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How did the Coptic alphabet borrow letters from Greek writing?
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Approximate locations of Indo-European languages in contemporary Eurasia.
The Coptic alphabet was developed as Egyptian Christians began using the Greek alphabet to write their spoken Egyptian language during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE.12
The Coptic writing system consists of 31 letters in total. To adapt the Greek script for this purpose, the following method was used:
- Greek Borrowing: 24 letters were borrowed directly from Greek uncial writing.3
- Supplementary Letters: Because the Greek alphabet lacked characters for certain Egyptian sounds, seven additional letters were incorporated from a cursive variety of Egyptian demotic writing to represent those specific phonemes.132
This adaptation allowed the Coptic language to be recorded using a modified version of the Greek script, effectively replacing earlier Egyptian writing systems like hieroglyphics.12