Preparations for systematic work with a view to a Coptic dictionary were begun by me some thirty years ago, but intervening undertakings delayed effective progress for some time. Meanwhile it was ascertained that the Clarendon Press would be not unwilling to consider, when the time came, a project of publication. But early in 1914 a definite proposal to publish, at their expense and with provision of funds for collaboration, photography &c., came from the Berlin Academy. This generous offer I owed to Professor Erman, who saw the need of a Coptic dictionary on a scale worthy of that of the hieroglyphic Wörterbuch and who issued a statement on the subject. [1] A scheme was drawn up and work begun [2] and if the outbreak of war had not put an end to all hopes of carrying through such projects, the book would have been completed long ere now. Yet it was found possible to retain the help of German collaborators, as well as of those in the allied countries, and a few years after the end of the war a collection of material had been amassed large enough to justify a renewal of negotiations with the Clarendon Press. These resulted in the arrangement whereby the dictionary is now published.
In 1921 the late Professor Spiegelberg produced his Handwörterbuch, which he modestly described as a revision of Peyron's Lexicon (1835), but which in reality is far more than that. Its most conspicuous novelty was the addition, in all cases where in the author's opinion justifiable, of the hieroglyphic or demotic etymology of the Coptic form. The absence of this important element from the present work some students may regret; it was only after much hesitation that I decided to omit it. I cannot claim an independent judgement as to the appositeness of a demotic etymology, while to reproduce these in hieroglyphic type—for a mere transcription satisfies no one—would greatly have increased costs and yet have added nothing of adequate importance to what Spiegelberg has already given us. [3]
What is here offered represents an entirely new and independent working over of the total available material. Our word-collecting has all been done directly, from the texts; all those in print have of course been utilized—often after collation with the originals; so too all unpublished manuscripts, ostraca and inscriptions, to which access could be obtained. The quantity of material used amounts, at a rough estimate, to some 240,000 slips. [4] It is hoped that these resources give a sufficient basis for a comprehensive view of the language, in all its dialects and in all aspects of its literature: biblical, patristic and mundane. The total of recorded independent words—ignoring the countless derived forms—is 3,308, whereof some 390 are still of unknown meaning. These are mostly ἅπαξ λεγόμενα and some are no doubt misread.
If I name here only the principal sources which have become available within recent decades, some notion will be possible of the extent to which materials have increased.
To begin with the largest and, in some ways, the most important of extant collections, there are the fifty-six volumes from the Fayyûm, bought in 1911 by Mr. Pierpont Morgan, a body of texts unparalleled for completeness, if not for variety. [1] Next in size comes the Paris collection: some twenty-five volumes of fragments, the greater part of which has not yet attained to print. Then there is a considerable number of leaves in the Borgian collection, which Zoega's Catalogue merely mentions, the Curzon manuscripts (now the property of the British Museum), an interesting series in the Berlin Library and an important and varied collection acquired for the University of Michigan.
So far I have named mostly Saʿîdic MSS., emanating in great part from the library of Shenoute's monastery. Turning now to Bohairic, there is the imposing series, brought long since from Nitria to the Vatican, considerable parts of which are not yet in print—conspicuously the volume of Chrysostom, with its thirty-seven complete homilies—and there is besides a large number of important texts, chiefly liturgical, scattered among all the libraries: service books, hymn books and especially lectionaries, whence interesting variants of the received biblical texts may be gathered. The lectionaries were exploited by La Croze and, thanks to Dr. Burmester, we shall before long have certain of them available. Last, but by no means least, among our Bohairic resources come the vocabularies. The fourteenth-century Scala of Abû ʾl-Barakât (transcribed and interpreted by Kircher, but cited here from his MS. and acollation of eleven others) of course surpasses the rest in importance; yet there is plenty worth recording in the lesser glossaries also: many an Arabic translation or Greek equivalent, to throw light upon rare or doubtful words. It is true that these glossaries are the product of a late age, owing their existence to the disuse that had by then fallen upon the ancient language; but I have thought it better, here as elsewhere, to include too much, rather than too little, and to record everything from these medieval sources that could be claimed as ultimately Coptic.
As regards the lesser dialects, reference must first be made to the great increase in material resulting from the discovery and gradual publication of the Manichaean papyri, acquired by Mr. Chester Beatty and the Berlin Museum. These we have been able to use, thanks to the permission of their owners and to copies of the unpublished portions kindly sent by Dr. Polotsky and Mr. Allberry. But this advantage has been ours only since reaching the letter [2] and so many would have been the insertions in the Additions, had we attempted to record all new words and forms under the previous letters, that it seemed preferable to ignore them almost entirely and to refer students to the indexes of the eventual publications. The at present confused idioms included under the term Middle Egyptian, or, as in this book, Fayyûmic, may later on require special vocabularies, but most of its strange phenomena, so far as yet observed, have found a place here. [3]
Finally there is a large body of non-literary texts, which to the earlier lexicographer were entirely unknown. In Peyron's day not a single Coptic 'document' was available; nothing of the kind was heard of until the first batch of the Jêmé papyri began to attract the attention of C. W. Goodwin, E. Revillout and M. Kabis, in the 'sixties and 'seventies of last century. To-day conditions are far different; a great deal of material of this class is now in print: ecclesiastical and monastic documents, legal deeds, correspondence—official, commercial and purely private—tax receipts, accounts, lists; besides epigraphic texts: epitaphs, dedicatory inscriptions and the like. Further, magical texts of various kinds: prayers, incantations, curses, charms, whence many a strange, forgotten word may be unearthed. In some of these groups there is still plenty of material awaiting publication; nevertheless I think it may be claimed that but little—so far as it has been acquired for public or private collections—has remained unutilized.
Something must be said as to the method followed in recording and illustrating words.
From considerations of space and cost everything is abbreviated down to the limits, it is hoped, of intelligibility. For the context of words illustrated an English summary has often appeared sufficient. The punctuation and spacing are meant to be taken seriously, the use of the semicolon in particular being intended to separate groups in meaning or usage. All references are to the most recent editions of published texts, even where (as in Amélineau's Schenoudi) the later does not positively improve upon the older print. [1] Bible verses are given in the numeration of the published Coptic editions, without regard either to that of the LXX or of the English version. Manuscripts are cited, where possible, by their Coptic pagination; but this rule has been occasionally transgressed, notably in the Vatican series, where the modern foliation is followed. Quotations are printed as they appear in the MSS., their orthography uncorrected, except where ambiguity demanded emendation. Irregular variants in word-form are enumerated at the outset of each paragraph; at first those most rarely occurring were occasionally omitted, later on all were recorded. In the following subdivisions the Saʿîdic form often does duty for the rest. The gender of a noun is not stated except where positive evidence (by article, pronoun or the like) is to be had from the text.
As the long work progressed its quality has, I hope, improved; but if it were to be done again, not a few alterations in method would be desirable. Where a word is rare, it would be made clear that the instances given are exhaustive. [2] There would be some indication of the relative amounts of material drawn upon for each dialect; our paragraphs are apt to be misleading as to that: B is for the most part less fully represented than S, owing to the far greater variety of sources available in the latter. Less ambiguous and contradictory indications of dialect ought to have been achieved; Sf has often been attached to a form found in a text otherwise purely Saʿîdic, while Sa is used to include, besides forms especially Theban, those of more northern and less certain origin. Again, A2 has not been always confined to MSS. in that dialect for which the name 'Siutic' has been proposed. [3] F of course embraces several varieties of idiom: that of the Fayyûm and those adjoining it in the river valley, wherein divergence from Saʿîdic is often slight; indeed I fear that in not a few cases (conspicuously where hybrid texts such as Mor 30 are drawn upon) examples from one and the same MS. may be found assigned to S, Sf and F. [4] The addition of the dialectal equivalent, in literary texts as well as biblical, is perhaps less valuable than at first appeared; divergence in detail between the bible versions—far more frequent than has usually been admitted—and still wider differences between the versions, even within a single dialect, of other texts, tend to lessen the significance of apparent equivalents. The decision to maintain the terms 'transitive' and 'intransitive' would perhaps not commend itself; they are used to distinguish between the direct relation of verb and object ('accusative', ⲛ-) and the indirect (ⲉ- and other prepositions), besides cases of the objectless verb.
Illustration must obviously be limited by our collections. A word or form may thus appear to be absent in one or other of the dialects which future additions to material will supply; another may recur later on, whereof at present only a single instance has been recorded.
No chronological arrangement of the illustrative quotations would have been feasible; the very nature of Coptic literature and the conservative traditions of its copyists make it impossible to arrive at more than approximate estimates of the relative ages of the literary texts—or rather, manuscripts. All that seemed practicable was to begin illustration with biblical, i.e. presumably the earliest, examples and those whereof the Greek originals and dialectal parallels give the best guarantees of meaning, and to follow these by quotations from the old Gnostic books—the Pistis, the Bruce Papyrus and the Berlin Gnostic text [1]—and next from the one conspicuous native writer whom the literature can boast: Shenoute [2] (322–451). Published biblical quotations in the Saʿîdic dialect can generally be traced in A. Vaschalde's indispensable lists (Revue Biblique 1919–22). To what age the mass of liturgical and patristic writings, be they of Egyptian origin or translations from the Greek, belong—whether mainly post-Chalcedonian and but rarely earlier—it would be difficult to determine. Non-literary documents are, in the majority, to be assigned to the seventh and eighth centuries. Wherever traceable the Greek original or equivalent—for the correspondence between them is often of the vaguest—has been added to patristic instances, but space forbade giving the references for these; the reader is asked to credit us with having in no case assumed a merely suppositional correspondent. In the biblical examples of common words I do not pretend to record exhaustively the Greek equivalents: those which occur but once or twice may be found to be absent.
The book being a dictionary of the Coptic language, the countless Greek words, scattered through every class of text, cannot claim inclusion. A very few are given hospitality which seem, by formal modification or distortion, to have attained to naturalization.
All the articles were written by me and mine of course is the sole responsibility for them.
The list of Additions and Corrections has grown to a portentous length; the quantity of the latter, seeing that at least four pairs of eyes had combined to avoid them, is humiliating. I can but hope that the list will not go unregarded by users of the book.
I have to express my gratitude to many friends for contributing in many ways towards the progress of the book. Before the organization of the Berlin project, referred to above, I had not contemplated extensive collaboration; but from that date I set about enlisting the services of collaborators and was thus able greatly to add to the body of slip-material which had already accumulated. The entire Saʿîdic and Fayyûmic and almost all the Achmîmic material was produced by myself and two friends. To one of these, Sir Herbert Thompson, I am indebted for far more than the mere making of slips: for he accepted the burden of reading the entire manuscript and has given opinions on many demotic matters, besides undertaking the long labour of the Greek index. His never-failing help and criticism have been of inestimable value, pointing the way to many improvements and saving me from countless inaccuracies.
To the other I owe a debt for collaboration of every kind, through many years—help so extensive, so fundamental and so effective, that I should be quite unable rightly to express here how much I owe to it. But for it the work would not have been carried through.
Of the Bohairic material a large part was gathered by the following scholars: Dr. H. Demel, Prof. De Vis, Prof. Drioton, Prof. A. Grohmann, the Abbé Porcher, Dr. H. Wiesmann; while less extensive contributions were made by the Rev. D. P. Buckle, Sir Stephen Gaselee and Mr. E. S. S. Harding.
To Professor Hyvernat my especial thanks are due, for he entrusted me with photographs of the greater part of the Borgian collection [1] and moreover lent his own photographic copies of many of the Pierpont Morgan manuscripts, while from the Cambridge University Library I had the inestimable loan of other volumes of that series. I owe a like debt to Prof. Lefort, from whom I have constantly borrowed photographs from the all-embracing collection at Louvian. The University of Michigan (thanks in the first instance to the mediation of the late Professor F. W. Kelsey) generously provided me with photographs of the entire Coptic collection. [2] Columbia University did me a similar kindness at the suggestion of Prof. A. A. Schiller. For photographs of certain Vatican MSS. I have to thank Fr. Chaîne, others I was enabled to procure through the liberality of the Griffith Egyptological Fund at Oxford and the Hort Fund at Cambridge, while acquaintance with the Vatican collection was completed by the loan of Professor De Vis's copies. I have been further indebted to the Hort Fund, as also to the British Academy, for generous financial contributions. Copies of Berlin ostraca and of Vienna manuscripts were put at my disposal by the late Prof. Erman and Prof. Till respectively, those of manuscripts in Russia by the late O. von Lemm and Prof. P. Jernstedt. To Prof. Erman I owe photographs of the already mentioned Berlin Gnostic papyrus. A find of Theban ostraca was, with M. Lacau's leave, sent to me in Bath by Mr. Winlock, while of ostraca from the Chicago excavations I had the benefit of Prof. Till's copies. I have had the use of M. de Ricci's MSS. and copies, of those of certain Cairo (Jkôw) papyri by M. Lacau, some of those at Columbia University by Prof. Schiller and of M. Munier's copy of an important Shenoute codex in the French Institute, Cairo. After Prof. Dévaud's death I was given his invaluable collection of etymological slips. The late Prof. A. A. Bevan, Mr. R. Guest and Dr. G. Sobhy have answered many enquiries respecting obscure Arabic equivalents of Coptic words; the late Dr. J. K. Fotheringham gave me help on astronomical questions, the late Mr. R. McKenzie on many Greek points, while Sir D'Arcy Thompson has done the like where natural history was involved. For an Arabic cross-index to Kircher's Scala I have to thank Dr. O'Leary's kindness.
Sir Herbert Thompson Greek index silently rectifies many inaccuracies to be met with in the book. For the English index I have to thank Mr. Charles Hart-Davis, by whom it was almost entirely compiled. For the Arabic index I am responsible.
From many others too I have had help, either in verifying readings or sending copies of distant MSS. or in giving information on special points. I name those not already referred to: Messrs. Böhlig, Ludlow Bull, Burmester, Chassinat, Černý, Delaporte, Drioton, Farina, W. H. P. Hatch, Hebbelynck, Hengstenberg, Holmyard, Keimer, Kuentz, Lantschoot, Meyerhof, A. Möhle, Munier, Carl Schmidt, Schubart, Simaika, Steindorff, Tisserant, Winstedt, Worrell, Yassa Abd el-Masih, Mrs. Charlotte Baynes, Dr. Dora Zunz. To all these and to others, if inadvertently passed over, I offer my hearty thanks. And I must express them also to the University Press: to the Delegates for sharing in the expense of publishing and to the compositors and readers for the admirable production of a complicated piece of printing.
W. E. C.
February, 1939.
a, b refer to columns 1 & 2.