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General article
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Coptic Language

Coptic alphabet

The Coptic alphabet combines predominantly Greek letters with signs derived from demotic Egyptian. Its several varieties reflect the writing traditions of different Coptic dialects.[^1][^2]

Also known as: Coptic alphabets · Coptic script

Published 10/2/2026Updated 2 revisionsPage history

Overview

The Coptic alphabet is the writing system of Coptic, the final stage of the Egyptian language. Its letters are predominantly Greek, supplemented by signs of demotic Egyptian origin.1

Strictly speaking, there is not one uniform Coptic alphabet but several varieties associated with different dialects and subdialects. Fourteen varieties are distinguished, and the alphabetic group associated with Sahidic is estimated to account for almost 92 percent of the surviving textual material, while the Bohairic group accounts for almost 7 percent.28

Origins and development

The predominance of Greek letters reflects Egypt’s long exposure to Greek language and culture following Alexander the Great’s conquest in 332 BC.1 Old Coptic texts represent varied, often experimental attempts to write Egyptian between the first and fourth centuries AD; their alphabets generally contain more demotic-derived signs than those of literary Coptic.3

The supplied accounts frame the chronology differently. The article on spoken Coptic places the beginning of Egyptian adoption of Greek letters approximately in the third century BC, whereas the specialized alphabet article tentatively dates the creation of the first varieties of the Coptic alphabet to the third century AD. These statements concern different stages of adoption and development and do not establish a single uncontested date for the alphabet’s origin.41

The inventor of the Coptic alphabet is unknown. Its development enabled Egyptians to read biblical and Gnostic writings in their own language.5

Composition and dialectal variation

The conventional alphabetical order places letters of Greek origin first and letters of demotic origin afterward.6 The Sahidic alphabet has thirty letters, including six classified as demotic-derived; in the context of Bohairic hymns, the Coptic alphabet is described as having thirty-one letters, or thirty-two when the symbol for the numeral six is included.7812

The alphabets differ not only in the number of letters they contain but potentially in the sound values assigned to particular letters. Consequently, an orthographic difference does not automatically establish a corresponding difference in pronunciation.9

The origin of the letter traditionally called ti receives a qualified treatment: it is generally derived from a demotic sign, but significant graphic influence from a Latin abbreviation for the sound combination /ti/ has also been proposed.13

Manuscripts and other uses

Coptic book hands and formal documents employed styles also found in Greek writing, notably biblical majuscule and Alexandrian majuscule. Mixed styles combining features of these two traditions also occur.10

Letters additionally served as numerals through the adoption of the Greek alphabetic numerical system. In regular Coptic script, a horizontal stroke above the letters marked numerical use; such numerals were extensively used in Bohairic but were rare in Sahidic, where numbers were normally written out as words.11

Alphabetical order also structured hymns. Later Bohairic Psali are alphabetic acrostics, most based on the twenty-four Greek letters and a minority on the fuller Coptic alphabet.12

At Bani Hasan, a Coptic alphabet appears on the north wall of the tomb of Nuternekht, numbered 23. Its presence has prompted the suggestion—not a certainty—that the tomb may have served as a school.14

References

Sources

  1. 1.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 8 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 30)
    The Greek alphabet is much in evidence in Coptic; in fact, among the various Coptic alphabets ... all have a considerable majority of Greek graphemes, or letters. ... Coptic graphemes of demotic origin are assimilated to those of Greek origin. ... Even if one recalls that Coptic is the final stage of the Egyptian language, which does not belong to the same family as Greek, this indisputable supremacy of the Greek alphabet in the Coptic ought not to occasion any undue surprise. When the first varieties of the Coptic alphabet were created in the course of the third (?) century A.D., Egypt had be
  2. 2.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 8 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 37)
    Attentive study of the alphabet used in each of the various Coptic DIALECTS and subdialects obliges one to recognize that there was not a single Coptic alphabet, as is often believed, but several Coptic alphabets ... one of these alphabets, the of S etc., is employed almost everywhere (it is that of almost 92 percent of the total) ... the alphabetic variety of B etc. (almost 7 percent) ... However, all these fourteen alphabets, major and minor, will be accorded the place which they have a right herein.
  3. 3.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 8 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 57)
    The group of texts designated OLD COPTIC does not represent a linguistic unity, but on the contrary a motley collection of essays spaced out between the first and fourth centuries A.D. ... All these Old Coptic alphabets included letter of demotic origin, generally in large numbers than the Coptic alphabet properly so called.
  4. 4.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 2 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 708)
    Later, during the reign of the Ptolemaic dynasty, approximately in the third century B.C., instead of the still complicated demotic script, Egyptians began to adopt the Greek alphabet, which became distinguished as Coptic.
  5. 5.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 2 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 732)
    The oldest began in the first Christian centuries, when the Greek alphabet with the additional letters from demotic was used to elevate the spoken Egyptian language into a written language. This made it possible for many Egyptians to read the Old and New Testaments or Gnostic writings. The inventor of this Coptic alphabet is unknown.
  6. 6.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 8 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 148)
    Any Coptic alphabet, as is well known, conventionally begins with those phonemes that are rendered by Coptic letters of Greek origin; it continues with phonemes rendered by Coptic graphemes of demotic origin.
  7. 7.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 8 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 34)
    S, the most neutral Coptic idiom, has only six ... and H, the most economical METADIALECT of all (probably twenty-three graphemes altogether; cf. S, with thirty, and P, with as many as thirty-five), has no more than four signs derived from demotic.
  8. 8.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 8 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 44)
    (IV) B etc. (=B5, the “classic” and relatively late BOHAIRIC language, commonly designated by B, with B4, the Bohairic dialect of “ancient” attestation ...). ... (V) S etc. (= S properly so called, the SAHIDIC language
  9. 9.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 8 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 38)
    One must always reckon with the possibility, however weak it may be, that the difference between the various Coptic alphabets may be not only a difference of quantity (phonemes and graphemes in more or less large numbers) but also, on some particular point, a difference of quality (a given grapheme rendering a given phoneme in one idiom, and the same grapheme rendering another phoneme in another idiom; or a given phoneme being rendered by a given grapheme in one idiom and by another grapheme in another idiom).
  10. 10.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 8 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 393)
    Two graphic styles in particular were employed for Coptic (at least for writing books and formal documents): biblical majuscule, or capital letters ... and Alexandrian majuscule. ... A phenomenon even more peculiar to Coptic graphic usages, although occasionally found in other texts (Greek or bilingual), is the existence of mixed types of script that are a kind of compromise between biblical majuscule and Alexandrian majuscule.
  11. 11.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 6 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 295)
    When Copts adopted, at an early date, the Greek alphabet, they also abandoned the demotic numerals for the Greek system based on the principle of attaching a numerical value to letters of the alphabet. ... The Greek supralinear diacritical mark was rendered in the regular Coptic script by a horizontal supralinear stroke. ... All these Coptic numerals were extensively used in Bohairic, less in Fayyumic, but rarely in Sahidic where numbers were normally written out in words.
  12. 12.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 6 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 724)
    It should be noted that the later Bohairic Psali, or hymns, were composed in the same way. They, too, are alphabetic acrostics. The majority are based on the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet, the minority on the thirty-one (or in the case when the symbol for the numeral six is included, on the thirty-two) letters of the Coptic alphabet.
  13. 13.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 8 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 64)
    ] /ti/ is generally considered as derived from the demotic sign for t, the second or eighth of the variants (with considerable graphic evolution). ... a strong graphic influence from the Latin compendium on the demotic sign, strangely absent from Old Coptic but adopted in Coptic, seems to be the least one can admit. Traditional name: ti.
  14. 14.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 2 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 39)
    The tomb of Nuternekht (tomb 23) has on the north wall a Coptic alphabet, and for this reason it has been thought that it perhaps served as a school.

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