Great Lent by Ibrahim Ayad

1246

Comments

  • I don't think so. I believe Godlovesme is correct. The Greeks pronounce it /khaire/
  • Then listen to this (copy and paste the link)

    http://translate.google.com/#en|el|greeting
  • And Remenkimi this is the whole idea why authentic Bohairic is authentic. The /sh/ sound probably goes back to olden Greek when their x letter was pronounced along the lines of isch in German, but as their language has evolved, the pronunciation changed, and ours didn't. Same argument kmeka presented in the other thread about awka, or awsha.
    Oujai khan ebshois
  • I spent a good half hour responding to Ophadece's post and it got marked as spam. I have no idea how to get it back so I'm rewriting it. Ophadece's original message is in red.


    In fact, Mr. Erian Guirguis in his book comments on the Egyptians (as though he wasn't one) and says "the Egyptians pronounce the word prayer as /owka/ but clearly that is not the correct way". The guy is making fun of how the word is actually pronounced. Anyway, I suppose it may have been also pronouced as /ewsheya/ with the plural /awashy/ as you can clearly see the Egyptian tongue cannot pronounce the 'v', but still he likes to teach his subordinates that it is pronounced /evshi:s/ = /evshees/!!!! Very strange.

    Ophadece, I agree with you that Erian Moftah was sarcastically criticizing OB supports when he said eu,y is pronounced /owka/. I agree with you that Copts probably pronounced it as /owsha/.

    There is an urban legend that says when the Muslims complained that the Copts were praying loudly in the Church of Abu Serga in Old Cairo, they said "Batalo al dawsha" or "Stop the dawsha". Dawsha in colloquial Arabic means "screeching noise". But it is the OB pronounciation of ]eu,y which means prayer. So the Muslims were telling the Copts to "Stop the prayer". The point of the story is that this story corroborates the fact that eu,y is pronounced /owsha/. So when people ask if eu,y is pronounced evki or evshee, the answer is neither. Neither OB or GB's current reconstruction rules reflect the probable pronunciation of eu,y. It is pronounced /owsha/.


    This is not about the deficit in Arabic language actually. The letter /shima/ was used to be pronounced as you rightly point out /ch/. Then in Sa'idic it was /dj/. Both those diphthongs laxed over the years, and became /sh/ and /j/ as in the French 'j' respectively.

    I'd like to make one correction. Sahidic's phoneme /dj/ was first, not Bohairic's /ch/. Also, diphthongs were rarely used in Coptic from the beginning. Diphthongs were monophthognized in early Old Coptic, Sahidic, Fayummic and Bohairic Coptic. This is clearly seen from Biblical and various manuscripts of Greek loan words in Coptic.

    So even /chromba/, or /chasaf/ are wrong, or rather not the natural evolution of how we received the language, and so is /chois/. Now, fallaciously you owe the 'e' after /shasaf/ and /ebshois/ to harmony in hymns. The fact of the matter is that the vowels in hieroglyphics, hieratic and consequently demotic, and later Coptic, were often not written but pronounced. OK, but I am not talking about vowels now, am I? No, but what happens is that there are subtle connections between words with vowel-like conjunctions.
    What you are describing, Ophadece, is the phonological and the phonetic definitions of vowels. The phonetic definition of a vowel is "the sound produced when the vocal tract is opened." Consonants, in the phonetic definition, are sounds that completely or partially close the vocal tract with the throat, tongue or lips. The phonological definition of vowels is "the part of the syllable that is the peak or nucleus fo the syllable, where consonants are the onsent and ending or "coda" of the syllable. Because Arabic favors a more open tract than a closed tract, certain consonants are converted from a more closed form to a more open form. So the consonant "th", where the tongue constricts the airway with the teeth, is changed to "s" where the tongue is farther back from the teeth. Arabic also prefers a strong syllable phonologically. So [acf sa, phonologically is a formed by a very constricted consonant "sh" with a light vowel "a" positioned between another very strong constricted consonant "sf" and the next sound is another very constricted consonant "sha". So to create a stronger syllable peak between "sf" and "sh", a stronger vowel is introduced. So you get /shasf EEE sha/. The same is true with "ebshois" You'll only hear "ebshois EEE" if the next word starts with a strong consonant. So the Nativity psalm is easily pronounced /shois afgos nee/, not /epchois EEE afgos nee/. Notic that the second word /afgos/ starts with a vowel so there is no need to add a vowel after "epchois".  On the other hand, in the 9th hour Pascha Pauline "Ethve tianastasis", you will hear /eb ET chois EEE ma emton/.

    I hope I didn't confuse anybody. The point is Arabic prefers strong vowels between consonants (For example, 'u,ologia which means psychology is pronounced /eb SEEE ko Lo JAY ya/ or /eb SEEE sho lo GA ya/. The vowel stress is on the second to the last syllable), whereas Greek and English phonology simply lighten or remove consonant sounds (the same example in English and Greek pronounced /sy KOl ogy/. The vowel stress is on a different syllable.) Coptic is unique because you have a situation where both Arabic-like phonetics and Greek phonetics is found, as seen in the example of P[oic where we have both /shois Av jos/ and /ep ET chois EE ma emton/. 

    Bottom line is people who sing arebsalen according to HCOC do it improperly: Coptic is becoming more and more Anglicised, not even Hellenised!!!!
    I disagree. Coptic, by its own phonological identity, has Greek and English phonological similarities or characteristics. So we can't claim Coptic is becoming Anglicized since Coptic has always had Greek-like or English-like pronunciation.

    George
  • [quote author=imikhail link=topic=11113.msg135070#msg135070 date=1301800354]
    Then listen to this (copy and paste the link)

    http://translate.google.com/#en|el|greeting


    Sorry, I can't tell if he is saying /sher tis mos/ or /chair tis mos/. Honestly, it sounds like it is saying /gare tiz mos/. The "Read phonetically" reads chairetismos, not sheretismos.

    Maybe it is /sheretismos/. But I think you must remember that Google is using moder Greek phonology, not Koine or Byzantine Greek. And even if there is a site on Koine or Byzantine Greek pronunciation, it doesn't apply to Coptic pronunciation. So I don't think this is adequate proof about Coptic pronunciation.
  • I got flagged as spam again. imikhail's post is in red.


    Then listen to this (copy and paste the link)

    http://translate.google.com/#en|el|greeting

    Sorry, I can't tell if he is saying /sher tis mos/ or /chair tis mos/. Honestly, it sounds like it is saying /gare tiz mos/. The "Read phonetically" reads chairetismos, not sheretismos.

    Maybe it is /sheretismos/. But I think you must remember that Google is using moder Greek phonology, not Koine or Byzantine Greek. And even if there is a site on Koine or Byzantine Greek pronunciation, it doesn't apply to Coptic pronunciation. So I don't think this is adequate proof about Coptic pronunciation.
  • Remenkimi,
    My point is that word can be pronounced either awka or awsha in Coptic. Please don't assume each word to have one and only pronunciation. Refer to CRum or Muawad Dawood.
    Thanks for the diphthong explanation but I never pointed out to the chronology of either Sa'idic or Bohairic variants.
    I don't know how you deducted the fact that Coptic has similarities with Greek and English. Please review the origins of those languages, and I'm sure you understand this better than me
    Oujai
  • Hmmm. Do you know of any language where a single word has multiple pronunciation and display the same meaning? I know English has words where phonetics is used to differentiate between meanings. For example, record as a noun is pronounced one way, while record as a verb is pronounced another way. But these are basically two different words.

    Are we to assume that in a single pronunciation scheme or accent, a word can have multiple pronunciations and still exhibit one meaning? If OB has 2 pronunciations for eu,y with one meaning, are we not breaking linguistic norms and definitions? How can we phonetically and phonologically define OB if we assume that single words have multiple pronunciations that break the definition? The only explanation I can see is either (1) there is only one OB pronunciation for eu,y (or any Coptic word) or (2) eu,y or similar words is an exception to the rule, an idiom and not the rule or (3) OB does not have a set linguistic inventory or definition and it becomes an idiolect "run-a-mock" as DZheremi has pointed out or (4)many Coptic words have multiple pronunciations but each variant or variation becomes a new word (or a new entry in a Coptic dictionary) because it takes on a new orthography or spelling. For example, Bwrp is an entry that means to send and ouwrp is another entry that also sounds and means the same thing. But these are essentially 2 words, not one. I think #4 is what you meant. But this is different than saying, ouwrp in OB can be pronounced both as /worb/ or /oo orpe/.

    Maybe Coptic has single words that can have multiple pronunciation and one meaning. I don't think so. If it were true, than Coptic really is an idiolect run-a-mock. I hope Jeremy can help us out on this.
    George
  • Well you don't read my replies to your posts and it's very hard for me to use the mobile in editing long posts. First and foremost, awka could be Sa'idic and awsha Bohairic or vice versa, or belong to another dialect, or both used in the same dialect: I don't know, but I know both are right and evki, or evshi or evkhi aren't proper Coptic.
    As to answer your question, take these examples in English for words which can be pronounced in more than one way in the same system: negotiate, association, dissociated, either, neither, emaciated, weary, garage, fillet, ... etc
    Oujai
  • Ophadece, I thought I went out of my way to respond faithfully to your posts. Even if you're right that /awka/ is Sahidic and /awsha/ is Bohairic, that would be 2 different dialects. This is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about 2 ways within OB to pronounce a single word. There can not be 2 ways in a single scheme unless each pronunciation becomes a different word. Since eu,y is not found as awsa in any Coptic dictionary, we can't assume there are 2 ways to pronounce eu,y.

    Explain to me how negotiate is pronounced 2 ways in English. Every dictionary has /nɪˈgoʊʃiˌeɪt/ (IPA). There isn't a second way to pronounce it in English. If you're talking about the French or Latin pronunciation, then it doesn't apply since we are not talking about pronunciation variation from borrowed languages.

    George
    PS. I know you're not going to agree with me a fourth time. But I truly think there is only one way to pronounce eu,y and that way is /awsha/.
  • I said above I wasn't sure which dialect has which pronunciation but unlike you I don't have any problems with two pronunciations in one dialect.
    Negotiate can be /negoseyate/ or /negosheyate/ even though it's not in the dictionary. Thanks
    Oujai
  • I don't know, Remnkemi...I do not think English is necessarily a very good template from which to draw distinctions for other languages which are so different from it (English having its own sound shifts that may or may not have analogues in other languages), though I concur with Ophadece's examples.

    But I digress...I do not know enough about Coptic specifically to provide any similar examples, though I would not discount the possibility that they may exist. If anyone does know any, or can find them, I would be very interested to read about them.

    "Are we to assume that in a single pronunciation scheme or accent, a word can have multiple pronunciations and still exhibit one meaning? If OB has 2 pronunciations for eu,y with one meaning, are we not breaking linguistic norms and definitions?"

    What linguistic norm or definition do you have in mind? This is rather messy business, I'll admit, but I don't see why Coptic (theoretically) couldn't be like every other language and have some variation along geographic, social, or other lines, so long as it is regular (individual variation found in ideolects would also be regular, but is a bit beyond the scope of your question). Are there not differences between, for instance, Bedouin and urban dialects of Arabic within a single country? What makes this all "weird" for Coptic is that, of course, it is NOT an everyday spoken language, so we must look to appropriate influences to explain the variation that we do see, to the extent that it is found within a "single" pronunciation (e.g., there could be stabilized or at least stabilizing variations of a GB or OB "macro" pronunciation, but I would want to see some strong evidence of such a situation). In all languages there are dialects, subdialects, ideolects, and other variations on more or a more or less standardized template. This is not a problem. Going back to my first posts on this topic, it bears repeating that we don't have "real" and "fake" pronunciations (or dialects, or whatever level of language we are taking about). There is only variation, but sometimes it is tricky to determine how to best describe or account for them.

    I can't recall exactly in what context I wrote "ideolect run amok". I bet I was probably being facetious.
  • imikhail,
    I do not know if the Greek language has changed and the modern Greek pronounces "X" as "sh" rather than "kh" because as I've stated before, in my studies in the Greek language, I've never heard the "X" pronounced as "sh" and my professor in Greek certainly never mentioned the "sh" sound as a possibility for the letter "X."  I've looked in my Greek book, no mention of that.  I've even looked up the word "Khairete" online...in each case, it's transliterated as "ch" which is the aspirated hard "c" sound that sounds like "kh."  At least, this is in Attic Greek (Koine, the dialect of the Bible is close to this dialect).

    Also, ophadece, I took a little German and am continuing my studies in it and I wanted to ask...when you say that the pronunciation of "X" is similar to the "isch" in German do you mean the combination of "c" and "h" (which is actually an aspirated hard "c" sound rather than "sh"--or does it have exceptions?? :)) or do you mean the combination: "sch"?  Just wondering...
  • Dear Godlovesme,
    I was talking about olden Greek. My understanding is that it is a combination of 'sch' in German "isch".
    Oujai
  • The letter X in either modern Greek or ancient Greek remained as ch and only in old Greek it was also kh. This explains and supports the idea that OB truly depicts the letters sounds on old Greek for we have words with X that are pronounced with the two sounds.

    The idea to just use one sound is a mistake that is the same as Aryan's when he suggested only the modern Greek sounds to the Coptic alphabet.
  • Very good point imikhail. Thanks
    Oujai
  • [quote author=dzheremi link=topic=11113.msg135095#msg135095 date=1301814745]
    "Are we to assume that in a single pronunciation scheme or accent, a word can have multiple pronunciations and still exhibit one meaning? If OB has 2 pronunciations for eu,y with one meaning, are we not breaking linguistic norms and definitions?"

    What linguistic norm or definition do you have in mind? This is rather messy business, I'll admit, but I don't see why Coptic (theoretically) couldn't be like every other language and have some variation along geographic, social, or other lines, so long as it is regular (individual variation found in ideolects would also be regular, but is a bit beyond the scope of your question). Are there not differences between, for instance, Bedouin and urban dialects of Arabic within a single country?[/colore]
    I'd like to get a little more specific. All languages have variations, as you said. What you are describing is a macro situation within a country. But each variation is localized within a geography or social setting.  I was talking about variations within the specific geographical region or social setting. Attic Greek is a variation of Greek as is Koine Greek. But did Greeks in the specific region and social setting where Attic Greek was localized have multiple pronunciations of a single word? The same with Arabic. Modern Standard Arabic has one and only one pronunciation of a word. It is the diglossic situation where we find alternate pronunciations in Cairene Arabic or Sahidic Arabic pronunciation of the same word. But now we have to look within Cairene Arabic, specifically. Does Cairene Arabic have multiple pronunciation for a single word? I don't think so. And of course, we have to get more specific. Some dialects (not usually Arabic) are localized to a neighborhood within a neighborhood.

    The specificity is needed to show how we distinguish and define a certain dialect or linguistic variation vs another. I may be wrong, but as far as I can tell, no one linguistic variation or dialect that is very specifically defined has multiple pronunciations for a single word. It would seem that if multiple pronunciations for a single word exist, then language or dialect should be redefined where one pronunciation belongs to one dialect or one subdialect and the other pronunciation to another dialect or subdialect.

    When Radolph Kasser described his Coptic Singla for all the linguistic varieties (which he calls subdialects), he categorized each dialect by region (Boahiric, Sahidic, etc) and then sub-categorized variations by manuscript evidence of "alternate spellings (Bohairic vs. Bohairic 74!). One example is the word ouoh which in standard Bohairic, or Singlum B, is spelled (and pronunced) one way, while the same word in Singlum B74! is ouohe. Because there is a variation in spelling found in manuscripts, he gave it a new subdialect definition. I extended that philosophy to pronunciation. If there is multiple pronunciation for a single word, then it must be a different variation.

    So Ophadece's example of negotiate, which can be pronounced /nego she yate/ and /nego se yate/ cannot belong to the same variation of English. And because English grammarians did not define such variations with a new subdialect, it doesn't mean Coptic is the same. Standard English is not concerned with variations. Bilingualists and code-mixing linguists are. And I believe such linguists would see Ophadece's examples as 2 different dialects or subdialects or variations, not one variation with 2 pronunciations.

    As you said, Jeremy, this is a messy business. So what's the point of all of this? The point I was making is that OB cannot have 2 pronounciations for eu,y. Your only options is to give the "standard" OB one pronunciation, which I think is /awsha/ and classify another subdialect or variation for the other pronunciation /awka/ (say OB-2). The same is true with GB. The difference with GB is that there is only one way to pronounce eu,y: /evshee/ according to current trends in GB learning. The other pronunciation, /evkee/ is a hybrid between OB and GB, and it should get its own classification, say GB-2. This brings me back to a comment I made on a different thread: Both GB and OB have multiple schemes. Most studies are concerned with only one variation and neglect the possibility of multiple schemes, especially Fr Shenouda's thesis which was concerned with pre-19th century OB vs. post-19th century GB, 

    I can't recall exactly in what context I wrote "ideolect run amok". I bet I was probably being facetious.[/color/
    You were being facetious. But the more I look at this whole GB and OB argument, the more it seems like both variations (OB and GB) have run amok. Yet, there are many who are convinced that their preference is "scientifically proven".
    George
  • Following your argument remenkimi,

    How can we explain the variation of evki and evshi, and the other ones presented in this thread,that exist to day in GB? I doubt it is a variation because of geography.

    BTW, OB says it awka because that is the way it was written in the manuscripts.

    Thanks.
  • These are interesting posts. I know that 15 miles from where I live the general population speak English with different pronounciations. I call their town Chat-ham, but the common people there call it Cha-am. Yet we still speak forms of South-Eastern English. Though I speak standard English.

    Further away there are very different pronounciations such as those of Birmingham, Liverpool and Newcastle. These are the subject of humour but I would say they tend to have the same spelling in written English. My wife is Scottish and I understand her fine, but some don't. And there are many Scots who are almost incomprehensible.

    Is the town 15 miles away a different dialect? I'd guess not. But Newcastle might be. Scotland (with many variants) must surely be.

    So I can understand that even in OB and GB there were local variants. I guess the issue for a learner is that I want to learn a fairly standard form and it is not clear that Copts know what the standard should be. Variants are not necessarily wrong but perhaps just not standard.
  • I cannot say GB is a variant for it was not a dialect to begin with and no supporting evidence of its existence in the Church manuscripts. It was brought to existence artificially by one person, Aryan Afandy, with a false premise that Greek best depicts Coptic pronunciation.
  • One of my professors last quarter was Scottish...he pronounced things weird :)
  • Father Peter,

    While I do not always support GB pronunciation necessarily it is in fact the dialect the church uses, "Correct" or not. It is the standard pronunciation. I think it would be beneficial for you to learn GB for purposes of a start to the language and if you would like, learn the differences in the pronunciation between GB and OB. The arguments and the push for OB really only causes confusion of what is "right" when we truly don't know how things were truly pronounced. We have ideas and OB i would say is airing on the more correct side but its still only speculation and taking words that all egyptians use or names and taking that and applying it to an entire language.  
  • jdeacon,

    "it [OB] its still only speculation and taking words that all egyptians use or names and taking that and applying it to an entire language."

    This quote is belittling the tremendous manuscripts we have and the studies done on them to reach OB.

    Again GB was invented by one person on a false premise and has no support whatsoever from any manuscript.

    Thanks.
  • The arguments and the push for OB really only causes confusion of what is "right" when we truly don't know how things were truly pronounced.

    Of course we do. When we study our manuscripts, the Coptic ones, along with other external evidence from other languages, we know that OB is the correct Bohairic pronunciation that existed before Aryan's invention.
  • Thats really irrelevant. When OB is decidedly the dialect of the church then we can push it forward. But trying now only causes confusion.
  • What confusion are you alluding to?

    Discussing historical facts bring about confusion?

    I believe distorting the history and the authenticity of OB by presenting irrational arguments is what causes confusion.
  • Thank you jydeacon. GB, as a sociolect of the Coptic Church in Egypt and the diaspora, is the standard dialect. There is no question about. It doesn't matter how it came into existence. And I personally feel it is not as neat and enriching as OB but we can't simply argue GB is a fake dialect or language because there is no evidence. There is evidence.

    Regarding eu,y. I do not think we can definitively say OB pronounciation is /awka/ since there is no standard definition of OB.  Secondly, if you conclusively determine that it is pronounced /awka/ based on manuscript evidence, how do you explain the OB pronunciation of oueu,y which is /awa SHEE/ and commonly used in Arabic. I know Arabic may have simply applied its own pronunciation on the loan word, but it seems odd that Arabic would borrow one Coptic word, eu,y, and have one pronunciation in manuscript evidence and another pronunciation in daily speaking. I have not found any other word where Arabic borrowed a Coptic word and had 2 pronunciations. Again, the only logical solution is that there are more than one variations of OB and we are describing different variations, yet confubulating them into one superior scheme.

    Regarding GB's pronunciation of eu,y, there isn't enough evidence to say if there was more than 1 geographical pronunciation variant. Yet, the possibility does exist. There may also be variants of GB based on time differences: one generation pronounced it /evkee/ way and their children in the same region pronounced it another way /evshee/. All I can say for sure is that in the current grammatical and standardized Bohairic Coptic (GB), it is only pronounced /evshee/.


  • Thank you jydeacon. GB, as a sociolect of the Coptic Church in Egypt and the diaspora, is the standard dialect. There is no question about. It doesn't matter how it came into existence. And I personally feel it is not as neat and enriching as OB but we can't simply argue GB is a fake dialect or language because there is no evidence. There is evidence.There is evidence

    Define evidence and then presented it. My definition of evidence is the manuscripts that existed before Mr. Aryan's invention.

    Thanks.
  • [quote author=Father Peter link=topic=11113.msg135283#msg135283 date=1302025476]
    Is the town 15 miles away a different dialect? I'd guess not. But Newcastle might be. Scotland (with many variants) must surely be.
    Father Peter, linguistically speaking, there is no minimum geographical distance required to classify a variant as a dialect. You may consider it a subdialect, or sub-subdialect variant, but it is a variant. It also depends on what differences are we talking about. If everybody  in the town 15 miles away pronounces a word one way consistently, it is different than if a handful of people pronounce it differently at different times. The first would be a linguistic variant, the second would be a social variant (depending on education and environment).

    George
  • there is no standard definition of OB

    What do you mean by a standard definition.

    Please, present a standard definition of any language.
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