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egyptianhomeboy

posted on Oct 24, 2005 - 10:03 PM

So what does a question in coptic look?

What I mean is, what will indicate that the sentence is a question?

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Michael Fam

Saint Marina Coptic Orthodox Church

Joined: Jul 28, 2003 | Posts: 783
Location: California

ABasanti

posted on Oct 24, 2005 - 10:21 PM

With a question mark

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Joined: Feb 23, 2004 | Posts: 190

ABasanti

posted on Oct 24, 2005 - 10:24 PM

haha what i ment to say was that you have to no how to write it in coptic.... jus like any other language, but there isn't that much on punctuation....

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+ Andrew Basanti +
HCOC Member & Sales Representative

+ To Protect and Preserve +
For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)

Joined: Feb 23, 2004 | Posts: 190

geomekhaiel

posted on Oct 24, 2005 - 10:34 PM

Hey Michael,

Well, if u want to ask a question in Coptic you would use the word my so, for example, if u wanted to say "You will come to church tomorrow?" you would say: my `,na`i `e ]iek`klyci`a `nrac] or if u wanted to say You will find your book in the house? You would say my `,nagini `nn`ekgwm qen `pyi its really very easy once u get the hang of the my thing...all you have to remember is that "in Coptic, yes or No questions are made by inflection. The interrogative Particle My is used to aid the beginning of questions"...quote from a coptic grammer book...

George Mekhaiel

Joined: Aug 05, 2003 | Posts: 1712
Location: Saint George COC

Remnkemi

posted on Oct 24, 2005 - 11:17 PM

Actually, according to GB, which copied from Greek grammar, the question mark is a colon. But this isn't used anymore. As George said, you can use the interrogative participle. There are also some words that denote questions, like as pe -"what is", sa `;nau-"for how long", `;nau-when, ;wn-"where", oumyr-how many, nim-who, etc.

Actually, from the Coptic Bible, most questions are recognized by context, not punctuation or grammar.

I hope this helps.
George

Joined: Apr 07, 2003 | Posts: 669
Location: Boston, MA USA

Ramez Mikhail

posted on Oct 25, 2005 - 12:26 AM

A question mark in Greek is a semicolon, not a colon.

Its ok..both look weird to me as question markers either way..hehe

Joined: Sep 15, 2002 | Posts: 1782

MikeS

posted on Oct 25, 2005 - 11:10 AM

Yeah, Coptic punctuation is suposed to follow that of Greek (which does look a bit strange to people who are used to the usual punctuation), but as others mentioned, Western punctuation is frequently used or a question can be inferred by the use of an interrogative word (the so-called "wh-words" in English - who, what, where, etc.).

Coptic seems to have this interrogative particle, MH, which seems to function the same way, for those of you who may be familiar with Slavic languages, "czy" in Polish or "li" in Russian, or even the "ma" in Chinese. These are kind of nice because it tells the listener right away that what's being said is a question.

Mike S

Joined: Feb 19, 2003 | Posts: 213
Location: Manchester, NH - USA

Remnkemi

posted on Oct 25, 2005 - 03:49 PM

Ma is also used in Arabic.

I remember the first time I went to Arabic class and the teacher asked me to translate "What is your name?" into Arabic. I told hime "Ismak ay" but that is colloquial Egyptian Arabic. Proper Arabic is "MA ismak?"

I knew Arabic is closer to Chinese than Coptic.
George

Joined: Apr 07, 2003 | Posts: 669
Location: Boston, MA USA