Talk:Wp/cop/ⲕⲁϩⲓ

ⲡⲓⲑⲟ ⲛⲉⲙ ⲡⲓⲕⲁϩⲓ

I see in the Wikipedia ⲡⲓⲑⲟ is used for earth and ⲡⲓⲕⲁϩⲓ for land, country. Although I know that it can be used this way, it is very rare, and in Coptic earth (as a planet) is usually called ⲡⲓⲕⲁϩⲓ and ⲡⲓⲑⲟ for land, country - think of the Coptic and Demotic names which start with "land of..." t3-n-... ⲧⲉⲛ...ⲑⲉⲛ... I know it is a huge effort if we change it all, but can we change ⲑⲟ and ⲕⲁϩⲓ? -بطرس مرقس

Yeah, if you want to change it, it is a huge effort, but yeah, when we started here, we exchanged them. It was a big mistake. ⲕⲁϩⲓ should be the planet earth, ⲑⲟ the land/country. But lets change it. If we dont change it now, it gets even harder to change it in future

Another thing: There are two ⲕⲁϩⲓ: ⲡⲓⲕⲁϩⲓ 'earth' and ϯⲕⲁϩⲓ 'district'! --ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ 1 October 2017

I have to say I don't like ⲑⲟ for 'country, nation state'. The word has a basically specialised use in Coptic (vs pre-Coptic) as 'world, cosmos' and then in a handful of fossilised expressions (e.g Bohairic ⲡⲓⲑⲟ ⲧⲏⲣϥ < οἰκουμένη [from < tA r Dr.f Černý p. 179] Apocalypse 3:10, ⲡⲁⲓⲑⲟ < κόσμος [usually ⲡⲁⲓⲕⲟⲥⲙⲟⲥ in Bohairic]; Crum 396a) but not 'country, nation, region, etc'. The words most used in Coptic for 'country, region, (state)' are ⲕⲁϩⲓ and ⲭⲱⲣⲁ. As you say, ⲕⲁϩⲓ is also used for 'land, soil, (planet) Earth' so is perhaps less suitable. Therefore, I suggest ⲭⲱⲣⲁ as the word with the closest meaning to the modern concept of 'country, nation' (e.g. ϯⲭⲱⲣⲁ ⲛ̀ⲧⲉ ϯⲅⲁⲗⲁⲧⲓⲁ̀ "the country of the Galatians" Acts 18:23, ⲧⲭⲱⲣⲁ ⲛ̀ⲧⲉ ⲛⲓⲅⲉⲣⲅⲉⲥⲏⲛⲟⲥ "the country of the Gergesenes" Matthew 8:28, ⲧⲭⲱⲣⲁ ⲛ̀ⲉⲇⲱⲙ Genesis 32:3, etc). P.S. Monir Barsoum also uses ⲭⲱⲣⲁ as 'country, state' in his teaching book: "Ⲩⲧⲁⲗⲓⲁ, Ⲉⲗⲗⲁⲥ ⲛⲉⲙ Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ϩⲁⲛⲭⲱⲣⲁ ⲛⲉ" (Ϣⲉ ⲛ̀ϩⲟ ⲉⲑⲃⲏⲧⲕ, p. 76). - AB

I dont see any problem with the use of both these words. Also, I don't see why we should use ⲭⲱⲣⲁ which is "region", and not "nation state". And a guy who writes ⲩⲧⲁⲗⲓⲁ is probably not more authoritative then any other person dealing with Coptic. بطرس مرقس (talk) 01:03, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Furthermore, I hope we don't have to explain the usage of ⲑⲱϣ and others now. And there is even ⲣⲉⲕⲁϩⲓ and ⲣⲉⲑⲟ! Ψενανουβισ (talk) 01:05, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi Botros. I'm not sure you should be so dismissive about the work of someone who's written several books teaching Coptic. As I said, ⲭⲱⲣⲁ covers the meanings land ~ region while ⲑⲟ is basically only used in fixed expressions (therefore non-productive) in Coptic meaning world ~ cosmos. Obviously, there is no native Coptic word meaning 'nation state' exactly since this is a modern concept. I think, therefore, in Coptic ⲭⲱⲣⲁ is best suited for 'country' in its modern sense and moreover is the word used in modern Greek. Further, I suggest ϯⲡⲁⲧⲣⲓⲥ 'the homeland, motherland' and ⲡⲓϣⲗⲟⲗ (pl. ⲛⲓϣⲗⲱⲗ) 'the nation (of people)'. - AB

All the words in question have a wide variety of meanings, and the majority of users have settled on one for "country", ⲑⲟ, and one for "earth" ⲕⲁϩⲓ. I don't see how it matters what ⲭⲱⲣⲁ means in (modern!) Greek (apart from the fact that χώρα does not even only mean "land", "country" in modern Greek!). In Coptic, ⲭⲱⲣⲁ has a variety of meanings, just like the other proposed words. It is used in the sense of "district" (not country...) in the Martyrdom of John of Phanijoit, one of the last long pieces of Coptic literature, written by a native speaker of Bohairic Coptic. That's nice evidence. Others may have used other words for "district", and for "land", "earth", "world". So it goes. But arguing for ⲭⲱⲣⲁ as "the" word for "land" or "country" is ridiculous and simply not based on data. (Apart from the fact that it tends to be used in the sense of the latter two more often in Sahidic than Bohairic texts!) It is honestly a bit unsettling to see users discussing choices of words here which are agreed on by the majority of users here already, and most importantly, are agreed on by exactly those people who seem to be Copts or Egyptians. AB (is it the one from Twitter?), on the other hand, admitted that he doesn't know Arabic (which would have helped him to understand the point other users made) in another comment where he also thought that he can "mansplain" and "whitesplain" the Egyptians working here. This is a wikipedia were everybody is allowed to contribute, native speaker or barely knowing the language, living in Egypt, China, UK or America or anywhere else. But telling people here how to write "their" language is inappropriate. How would the average French person feel if an English speaker from the US contributes in the French wikipedia and says "You should use grammatical structure X because it is used in the French version of the Bible / is how I learned French / is how people in Canada speak French and I don't like mainland French." Know your limits, and nobody needs cultural and linguistic appropriators here! KevinMuskelprotz (talk) 21:13, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Ok so 1) ⲭⲱⲣⲁ means "country" (or has the closest meaning) in Coptic, not modern Greek. 2) There were no modern national countries in the times of St.John of Phanijoit so it's obvious he uses it for "region". But does he use ⲑⲟ in this sense? 3) The language, especially the dead one, is not bounded to a race or a nation. If it was, it would be safe to say that Copts have lost their language and they are no more (They speak Arabic so they are Arabs). I don't agree with it. 4) AB is Egyptian as far as i know. 5) French is a living language. Coptic is not. There is a huge difference. Everyone likes to bring up a Hebrew revival as an example but they don't bring up the fact that it was based on a the most detailed study of the literature and a real "living" language to the extent that an Ancient Hebrew speaker should've understood the majority of the modern Hebrew. This is a rule that is absolutely ignored here on Wikipedia, no native Coptic speaker would understand the majority of the big articles here. And the last thing – it's not "theirs" language, no one is a native speaker of Coptic, everyone have learned it from books, so it's mine just as yours (although i'm Russian and not Egyptian). --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 22:04, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Line 3 of Vaticanus Copticus 69: ϧⲉⲛⲧⲭⲱⲣⲁ ⲙⲡⲟⲩϣⲓⲛ "in the district of Poushin". He uses ⲕⲁϩⲓ for land, line 1060: ⲕⲁϩⲓ ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ. Clearly, the author of that manuscript does not agree with you. And as I said, literally every of the terms in question is used in EVERY sense. This is not the point of my argument. If you read my comment again, you may get what I said: My argument is not "use ⲑⲟ for land, country" because it is the "only true and correct word for 'land/country'" and every Coptic manuscript uses it this way. My first argument is that no single word is always used in the same way in Coptic texts. Hence, for modern purposes, users in the Wikipedia and elsewhere need to agree on a word they use. Apparently, they settled on ⲑⲟ - which is as valid as ⲭⲱⲣⲁ and ⲕⲁϩⲓ. My second argument is that once the majority has agreed on it - and this seems to be the case for a couple of years now -, the discussion shouldn't be reopened again only because you personally prefer ⲭⲱⲣⲁ. As far as I can tell, nobody changed your ⲭⲱⲣⲁ into ⲑⲟ or ⲕⲁϩⲓ, but you constantly pushing for your personal word choices is tedious. So be a bit more tolerant to the ideas of other people here. In the end, a consensus will emerge, but this consensus will not emerge from geeks who study old languages in Russia or the US, but from Copts in Egypt. And referring to "nobody would understand". On the one hand, this statement is a no-brainer: Of course, modern encyclopaedias are full of concepts not known to speakers of a mediaeval language. On the other hand: What is your purpose here? Delegitimizing the work in the Coptic wikipedia, saying everybody but you is wrong and doesn't know the language? Apart from neologisms, only Coptic words as attested in old sources are used here. How else would you express "capital city", "oxygen" or "car" here? Given the huge amounts of discussions here, you can hardly say that these creations come into being arbitrarily without debate. Furthermore, many of these words seem to be used outside wikipedia too. The constraint that Coptic needs to be adjusted to the modern world necessarily leads to changes - just as Biblical Hebrew is not the same as modern Hebrew. The pronunciation is different, many new words have been introduced, and even the morphosyntax is slightly different. You could say the same about Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. KevinMuskelprotz (talk) 22:37, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

1) An English word "country" is used in sense of "district" as well, so what? ⲕⲁϩⲓ and ⲭⲱⲣⲁ can be both used to express modern "country" but not ⲑⲟ, that's the whole point of the discussion. ⲑⲟ doesn't have a meaning of "country" and is not as valid as ⲭⲱⲣⲁ or ⲕⲁϩⲓ so your first argument is false. 2) There were a few contributors who agreed on it from whom only me and ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ are active now. I was sure that it was a good "native" Egyptian term and it's used in Demotic so it's a true Egyptian wordǃ Win-win. But now i've changed my mind. Let's ask ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ because it looks like he is the second person from that "majority" you're talking about. 3) I'm sorry to tell you friend but the majority of things we know about Coptic is thanks to geeks from France, Germany, Czhehia, Russia and so on so have a little bit of respect. 4) Funny enough, but two of the terms you've mentioned are easily expressed without any neologisms (except of "oxygen"). And that's exactly the issue – Coptic does have a word but you think it's better to create a new one. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 23:27, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Why did you restart this discussion? It takes all our energy and it is incredibly obnoxious. I honestly feel attacked by saying Copts wouldn't understand the majority of the articles. I don't think that's true. Some people here (often me) have reconstructed words from Demotic and earlier stages of Egyptian, but I think the words which were considered far-fetched are not used by others and I have started to use the alternative (like in the case of "capital city" which was mentioned here). I think most articles are perfectly understandable. To the word in question: In principle, I'm indifferent of using either ⲑⲟ or ⲕⲁϩⲓ for "land", "country". If we start to use ⲕⲁϩⲓ here for the sense of "country", than we use ⲕⲁϩⲓ for "district", "country", "land" and "(planet) earth" which is definitely too much. So we need to distinguish. I'm strongly against changing a single word right away, because we first need to think what the consequences would be for all other terminology which is affected by the change. ⲣⲉ-, which is used to create fractions, gave us ⲣⲉⲕⲁϩⲓ and ⲣⲉⲑⲟ, meaning "continent" and "state (within a country)". If we change the meanings of the base, these may change too. If we use ⲕⲁϩⲓ for "country", what is the word for "(planet) earth"? But apart from that, this should not affect ⲑⲉⲛⲟⲩⲉⲓⲛⲓⲛ "Greece" and ⲑⲉⲛϩⲟⲥ "Sudan" - at least the former is definitely also used outside Wikipedia, and I've never encountered any word for Sudan, so I can't say anything about that. Only because we use ⲑⲟ in these country names doesn't mean that ⲑⲟ needs to be our default word for "land/country". Also, it seems many people here have different opinions on what counts as "real" Coptic. In my opinion, it is neither just the Martyrdom of St John, neither the medieval scalas, neither current Coptic circles in Egypt. It must be all of that, and we need to acknowledge that currently many Copts have opted for ⲑⲟ as "country" even though it is not (more) justified in this sense than ⲕⲁϩⲓ or ⲭⲱⲣⲁ judging from medieval sources. Does it mean we need to follow their proposals? I don't know.

So, I invite everyone to make some proposals, not just for "country" tho: Markaz, district, state (part of a country in a federal system), country, continent, (planet) earth. (ⲑⲱϣ is hopefully clear for governorate.). Maybe under Talk:Wp/cop/ⲥⲁϫⲓ_`ⲙⲃⲉⲣⲓ_`ⲛⲣⲉⲙⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ#Subdivisions ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ (talk) 03:52, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I thought that we've decided that ⲕⲁϩⲓ is not suitable for "country" as it has too many meanings and the current discussions is ⲭⲱⲣⲁ > ⲑⲟ. Sp ⲣⲉⲕⲁϩⲓ and ⲣⲉⲭⲱⲣⲁ would stay in their place. "All of that" is a very extensive statement Ahmed. We're dealing with a dead language, where we can't relate to a oral tradition of native Copts – it just doesn't exists. A Coptic is a well documented language that is able to deal with simple concepts like "country" or "capital city" there's no need to create/reconstruct a word unless it's absolutely necessary. I think you'll agree that "country" is not that case. So given that the written source is thousand times more important than what enthusiasts may use based on their preferences and biases (i want to state that i have a lot of respect to all the people who try to revive the language though). We'll just end up having a thousand of not mutually intelligible pidgins if somebody wouldn't like that a certain word is Greek or Persian. Coptic was a living language and was taking words from different sources, just like any other living language. So if we really want to revive the language we have to have a consistent approach – if the word is not attested we think of a new one and we have to set rules for that as well (imo the first one should be that we should mostly rely on Coptic and not the previous stages of the language although i know that temptation is strong). If there is a word for something – there's absolutely no need to create anything as we're dealing with a language not just a LEGO kit from which we create a "real" Coptic. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 09:39, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I think ⲣⲉ- looks a bit odd with a Greek word like ⲭⲱⲣⲁ, so I'd still use ⲣⲉⲑⲟ regardless of what we decide here to use for "country". And what do other people say about this discussion? ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ (talk) 13:33, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Why do you think so? The construct participle is used with Greek words just fine – ⲉⲩⲉϣⲱⲡⲓ ⲅⲁⲣ ⲛ̀ϫⲉ ⲛⲓⲣⲱⲙⲓ ⲉⲩⲟⲓ… ⲙ̀ⲙⲁⲓϩⲩⲇⲟⲛⲏ ⲙⲁⲗⲗⲟⲛ ⲉϩⲟⲧⲉ ⲙⲁⲓⲛⲟⲩϯ (2 Timothy 3:2-4). --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 11:56, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh yes! ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ (talk) 15:28, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Right, ⲙⲁⲓ- is especially frequent – ⲙⲁⲓⲁⲅⲁⲑⲟⲥ, ⲙⲁⲓⲛⲉⲅⲣⲁⲫⲉ, ⲙⲁⲓⲧⲉⲭⲣⲓⲥⲧⲟⲥ. And of course ⲣⲉⲙ- – ⲣⲉⲙⲧⲡⲟⲗⲓⲥ, ⲣⲉⲙⲧⲥⲩⲣⲓⲁ and so on. --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 18:09, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Man, can you stop this now? NOBODY WANTS YOUR GREEK STUFF ⲁⲛⲉⲯⲓⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲓ (talk) 15:34, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Relax, he just showed me that the atonic forms can be combined with Greek (and other foreign) words. We won't change everything to Greek lol ⲁϩⲙⲉⲧ (talk) 15:38, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Nothing will be changed here. Fat Wershy just wants more Greek words. He should use them but leave others alone ⲁⲛⲉⲯⲓⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲓ (talk) 17:05, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

How old are you, like 14? --ⲫⲁϯⲟⲩⲉⲣϣⲓ (talk) 17:25, 10 July 2020 (UTC)