SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

mood, e.g. , nabwl = eknaûl ; , ouwrp = ekûorb . Sometimes it stands for [ as in ,wrem for [wrem . Here too it is pronounced as k . Otherwise it has two values in Greek words, (1) English ch in chair , as in ,ere = cheré , before e> i> / ; or ch =Arabic ,ﺧ as in ,oroc = ;ﺨوﺮس ,olotion (sic)= ;ﺨوﻠوﺠﻳوﻦ ar,wn = ,أرﺨوﻦ before o> a> w . " is pronounced as bs . W . There is not much difference between it and o except in certain positions, when w always receives the tonic accent in words. S . This is always pronounced as sh in the English word sheep . Q =Arabic خ = ch in the Scotch word loch . F = f . H , as the English h in here . J . This letter is invariably pronounced in the Churches of Upper Egypt as soft g in George . In the Churches in the North it has the softened sound of g only before the vowels /> i> when pronounced as i in Italian. It follows that because the letters e> / usually are pronounced as a , it retains the hard value before them, e.g. pej/i = pegâi and je = ga (hard); but jicmic = jismis (soft) and j/ = ji (soft). See also under G . { . This is always pronounced as ch in English chair . Mistakenly it is pronounced as sh in English she .

} = di . Now for the pronounciation of words as a whole. In Coptic as in other languages the exact pronounciation depends on the different situation of the tonic accent on the different syllables of the word and the exact quantity one would give to the vowels. Fortuantely Egyptians in adopting the Greek characters to write their language with, in the formation of Coptic, did not copy their old mode of not writing the vowels but have each written word completely and thus Coptic has come to be read and pronounced exactly as it is written. Of the exact position of the accent on the different syllables of a word nothing but hearing avails, and in this I may seem rather absurd, for the Coptic language has ceased to be spoken: but in my opinion it has never done so. Its unbroken use in the Church has undoubtedly preserved its pronunciation, for it has been thus handed down from one generation of priests to another until our days; and in my own belief a priest who has learned to pronounce this language from his predecessor without the use of the modern s phesticated rules of pronunciation exhibited by Coptic authors in their writings does inherently pronounce it more rightly than any other man. I append here the Lord's Prayer with a full transliteration according to the indigenous priest's pronunciation. Before doing so, I should like to draw attention of the reader to the short but succinct rules given by Mallon in his Grammaire Copte on p. 10 et seq .

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter Ariten n em p sa n joc qen ousep h mot je: peniwt etqen niv/ou i Aridân enemebsha engos χan ûshabehmôt ga: Baniôt adχan nifâûi mareftoubo n je pekran marec i n je tekmetouro petehnak marefswpi marafdûo enga bakrân marasî enga dakmadûro badahnak marafshôbi m vr/] qen t ve nem hijen p kahi penwik n te rac] m/if nan m voou emebrâdi χan etba nam higan ebkahi banôik enda rasdi maif nan emboû ouoh ,a n/et e ron nan e bol m vr/] hwn n ten,w e bol n n/eteouon ûôh ka niadarôn nan âûl emebrâdi hôn endankô âûl enniadûon

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