# Bohairic Coptic

Source: https://coptic-lore-forge.lovable.app/wiki/bohairic-coptic — Coptic Orthodox Wiki (updated 2026-10-02)

Bohairic is a dialect of Coptic attested in Gospel manuscripts, saints’ lives, and liturgical texts, including the Anaphora of Saint Cyril.[^1][^2][^3]

## Language and vocabulary

Bohairic is a dialect of Coptic, designated **B** in linguistic comparisons. Together with Akhmimic, it preserves a somewhat richer inventory of phonemes than several other Coptic dialects; both retain /x/ from pharaonic Egyptian, a sound lost in classical Sahidic and Lyco(Dios)politan.[^1]

One example of its vocabulary is **abba**, corresponding to Sahidic **apa** and cognate with Greek **abbas** or **abba**. The term means “father” and is applied in ancient monastic sources to a monk regarded as a spiritual father.[^4]

## Biblical manuscripts

Bohairic Gospel manuscripts include Coptic Museum Bible 92, copied by the thirteenth-century priest Sim‘an ibn Abi Nasr al-Tamada’i. The manuscript contains the four Gospels and is decorated in black, red, and gold.[^2]

Bohairic also appears alongside Arabic in bilingual manuscripts. Vatican Library Coptic 8, dated 2 June 1587, contains the four Gospels in Bohairic Coptic and Arabic and was copied by Arghadiyus, or Arcadius ibn Yuhanna, on commission from al-‘Alam Salib al-Ibnasi.[^5]

## Religious literature

Bohairic preserves versions of saints’ lives and homilies. A Bohairic version of the *Life of Pisentius* is attributed to Moses of Qift, while a Sahidic version is attributed to John the Presbyter.[^6] A homily on Abraham associated with Amphilochius of Iconium survives only in Bohairic Coptic, in a tenth-century codex of Saint Macarius, Vatican Coptic 61.[^7]

Differences between Bohairic and Sahidic versions can concern content as well as language. In the *Encomium of Peter the Alexandrian* attributed to Alexander, the two redactions are broadly similar, but the Bohairic version omits the martyrdom and posthumous miracles.[^8]

## Liturgical texts

The surviving witnesses to the present Coptic text of the **Anaphora of Saint Cyril** are in Bohairic, and none is earlier than the twelfth century. Earlier fragments of the Egyptian anaphora survive in Greek and Sahidic, but it remains uncertain whether the Bohairic version was translated directly from Greek or through a Sahidic intermediary.[^3]

## Printing and study

In 1659, T. Petraeus published Psalm 1 in Bohairic Coptic with phonetic Latin characters.[^9] The Coptic Clerical College subsequently published a complete and authorized Bohairic-Coptic Bible, one of the college’s major achievements.[^10]

## Sources
[^1]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 8, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 421)
[^2]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 7, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 271)
[^3]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 314)
[^4]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 6)
[^5]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 209)
[^6]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 5, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 43)
[^7]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 296)
[^8]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 220)
[^9]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 2, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 713)
[^10]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 2, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 599)