Coptic language

Coptic
ϯⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ (Timetremənkʰēmi)
Native to	Egypt
Ethnicity	Copts
Era	Literary: c. 3rd – c. 14th century AD[1] Spoken: c. 3rd – c. 19th century AD[2] Liturgical: c. 3rd century AD – present[2]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Egyptian Coptic
Early forms	Archaic Egyptian Old Egyptian Middle Egyptian Late Egyptian Demotic
Dialects	Bohairic Sahidic Akhmimic Lycopolitan Fayyumic Oxyrhynchite
Writing system	Coptic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-2	cop
ISO 639-3	cop
Linguist List	cop
Glottolog	copt1239
Historical map of the distribution of the Coptic dialects.[citation needed]
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This article contains Coptic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Coptic letters.

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Coptic (Bohairic Coptic: ϯⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, romanized: Timetremənkʰēmi) is an Afroasiatic dormant language.^[3][4] It is a group of closely related Egyptian dialects,^[2] representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language,^[2][5] and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third century AD in Roman Egypt.^[1] Coptic was supplanted by Arabic as the primary spoken language of Egypt following the Arab conquest of Egypt and was slowly replaced over the centuries.

Coptic has no native speakers today apart from a number of priests,^[6] although it remains in daily use as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church and of the Coptic Catholic Church.^[5] It is written with the Coptic alphabet, a modified form of the Greek alphabet with seven additional letters borrowed from the Demotic Egyptian script.^[5]

The major Coptic dialects are Sahidic, Bohairic, Akhmimic, Fayyumic, Lycopolitan (Asyutic), and Oxyrhynchite. Sahidic Coptic was spoken between the cities of Asyut and Oxyrhynchus^[7] and flourished as a literary language across Egypt in the period c. 325 – c. 800 AD.^[5] The Gnostic texts in the Nag Hammadi library are primarily written in the Sahidic dialect. However, some texts also contain elements of the Subakhmimic (Lycopolitan) dialect, which was also used in Upper Egypt.^[8] Bohairic, the dialect of Lower Egypt, gained prominence in the 9th century and is the dialect used by the Coptic Church liturgically.^[2]