AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD ACCENT

Coptic authentic pronunciation

Coptic and Demotic Egyptian are grammatically closely akin to Late Egyptian, which was written in the Hieroglyphic script. Coptic flourished as a literary language from the 2nd to 13th centuries, and its Bohairic dialect continues to be the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It was supplanted by Egyptian Arabic as a spoken language toward the early modern period, though revitalization efforts have been underway since the 19th century.

The old Coptic accent,  Its history, Originality and Superiority :

An overview about the old coptic accent and the the emergence of the new accent :

There were five or six main coptic accents, in addition to them there were many other sub accents, each of which is derived from the Conversational language in  Specific destination of the Egyptian country .The main coptic accents are the Upper Egypt ( tribal) which is named Saidy, Nautical named bahairy, Akhmimy, sub Akhmimya  and the accent of middle Egypt .                                                                                                      

The old accent was considered the cultural language in Egypt , and continued as the Conversational language in upper Egypt till the end of The sixteenth century and The early seventeenth century .                                                                                                       

  The Maqrizi, who lived in the fifteenth century said while he was talking about Moshe Monastery the following : “ And mostly on Egypt’s Christians is the knowlege of saidy coptic which is the origin of Coptic language, followed by the Behairy coptic language, and the Christian women in Al-Said and their children still not talking except with the saidy Coptic language and have full  knowledge of the Greek language ” The use of Bahairy accent became Invalid as Conversational language much earlier, But it continued the language of churches ‘ prayers in lower Egypt especially in the region of Wadi Al Natrun’ .

The author :

 Fr. Shenouda Maher Ishak ( previously Deacon Dr. Emil Maher Eshak ).

Translated by Dr. Mariam Michael

Questions and answers

 Questions and answers about The old Coptic accent

From the Arabic book, written by Fr. Shenouda, (The old Bohairic Coptic accent , its history, Authenticity and preference)- Translated By Dr. Mariam Michael :

Third question:

Is it possible to accept the modern pronunciation as an accent – even if it is invented – and to continue teaching and publishing it by the virtue that it is a fait accompli?!

The answer :

Getting back to the righteousness is a virtue, as against it is a vice. It is most worthy to follow the right. To surrender to fault, to proceed in it and to legalize it, is not an accepted issue by the scientific conscience, nor is it consistent with our principles of Christianity. 

As to forfeit the old pronunciation is a crime against our Coptic heritage; if we commit it, we will be blamed by the future generations. 

If teaching the modern pronunciation has succeeded and the use of the Coptic language has spread among the Copts in their daily life, I could have got a meaning to the objection that claims recognizing the de facto. Teaching the modern accent has failed to revive the Coptic language as the language of conversation, and its use has been limited to the church’s prayers only; this is due to the reluctance of people to learn about the Coptic language with the modern pronunciation, and their failure to understand it. Accordingly, most of the prayers of the mass were translated into the Arabic language. In addition, the parts that are prayed in Coptic in most of the churches do not exceed the fourth of the Divine Liturgy. This means that people do not hear the Coptic language in the churches except for, approximately, half an hour of composed Coptic tunes. So, if we calculate this part, that they hear in the mass in Coptic, without composing, we will find that it takes in its recitation only about ten minutes.

Questions and answers

 Questions and answers about The old Coptic accent

From the Arabic book, written by Fr. Shenouda, (The old Bohairic Coptic accent , its history, Authenticity and preference)- Translated By Dr. Mariam Michael .

The second question

Do not you see that the attempt to revive the old accent will lead again to confusion in church’s prayers and tunes?

Answer :

No my dear . . as our Coptic tunes are Very ancient, and most of them belong to the first centuries of Christianity . and some of them – especially the Funeral tunes – may belong to the era of the Pharaohs . Also all of the music tunes were Undoubtedly developed and organized on the basis of the old accent .  The church, its tunes and prayers are older than Erian effendi Girgis .

If we returned back to the authentic situation of our tunes and prayers with their nice lovely old accent, Is not right to call this great work confusion .

Wondering  :  When erian effendi and his disciples changed the accent of the tunes and prayers to the modern accent had anyone said that confusion occurred ?. Or Did we hear that anyone had stopped them of teaching the modern accent for fear of causing confusion?!

 Rest assured, my dear . . As in our return to the  use of the lovely authentic pronunciation in the church, we do it quietly and systematically, with love and harmony . 

It is possible to start with Deacon’s intones in the temple that are said by one person , so no disruption will occur if they are spoken with the old accent . 

The Priests, if they want, can pray the liturgy with the old pronunciation (we have Audio recordings of the mass with the old accent, they can record them and learn from it) .

Lastly, when the number of people who knows and speak the Coptic language with its old accent, then they can reply their specific replies in the mass with the old accent.  

So, let us start learning the Coptic language, and do not waste the precious time in the  Succumb to illusions .

    

Questions and answers

 Questions and answers about The old Coptic accent

From the Arabic book, written by Fr. Shenouda, (The old Bohairic Coptic accent , its history, Authenticity and preference)- Translated By Dr. Mariam Michael :

 First Question :

How do you explain the the widespread use of modern pronunciation in church nowadays, Although it is not based on sound scientific basis ?

Answer : 

I think that this is due to the Church’s commitment ( Until recently) to the idea of the one Seminary, and one Coptic language teacher who received the modern pronunciation from Erian Effendi Girgis or his disciples, without knowing the extent of the novelty of this accent and its lack of authenticity . He continued to teach it to his disciples in the only one seminary , and they are graduated in it to serve all over the evangelism , priests, servants and teachers of religion. And some of them are chosen to the degree of the venerable Episcopal.

So the Intellectual Priests in the seminarian education, who are capable of Preaching and teaching, are now those who pray with the modern accent  . While the old pronunciation remained with the simple priests, who did not get a share of theological education in the seminary, delivered from the Predecessor to the successors  .

By extinction of the uneducated generation of priests during the last four decades, the use of the old pronunciation receded to a few of Priests and intoners who did not learn in seminary  .

The situation remained as it is until the blessed Pop third Shenouda came and, god keeps his life, he encouraged me to research and study Coptic language and teaching it, so he sent me on a mission to Oxford in order to prepare the doctoral thesis in the philosophy of the Coptic language, in the subject,’ Audio Coptic Bohairic dialect and the effect of the Coptic language on Egypt’ .  I continued the thesis, By the grace of the Lord, and  by the bless of prayers of Pop shenouda, and I typed in the four volumes containing about 2237 pages, It won the admiration of scientists of the Coptic language and their extreme appreciation .

RECORDS ABOUT THE OLD COPTIC ACCENT

 Records of the old pronunciation

(With the acoustic Latin Script)

With the acoustic Latin Script A long time ago the foreigner scientists cared about recording of the old Coptic accent that was used in church’s prayers by voice input using the Latin letters .Though the voice input method has been evolved over time, however. all registrations made by the scientists in all eras witness to the heritage of one  constant across time,  the old Bohairic accent, which we received through the tradition in our Coptic church, and which we teach now to revive its use and generalization as it is the accent which was used when the language was still used as conversational language in the daily life . Record of Petraeus (1659) : It is the oldest known recording we have for the old language, using the voice input in Latin letters. In 1659, Petraeus has published the first Psalm written in  the Bohairic Coptic dialect using the voice input for its pronunciation in Latin letters . This text had been excerpted and re-published completely by both Sholtz in (1778) in his book ‘ Grammatica – aegyptiaca –  utriusque – dialectiquam, breviavit, illustravit, Oxonii 1778’ , and the Galtier in the fifth volume of the Journal of the French Institute ( BIF V, p. 110) . And as Petraeus recording was in the same century during which the Coptic language was about to extinct as a conversational language in the daily life and to be restricted only to the use in churches, so,  this recording has a Great importance, it witness that the old pronunciation which we use now is the one that our fathers had used when they were still using the Coptic language .

So we re- publish the text  Quoted from Galtier .

 The Author  : 

 Fr. Shenouda Maher Ishak ( previously Deacon Dr. Emil Maher Eshak ).

Translated by Dr. Mariam Michael

 

Lacustris ancient dialect

 The use of Lacustris ancient dialect

The use of the old Bohairic accent  spread in the church prayers in all the Egyptian towns.There was for the people In Upper Egypt their church Books of Masses etc written in the sahidic accent ( which differs from the Bohairic accent) . And it was used when the Sahidic accent was a Living language to communicate in the daily life . When it became weak it is substituted by  the church books  imported from the Monasteries of Wadi Natrun, due to the boom of monasticism and the great number of scribes there .

As the accent that was used in monasteries of wadi Natrun was the Bohairic, so the scribes were Copying about their church books which were written in the Bohairic accent, and these church Bohairic Manuscripts reach to all the churches of the Egyptian country from the far north to the far south because of their abundance and accuracy,  also due to their cheap price  .

Also what helps that is that Abu Makar Monastery was considered for long generations  Patriarch’s office from which graduaded many of the Patriarchs and they were spending  Long periods in it both for praying and residence  . Most of the bishops of the Diocese were choosen from wadi natrun . all these factors combined together helped the spread of the use of the Bohairic accent in the prayers of the church to gradually to include all all parts of the country of Egypt from Alexandria up to Aswan . For this the old bohairic accent  became the assumptive one for us by tradition , Spoken by it in the church’s prayers in all parts of the Saint Mark Evangelism . for it is present and is used in Upper Egypt exactly as it is present and is used in the lower Egypt . The situation continued as such until the modern pronunciation appeared .

 The Author  : 

 Fr. Shenouda Maher Ishak ( previously Deacon Dr. Emil Maher Eshak ).

Translated by Dr. Mariam Michael