Coptic Pronunciation Reform - Old Bohairic Pronunciation

Old Bohairic Pronunciation

During the 1960s, with the encouragement of Pope Shenouda III, Dr Emile Maher studied the history of Coptic pronunciation and in 1968 announced that he had rediscovered the Old Bohairic pronunciation. After completing a doctorate on the subject at Oxford University (Thesis available online), he returned to Egypt hoping to restore the older way of pronouncing Coptic, in place of the reformed pronunciation (sometimes referred to as Greco-Bohairic). The Institute of Coptic Language which studied and promoted the Old Bohairic pronunciation came under strong opposition from some Church leaders, but the Pope continued to support Dr Maher, and ordained him priest (as Father Shenouda) in the 1990s. The Old Bohairic pronunciation is used in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Rochester, New York, in which Father Shenouda Maher now serves.

The Old Bohairic pronunciation is evidence-based, using archived sound recordings and transcriptions of the oral tradition of Zeneya, Dabeyya, and other villages made by various scholars such as Georgy Sobhy, Petraeus, Galtier, Maria Cramer, Rochmonetix, in addition to the works of W.H. Worrell and Vicychl. Maher also consulted documents held in libraries and monasteries throughout Egypt, including Coptic manuscripts written in the Arabic script, such as the Damanhour euchologion, and tenth-century Arabic texts written in Coptic letters, and analysed scribal transcription errors in the manuscripts tradition.