[Editorial note: [...] indicates use of Coptic, Greek, Arabic, or Egyptian text. Original script is available for viewing in the PDF format of this article.]
SULLAM (or scala). The Arabic term for a Coptic-Arabic dictionary is sullam (ladder; plural salalim), because the words are arranged to the left (Coptic) and the right (Arabic) in a manner that gives the impression of a ladder (Latin scala; Coptic [...] B, [...] [...] [...] S).
Coptic lexicography started at the same time as Coptic grammar. Anba Yuhanna al-Samannudi, the author of the first grammar, also wrote the first known Coptic dictionary. Anba Yuhanna, who was bishop of Samannud (western Delta) in the middle of the thirteenth century, wrote Al-Sullam al-Kana’isi (or Scala Ecclesiastica), of which two versions survive, Sahidic (Munier, 1930, pp. 1-43) and Bohairic, both found in many manuscripts (Graf, 1947, pp. 372-74). It is not a dictionary but a glossary of terms in biblical and liturgical books, mainly the New Testament, a portion of the Old Testament, and some liturgical texts. The words are given with their Arabic translation in the order in which they occur, except repetitions. The sullam begins with the Gospel of St. John because of its easy style. Anba Yuhanna did not intend to write a dictionary in the modern sense of the term but a manual for his readers, to enable them to understand religious texts. The beginning of St. John’s Gospel runs as follows: [...] = fi, in; [...] = al-bady, the beginning; [...] = kan, kayin, was; [...] = al-kalimah, the word (Munier, 1930, p. 1). In the preface of his Bulghat al-Talibin (freely translated as “What Seekers Find”; Bauer, 1972, pp. 303-306) he announced his intention to write a poem of the muthallath kind (strophes with three rhymes) on words pronounced in the same way but written differently, but this has not survived.
Abu Ishaq ibn al-‘Assal (full name al-Mu’taman Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn al-‘Assal), a member of the famous ‘Assal family (Mallon, 1906-1907), wrote a “rhymed” dictionary called al-Sullam al-Muqaffa wa-l-Dhahab al-Musaffa (The Rhymed Dictionary and the Purified Gold; Kircher, 1643, pp. 273-495, not quite complete). Words are classified by the last letter, as in Arabic dictionaries (e.g., the Sihah of al-Jawhari; Sidarus, 1978, p. 129). The order is last letter, then first letter, and then second letter, as in [...], leave her; [...], shirt (= [...]); [...], tambourine; [...], time; (. . . ) [...], except (Kircher, 1643, p. 443). Also words with affixes are listed; thus, [...], I have put thee, and [...], all of us, are found under [...] and [...]. As a matter of fact, their are no “rhymes” in his dictionary, as only the last letter is taken into consideration. His vocabulary is limited to religious texts (Graf, 1947, pp. 407-411).
Abu Shakir ibn al-Rahib (full name al-Nushu’ Abu Shakir ibn Butrus al-Rahib, author of a grammar (MUQADDIMAH), wrote another “rhymed” scala, which he finished in 1263-1264. He used a larger number of liturgical books and two ancient scalae, as is revealed in the preface of his book. His scala is lost. As a sullam muqaffa, or rhymed scala, it was arranged after the last letter of the words. It comprised two parts: simple word forms and words with prefixes and suffixes (Sidarus, 1978, p. 130).
An independent work is the anonymous Sahidic-Arabic Daraj as-Sullam (Book of Steps), called in Greek [...] and in Sahidic [...] (The Rung of the Ladder; Munier, 1930, pp. 67-249). Its contents are as follows: chapter 1, miscellanea, as particles, prepositions, nouns, and verbal forms; chapters 2-19, a classified part beginning with God, good qualities of men, the heavens, the earth, the sea and mountains, the whole universe; chapters 20-23, various subjects; chapters 24-26, words and sentences of the Old Testament (lacking in al-Samannudi’s scala); chapter 27, “difficult” words (hnlexic eumokh ibid., pp. 135-36).
An anonymous Greek-Bohairic-Arabic vocabulary of the Vatican Library (Hebbelynck and van Lantschoot, 1937-1947, Vol. 2, 82-85) arranges the words by first letter, as the oldest Greek alphabetical dictionaries do: [...], letter a; [...], [...] (sic), unharmed; [...], injustice. There are two other copies in the National Library in Paris (Mallon, 1910, pp. 87-88), the first dated 1318 and the second from the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
Greek lexicography, like the Coptic, began with the explanation of difficult passages as they occurred in the text. Alphabetical arrangement was a relatively late development. The first alphabetical dictionary in the world was perhaps Glaukias’ lexicon, dating from 180 B.c. In the beginning, the alphabetical order was not strictly observed, for only the first letter was taken into consideration, and later the second and even the third. The lexicon by Hesychius Alexandrinus (fifth or sixth century AD.) was entirely alphabetical (Schwyzer, 1939, p. 29). So it seems that the alphabetical arrangement in Coptic lexicography was an independent attempt to arrange words in alphabetical order. Furthermore, the demotic “alphabetical” word list had nothing to do with Coptic classification, as there was no real alphabet with a fixed order of signs in demotic (Volten, 1952, pp. 496-508).
The scalae hitherto published are not free of mistakes—mistakes of the author, the copyist, the editor, and the printer. Here are but two examples: [...] lioness (B) = al-labwa, which elsewhere (S, B) is [...] bear (fem.), from Greek [...] (masc./fem.) (Vycichl, 1983, p. 16), a confusion due to the fact that there were no bears in Egypt. In this case the definite article has been put in twice: [...]-[...]-[...], Bohairic [...] and Sahidic [...]. S [...], basin for ablutions (?) = al-kirnib (Munier, 1930, p. 174)—between al-mathara, vessel for ablutions, and satl (= satl), bucket, pail—should be spelt [...] = Greek [...], water for ablution ([...], hand, before consonant [...], [...], to clean, from a pre-Greek root [...]).
In other cases, such as Coptic manuscripts from the eighth century, the spelling of Copto-Greek (chiefly) words reflects phonetic changes of the spoken language. Three well-known cases need to be mentioned. [...] and [...] are interchangeable: S [...], liver = [...] ([...]). Copto-Greek [...] = [...], and sometimes vice versa: [...], welcome (greeting) = [...], be happy, and S [...], 96 (Crum, 1939, p. 273) = phonetically *pset-ase. [...] and [...]. often interchange with transcribed [...] and [...]: thus, [...], demon, genius = [...], and [...] (Munier, 1930, p. 165) = S [...] (ibid., p. 167) = [...], cabbage. But there are other cases as well, such as insertions of an auxiliary vowel (written [...]) in a three-consonant cluster: thus, S [...], sow (ibid., p. 113) = Latin scrofa, and S [...], vault of heaven = Greek [...], ball, vault of heaven. Also [...], sparrow, appears as S [...], bird = [...] (‘usfur) (ibid., p. 114).
The group ks ([...]) was often pronounced nks in the final position and later, with an auxiliary vowel, -niks: [...] whip, appears as S [...] (ibid., p. 171), still without auxiliary vowel, but [...], appears as S [...] (ibid., p. 116), and [...], wasp, is S [...] instead of S [...] (ibid., p. 115).
A similar case is S [...], apocalypse, from [...] today pronounced abu ghalamsis. The group [...] is often written [...], probably influenced by [...] ([...]), but, a frequent conjunction. Thus, one finds S, B [...], palace, from [...] = Latin palatium. S [...], B [...], pupil of the eye, is nothing else than S, B [...], child, in this case the “girl of the eye” as in Egyptian [...]wn.t im.t ir.t, the girl in the eye, or Greek [...], girl, pupil of eye (Vycichl, 1983, p. 7).
The Copto-Greek words of the scalae often represent Greek postclassical forms. B [...], October, is neither Latin, nor modern [...] or a similar form, but a postclassical form. One can compare Armenian Hoktember and Russian Oktyabr’ (*Oktembri) There are four S words for “water”: [...] ([...]), [...] ([...]), [...] ([...]), and [...] (Munier, 1930, p. 109). [...] ([...]) is the classical word; [...] ([...]), literally “the new, fresh one,” is the current expression in modern Greek; [...] (nama) is “running water”; and p-[...] is the autochthonous Coptic word for “water” (S). [...] and [...] are translated (az-zalzalah), the earthquake (ibid., p. 107). The etymologies are quite clear: [...] + [...], earthquake, and the autochthonous Coptic form derives from S [...], to move, and the old word S [...], earth. This S [...] is another word than Old Coptic [...], creator of the earth (Vycichl, 1983, p. 82).
S [...], the pictures = Arabic (as-suwar) (Munier, 1930, p. 122) derives from Greek [...], little picture (Stephanus, 1831-1865, Vol. 4, p. 42: “imaguncula vel protome”). The Copto-Greek form is influenced by Greek [...], harbor.
Another problem is [...], he-ass = al-himar, and [...], she-ass = al-atanah (Munier, 1930, p. 112). The normal spelling of these words would be [...] (accusative) and [...] (neuter nominative or accusative); compare modern Greek [...], ass, and [...], little ass (Demetrakos, 1936, Vol. 3, p. 1535). The word occurs in Egyptian Greek as [...], donkey, in a text of the sixth or seventh century AD. (Grenfell and Hunt, 1901, p. 153). Also [...] occurs in modern Greek (ibid.).
Coptic vocabularies reveal that in some cases names of animals are derived from names of the corresponding Egyptian (theriomorphic) gods. A name of the crocodile was [...] (Crum, 1939, p. 63) = at-timsah, wrongly = at-tirsah, turtle (Kircher, 1643, p. 171), but the same word occurs as [...], soul of Ephot, in a Greek-Coptic glossary = [...] (Bell and Crum, 1925, p. 197). According to Epiphanius, the Egyptians called crocodiles [...] from Egyptian Nfr [...]tp, epithet of several gods, not only Suchos (Vycichl, 1983, p. 49). The initial n was considered the plural article—thus, B [...], crocodile.
In the chapter on languages and peoples one reads B [...] (Assyrios) = [...] (Suryani), Syrian, (Kircher, 1643, p. 80). This translation is due to an old confusion between Syria and Assyria (Cannuyer, 1985, p. 133) and not to a misunderstanding, for as with Armenian Asorikh, Asorestan is northern Syria, because of the “Assyrian Christians” in the region of Edessa (Froundjian, 1952, p. 58), so called after their coreligionists in Assyria, the northern part of Mesopotamia. Another strange term is [...], Armenian (Kircher, 1643, p. 80). This is of course a mistake. The preceding word is [...], Georgian (compare Persian Gurji). So B [...] stands for *[...] an Iberian, because [...], a people of the Caucasus, are considered the ancestors of the Georgians. They descend from Iber, and Iberos is attested as a personal name ([...]). One must read [...], a Georgian.
Coptic glossaries were highly appreciated in the Middle Ages and even in modern times as they permitted their readers access to the sense of the Holy Scriptures in Coptic. The situation is however somewhat different for modern scholars. They prefer to collect words in religious sources from original texts and not from secondhand glossaries. But ordered lexicons containing words from daily life are constantly referred to, mainly for natural history, geography, and, of course, dictionaries (Crum, 1939; Vycichl, 1983). These lexicons were written at a time when Coptic, both Sahidic and Bohairic, had undergone major changes, phonetically and lexically. The spoken language was full of Arabic words, as one can see from a medical papyrus (Chassinat, 1921) or a treatise on alchemy (Stern, 1885). There seem to be only very few words of Arabic origin in the scalae; for example, B [...], rice (Kircher, 1643, p. 194) modern Arabic ar-ruzz, a medieval and modern form of urz (with many variants) from Greek [...]. Another word is S [...], almond (Munier, 1930, p. 164), from Arabic jillawz, kind of hazel nut; compare Tunisian zelluz, almond, from jillawz. S [...], apricot (ibid., p. 164), derives from Latin praecox, accusative praecoce(m), precocious; hence Greek [...] and Arabic barquq, apricot (Near East), plum (North Africa) with a change p:b.
In this context one must mention Kircher’s Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta (1643). Although it certainly does not meet modern standards, it was for its time excellent and marks the very beginning of Coptic studies in Europe. Champollion used it 180 yea rs later for deciphering the hieroglyphs.
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