Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Abdelrahman, Hagar Saeed Hassan

Titel

A Linguistic and Historical Study of the Relationship Between the Ancient Egyptian Particle ḥ3 and the Future Tense Prefix ḥa in Semitic

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Coptic is the final stage of the ancient Egyptian language, which appeared fully formed in the third century CE, until Arabic gradually replaced it after the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 CE. Despite the dominance of Arabic, Coptic remained as a spoken language in Egypt until the sixteenth century. The only remaining usage of Coptic today is confined to liturgical use in the Coptic church in Egypt. The disappearance of Coptic coincides with the formation of the Egyptian Arabic dialect, the earliest appearance of which is in a manuscript by Yusuf al-Maghribi which dates to the sixteenth century. The migration of South Arabian and Yemeni tribes to Egypt from the Arabian Peninsula resulted in cultural and linguistic contact between Coptic, Yemeni Arabic, and the South Arabian languages. This linguistic contact has influenced the development of Egyptian Arabic, which is apparent in the similar linguistic features shared between Egyptian Arabic, Modern South Arabian languages, Yemeni Arabic, and Coptic. One of these similar linguistic features is the ancient Egyptian particle ḥ3, “would that,” and the future tense prefix ḥa in Egyptian Arabic, which shares similar phonology and function of indicating a desire or an action that might or might not happen in the future. In this dissertation, I offer two possible scenarios for explaining this similarity between Coptic and Egyptian Arabic as follows: a) this similarity resulted from the contact-induced influence from Coptic, Yemeni Arabic, and South Arabian languages on Egyptian Arabic; b) or the ancient Egyptian particle ḥ3 and the Egyptian Arabic future prefix ḥa originated from a shared Afroasiatic source represented in the prefix ḥ.