Talk:ⲁⲣⲉϩ

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@Aearthrise Are you sure this means study? Quickly looking through biblical attestations (and some non-canonical stuff like the Gospels of Thomas and Mary), all I’m finding is ‘keep safe’, ‘guard’, ‘beware’, ‘preserve’, and so forth. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 22:07, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Vorziblix I reference a Bohairic Coptic language grammar and lexicon produced by the Coptic Orthodox Diocese- the lexicon provides a meaning of 'to study' or 'to learn' and gives the example 'ⲛⲁⲥⲛⲏⲟⲩ ⲥⲉⲁⲣⲉϩ ⲉⲛⲟⲩⲱϣ'-'my brothers study their lesson'.
--Aearthrise
E23
(Ⲁⲉⲁⲣⲑⲣⲓⲥⲉ) 18:10, 20 October 2017‎(UTC)
@Aearthrise Huh. I wonder if it’s only a modern Coptic thing? Maybe based on a reinterpretation of 1 John 5:3. Anyway, I suppose if it wasn’t in use historically, it probably is now. Thanks! — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 22:37, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology[edit]

Can we get some more info for the etymology on this word? I'm not an Egyptologist nor do I know much Egyptian, but I came across this outdated non-scholarly book which says that this word ⲁⲣⲉϩ comes from the Hieroglyphic A47-D21:Z4, which the book incorrectly transliterates as "ARI" but which I think is actually this word jrj (etymology #3). I am not sure whether it's linguistically possible to go from Hieroglyphic jrj to Demotic ḥrḥ, though I do notice that jrj and ⲁⲣⲉϩ both have similar meaning and they both have that r sound in the middle.

Also, here's a possible descendent: English Pharos and pharos, and Ancient Greek Φάρος. It's believed that Φάρος might be a loan word from ⲫⲁⲣⲉϩ, I guess by way of analogy (the lighthouse "guards" over the sea. Or sailors keep "watch" for it). This could just be a folk etymology though. But my source is this book. 98.115.102.141 02:01, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You’re right that the word in the book is jrj. Birch and Wilkinson were important Egyptologists in their day, so this book was about as scholarly as you could get in 1857, but unfortunately it is, as you say, quite outdated. It’s only in the second half of the 20th century that Egyptologists started getting a decent grasp of how to reconstruct the pronunciation of the unwritten Egyptian vowels and the sound change laws that led from Egyptian to Coptic. jrj survived into Demotic as jry and into Bohairic Coptic as ⲏⲣ (ēr, friend); the Sahidic Coptic dialect only preserved it in plural form, as ⲉⲣⲏⲩ (erēu, fellow, companion), from jrjw. The ancestor of Demotic ḥrḥ is not entirely certain — there’s a long discussion about it in {{R:cop:Vycichl}} on pages 311–312 — but by far the most likely choice is a rare Egyptian verb ḥrḥr (to guard),
Hr
r
Hr
r
. (r at the end of Egyptian words fell silent starting around the time of the Middle Kingdom.)
As far as pharos goes, that seems phonetically plausible enough; however, as far as I know, Φάρος (Pháros) was originally the name of an island before it was applied to the lighthouse built on top of it. I haven’t found any more modern explanations, though, so it’s possible. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 06:55, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the information :) 98.115.102.141 02:17, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]