Coptic Etymological Dictionary

by Jaroslav Černý

Coptic was the language spoken in Egypt from late ancient times to the seventeenth century, when it was overtaken by Arabic as the national language. Derived from ancient Egyptian, the language of the hieroglyphs, it was written in an adapted form of Greek script. This dictionary lists about 2,000 Coptic words whose etymology has been established from ancient Egyptian and Greek sources, covering two-thirds of the known Coptic vocabulary and complementing W. E. Crum's 1939 Coptic Dictionary, still the standard in the field. The Egyptian forms are quoted in hieroglyphic and/or demotic forms. An appendix lists the etymologies of Coptic place-names. The final work of Czech Egyptologist Jaroslav Černý (1898–1970), Professor of Egyptology at Oxford, the Dictionary was brought through to publication by colleagues after his death.

Genres: Coptic Language, Language

414 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 1976

About the author

One of the most famous Egyptologist

Jaroslav Černý was born on 22 August 1898 in Pilsen in Austro-Hungary. He studied from 1917 till 1922 at the Charles University in Prague, where he received his doctorate in 1929. He took part in Bernard Bruyère's excavations at Deir el-Medina in 1925 and the village became the focus of a lifelong study. One volume, of a planned three, on the village was published before his death with other parts published posthumously.[1] In 1946, he became professor for Egyptology at University College London. From 1951 until 1965 he was Professor of Egyptology at Oxford University. His specialties were the hieratic script, the New Kingdom, and Late Egyptian literature. He died on 29 May 1970 in Oxford, England.