Wiktionary:About Coptic

This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. Specifically it is a policy think tank, working to develop a formal policy. Policies – Entries: CFI - EL - NORM - NPOV - QUOTE - REDIR - DELETE. Languages: LT - AXX. Others: BLOCK - BOTS - VOTES.

This page describes policies and practices specific to Coptic entries on the English Wiktionary. These are in addition to Wiktionary’s overall standards which are listed at Wiktionary:Entry layout explained.

Diacritical marks

Supralinear strokes and the Bohairic jinkim should be used in headword lines, but not in page names. Thus, ⲣⲉϥϯⲥ̀ⲃⲱ (reftis̀bō) is located at the title ⲣⲉϥϯⲥⲃⲱ. The jinkim should be represented as a combining grave accent, and supralinear strokes in other dialects indicating syllabicity should be represented as macrons above the syllabic character. For nomina sacra, the combining overline should be input with U+0305, and again used in headword lines, but not in page titles.

Other sporadically appearing diacritics such as circumflexes, acute accents, and the like should generally not be used in entry names or headword lines of main lemmas, but may appear (if attested) in soft-redirecting alternative-form entries.

Sorting

Coptic sortkeys are generated by a sortkey module (Module:cop-sortkey). To ensure that entries are properly sorted, please use headword templates to add part-of-speech categories, or the templates {{cln}} and {{C}}.

The sortkey module converts the Greek-derived Coptic letters ⲁ, ⲃ, ⲅ, ⲇ, ⲉ, ⲍ, ⲏ, ⲑ, ⲓ, ⲕ, ⲗ, ⲙ, ⲛ, ⲝ, ⲟ, ⲡ, ⲣ, ⲥ, ⲧ, ⲩ, ⲫ, ⲭ, ⲯ, ⲱ (a, b, g, d, e, z, ē, th, i, k, l, m, n, ks, o, p, r, s, t, u, ph, kh, ps, ō) to the corresponding Greek letters α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, η, θ, ι, κ, λ, μ, ν, ξ, ο, π, ρ, σ, τ, υ, φ, χ, ψ, ω (a, b, g, d, e, z, ē, th, i, k, l, m, n, x, o, p, r, s, t, u, ph, kh, ps, ō) to ensure that they sort before the uniquely Coptic letters ϣ, ϥ, ⳉ, ϧ, ϩ, ϫ, ϭ (š, f, x, x, h, č, c). Thus, the headers on Coptic category pages use the Greek letters rather than Coptic letters.

Dialects

Coptic encompasses a number of dialects, several of which are given names that vary from author to author. All Coptic entries should be marked to indicate which dialect(s) that form is attested in. Conventionally, each dialect is also represented by a short (usually single-letter) abbreviation or siglum; some of the more marginal dialects have no settled name beyond their siglum. These sigla can be used in {{alter}} and in headword-line templates, but {{label}} must always use the dialect's full name.

On Wiktionary, the names used for the dialects of Coptic are standardized as follows:

siglum	Wiktionary name	alternative names not used in Wiktionary	Wiktionary code used in etymology sections
A	Akhmimic		cop-akh
A2 (= L)	Lycopolitan	Subakhmimic, Lyco-Diospolitan, Asyutic	cop-lyc
B	Bohairic	Memphitic	cop-boh
F	Fayyumic	Bashmuric	cop-fay
G	Dialect G	Bashmuric, Mansuric	cop-ggg
H	Hermopolitan	Dialect H, Ashmuninic	cop-her
i (= pL)	Proto-Lycopolitan	Dialect i, Proto-Lyco-Diospolitan	cop-ply
J	Dialect J		cop-jjj
K	Dialect K		cop-kkk
L (= A2)	Lycopolitan	Subakhmimic, Lyco-Diospolitan, Asyutic	cop-lyc
M (= O)	Oxyrhynchite	Mesokemic, Middle Egyptian	cop-oxy
OC	Old Coptic		cop-old
O (= M)	Oxyrhynchite	Mesokemic, Middle Egyptian	cop-oxy
P	Dialect P	Proto-Theban, Palaeo-Theban	cop-ppp
pL (= i)	Proto-Lycopolitan	Dialect i, Proto-Lyco-Diospolitan	cop-ply
*pS	Proto-Sahidic
S	Sahidic	Thebaic, Saidic	cop-sah

This amounts to thirteen attested dialects. Other lects that are no longer recognized as constituting separate dialects, and therefore should not be used, include Dialects C, D, E, and N.

Note that sigla may vary between different dictionaries. Importantly, note that for Old Coptic, Crum (and derivative works) use O for Old Coptic, and Coptic Dictionary Online uses K.

Within some of the Coptic dialects there are a number of subdialects, mostly unnamed and so identified solely by sigla, such as the subdialects L4, L5, and L6 of Lycopolitan (L). When some feature is peculiar to a subdialect, it can be labeled with the name of the dialect followed by the subdialectal siglum:

siglum	Wiktionary designation	alternative names not used in Wiktionary
B4	Bohairic|B4	early Bohairic
B5	Bohairic|B5	Classical Bohairic
B7	Bohairic|B7
B74	Bohairic|B74
F4	Fayyumic|F4	early Fayyumic
F46	Fayyumic|F46
F5	Fayyumic|F5	Classical Fayyumic
F55	Fayyumic|F55
F56	Fayyumic|F56
F58	Fayyumic|F58
F7	Fayyumic|F7	ancient Fayyumic
F8	Fayyumic|F8
F9	Fayyumic|F9
i7	Proto-Lycopolitan|i7	p′L
i74	Proto-Lycopolitan|i74	p″L
K7	Dialect K|K7	K71
L4	Lycopolitan|L4	L-Mani, Lma, Manichaean dialect
L5	Lycopolitan|L5	L-JoL, Ljo, John dialect
L6	Lycopolitan|L6	L-NagH, Lnh, non-Sahidic Nag Hammadi dialect
L9	Lycopolitan|L9	L*, Kellis dialect
V	Fayyumic|V	Dialect V, South Fayyumic, Fayyumic without lambdacism
V4	Fayyumic|V4
V5	Fayyumic|V5
W	Fayyumic|W	Dialect W, Crypto-Mesokemic (with South Fayyumic phonology)

Parts of speech

All Coptic headwords should go under a part-of-speech header, either a level 3 header if there's one etymology or a level 4 header if there are multiple etymologies, per WT:EL.

Native Egyptian words from certain parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions) may appear in different forms that are called states depending on whether they govern following nouns or pronouns. These are the absolute state, the nominal state and the pronominal state. The nominal and the pronominal states are sometimes collectively called the construct state (but in older texts construct state may be a synonym of the nominal state). The absolute state does not immediately govern another word (though it may govern a following word by way of a genitive or object marker), is unmarked and is preferred as the lemma form. The nominal state directly governs nouns and is displayed in the dictionary with a hyphen (-) at the end. It is preferred over the pronominal state as the lemma form, but should only be used as the lemma if no absolute state is attested (this is generally the case for prepositions). The pronominal state directly governs pronouns and is displayed on Wiktionary having a double oblique hyphen (⸗) at the end.

See also

• Category:Coptic lemmas
• Category:Coptic appendices
• Category:Coptic templates