Coptic language

Coptic
ϯⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ
Native to	Egypt
Ethnicity	Copts
Era	Literary: c. 3rd – c. 14th century AD (Roman Egypt)[1] Spoken: c. 3rd – c. 17th or 19th century AD[2] [note 1] 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
Glottolog	copt1239
Coptic is an extinct language according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [3]
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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, Timetremǹkhēmi) is a group of closely related Egyptian dialects,^[2] representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language,^[2][4] 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,^[5] although it remains in daily use as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church and of the Coptic Catholic Church.^[4] Innovations in grammar and phonology and the influx of Greek loanwords distinguish Coptic from earlier periods of the Egyptian language. It is written with the Coptic alphabet, a modified form of the Greek alphabet with several additional letters borrowed from the Demotic Egyptian script.^[4]

The major Coptic dialects are Sahidic, Bohairic, Akhmimic, Fayyumic, Lycopolitan, and Oxyrhynchite. Sahidic Coptic was spoken between the cities of Asyut and Oxyrhynchus^[6] and flourished as a literary language across Egypt in the period c. 325 – c. 800 AD.^[4] Bohairic, the language of the Nile Delta, gained prominence in the 9th century and is the dialect used by the Coptic Church.^[2] Despite being closely related, Coptic dialects differ from one another in terms of their phonology, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary.

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