Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

Coptic forms
of Egyptian
words.
Mr. Cram's
Coptic
Dictionary.
Borrowed
Semi tic words.
Ivi Introduction.
references required as much space as the Egyptian words, and
I decided that many references to the older printed literature
must be cut out, and only a limited number to recent publications
admitted. Further, it was clear that the names of authors
and their papers printed in the Recueil de Travaux, the Transac-
tions and Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, the
Archceologia of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Aegyptische
Zeitschrift, and other scientific journals of the kind, would
have to be omitted, and the name of the journal quoted in an
abbreviated form. A list of the abbreviations of the titles of all
books actually quoted will be found on pp. Ixxv-lxxxvii. This is
followed by a list of all the principal books that have been used or
consulted in the writing of this Dictionary, so that the beginner
may know to what books to turn in the prosecution of his studies.
Following the meaning
of the word and at the end of the
entry is often given the equivalent of an Egyptian
word in the
latest stage of the language, i.e., Coptic. In selecting these Coptic
equivalents I have not copied them straight out of a Coptic
Dictionary, but have satisfied myself that they bear the meaning
which the Egyptian words have in passages in the Coptic versions
of the Bible, and in Coptic patristic literature generally. Had
the great Corpus of Coptic words upon which Mr. W. E. Crum
has been at work for so many years been available 1 the number
of Coptic equivalents quoted in this Dictionary would probably
Arabic and other
have been quadrupled. The Hebrew, Syriac,
Semitic words quoted in the entries stand in a different relation-
ship to the Egyptian, for they merely represent borrowings of
words, usually by the Egyptians from the Semites, whilst the
true Coptic words are native Egyptian. They seem to me to
stand in quite a different category from the pronouns which were
borrowed at a very early period by the Egyptians from the people
whom, for want of a better nama, we may call " Proto-Semites."
And the greater number of them were certainly introduced into
Egyptian texts after the Egyptians founded Colonies in Syria
and Palestine by scribes who either knew no Egyptian words
that were exactly suitable for their purpose, or who wished to
ornament their compositions by the use of Semitic words or to
show their erudition.
1 When the Great War broke out in 1914 Mr. Crum was in Vienna, and had
his enormous mass of material with him. He succeeded in leaving the city, but
his manuscripts remained there for a considerable time afterwards, and his work
has been hampered in consequence, and the publication of his Coptic Dictionary
delayed for five years.