Dear All
I know this lady personally, Dr. Mona Zaki is a Dr. in the AUC (American
Unversity in Cairo), she is the grandchild of Ekladios Bek Labib who made the
Coptic/Arabic dictionary. As she told me recently, she raised in a
Coptic-speaking family
Rgrds
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
here is the link to the story.It is shameful that a lot of foreign
people believed that the Egyptian language must still be alive while the copts
do no think except in a very negative way.
http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=106#
languageâs last survivors
By Joseph Mayton
First Published: December 10, 2005 Coptic is a
combination of the ancient Egyptian languages Demotic, Hieroglyphic and
Hieratic.
CAIRO: Considered an extinct language, the Coptic language is believed to
exist only in the liturgical language of the Coptic Church in Egypt. The
ancient language that lost in prominence thanks largely to the Arab incursion
into Egypt over 1300 years ago remains the spoken language of the church and
only two families in Egypt.
Coptic is a combination of the ancient Egyptian languages Demotic,
Hieroglyphic and Hieratic, and was the language used by the Ptolemaic rulers of
Egypt following the spread of Greek culture throughout much of the Near East.
In essence, it is the language of the ancient Egyptians themselves.
Mona Zaki is one of only a handful of people that continue to use the
language in everyday conversation. She speaks a colloquial form of Coptic with
her parents and a few relatives that dates back 2,000 years.
âIn many ways it helps strengthen my faith,â Zaki said. âIt has really
helped when I go to church because they still use a form of Coptic for many
services.â Her dialect, however, differs slightly from the standard Coptic
that is used for study and church services.
She does not speak Coptic with her children.
âI felt that Coptic was a worthless language to have my children speak,
therefore I did not do so when they were young,â said Zaki.
Coptic is the language of the first Christian church in history, and when the
members of the two families that speak the colloquial form of Coptic die, it
will be the first language of the early Christian churches to become extinct.
Among those early languages, Aramaic was thought to be extinct until recent
history proved otherwise. The language is still spoken in parts of southern
Turkey and northwest Syria. Zaki feels it would be a great loss to Coptic
Christianity and the world if the Coptic language is totally lost.
âI hope that the world will come to realize the importance of Coptic in
Christian doctrine,â Zaki said. âEgypt is the first home for a Christian
church and that makes Coptic truly the first language of Christianity in a
sense.â
âIt is sad to think that the language will truly be dead in the next 100
years. They are already classifying Coptic as a dead language in most
encyclopedias,â Zaki said. Neither parents used Coptic with their children.
This is similar to the historical decline of the Coptic language. With the
Arab conquest, Arabic began to be the language spoken in everyday life. After a
period of religious turmoil in Egypt, Coptic leaders decided to use Arabic as
their main means of conversation in order to show the Arab rulers that they
were not conspirators of the European Crusaders.
It is a sad fact that the language will soon go the way of Latin.
Copt itself means Egypt. The word Egypt comes from the Greek aiguptios and
the Arabic qupt â both of those words were derived from the Coptic language
that was spoken when each community ascended upon Egypt.
Coptic is the closest descendant to the spoken language of the ancient
Egyptians. Combining the Greek alphabet with Demotic, Coptic is a unique
conglomeration of languages. Despite this fact, Coptic has no official status
in Egypt. The form spoken in church services differs from Zakiâs. Coptic is a
combination of the ancient Egyptian languages Demotic, Hieratic and
Hieroglyphic. It was the latest evolution of the Egyptian language.
âMy parents passed the language down to me like their parents did before
them.
Unfortunately for Copts throughout Egypt, this process was broken over the
years,â she said. âI guess I have continued the destruction of the language
in many ways by me not passing it along to my children
âMy parents felt it was an important part of our heritage and spoke to me
in Coptic since I can remember,â
Zaki revealed. âWhy I didnât pass on the language to my children, I
donât know.â Zaki says that she often receives strange looks when she is
overheard speaking Coptic on her mobile phone. âPeople look at me as if I am
an alien and I donât belong. I guess that is what my ancestors had to deal
with,although violently in some instances,â she said,which is the main reason
that Zaki chose not to speak Coptic with her children.
âI didnât want my kids to have to experience the exclusion that Coptic
had with me when I was younger,â she revealed. âI can remember my friends
making fun of me when I talked to my parents
But it is vital to her cultural understanding of being a Copt in a country
dominated by Islam. âIt gives me the strength to practice my faith despite
all the hardship that being Christian in an Islamic country has,â Zaki said.
Some scholars have theorized that some remote villagers in the Delta region
of Egypt or in the south of the country may still speak forms of the Coptic
language. Because many Egyptians live in small villages away from government
control and active study by anthropologists, it is theorized that Coptic will
persist despite official numbers.
âIt would be nice to have more people speaking Coptic,â Zaki admitted.
âIt would mean that our culture and way of life will continue in the years to
come.â
That is unlikely considering the evidence. As it is already considered a dead
language akin to Latin, it seems implausible that undiscovered speakers of
Coptic will be discovered.
Hundreds of languages are lost each year as the remaining speakers pass away.
---------------------------------
Comment on article! Add New Comment on article!
Comments on Article
coptic language
Coptic Language
coptic
A tree for site navigation will open here if you enable JavaScript in
your browser.
---------------------------------
See what's free at AOL.com.
---------------------------------
Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.
