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mgeorge

Posts: 329

Joined: Oct 31, 2003

Posted: May 17, 2005 - 07:30 AM

Khristos anesty...

I was wondering last night about some of the verbs and there forms. during the Holy fifty days following the resurrection, we say aktwnk which means "you have Risen" (قمت) while during the nativity we say acmacf which means "She gave birth to him" (ولدته). So while the first two letters refer to the person doing the actual act, the last letter seems to be the person the action is done upon. If my last statement is true, then the word aktwnk holds a great theological meaning, because it will literally mean "He raised himself from the dead", which is great to see the Coptic language affirming an essential theological fact through the normal speech. Again I am not sure if my explanation is correct, please let me know.

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Pray for me,
Moheb

"Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13) AMEN.

"εγω ειμι η αναστασις και η ζωη" - ιησου χριστου

sm

Posts: 659

Joined: Aug 04, 2004
Location: Oxford, England

Posted: May 17, 2005 - 08:07 AM

Mohebu lel Elah,

Slight correction. Ak and ac are simply pronouns. Ak is masculine singular second person: ac is feminine singular second person. In the two words you've mentioned, "tonk" and "macf" are simply the root verbs.

What you're referring to about passive and active is reflected in the pronouns "af" and "av". Like we say in the hymn "Fai Etaf Enf", "He who Raised Himself". Sometimes you get books/handouts mistype it as Etav and that's theologically incorrect.

In the context of what you're saying, it would have to be "avtonk" to say "He who was raised".

Remenkimi and Coptic scholars, please correct me if I'm wrong. Moheb, hope that made sense.

sotirmou.

mgeorge

Posts: 329

Joined: Oct 31, 2003

Posted: May 17, 2005 - 08:30 AM

Mina basha,
Thanks for your reply, I do know that ac is for feminine and ak is for masculine, but the reason I asked this question was becuase we also say Aftwnf which is translated as "Had Risen" so it seems to me that the root of the word is twn , same with mici , since in Nativity we say acmacf `nje ]par;enoc qen ... (was born of the virgin) but in gospel response of kiahk (According to Albier's book of Deacons service) Elicabet acmici `nousyri (Elisabeth Begot a son) so the root doesn't look like macf the root is mici ...
Sorry ya basha (no offense), but I still need further discussion.
Thanks, My Greek Master, Wink

sm

Posts: 659

Joined: Aug 04, 2004
Location: Oxford, England

Posted: May 17, 2005 - 08:43 AM

Offense eih ya man, it's all good. By the way, I wasn't ending the discussion.

Firstly ya barbatos Very Happy

, tonf is the root. That is fact. Mesh 3agbak, drink from the sea. Wink

Macf and mici are also the roots, yes.

Acmacf enje tiparthenos is the exact same thing as tiparthenos acmacf. It's just written in a different style common to Coptic hymnography.

mzaki

Posts: 210

Joined: Apr 09, 2003
Location: Troy, MI

Posted: May 17, 2005 - 11:14 AM

mgeorge wrote:

I was wondering last night about some of the verbs and there forms. during the Holy fifty days following the resurrection, we say aktwnk which means "you have Risen" (قمت) while during the nativity we say acmacf which means "She gave birth to him" (ولدته). So while the first two letters refer to the person doing the actual act, the last letter seems to be the person the action is done upon. If my last statement is true, then the word aktwnk holds a great theological meaning, because it will literally mean "He raised himself from the dead", which is great to see the Coptic language affirming an essential theological fact through the normal speech. Again I am not sure if my explanation is correct, please let me know.

You are absolutely correct. The a in each of these cases is a simple past tense identifier. The next letter is the personal pronoun used to assign the subject of the attached verb. The root verb in the case of aktwnk is twn -. The dash represents another pronoun. This pronoun attached at the end functions to identify the direct object, or recipient of the verbs action.

When we say acmacf , the a represents past tense. The c represents the feminine, third person personal pronoun: "she." The root of the verb is mac- or mici . We attach the third person masculine pronoun at the end to identify a direct object, or recipient: f . This translates, "She bore Him," or "She gave birth to Him."

In the case of the verb twn- : when we say aktwnk or aftwnf , in each case, we are affirming that the "do-er" is one and the same as the "do-ee." The most proper translation in order to capture the reflexive nature of this verb in Coptic is, as you have put it, "You raised Yourself," or "He raised Himself."

Profound theological implication indeed.

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mina.

mgeorge

Posts: 329

Joined: Oct 31, 2003

Posted: May 17, 2005 - 12:48 PM

Thank you Mina,
I just confirmed my explanation with one of my coptic grammer books too.

thanks to both Minas,

sm

Posts: 659

Joined: Aug 04, 2004
Location: Oxford, England

Posted: May 17, 2005 - 04:20 PM

yo2ba ana 7'mar ba2a. Sad

mental note to self: matefteesh ya warneesh.

xaira

Posts: 428

Joined: Mar 27, 2004
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands

Posted: Jun 24, 2005 - 04:50 AM

Guys, guys, think this through, please....

When in the liturgy we chant ]nah] , ]nah] , ]nah] the ] is the first person singular subject and the object of the verb "believe". Do we mean, when saying this "I believe myself, I believe myself, I believe myself". No no no.

Coptic is a language that requires an object to every verb, even if the object is nothing more than the subject. When the object=subject the object is reflexive (want proof, tell me how Coptic can show a reflexive otherwise). So ]nah] is "I myself believe", which is awfully wordy in English, so it's better as just "I believe". In the same way aftwnf is, literally, "He himself arose".

This is not the only example of this object=subject phenonemon. It shows up all over the literature of the Apophthegmata Patrum. If you don't realize this you will be chasing ghosts and making the characters into doing some very odd things.

_________________
Sarah
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
W H E N
The Son takes His office as Mediator, the Son is the beloved of the Father.
The Son offers His life for the world, the Father is the beloved of the Son.
The Holy Spirit proceeds for the Incarnation of the Son, the Son is the beloved of the Holy Spirit.
The Son sends the Holy Spirit of the Father, the Holy Spirit becomes the beloved of the Son.
The movement of love of the Holy Thriad is the perichoresis, where Each exchanges His movement with the other. When we pray in the beloved Lord Jesus Christ, we receive from Him the Holy Spirit because the Son is the Head of the new creation. But we also receive the Son our Lord from the Holy Spirit in order to rest in the Father.
- Abbot Sophronius of Egypt
(Trans. George Bebawi)

Kirollos64

Posts: 314

Joined: Jun 17, 2003
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Posted: Jun 24, 2005 - 05:34 AM

Dear Sarah

I hope you've reached America alright and that the travel was not too bad as it sounded from Grigorii's post in a different thread Smile

Anyhow, as you might know, we have been having Bohairic Coptic lessons from the same professor that taught you when you were here in Holland. What mzaki and mgeorge has said are correct. In coptic you can have the "do-er" at the front of the verb and the "do-ee" at the end of the verb as mzaki has said. This "do-ee" case is also possible with some nouns as well.
Although your post is correct concerning the object=subject phenomenon, I believe you have used a wrong example. nah] is simply the verb 'believe' or the noun 'faith' (Its nice in coptic how the noun and verb can be the same for some words) The ] at the end of the word does not refer to the first person singular "I" and Im sure you know that yourself which is why I do not know why Im writing this post Confused

]nah] is simply therefore "I believe" not "I myself believe". It is not the same as the cases of aktwnk and acmacf . I do not doubt your knowledge in Coptic Sarah since you have had more lessons than me Wink

so maybe I did not understand your post. If so, I know you will explain further Smile

Give my greetings to Jarno!!!
Pray for me,
Mina.

_________________
"Young people, enjoy your youth. Be happy while you are still young. Do what you want to do, and follow your heart's desire. But remember that God is going to judge you for whatever you do."
- Ecc 11:9 -

xaira

Posts: 428

Joined: Mar 27, 2004
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands

Posted: Jun 24, 2005 - 07:57 AM

Bah, you're right. I don't deal with Bohairic too often, I pulled the first Bohairic example I knew out of my head.

To make it all more clear I'll give a better example:
aumekmokou "They pondered"
From http://laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au/~leccles/pisent.pdf, p. 8, no. 56.

It does not mean "they pondered themselves" since they are obviously pondering the situation of Pisentius.

While fixing myself, I started reading through the entries for "rise" in a BOHAIRIC - ENGLISH DICTIONARY I have in a pdf but can no longer find online. For the entry: twoun twounou ten twn it has cross-referenced a few other variations, one of which is " reftwnf : m. One who raises, incites;" the r obviously being the verb "to make, do", making it mean, "he who made to arise". And if Coptic wanted to express "he made himself arise" it would have to be in this form.

All this is to say, yes, the suffix is usually the object of a verb, but it is not always that simple. If the suffix refers back to the prefix it can also work as a reflexive.

Mina, good luck with Bohairic....are you using any book in particular for this? I hope you have better luck dealing with that profssor than I did, I found him to be entirely unhelpful.

mzaki

Posts: 210

Joined: Apr 09, 2003
Location: Troy, MI

Posted: Jun 24, 2005 - 08:05 AM

Kirollos64 wrote:

nah] is simply the verb 'believe' or the noun 'faith' (Its nice in coptic how the noun and verb can be the same for some words) The ] at the end of the word does not refer to the first person singular "I." ]nah] is simply therefore "I believe" not "I myself believe". It is not the same as the cases of aktwnk and acmacf .

Kirollos,

I was just about to point this out, thanks.

]nah] is, as was said, a verb that does not contain an attached object. (It can not, in and of itself, be self-reflexive. ie "I believe in myself." An unattached object would have to be added to achieve this meaning.) I won't elaborate much further, I think Kirollos did a good job of covering all the bases.

As for the constrctions I outlined above, they DID contain attached objects. They are understood as simple English constructions of "[Subject] [Verb] [Object]," but they can be contained in a single COPTIC word. (For example- "I see it." "I like her." "He drives the car." etc.)

The reason aktwnk and aftwnf convey more meaning than simply "You Rose," or "He Rose," is because the Object of the Rising is the same Person as the Subject. The meaning in Coptic is clearly, "He raised Himself."

Continuing on the theme of reflexive verbs: I am confusing myself...

Smile

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mina.

mzaki

Posts: 210

Joined: Apr 09, 2003
Location: Troy, MI

Posted: Jun 24, 2005 - 08:11 AM

Oops. Sorry Sarah. I must have been typing my reply while you were posting yours.

I see your point- its not as clear cut as I would have it be.

Do you know of any more precise way to express the reflexive "He Raised Himself," since it seems there may be some ambiguity as to whether or not aftwnf actually intends to be understood as a reflexive verb?

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mina.

xaira

Posts: 428

Joined: Mar 27, 2004
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands

Posted: Jun 24, 2005 - 11:33 AM

Here's what Coptic Egyptian by Chris H. Reintges says about the Reflexive use of the Synatic distribution of the Pronominal system (don't ask):

Quote:

A reflexive interpretation is obtained when the sentance subjct and the pronominal object refer to the same individual, e.g. ersan oucon de woo[ef "if a brother has wounded himself (praec. Pach. 105), taw[t mmoi "and I strangle myself" (Ac. A&P 202:103).

p. 74

The examples given above are in Sahidic. Reuntges is supposed to come out with a book in Bohairic as well at some point, who knows when. I hope it will be easier to understand than this one.

At the same time, I realized the text I referenced above gives the construction afbwk afhopf which the translator puts in English as "he went and hid himself" (http://laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au/~leccles/pisent.pdf).

So I can't say that a construction "He...himself" etc. is always wrong. I suppose for me its just that this construction in this example is rather passive and intransitive (perhaps it falls into the Coptic equivalent of the Greek ) would call for the addition of the verb r as I stated above. I'm not good enough in Coptic to make that explanation more technical and detailed, but that's just my reasoning at this stage, and why I'm uncomfortable with the translation "He rose Himself".

Kirollos64

Posts: 314

Joined: Jun 17, 2003
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Posted: Jun 24, 2005 - 05:25 PM

Hey Sarah

xaira wrote:

So I can't say that a construction "He...himself" etc. is always wrong.

If thats your conclusion then Im stickin with "He (a)rose Himself" as the traslation for aktwnk .
I just simply do not understand or see why its a problem not to translate it that way. Im sorry for dragging this issue. You dont need to explain further if you dont want to - ill take the quote above for granted Wink

As for the professor, yeah he isnt great but hes good enough. I learnt a great deal of coptic and with my knowledge of vocubulary and my own lexicon/dictionnary I made before the lessons, I really profited. Im not at the stage to actually make sentences (I dont think many on this world are) but I can decipher the coptic now knowing the structure and how coptic is like with all the different kinds of states of verbs and so and so on. I could give you a list of what we've done in our lessons Razz

As for books, he didnt use any. He made his own sheets (in dutch) and photocopied some pages from a french book ( ]nah] by some guy called Mallon Razz

). If you have any useful Coptic-Bohairic books I can buy somewhere, let me know. I dont want what Ive learnt since january to dry up in the summer Wink

The professor also took it step by step because we had some young people participating so some people couldnt get the idea as quick as others. I think maybe also because of the fact that he taught us in dutch was maybe easier for him and that he could maybe explain better to us because of that. Still, I personally did not find him the greatest teacher in the sense of learning languages (Ive learnt four other languages so I think I should know Razz

) but I am thankful. Without the lessons I would be missing out on a lot.

Finally, that pdf file is Sahidic Coptic isnt it? Dont you know any translated Bohairic Coptic stories of the like? Would be nice to read them.

Did you give my greetings to Jarno? Very Happy

Pray for me,
Kirollos

copticguy

Posts: 24

Joined: Mar 08, 2004

Posted: Aug 27, 2006 - 10:56 PM

From my knowledge in Coptic,
ak means "You have" for masculine and ac means "You have" for feminine. and to say "who was raised" is Fee-etavtonf just like to say "who was born" is fee-etavmacf and to say you are born is to say "avmack"

man its pretty complicated...idont know how to explain it

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