- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Maps
- Foreword
- Introduction
-
1 The Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga: Points of Departure for a Relative Chronology -
2 Intellectual Life in Middle Egypt: The Case of the Monastery of Bawit (Sixth–Eighth Centuries) -
3 Christianity and Monasticism in al-Bahnasa according to Arabic Sources -
4 Mesokemic or ‘Middle Egyptian’—the Coptic Dialect of Oxyrhynchos (?) -
5 The Monastery of Apollo at Bala’iza and Its Literary Texts -
6 “Twenty Thousand Nuns”: The Domestic Virgins of Oxyrhynchos -
7 Anba Isaac, Bishop of the Fayoum, al-Bahnasa, and Giza, 1834–81 -
8 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: History and Heritage (Reflections of Its Monks) -
9 John of Shmoun and Coptic Identity -
10 Christianity in Asyut in Modern History -
11 The Place of Qusqam in the Textual Data on the Flight into Egypt -
12 John of Lykopolis -
13 Discerning the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt -
14 Egyptian Gnosticism from Its Cradle in the Alexandrian Quarters of the Second Century to Its Jar Tomb in the Upper Egyptian Town of Nag‘ Hammadi -
15 Notes on the Arabic Life of Ibrahim al-Fani: A Coptic Saint of the Fourteenth Century -
16 Snippets from the Past -
17 Liturgy of the Monastery of al-Muharraq -
18 L⋆ as a Secret Language -
19 Bawit in the Twenty-first Century: Bibliography 1997–2014 -
20 Children’s Burials from Antinoopolis -
21 Recent Excavations at Bawit -
22 Funerary Aspects in the Paintings from the Apollo Monastery at Bawit -
23 The Cave of John of Lykopolis -
24 Al-Shaykh Sa‘id Revisited -
25 Toward the Documentation of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin at al-Muharraq, Asyut -
26 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: Reflections of Its Monks Today -
27 An Overview of Rock-cut Coptic Sites in Asyut -
28 Architectural Typology of Historic Coptic Churches from Oxyrhynchos to Dayr al-Ganadla - Abbreviations
- Bibliography
L⋆ as a Secret Language
L⋆ as a Secret Language
Social Functions of Early Coptic
- Chapter:
- (p.185) 18 L⋆ as a Secret Language
- Source:
- Christianity and Monasticism in Middle Egypt
- Author(s):
Ewa D. Zakrzewska
- Publisher:
- American University in Cairo Press
This chapter reconsiders the use of Coptic as attested in the texts belonging to the Manichaean community in Kellis (Ismant al-Kharab, Dakhla Oasis). For this particular variety of Coptic, the siglum L* has been suggested by W.-P. Funk, who thus qualified it as a variety of the so-called Lykopolitan dialect of Coptic, indicated by the siglum L. The chapter puts forward a number of hypotheses to reconstruct the motivations that could have induced the members of the Manichaean community in Kellis to use Coptic for their writings. It argues that early Coptic was not simply an Egyptian vernacular but a deliberately constructed alternative literary language and a prestige variety. The association of Coptic with Christianity is not due to its alleged function of converting “indigenous” Egyptians, but to its rise and development within early ascetic communities that were the locus of innovative and highly regarded social practices in late antiquity.
Keywords: Coptic dialects, Lykopolis, Manichaean community, Lykopolitan dialect, Christianity, alternative literary language, social practices
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Maps
- Foreword
- Introduction
-
1 The Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga: Points of Departure for a Relative Chronology -
2 Intellectual Life in Middle Egypt: The Case of the Monastery of Bawit (Sixth–Eighth Centuries) -
3 Christianity and Monasticism in al-Bahnasa according to Arabic Sources -
4 Mesokemic or ‘Middle Egyptian’—the Coptic Dialect of Oxyrhynchos (?) -
5 The Monastery of Apollo at Bala’iza and Its Literary Texts -
6 “Twenty Thousand Nuns”: The Domestic Virgins of Oxyrhynchos -
7 Anba Isaac, Bishop of the Fayoum, al-Bahnasa, and Giza, 1834–81 -
8 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: History and Heritage (Reflections of Its Monks) -
9 John of Shmoun and Coptic Identity -
10 Christianity in Asyut in Modern History -
11 The Place of Qusqam in the Textual Data on the Flight into Egypt -
12 John of Lykopolis -
13 Discerning the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt -
14 Egyptian Gnosticism from Its Cradle in the Alexandrian Quarters of the Second Century to Its Jar Tomb in the Upper Egyptian Town of Nag‘ Hammadi -
15 Notes on the Arabic Life of Ibrahim al-Fani: A Coptic Saint of the Fourteenth Century -
16 Snippets from the Past -
17 Liturgy of the Monastery of al-Muharraq -
18 L⋆ as a Secret Language -
19 Bawit in the Twenty-first Century: Bibliography 1997–2014 -
20 Children’s Burials from Antinoopolis -
21 Recent Excavations at Bawit -
22 Funerary Aspects in the Paintings from the Apollo Monastery at Bawit -
23 The Cave of John of Lykopolis -
24 Al-Shaykh Sa‘id Revisited -
25 Toward the Documentation of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin at al-Muharraq, Asyut -
26 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: Reflections of Its Monks Today -
27 An Overview of Rock-cut Coptic Sites in Asyut -
28 Architectural Typology of Historic Coptic Churches from Oxyrhynchos to Dayr al-Ganadla - Abbreviations
- Bibliography
