Biblical Hebrew Forum

[MarianneLuban AT aol.com]

In a message dated 11/22/2004 1:11:02 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
peterkirk AT qaya.org writes:


> >Yes--my memory served me wrong.  The Coptic alphabet certainly does have a 
> 
> >"thita"--but I have never seen it used in *Egyptian* words--which is what 
> >I 
> 
> >should have said in the first place.  It is reserved for the writing of 
> Greek 
> >words, which certainly proliferate in Coptic texts. ...
> >
> 
> Well, maybe. But "ethouab", the last word of Figure 9 and the 7th word 
> of the Coptic text in Figure 12 of 
> http://std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n2636.pdf, is not a Greek word. Do 
> you recognise it as of Egyptian origin? In Figure 9 it is glossed as 
> "saint" (in French, but the English meaning is also "saint" or "holy").

My Coptic grammar says thita can be an abbreviation for "t H"--such as 
"ethneete" for "t Heneete".  "Heneete " is "monastary" and "t' is the 
feminine 
article "the".  I can't tell you why the thita is present in "ethouab" 
because I am 
not sure of the meaning of the entire phrase.  I don't read Coptic very well 
because the syntax is very different from ancient Egyptian.  And the dialects 
vary, too. The only thing I recognize in the term is "wab" or "pure" in AE.   
Coptic is a specialization all by itself and few Egyptologists are 
well-versed 
in it.  The Sahidic Coptic dictionary gives "pure" or "holy" as "ouaab"--but 
gives no term for "saint".  So I can't tell you so quickly what "ethouab" is 
all about--but I'll have a further look.