History
Egyptian may have the longest documented history of any language, having remained in written use from c. 3200 BC to the Middle Ages and as a spoken language for longer. Coptic belongs to the Later Egyptian phase which started to be written in the New Kingdom. Later Egyptian represented the colloquial language. It had analytic features like definite and indefinite articles and periphrastic verb conjugation. Coptic therefore is a reference both to the most recent stage of Egyptian after Demotic, and to the new writing system that was adapted from the Greek alphabet.
Read more about this topic: Coptic Language
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History takes time.... History makes memory.”
—Gertrude Stein (18741946)
“Universal history is the history of a few metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (18991986)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (17111776)