Submission

​Assessment tasks are compulsory and must be submitted on time. All assessment will be submitted via iLearn, including grammar tests, which will be completed on iLearn.

Extensions 

As a general rule, extensions will not be granted without a valid and documented reason (e.g. medical certificate).  All requests for extensions should go via ask.mq.edu.au and should be supported by appropriate documentation.

Late Submission Penalty 

Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply – 10 marks out of 100 credit* will be deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date – and (b) no assignment will be accepted seven days (incl. weekends) after the original submission deadline.

*"100 credit" is to be understood as 100% of the marks for that task, not the entire unit.

Satisfactory Completion of Unit

In order to complete this unit satisfactorily students must gain a mark of 50% or more.

Lectures and Tutorials

The course consists of a two-hour lecture and a one-hour tutorial each week, except in the final weeks, which will consist of reading Coptic texts in a two hour tutorial each week. For Weeks 1–10, the lectures will present and discuss Coptic grammar, and the tutorial will provide the opportunity to consolidate the information presented in the lecture and will comprise working through exercises from the textbook (see below) as a group.

The lecture will be prerecorded and uploaded via Echo360 on the Monday of each week. The tutorial will be held on campus at 12–1 pm on Thursday, with a weekly discussion forum for students enrolled in the Online-flexible mode to allow them to ask questions about that week's exercises.

Technology used and required

The unit has an iLearn page which can be accessed at https://ilearn.mq.edu.au/login/index.php. PC and internet access are therefore required. Basic computer skills (e.g. internet browsing) and skills in word processing are also a requirement. Content, readings, and discussions for this unit will be delivered via the unit iLearn page. The lectures for this unit will be recorded and the audio recordings and accompanying notes will be available on the Echo 360 system and the iLearn page. Any extra readings required will be made available on the unit iLearn page, as will all assessment for the unit.

Note: iLearn should be regularly consulted for updates, learning tools, and for participation in the discussion forum.

Coptic fonts

For the purposes of this course it is essential that you learn to type words in Coptic (or Greek). Most ancient language fonts – even if they are of the same language – have a different distribution of characters on the keyboard. So if members of the group use different fonts, this will lead to misunderstandings. We will use unicode fonts which (theoretically) display the same on all systems. I suggest therefore that you download the public domain Unicode font “New Athena Unicode”, which contains Coptic and Greek characters.

New Athena Unicode  is available for both PC and Macintosh computers on the following website:

http://apagreekkeys.org/NAUdownload.html

(See the link to "DOWNLOAD New Athena Unicode version 5.008 in ttf format" under "Latest Version")

For Coptic Unicode input (that is, keyboard layout), follow the directions provided at:

http://ucbclassics.dreamhosters.com/djm/coptic.html

This contains instructions for installing the Keyboard layouts in Windows or Mac systems, and general guidance on entering Coptic on both systems.

If you have any problems using this font, please contact the tutor.

 

Textbook and other reading

Textbook

The textbook we will use is Lambdin, T. O., Introduction to Sahidic Coptic, Macon 1983 (2nd edition 1992), a copy of which all students must source.

Grammars

As scholarly focus since the late 19th century has primarily been on Sahidic, there is a large body of teaching aids available for this dialect. The following list is not exhaustive, but lists the most important grammars. If students wish to purchase a comprehensive grammar, I recommend that of Layton, below, but this is not required.

Layton, B., A Coptic Grammar. Wiesbaden 2000 (2nd ed. Wiesbaden 2004, 3rd ed. Wiesbaden 2011).

Mallon, A., Grammaire copte: bibliographie, chrestomathie et vocabulaire, 4 éd. revue par Michel Malinine, Beyrouth 1956.

Plisch, U.-K., Einführung in die koptische Sprache (sahidischer Dialekt). Wiesbaden 1999.

Polotsky, H. J., Études de syntaxe copte, Cairo 1944.

Reintges, C., Coptic Egyptian (Sahidic Dialect). A Learner's Grammar. Köln 2004.

Shisha-Halevy, A., Coptic Grammatical Categories. Structural Studies in the Syntax of Shenoutean Sahidic. Roma, 1986.

Stern, L., Koptische Grammatik, Leipzig 1880.

Till, W., Koptische Grammatik, Leipzig 1961.

Till, W., Koptische Dialektgrammatik, München 1961.

Torallas Tovar, S., Gramática de Copto Sahidico. Madrid 2001.

Dictionaries

At this point of learning Coptic it is not necessary to purchase one of the dictionaries listed below, although access to a dictionary will be necessary for the advanced study of Coptic. For the purposes of this unit, the dictionary given in  Lambdin, Introduction to Sahidic Coptic, is quite sufficient. The most important dictionary of those listed below is Crum, W.E. Coptic Dictionary.

There is now a Coptic Dictionary online (edited by the Koptische/Coptic Electronic Language and Literature International Alliance [KELLIA]) online at https://coptic-dictionary.org/ which contains both Coptic and Greek words. For guidance on using this dictionary see https://coptic-dictionary.org/help.cgi

Černý, J., Coptic Etymological Dictionary, Cambridge 1976.

Crum, W. E., Coptic Dictionary, Oxford 1939 (various reprints since, including Oxford 1999 and Wipf & Stock Publishers 2005).

Kasser, R., Compléments au Dictionnaire copte de Crum, Cairo 1964.

Smith, R., A Concise Coptic-English Lexicon, Grand Rapids 1983.

Westendorf, W., Koptisches Handwörterbuch, Heidelberg 1965-77.

Each week, there will be a 1-hour lecture, and a 1-hour tutorial for in-person students, with a discussion forum for online-flexible students. The course material will be presented in the lecture; the exercises will reinforce the information learned in the lecture. Listening to the lecture and completing weekly exercises are compulsory for students who wish to learn the language properly and thus do well in the unit. For a week-by-week overview of the content we will cover, see the unit iLearn site.