Coptic

Meyer, Marvin: The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, with an interpretation by Harold Bloom, HarperSanFrancisco, 1992, hard cover, 130 pages.
Most surviving Coptic texts are Christian. This little book presents the Coptic text of one of the papyri discovered at Nag Hammadi, with facing English translations. It is an easy way to get familiar with the way Coptic is put together, quite apart from its content.

For those interested in Christian origins, this is not a "gospel" as we are familiar with, but a list of sayings of Jesus at least as old. Some of the sayings are similar to ones in the canonical gospels, but others are quite different.

Contents:


• Acknowlegements
• Introduction
• The Gospel of Thomas
• Notes
• "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings . . ."
  A Reading by Harold Bloom
• Bibliography

Tattam, Henry: Coptic Grammar, British American Books, undated reprint of an 1830 volume, paperback, 152 pages.
This small book is a reference grammar of the three major Coptic dialects. It is useless in teaching the language, as it has no lessons, no vocabulary, and no index. The reprint is poor and hard to read.

The grammar is entirely out of date, trying for example to force nouns into the Latin cases. Most importantly, it was written before hieroglyphics were deciphered, so there are no references to the older language.

Contents:


• Part I. Orthography
  1. Of the Letters, or Alphabet
  2. Reasons on which the Remarks on the Alphabet are Formed
  3. Of Points and Abbreviations
• Part II. Etymology
  1. The Articles
  2. Of Nouns
  3. Of Adjectives
  4. Pronouns
  5. Of Verbs
  6. Adverbs, Prepostitions, Conjunctions, and Interjections
  7. Of the Formation of Words
• Part III. Syntax
• Part IV. Dialects
• Praxis on the first Chapter of St. John's Gospel
• Index of Prefixes, Suffixes, etc.




Walters, C. C.: An Elementary Coptic Grammar of the Sahidic Dialect, B. H. Blackwell, 1976 reprint (1972 original), hard cover, 85 pages, typewritten with hand-written Coptic.
This is a much more useful Coptic grammar than the one above, though it is out of print and harder to find. A new edition may be appearing soon. It is packed with information and organized into lessons with interspersed vocabularies and exercises. Several references are made to the ancient language. There is no general vocabulary and no connected texts are presented.

Contents:


• The Alphabet
• Pronouns and Possessives
• Nouns
• The Article
• The Genitive
• The Adjective
• Numerals
• Non-Verbal Sentences
• The Verb
• The Infinitives
• The Passive
• Prepositions
• The Verbal Sentence
• Questions
• Conditional Sentences
• Temporal Clauses
• Causal Clauses
• Final Clauses
• Relative Clauses
• Negation




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