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Introduction Introduction
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What Are L and L⋆? What Are L and L⋆?
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Challenging Myths about Early Coptic Challenging Myths about Early Coptic
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An Alternative View on Early Coptic An Alternative View on Early Coptic
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Does Coptic Represent Spoken Egyptian? Does Coptic Represent Spoken Egyptian?
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Were Coptic Writings Used for Converting Egyptians without a Command of Greek? Were Coptic Writings Used for Converting Egyptians without a Command of Greek?
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Social Networks and Innovative Language Use Social Networks and Innovative Language Use
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How to Express Exclusion or Solidarity? How to Express Exclusion or Solidarity?
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Spelling Conventions Spelling Conventions
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The Use of Greek Loanwords The Use of Greek Loanwords
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L⋆ as an In-group Variety: More Indications L⋆ as an In-group Variety: More Indications
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Summary and Conclusions Summary and Conclusions
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18 L⋆ as a Secret Language: Social Functions of Early Coptic
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Published:November 2015
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Abstract
This chapter reconsiders the use of Coptic as attested in the texts belonging to the Manichaean community in Kellis (Ismant al-Kharab, Dakhla Oasis). For this particular variety of Coptic, the siglum L* has been suggested by W.-P. Funk, who thus qualified it as a variety of the so-called Lykopolitan dialect of Coptic, indicated by the siglum L. The chapter puts forward a number of hypotheses to reconstruct the motivations that could have induced the members of the Manichaean community in Kellis to use Coptic for their writings. It argues that early Coptic was not simply an Egyptian vernacular but a deliberately constructed alternative literary language and a prestige variety. The association of Coptic with Christianity is not due to its alleged function of converting “indigenous” Egyptians, but to its rise and development within early ascetic communities that were the locus of innovative and highly regarded social practices in late antiquity.
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