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Comments
Then how about these words:
ice and justice
Cycle and bicycle
cat and ceremony.
Are you saying that the sounds of c like K was invented because of different dialects? So, the sound of s as z, the two sounds of g, h, e, ....
Is e always sounds e in English?
What Aryan did was fixed the sounds with rigid artificial rules that sounds of places and people were funny. No one till today can apply these rules. And the rule of having different letter values for words, people, places as ophadece pointed out.
Common, should we apply this logic to the English language?
Then how about these words:
ice and justice
Cycle and bicycle
cat and ceremony
This has nothing to do with what I said. I wasn't talking about rhyming. And if you bothered to read the whole thing, you will notice I specifically said English has the same irregularities that caused invented dialects. So yes, apply it to the English language but make sure you actually know what I'm talking about.
I'll use your example. Would it make any sense that someone reads "ice" and hears "aka"? The letters represent the sounds they make, which represent a cognitive word that is intelligible to the reader and the hearer. This is Semiotics 101. But when you start to see manuscripts write "ice" and "aka" both to represent the solid form of H2O, then there is a problem with the use of the language or the language itself.
The English phonetic inventory has irregularities where "c" has /c/ and /k/. But overall, the letter "i" gives a specific sound not found or represented by another letter. Yet in Coptic, "e" and "h" and "a" all have nearly identical sounds for every word with those letters. We are not talking about a small percentage of synonyms, homonyms, allophones or irregularities. Bohairic, which had an alphabetic (segmental) writing system somehow changed where one sound is represented by multiple graphemes. In additional support of this argument, Sahidic, which pre-dates Bohairic as the spoken dialect of Egypt did not have this phenomenon (as far as we know). Words with an "e" were most likely pronounced "e". The different sounds of "a" were all collectively represented by the "a" letter, not "e" or "h".
I will reiterate what was mentioned in the manuscript Aldella. The reason he added sounds that were not part of the Coptic language is the premise that the Coptic letters were Greek so they have to follow the Greek sounds.
So what you wrote in Post #32 is inaccurate? "Contrast this with Aryan Moftah changing the sounds of the letters of existing language that was known accross Egypt. There was no need to do that other than the unification between the Melekite and the Coptic Church. In essence what was done was a KISS UP to the Greek so that the unification may proceed."
Maybe you're right. I can't give you a reference that Arian Moftah changed it for political reasons. I'm only going by what you and so many OB proponents have claimed.
The word ice is pronounced 'ayce. But when it is written as part of of the word justice it is pronounce "iss". You were arguing that a letter has a specific sound, yet in this example the vowel "i" has two different sounds. This can be found all over the English language.
The same is true under OB. So your argument against the letter "e" to be pronounced as in "cat" or the letter "a" to have more than one sound as in either "cat" or "Balaat" is an invalid argument.
Every language has different sounds for the same letters. Aryan instead fixed those sounds and added new ones that lead to the language's mutilation.
[quote author=imikhail link=topic=11962.msg142709#msg142709 date=1312682645] Yes, please.
I will reiterate what was mentioned in the manuscript Aldella. The reason he added sounds that were not part of the Coptic language is the premise that the Coptic letters were Greek so they have to follow the Greek sounds.
So what you wrote in Post #32 is inaccurate? "Contrast this with Aryan Moftah changing the sounds of the letters of existing language that was known accross Egypt. There was no need to do that other than the unification between the Melekite and the Coptic Church. In essence what was done was a KISS UP to the Greek so that the unification may proceed."
Maybe you're right. I can't give you a reference that Arian Moftah changed it for political reasons. I'm only going by what you and so many OB proponents have claimed.
If you call this unification process politics that is your choice. I, myself, do not call two Churches agreeing on dogma to be a political movement.
How about (bi)cycle, bye .. here the the (bi) sounded like a y.
How about tie and shy .. again the i gave the sound of a y
How about ie and ea that have the same sound where the i in ie gives the sound of an "e" that is part of ea.
How about the sound i that is given by the letter y as in "party"
I can go on
I stand corrected on the point of Indian English. Thanks... I got it.
Dear Remenkimi,
You reply to my quotes showing that you don't understand what I mean in the first place. I guess it is my fault because I don't have the luxury of the time to write very long posts, and analyse each and every point, and also because I am not as learned as you are. But seriously, you reply with the example you gave for different pronunciations of the word Athanasius by different groups of people, when I am talking about an inherent characteristic Mr. Moftah gave us, about pronouncing some letters differently (FOR THE VERY SAME COPTIC PERSON) in names and in words.
One last thing I am going to say in this thread, because with all of the to and fro debates between you and imikhail (and other members when they get in), simply I cannot keep up with. The last thing is when a COPT assumes Coptic language (that hadn't disappeared in his days) need reformation, standardisation, rectification, or whatever you may call it (since the meanings are all the same for you), then there is a grave problem first with that person's premise, and secondly with whoever follows blindly and ignorantly. Mr. Elizier (sorry if I misspelt the name), as I understand, acted like a funnel and gathered all the threads in one hand and fine-tuned Hebrew into a modern Hebrew. Artifical? Yes. Needed? Very much. Any body objected? Maybe, but on a large scale people benefited more than were harmed. Did Mr. Moftah do the same? No. Acted like a funnel? No, he added a new lingo, dialect, system of pronunciation... etc. Did it benefit? No. Did it create unity? No.
Oujai qen `P[C
OB pronunciation is no exception, this is how people pronounced it. Yes, it varies from one person to the other, and yes, different scholars recorded variations because, OB just like any natural pronunciation is a spectrum not a point.
Personally, I think since we don't use Coptic as a conversational language, like English or Arabic or Hebrew or Spanish or whatever, it's easier to use GB since Greek (the Greco part of Greco-Bohairic) is a bit more familiar. Personally, if I had learned OB instead of GB I'd be a lot more confused. The little kids (6-8 years old) I see trying to learn Coptic have enough of a hard time with GB d, b, y, i, e, u, ,, x, [, and ' as it is. Changing it up suddenly and saying "All 3 of these letters are the short 'a' sound" or something like that is not going to help.
Greco-Bohairic is not our heritage actually..
Ⲟⲩϫⲁⲓ ϧⲉⲛ Ⲡ̀ϭⲥ
You stated that correctly "part of our heritage". @Daniel_Kyrillos commented that it was "our heritage". No, it is not.
Of course I am not going to re-answer the same questions I did before, some on this very thread, and also because you don't expect me to as well, but please take a little comment from a brother if you would be kind to consider me one: please don't drive people away from this forum.
Oujai khan ebshois
Scholars do not study Sahidic Coptic because of pronunciation, they study Sahidic because most manuscripts of St Shenouda Archmandrite & St Pachomious, in addition to Gnostic literary heritage are written in Sahidic. Pronounciation is irrelevant to the topic.
There is no clear logic for pronunciation in both OB & GB just like natural languages, both are not constructed languages, so there are many letters with multiple voices pronounced as if they were the voices of another letter e.g. the first gamma 'G' in Aggelos is pronounced angelos etc.
The Coptic Orthodox Church has the right to adopt whatever language or pronunciation or theology inside the church it legitimises the usage of GB inside the church.
OB spectrum of pronunciation is backed up by huge amount of evidence towards its authenticity https://copticsounds.wordpress.com/resources/
I guess the argument is carrying on for long, because both parties are not on the same page. OB supporters are mostly concerned with the authenticity of the pronunciation, its legacy, heritage, that goes over 1000 year in Bohairic and the appeal to its aesthetics and beauty, which is more in-line with colloquial Egyptian Arabic by the lack of dh, th, v, p, and the presence of voiced consononants of d instead of t in many Coptic words, was well as the smoothness of the w in words like won, woini instead of ou-on & ou-oini.
OB supporters approach the language from the view point of phonetic transcriptions, and other forms of comparing the usage of vowels to each other within mansucripts and within the same manuscript. The results are compelling, and factual.
GB supporters are concerned with how hymns were handed to use, and how to be pragmatic in dealing with the existing pronunciation and legitimising it. As a substantial work by R. Moftah was done for recording it in GB.
GB approach the language from the prespective of a conlang that has to follow a certain preset rules. Thus the pronunciation follows these rules rigidly no matter how absurd the rules are e.g. delta is pronounced as d in names and dh in other words, theta is pronounced as t in names and th in words. So, far anyone concerned with applying rules to pronunciation in a straightforward manner would appreciate GB.
I believe that there are false claims on both camps. GB team can get sceptical about the authenticity of OB. I have met with people starting from a for gone conclusion that it is wrong, without even bothering to read proper references to the book. The whole point is that OB defies logic, seems hard, is archaic, etc.
OB team attirbutes the destruction of Coptic to GB which is not true as Coptic has been a dead language for decades maybe more than a century before the advent of GB. I don't think that either GB or OB can save a dead language. It takes more than pronunciation to work it out.
The Church is not an arbiter of truth when it comes to phonetics and linguistics. So, having the church embracing GB is the church exercising its rights, no more no less. Biblical interpretation is different from OB/GB The Bible is classified - outside theology - as a literary text, these are open to interpretations. Phonetics/linguistics are philosophical and scientific endeavours, there is evidence to be followed.
Whether OB is authentic or not I came to conclude that it is an authentic spectrum of pronunciation. Whether it should be used in church or not this is not my call; and it is not in my authority to decide. However, I'll quote a conversation with Fr Shenouda Maher Ishak (Dr Emile Maher Ishak) regarding this.
Q: Why don't we accept the current ecclesiastical pronunciation inside the church?
A: The Coptic Orthodox Church was built on 'testifying for the truth'. This is the whole cornerstone. If we know that something is authentic and we 'let go'' of it how can we justify this to future generations, that we knew that something was precious and historical we just cannot let that go.
Thank you very much dear Mina..
Ⲟⲩϫⲁⲓ ϧⲉⲛ Ⲡ̀ϭⲥ