Syllabus

Vision

Welcome to the Coptic Grammar course!

For many years, I have had a deep desire to learn the Coptic Language. I want to speak Coptic. I want to understand the depth of the beauty of the hymns of our Church. I want to be able to read the Scripture in the Coptic language. And most importantly, I want to preserve my heritage for those who come after me and for my children. But this desire has been without measurable success. Learning a new language is hard. Learning a dead language is even harder.

For over a decade, I have read the Coptic Textbooks, taken the classes I can get my hands on, developed applications to help me learn Coptic (e.g. see this web app I created as part of my M.S. Computer Science at Georgia Tech https://coptic.morcous.com/). I took the class in Asaph almost 8 years ago, and the class in ACTS just two years ago. In all of these experiences, I grew in knowledge and appreciation for the Coptic Language, but my goal was not met. It became clear to me that I needed:

1. Time. Learn Coptic at a reasonable pace, with reasonable practice (courses only have one semester!).
2. Peers. People to learn Coptic with.

By God's grace, I found that we have a group in our Wednesday Advanced Hymns class that loves Coptic, is dedicated to attending the class, and is committed to growing in hymns and Coptic. So we will embark on this journey together, and may the Lord be in our midst.

The primary goal of the class is to be able to translate from Coptic to English. A secondary goal is to translate from English to Coptic, and to be able to make conversation. The secondary goal cannot be achieved without the primary goal.

By the end of the course, I hope that we can all take a hymn, prayer, response, Scriptural Passage, or any other Coptic text, and be able to translate it to English with at-most a dictionary.

Structure

The Structure of the course is as separate units.

• Unit 1: Nouns and Pronouns
  • Indefinite Articles, Definite Articles, Possessive Articles, Demonstrative Articles
  • Demonstrative Pronouns, Personal Pronouns, Indefinite Pronouns
    
    
• Unit 2: Nominal Sentences
  • Regular, Negative, Relative
  • Tripartite and Bipartite
    
    
• Unit 3: Prepositions
  • Prepositions
  • Pronominal Prepositions
  • Relative Articles
    
    
• Unit 4: Verbs
  • Simple Present, Future, Simple Past, Past Continuous Tenses
    
    
• Unit 5: Adjectives and Numbers

Each unit has a common vocabulary that is used across all of its lessons. Each lesson in a unit consists of the material, examples, Biblical Examples, Application from the Church hymns and prayers, and Exercises. Each lesson will also reference back to the sources used for it.

Schedule

This course will be on Wednesday evenings from 8:15-9:00pm following the MS and HS Bible Studies. This is subject to change.

Assessment and Collaboration

At this time, there are no plans for formal assessment, or even making/distributing assignments. However, it will be good for us to work together.

Someone can put together quizlets for vocabulary words in every unit. Someone else may want to make Powerpoints to reference that take the content on the lesson pages and make it easier to understand. Someone may make labels for things around the house in Coptic that we can take and paste around the house to learn those words. There are many ideas and many creative minds in our group.

We may all share with one another and encourage one another when we find Coptic "in the wild" that we understood or that matches what we just learned.

In these ways, we raise each other up and together, with the Lord as our head, we can achieve our goals.

May the Lord use this service for the glory of His holy name

Morcous