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Article published In:
Diversity in Writing Systems: Embracing multiple perspectives
Edited by Amalia E. Gnanadesikan and Anna P. Judson
[Written Language & Literacy 24:2] 2021
► pp. 198–228

The missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle

A psycholinguistic account of the beginnings of the Coptic alphabet

| University of Oxford

Past research approached the origins of the Coptic alphabet sociolinguistically and empirically. Neither can fully explain the comparatively sudden and fundamental change from a supraphonemic to a phonemic writing system for Egyptian around the second century AD. This paper adds the cognitive-linguistic concept of the grain size of a writing system to the picture. In essence, by the second century, sound changes in Egyptian had resulted in a phonological structure of the language that mapped more easily onto a phonemic writing system than previous stages of the language. This coincided with socio-political developments favouring the Greek alphabet. As a result, multiple writing systems, which shared the underlying structure, alphabetic, and model, the Greek alphabet, emerged. Eventually, one of these prevailed, the Coptic alphabet.

Keywords: sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, grain size, phonology, community of practice, identity, functionality, Coptic, Egyptian
Article outline
  • 1.Language and script
    • 1.1Script and language
    • 1.2Previous research
    • 1.3Aims and objectives
  • 2.Writing systems
    • 2.1Supraphonemic writing systems
    • 2.2Phonemic writing systems
    • 2.3The Coptic alphabet
      • 2.3.1Adoption
      • 2.3.2Adaptation
      • 2.3.3Standardisation
  • 3.Situational contexts
    • 3.1Socio-political circumstances
    • 3.2Socio-linguistic circumstances
    • 3.3Socio-cultural circumstances
  • 4.Sociolinguistic approach: Creation?
    • 4.1Domains of usage (text type and functionality)
    • 4.2Social networks (communities of practice)
    • 4.3Linguistic identity (in light of political fragmentation)
  • 5.Psycholinguistic approach: Evolution?
    • 5.1Cognitive aspects: Grain size theory
    • 5.2Phonological aspects
    • 5.3Coptic
  • 6.Summary and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 January 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00053.fen
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