Talk:Wp/cop/ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲅⲓⲁ

ϯϩⲛⲟⲩⲛⲉⲧⲙⲉ ⲧⲉ ⲫⲁⲣⲓⲥ is not a "fixed typo and grammar" as ⲧⲉ is only used when both words would be feminine (and even then, you can use ⲡⲉ). ⲫⲁⲣⲓⲥ is not feminine. I don't revert it now, though, because we should do that when we add some content to the article. Having hundreds of entries in the page history is ridiculous if you haven't added a lot of content. بطرس مرقس (talk) 18:27, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

ⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲧⲁ

Where does ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ comes from? Scala Magna has ⲟⲩⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲧⲏⲥ for "French", shouldn't we use ⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲧⲁ for "France"? ⲥⲉⲣⲕⲓ (talk) 12:44, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ is the word Copts use today for France. It probably comes from the Arabic term, which in turn is from a Medieval European language. I would not use ⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲧⲁ. بطرس مرقس (talk) 00:55, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

What do others think? There's also a Sahidic personal name ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲁⲥ/ⲉϥⲣⲁⲛⲕⲉ/ϥⲣⲁⲛⲅⲉ. Both English "France" and Arabic فرنسا are derived from the French word and the French pronunciation. The archaic Arabic الإفرنج seems to be derived from the same source as the Coptic ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲁⲥ/ϥⲣⲁⲛⲅⲉ (probably from Greek or a Lingua Franca word). ⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲧⲏⲥ looks like a later borrowing from either Old French where it was /ˈfran.t͡sə/ or again from some Romance Lingua Franca word. Using two different words for "Frank" and "French" is nice and this distinction exists in a number of languages (but not all). So I suggest to use either ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅ(ⲕ)ⲓⲁ or ⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲧ(ⲓ)ⲁ for "France". --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 19:50, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I cannot contribute to the discussion about the actual Coptic word you may decide to use, but I can give my thoughts about the etymology of the mentioned words. I think that the Arabic فرنسا does not directly come from French, but from the Mediterranean Lingua Franca (ˈfran.t͡sa) (or less like even Italian Francia ˈfraːnʧa). (For the latter, the sound change ʧ > s is also attested in Arabic النمسا al-nimsa 'Austria' from Ottoman Turkish Nemçe 'Austria; Germany'). However, given that Turkish also uses Fransa (and not *França), a loan from Italian is as I said less likely - I would suspect that the name of the modern country reached the Arabs via the Turkish administration. As far as I know, Φερεντησ is not used in any other language for either Franks, Europeans or French. But it reminds me of the antique name of the city of Forenza (Φερεντη), and Φερεντησ also seems to be a (greek personal?) name showing up sporadically, although I cannot say much about the origin. It is interesting to think about the toponym behind Φερεντησ. -τησ is the Greek ending for "-ian", "-er"; if the underlying form would be φερεντ(ι)α, one would expect φερεντατης, φερεντιατης, at least in Greek (compare Πῑσᾱ́της 'person from Pisa'). Abdülhamit-i Râbi (talk) 23:53, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

That's very interesting. The Turkish mediation makes sense. And do you mean Forenza in Southern Italy? I guess ⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲧⲏⲥ could be a pseudo-Greek adjective of something lik--ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 17:14, 6 August 2020 (UTC)e ⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲥ(ⲁ). The pseudo-Greek constructions a kinda common for different Scalaes. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 18:29, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Forenza in Southern Italy. But I can't explain why that should show up in a Coptic dictionary. I have seen some of the Coptic scalas, without really knowing a great deal of Coptic myself. I'm especially interested in toponyms and how they come into being. The placenames sometimes seem to be Greek-like, without actually being Greek, but also not really Arabic or Latin, and also not inherited from pre-Coptic Egyptian. Very interesting. Abdülhamit-i Râbi (talk) 22:04, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

So we could assume that both Arabic and Coptic got their word for "France" from this Mediterranean lingua franca? We would then arrive at a name which is spelled ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ or ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ, ⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲥⲁ and the like? (about the scalae: Pseudo-Greek trash, yes) ⲁⲛⲉⲯⲓⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲓ (talk) 20:13, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I guess ⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲧⲏⲥ can be just a scribal mistake for ⲫⲉⲣⲉⲛⲅⲏⲥ. So i think the toponym is ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲓⲁ or ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 19:59, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Should we move it to (ϯ)ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲓⲁ or (ϯ)ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ? Given the personal names ⲉϥⲣⲁⲛⲕⲉ/ϥⲣⲁⲛⲅⲉ I guess we could also use ϥⲣⲁⲛⲅⲓⲁ/ϥⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ to closer represent the pronunciation of the country's name in other languages. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 10:37, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Btw Labib uses ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲥⲉⲟⲥ for "French" in ⲁϦⲱⲙⲫⲁⲧ. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 01:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

What do you prefer? ϥⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ or ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ? I'm fine with many things. I'm not sure if they are much better than what we have now, but I don't have strong feelings. ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ (talk) 13:37, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

It's ok to keep the Arabic ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ as the Coptic name is not attested but I thought it's better to use a more genuine name. I'd use ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲓⲁ as it seems to be the initial form. Also in all the attestations of words for "Frank" or "French" ⲫ is more frequent than ϥ and ⲅ is more frequent than ⲕ. What do you think? --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 17:14, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

If I would need to choose out of these four forms ϥⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ ϥⲣⲁⲛⲅⲓⲁ ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲓⲁ, I think I'd take a spelling with a ⲕ, but that's just my preference, and I don't mind the Gamma. With respect to ϥ or ⲫ, it depends on the personal style. ⲫ often shows up in mediaeval scalae and later (but pre-modern) texts to write foreign words (which are often conceived Greek or Greekish), but currently whenever I see Copts writing something in Coptic, they mostly use ϥ. (I'm not talking about Copts with a philology/linguistics background) Maybe it's the ambiguity of ⲫ, but given that many of them use the Graeco-Bohairic pronunciation where ⲫ is also just f, I cannot explain it. ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ (talk) 03:16, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲓⲁ look very much like scala names... I mean I don't know. I agree nobody uses ⲫ unless you want to deliberately sound or look "Greek". Frankia (in whatever spelling) is just pseudo-, which is in principle fine because there is no Coptic name attested. But then on the other hand, I don't wanna really deal with criticism telling me that ⲑⲉⲛϩⲱⲥ or ⲑⲉⲛⲟⲩⲉⲓⲛⲓⲛ are unattested in this or that scala and are "made up". Couldn't it also be ϥⲣⲁⲛϫⲓⲁ? ⲁⲛⲉⲯⲓⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲓ (talk) 17:49, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲓⲁ does look like a scala name because it's created based on the genuine scala data (the only one we can rely on in this case). And yes of course ⲑⲉⲛⲟⲩⲉⲓⲛⲓⲛ and ⲑⲉⲛϩⲱⲥ are made up as they're not attested anywhere. ⲫ /ph/ and ϥ /f/ are different sounds but in this case i think ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲁⲥ is attested at the time when Coptic was Arabised and ⲫ became /f/ so it's not a big deal if we use ϥⲣⲁⲛⲅⲓⲁ. Why ϥⲣⲁⲛϫⲓⲁ? To match it with the old Arabic name? --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 02:34, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

See here for some history on the name ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲁⲥ. Looks like the monk himself used ϥⲣⲁⲛⲅⲉ most often but ϥⲣⲁⲛⲕⲉ, ϥⲣⲁⲅⲅⲉ, ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲅⲁⲥ, ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲁⲥ are also attested (ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲅⲁⲥ and ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲁⲥ are the oldest ones). There's even forms like ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲅⲁ, ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲕⲁ, ⲉⲃⲣⲁⲅⲅⲉ and ⲉⲃⲣⲁⲛⲅⲕⲉ. I guess our spelling of "France" should depend on two things – 1) either we decide that ⲅⲅ is always ng (like in ⲡⲁⲅⲅⲗⲁⲇⲏϣ) and take ϥⲣⲁⲅⲅⲓⲁ/ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲅⲓⲁ or just use ⲛⲕ so ϥⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ/ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ 2) If we use ⲫ or ϥ in the beginning. I personally think that ϥ is better option especially given the forms like ⲉⲃⲣⲁⲅⲅⲉ. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 20:11, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to post here because I don't want the discussion to start again. As the person above said, ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ sounds logical from a historical point of view. I'm not sure if there is a majority for moving it. I don't understand why a personal name written as (transcribed) "frang-" indicates anything for the toponym. And it's not like ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ (or whatever spelling) is attested in any other regional language (or is it? I don't know). There are numerous languages who have a personal name like this loaned into their languages, and yet the name of France is not immediately derived from it. From which language should ⲫⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ have been loaned? I'm asking because I assume we want a name here which looks/sounds/whatever realistic and "organic". ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ (talk) 17:06, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

And where does ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ come from? French? Why is it not ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥ then? Arabic? Why not ϥⲁⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ or ϥⲉⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ then? Turkish? I suspect that Arabic فرنسا comes from Turkish as well but I don't see why Coptic would borrow it as well. Toponyms connected with "Frank" – Byzantine Greek Φραγγια (from which it likely came to Coptic given the personal name), Cornish Pow Frynk, Dutch Frankrijk, German Frankreich and so on. The form with "s" that comes from French is only attested in languages that were heavily affected by French – English, Slavic languages, Turkish and so on (and I don't see how Coptic is affected by French). And yes, of course a personal name ⲫⲣⲁⲅⲅⲁⲥ (ϥⲣⲁⲛⲕⲉ, ⲉⲃⲣⲁⲅⲅⲉ etc) means "Frank" and the name of the country "France" shares the same etymology. "There are numerous languages who have a personal name like this loaned into their languages, and yet the name of France is not immediately derived from it" – it actually is, just think of the English name Frank and the old (before the Norman conquest and romanisation of the language) English name of France – Francland or Francrice. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 23:23, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Besides that, ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ looks very "un-Bohairic". I guess it would be rather ⲉϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ or ϥⲉⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 23:42, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I haven't said anything about French. Regarding ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ and its putative source, I'm referring to what Abdülhamit-i Râbi wrote above. ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ (talk) 14:21, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

But he was talking about فرنسا and how it came to Arabic via Turkish and said nothing about ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ... --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 14:27, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah? So? He was talking about the mediterranean lingua franca, and I think it is not too audacious to assume the same thing happened in Coptic. And even if it were loaned via Turkish, what would be the problem? As if the Copts wouldn't have taken it from Turkish. Also why can't we just use both? ϥⲣⲁⲛⲕⲓⲁ and ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ. بطرس مرقس (talk) 11:01, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

There's a lot of assumptions while we have some textual evidence. Coptic could've taken it from Turkish if it was a living language by the time of the Turkish conquest but it wasn't. The key of reviving Coptic is standardizing it so I don't think it's a good idea to use two names for the same thing (I don't mean synonyms but rather artificial equalization). Even if we create a new term as in case with ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ (although I still think that ⲉϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ or ϥⲉⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ are better Bohairic orthographies) we have to make it clear that it's a modern constructed term and is not attested anywhere before. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 13:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

It's actually a pity we can't really do a poll because of the small sample size. But I'm really curious what the result would be. Of course, if you just ask average Coptic enthusiasts I'm sure they'd say ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ, but that is just because they would take the Arabic term and not think about any possible historical scenarios behind it. Maybe we could also talk about whether we want to use ⲅⲅ , ⲛⲅ , ⲛⲕ for "ng" in Coptic (not talking about Greek loanwords whose spelling usually remains, although you see unoriginal spellings there too). ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ (talk) 14:05, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

But do you agree that ϥⲣⲁⲛⲥⲁ doesn't look Bohairic? I wouldn't appeal to "Coptic enthusiasts" as there are plenty of them. There are at least two main branches – I'd call one "labibists" who want to create a new Neo-Coptic by getting rid of existing (especially Greek) words and constructions and creating a new ones for the sake of creating a "pure" Egyptian language (I call them Labibists because Clauduius Labib was doing the same thing 100 years ago and didn't succeed but we can trace this "creating" of a new language based on Coptic back to creating of Graeco-Bohairic pronunciation) and another one with a more scientific and textual approach who try to reconstruct traditional Coptic as it was spoken and written before it's downfall (a lot of Copts who study Coptic for many years from Emile Maher Ishaq who recreated a traditional Bohairic pronunciation to Bashandy (author of a Coptic Pen blog and the author of ⲥⲁⲡⲉⲥⲏⲧ ⲛ̀ϯⲥⲕⲏⲛⲏ), Ambrose (the author of ⲡⲓⲥⲁϧⲟ blog and Coptic sounds website) or the authors of the Coptic Quill and many more. I think that the second approach is much better but is it absolutely right? I don't know. I only want to say that appealing to a "Coptic enthusiasts" or "Coptic community" that some people here like to do is just wrong and doesn't give any strength to the argument.

On ⲅⲅ - I think that an educated Cops who knew Greek orthography would write ⲅⲅ and the subsequent tradition forgot about this rule. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 19:17, 17 October 2020 (UTC)