Customer Reviews

Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic with Exercises and Vocabularies

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Layton has brought his long teaching experience to bear in this fine introductory grammar, the product of decades of classroom instruction. He has geared it to helping students understand the Sahidic New Testament. This is helpful in at least two ways. First of all, this NT was very familiar to writers of other Coptic literature, so familiarity with it will be a boon to any future study, whether of Shenute or of Gnostic literature. Secondly, the Coptic of the NT is relatively easy--much easier than the stylistically more elegant but also more complex writings of Shenute.

A unique but very helpful feature of the vocabularies of each lesson is that not only do they give English glosses of Coptic words, but also the NT Greek words most commonly translated by the Coptic words. This is a great help to those who are already familiar with the Greek NT (and believe me, your study of Coptic will be much easier if you come to it with at least a basic knowledge of Greek, whether Classical or Koine).

After a series of 20 graded lessons, the first three chapters of the Gospel of Mark are included for reading practice. This is followed by a helpful glossary/index of Coptic forms and a Subject Index.

Layton has helpfully included references throughout the text to his comprehensive A Coptic Grammar with Chrestomathy and Glossary: Sahidic Dialect. These references are helpful for diligent students at the introductory level. And in any event, if you go beyond the introductory level, the full grammar is an indispensable reference tool.

Coptic is a fascinating language, full of unusual twists. I found that about half of it felt Semitic and the other half reminded me of a wide variety of other languages I have studied. Layton's long-awaited introductory text is the best introduction you can find to this most interesting tongue.

While this work is certainly adequate for use in a classroom context, it is not really acceptable for self-study (despite the claims made on the back cover).

There are two reasons for this. First of all there is no key provided for the exercises, something I personally find unacceptable. How is a student studying alone to be expected to know if an exercise is correct or not?

Secondly the author uses highly idiosyncratic terminology for basic grammatical concepts, although not as extensively as he did in his reference grammar of Sahidic [A Coptic Grammar with Chrestomathy and Glossary: Sahidic Dialect (Porta Linguarum Orientalium)]. (This latter work is frankly incomprehensible even to linguists.) This is of course not a deal-killer, but it does require much greater effort on the part of the student; those students with a poor-background in grammar (i.e., anyone who graduated from secondary school in the last twenty-five years or less) will struggle a great deal.

One other problem is that the grammar approaches Coptic from the typical perspective of Biblical studies (i.e., just learning Coptic to read the Bible and other Christian texts), rather than a linguistic and/or Egyptological one. That means that there is absolutely no reference to earlier stages of the Egyptian language and how the earlier trends of Late Egyptian and Demotic manifest in Coptic. Had this been included, developments and "exceptions to the rules" in Coptic would be seen to be quite regular rather than exceptional, making the grammar and morphology much more clear. Given the large numbers of people who study ancient Egyptian as university students and hobbyists (no doubt more than Coptic!), but who may well want to further their language study with a basic understanding of Coptic grammar, this is something that is to be desired.

Related to this is the assumption that the student has some degree of background in Greek. While this is certainly handy for those words from the Greek lexicon, it really must be remembered that Coptic is *Egyptian* at it core, not some bizarre form of koine Greek with some "Semitic" features thrown in. This really should have been more emphasized. Unfortunately no grammar of Coptic currently exists that takes an Egyptological approach, so Layton is not to be faulted too much on this score. Those students with a background in Egyptology, rather than Biblical Studies, might well want to have Loprieno's Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction on hand as Loprieno does relate Coptic grammatical forms to earlier stages of Egyptian. Also useful in this regard would be Junge's Late Egyptian Grammar (Griffith Institute Publications), though as a teaching grammar it might require a bit more work to dig out any particular point.

All in all, this is an adequate if ultimately disappointing book. Those with access to a tutor and whose only goal is to read Coptic Biblical texts in the original will no doubt find it to be quite good. Students studying Coptic without an instructor are likely better served by the standby of Lambdin's Introduction to Sahidic Coptic; no exercise key is included in that book either, but several are available on the internet. Anyone looking to learn Coptic as the latest phase of Egyptian language will be disappointed I fear.

Bently Layton's new Coptic grammar book fills a great need for both students and scholars. It is well-arranged, thorough, concise, and easy to follow. Its format is refreshing, with the needs of serious students in mind.

The exercises and vocabularies are adequate and progressive. With this book, the student really gets a good grasp of Sahidic Coptic, and skill in reading and translating it.

This is an excellent tool for anyone studying the Sahidic Coptic New Testament or Coptic literature in general.