opinions.
  Where you made the mistakes are the following - there is no such a thing as ⲣⲉϥⲱⲟⲩ - let's be clear ⲣⲉϥ is a prefix that attaches to verbs (ⲱⲟⲩⲛ̀ϩⲏⲧ is one as you rightly said but ⲱⲟⲩ is a noun) to make them -er nouns as in your perfect example ⲣⲉϥϭⲣⲟ.
  There is no such a thing as ⲙⲉϩ because this is the incomplete form of the verb ⲙⲟϩ so you will always have to say ⲉⲑⲙⲉϩ ⲛ̀ⲱⲟⲩ. I engaged in a similar argument previously but better not use such expressions for "ordinary" subjects (and objects), they have to be uniquely referenced (eg ⲉⲑⲙⲉϩ ⲛ̀ϩⲙⲟⲧ for the Virgin)..
  Ⲟⲩϫⲁⲓ ϧⲉⲛ ⲡϭⲥ
• Daniel_Kyrillos

  January 2022

  @ophadece thank you very much for correcting me- Coptic’s prefixes always mess me up. I can’t believe i overlooked the part of speech of the word!!
  I’m aware I left the verb conjugation off of ⲙⲉϩ, but if I correctly understand it it can be ⲉϥⲙⲉϩ, ⲉⲑⲙⲉϩ, or ⲉⲥⲙⲉϩ based on the subject, but I couldn’t remember what the rules for that were or what it was called to even find resources from it, so I left it off. When you say “uniquely referenced”, do you mean that those specific idioms/phrases are ‘reserved’ to specific usages (ex, St. Mary)?
  
  Ⲟⲩϫⲁⲓ
• ophadece

  January 2022

  Dear @Daniel_Kyrillos,

  Spot on as always.. thanks a lot for correcting my expression - yes "reserved" is the right description for what I meant to say. 

  As for the rules for meh and the like, the prefix e; usually follows a word attached to a definite article such as pipneuma e;ouab, or a demonstrative of course, such as ;ye;meh `n`hmot - vye;ouab `mmarturoc

  The prefix ec, ef, and eu are used when the preceding word is attached to an indefinite article, a famous example being outriac ecouab
• mabsoota

  January 2022

  i hope the poster logs in again, it has been a while since he / she logged in.

  if you do come back, please note that the coptic word 'hoos' means a little song, and we love to sing these songs in the night time praises to God that usually happen late on saturdays.

  
  

  i also enjoyed the lessons, thanks, brothers!

  :)