(CE:A191b-A194b)

PROTODIALECT. From the earliest time that its existence is

attested (before 3000 B.C.) until its most recent form, prior to its
extinction as a living tongue, the Egyptian language has evolved
somewhat in its phonology. To be sure, while this language was still
alive, Coptology had not yet been born, so that no phonologist
possessing modern scientific skills could, by hearing the language
pronounced as it was spoken, note precisely its articulation.
However, there exist thousands of Egyptian texts, both pharaonic
and Coptic, that record the existence of diverse orthographies. If
they are simultaneous, they are considered dialectal orthographies
synchronically. If they are successive, they are considered to
indicate various evolutionary stages of the language.
Even though orthography is merely a conventional system with
an essentially practical usage and therefore a system with rather
empirical foundations, and though it is very far from answering all
theoretical questions asked by phonologists and from satisfying the
concerns, curiosity, and needs of the researcher, one cannot deny
that orthography has some capacity to inform one of the nature of a
language’s phonology. This is particularly true either when the
vocabulary of this language has adopted lexemes of other languages
whose phonology is better understood or when various lexemes of
the language in question have been cited, if not adopted, in texts
from a neighboring language with a better-known phonology. To a
certain extent, such is the case with pharaonic Egyptian and, to an
even greater degree, Coptic, because of the close coexistence of
Coptic and Greek in Roman-Byzantine Egypt, in which the
autochthonous majority who spoke Coptic were politically
dominated by the Hellenized minority, even within the framework
of the imperial Roman administration. Thus, one finds many
Egyptian proper nouns transcribed into Greek, and vice versa, as
well as numerous Greek words adopted into Coptic, a language
whose alphabet is in fact mostly Greek (see VOCABULARY,
COPTO-GREEK and ETYMOLOGY; also ALPHABET IN
COPTIC, GREEK, and ALPHABETS, COPTIC).
 The phonological evolution observable in Egyptian before the
Coptic era is unfortunately limited to consonants since pharaonic
writing exhibited no vowels. In Coptic, on the other hand, the
vowels were written along with the consonants. Concerning
Egyptian, one should not be surprised to observe some phonological
evolution, since the language can be analyzed today on the basis of
texts covering more than three thousand years. Coptic, however,
existed for scarcely a millennium, and even less if one stops with the
epoch in which it ceased to be both productive in the literary field
and truly living as a spoken language among Egyptians, surviving
with difficulty and increasing artificiality for several centuries only
within the closed and conservative milieu of the Coptic clergy.
Consequently, one might expect to observe no evolution within
Coptic and to see here only one stage, the single and final stage in
the evolution of the Egyptian language. At most, by comparing the
idioms of Coptic with each other, one finds that some, particularly
Akhmimic (A) and Bohairic (B), have a phonemic inventory slightly
richer than certain others, such as Sahidic (S), Lyco(Dios)politan
(L), Mesokemic (M), crypto-Mesokemic (W), South Fayyumic (V),
and Fayyumic (F). For example, A and B have retained phonemes
such as /x/ from pharaonic Egyptian, which classical S and L have
lost. This is, of course, an interesting phenomenon. But the
phenomenon is even more remarkable when the presence and
disappearance of such a phoneme can be noticed in the documents
of a single dialect, as it evolves from a formative archaic stage,
relatively rich in phonemes, to a more recent, neutralized and
impoverished state.
Such observations can also be made here or there in the study of
vowels (Kasser, 1984, pp. 246ff.), where the phenomenon remains
strictly confined to Coptic because pharaonic Egyptian texts exhibit
no written vowels. One must admit that, if one finds in the same
position and quality (i.e., long stressed, short stressed, unstressed) a
greater variety of vocalic usage, this is a sign of archaism. This
vocalic archaism is frequently confirmed by consonantal archaic
phonology (see below). Thus, for example, insofar as final
unstressed vowels are concerned, A, L4, L5, M, and S have only one
(-e), while L6 still possesses two (-e and -i), as do V and F (-i and
-e). F7 also has two (-i and -a). One could also say that B retains
two (-i and Ø, that is, zero vowel, no vowel at all). Further, one also
sees two in proto-Lyco(Dios)politan (pL, -e and -i) and in proto-
Theban (P, -e and -a), dialects whose consonantic inventory is
very archaic (see below).
It can thus be observed that almost all Coptic dialects have
adopted only one or the other of the two vowels -e or -i in the
unstressed final position, the second tightly closed and the first less
closed or more or less medial. But the archaic P and F7 show in that
position a very open, unstressed final vowel, -a, an unusual and
remarkable phenomenon in Coptic.
The study of Egyptian phonological evolution remains most
fruitful when dealing with consonants, which have been transcribed
over a period of approximately four thousand years, from the most
ancient of pharaonic texts to the later Coptic documents. In fact, the
result of such an analysis can be a synoptic table like that published
by Vergote (1945, pp. 122-23), which expanded Worrell’s study
(1934). As far as Coptic is concerned, however, this table shows
only synchronic and interdialectal differences, except in the cases of
silencing (disappearance of phonemes).
Nevertheless, some thirty years later, Vergote (1973-1983, Vol.
1a, p. 57) discovered some rare archaic documents in Coptic that
attest and manifest the existence of a “proto-Subakhmimic” or rather
(in present Coptological terminology) “proto-Lyco(Dios)politan”
(see DIALECT I and Kasser, 1990), and of a “proto-Sahidic”
(according to Vergote’s terminology, now rather to be considered a
“proto-Theban” very similar to some reconstructed “proto-Sahidic”;
see DIALECT P and Kasser, 1990), sigla respectively pL and P.
These remarkable idioms had conserved up to the third-fourth
centuries two phonemes that can reasonably be considered archaic in
the Lyco-(Dios)politan cluster, and also in comparision with
Sahidic. Still surviving in pL and P, they have disappeared from L,
and also cannot be found in S. The first is /x/, which is derived from
h = /x2/ (rarely from = /x3/). The second is the phoneme /ç/, which
is the principal intermediate form in the evolution that starts with
= /x3/ and finally ends at / / in all Coptic dialects, except for
Akhmimic (A), which has /x/ in its place. This /x/ is apparently
identical to the /x/ derived from /x2/. Therefore, even within Coptic,
in the consonants there is a small segment where a modest but
significant phonological evolution in the Egyptian language can be
observed.
Present terminology is that of Kasser (1980a, pp. 109-111), who
called proto-Theban (considered more precisely a kind of proto-
Sahidic) and proto-Lycopolitan “protodialects.” When, through the
very rare discovery of archaic texts, protodialects appear in
Coptology, the protodialect exists as an entity logically anterior to
the Coptic “dialects” that have been defined and named according to
the habitual and traditional criteria. It is anterior not exactly in the
same way that a father is anterior to his son, but as someone of the
father’s generation, perhaps the father’s brother or cousin, is
logically anterior to the father’s son. Concerning the dialects, their
character as “dialects” came to be recognized because their
differentiating traces were observed throughout the known Coptic
texts. Furthermore, these dialects represented, each in its own way,
the state of the phonological evolution of the Egyptian language in
the various regions of the country. This held true during the entire
Coptic era, or at least for A, L, M, W, V, and possibly F until they
were smothered by S. Therefore, in contrast to these various idioms
in general, but more particularly in contrast to L and also S,
respectively, proto-Lycopolitan (pL) and proto-Theban (P) are
called “protodialects.” A specific protodialect of B, F, V, W, M, or A
may yet come to light, should new texts be discovered with such
archaic phonological features.
Concerning L and also S, it is known that these idioms lost /ç/
and even /x/ at the termination of a well-known phonological
evolution: the majority of x3 > /ç/ > / /, while x2, linked to a
minority of x3,> /x/ > /h/. Consequently, it is the survival of /ç/ and
/x/ in pL and P very similar to some reconstructed “proto-Sahidic”)
that makes the former a proto-dialect of L and the latter a
protodialect that looks very like a tentatively reconstructed proto-
dialect of S, pL in the rest of its phonological system being very
Lycopolitan and P being more often than not identical with S. In A
and B, on the other hand, one can see in the mass of their
manuscripts from each period that /x/ was always present, so that
this phoneme plays a role in the definition of A and B as dialects and
has nothing of a protodialectal stage.
A protodialect, therefore, can exist only in relationship to a
dialect to which it is extremely similar, if not identical, in most of its
phonological traits. This dialect, however, shows a phonological
evolution in some precise point—almost always in its consonants—
away from its protodialect. This type of relationship of protodialect
to dialect is also that which exists, in a reversed sense, between a
dialect and a METADIALECT, with this latter showing a state of
evolution posterior to that of the dialect to which it corresponds.
For reasons tied to the status of the present knowledge of Coptic,
which is based on documentation known to the present day, the
presence or absence of /ç/—or even /x/ in a dialect other than A or
B—in the graphicophonological system of one of the varieties of the
Coptic language forms the only certain criterion that will permit one
to distinguish between a protodialect and a dialect.
As for the age of these protodialectal documents. one will note
that they are among the most ancient Coptic manuscripts, an
observation that seems logically normal. However, occasionally a
certain “dialectal” document will slightly predate a particular
“protodialectal” document (just as the father’s son may be, in certain
cases, a little older than his uncle or some relative from his father’s
generation), indicating that the protodialect survived in one region
of Egypt longer than in another. And when it vanished, its
disappearance would probably be progressive, with a certain period
of contemporaneous usage of the protodialect by the conservatives
and of the dialect by the innovators in the same area (see
LANGUAGE(S), COPTIC).
It will be instructive here to borrow some component parts from
the synoptic table of Vergote in a slightly modified order, adapting
and illustrating each one with an example and choosing in particular
those components that are useful in the definition of a protodialect.
The abbreviations and adaptations employed are as follows: for
periods, MK = Middle Kingdom, NK = New Kingdom, pC = Saitic
and Greco-Roman (or proto-Coptic) period, C = Coptic period; for
dialects, L = A2 of Vergote; S... = S, F, and its subdialects, as well as
M and V, which were still unknown to Vergote in 1945; L... within
the pC period = pL (and through P a reconstructed *pS). Without
postulating or defining any phonological difference between them,
two varieties of /x3/ will henceforth be distinguished here: the major
form whose evolution was /ç/ > / / in L... is /x33/; and the minor
form that evolved into /h/ in L... is /x32/.

(MK) > (NK) > (pC) /h/> (C) /h/; for example, r > hko
L, S..., B, A, to be hungry.
(MK) h > (NK) h > (pC) /h/ > (C) /h/; for example, hb > hwb L,
S..., B, A, thing.
(MK) x2 > (NK) x2 > (pC) /x2/ [A], /x/ L..., [B] > /x2/ A, /x/ B, but
/h/ L, S...; for example, hnw qoun B, P (and a reconstructed
*pS), |oun A, pL, but houn L, S..., inside part.
x3 = (MK) x32> (NK) x32 > x2 = (pC) /x2/ [A], /x/ L..., [B] > /x2/ A,
/x/ B but /h/ L...; for example, ‘n wnq B, w q P and a
reconstructed *pS wn| A (and pL through an|† pL), but
wnh L, S..., to live.
x3 = (MK) x33 > (NK) x33 > (pC) /ç/ L..., [B], but /x33/ [A], then (pC)
/ç/ L..., [B] > (C) / / L, S...., B, and (pC) /x33/ [A] > /x/ A; for
example, pr > wpe P and a reconstructed *pS), wpe pL,
[etc., and /ç pi/ pB] > swpe S, L, sope M, swpi W, V, F,
B, but [/x p / pA] > |wpe A, to become.
(MK) > (NK) > (pC) / / > (C) / /; for example, p, swp
L, S..., B, A, to receive.

[See also: Dialect i; Dialect P.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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______. “A Standard System of Sigla for Referring to the Dialects
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______. Grammaire copte, Vol. 1a, Introduction, phonétique et
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phonétique et phonologie, morphologie synthématique (structure
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Morphologie syntagmatique, partie diachronique. Louvain,
1973-1983.
Vycichl, W. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue copte. Louvain,
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Worrell, W. H. Coptic Sounds. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1934.

RODOLPHE KASSER