Basics of Sahidic Coptic

Basics of Sahidic Coptic by A. Josiah Chappell is a one-semester introductory textbook. The grammar provides students with essential tools to learn Sahidic Coptic and to get into translation quickly. Sahidic Coptic is the most documented dialect of the Coptic language. Its many extant texts from the first millennium are directly pertinent for textual issues related to the study of both the Old and New Testaments.

The grammar includes twenty-eight accessible chapters, most followed by vocabulary lists and translation exercises. Most exercises are taken from actual biblical texts. The grammar is structured around learning the Sahidic noun system (and related topics) and then the verbal system. Chappell also includes a selection of extended readings from biblical and extrabiblical sources, a comprehensive lexicon, and other aids for reference.

Author Biography

A. Josiah Chappell (PhD, University of California, Los Angeles) is a research associate of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society in Los Angeles and has taught biblical literature, ancient languages, and ancient near eastern history and religion at UCLA and Azusa Pacific University. In addition to the biblical languages and those of the earliest translations, his primary interests are in the literature and history of the Second Temple period, early Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism.