The Different Pronunciations of the Letter ‘A’ in the St Basil Liturgy According to the Coptic Tradition
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56877/teach-jcs.2022.11Abstract
Abstract: The history documents significant decline in the use of Coptic language commenced on the 7th century onwards for various political and historical reasons. This resulted in significant loss of some of its original pronunciations and authentic linguistic styles, particularly with the surrounding influence of the Arabic language. This study investigates the pattern of pronunciation of the letter ‘
’ in the St Basil Liturgy according to the Coptic rite. It seems that the default pronunciation of the Coptic letter ‘
’ is the ‘A’ as in the word “car” in UK English. Even when searching the words in which it is pronounced ‘
’, we found that 89% of the words were ‘
’ suggesting that it is likely to be a cultural development rather than following any standardized linguistic or grammatical pattern. This is further supported by the remaining four words in which the ‘
’ is pronounced as ‘a’, all of which are of Greek origin in which ‘A’ should be the correct pronunciation. Again, this claim is further supported by the four Original Greek words in which the ‘
’ is pronounced ‘a’. In summary then, it seems that the default pronunciation of the Coptic letter ‘
’ in the St Basil liturgy should be ‘A’.
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References
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