COPHTIC, or COPTE, the language of the Coptis, the ancient language of the Egyptians, mixed with a great deal of Greek, the characters it is written in being all Greek. It has a form and construction peculiar to itself: it has no inflections of the nouns or verbs; but expresses number, case, gender, person, mood, tense, and possessive pronouns, by letters and particles prefixed.
F. Kircher is the first who published a grammar and vocabulary of the Coptie. There is not known any book extant in the Coptie, except translations of the Holy Scriptures, or of ecclesiastical offices; or others that have relation thereto, as dictionaries, &c.
The ancient Coptie is now no longer found but in books; the language now used throughout the country is Arabic. The old Coptie, which Kircher maintains to be a mother-tongue, and independent of all others, had been much altered by the Greek: for besides that it has borrowed all its characters from the Greek, with a very little variation, a great number of the words are pure Greek. Vossius, indeed, asserts, that there was no Coptie language till after Egypt became subject to the Arabs. The language, according to him, is a mixture of Greek and Arabic: the very name thereof not being in the world till after the Arabs
were masters of the country. But this, M. Simon observes, proves nothing; except that what was anciently called Egyptian, has since by the Arabs been called Coptie, by a corruption of speech. There are, it is true, Arabic words in the Coptie; yet this by no means proves but that there was a language before that time, either Coptie or Egyptian. Pietro de la Valle observes, that the Coptis have entirely lost their ancient tongue; that it is now no longer understood among them; that they have nothing extant therein but some sacred books; and that they still say mass in it.
All their other books have been translated into Arabic, which is their vulgar tongue; and this has occasioned the originals to be lost: it is added, that they rehearse the epistles and gospels in the mass twice; once in Arabic and once in Coptie. Indeed, if we believe F. Vanfleb, the Coptis say the mass in Arabic, all but the epistles and gospels, which they rehearse both in that and Coptie.