reading suggestions

Very likely most members of this group are interested in Coptic for the religious literature in it, but I am a linguist, and with all due respect to religion, I (and I think I can speak for quite a few other linguists) get awfully tired of reading the Bible in different languages. In Coptic one can at least read the Gnostic literature so as not to be reading the Bible, but I wonder if there is any secular literature that I don't know about?

There is a lot of room between translations of the Bible / apocrypha and secular literature, sensu stricto. Much hagiography and martyrology manages to hold a good story even if the motivations are religious. The story of Archellides, of which there are brief excerpts in Koptische Grammatik, is as much about the mother's devotion as the monk's life.

There is a Coptic translation in The Great Sermon Handicap, Volume V by J. van der Vliet. But that's more an amusing curiosity than anything of linguistic interest. And even it's about a vicar and so not secular.

Even as an atheist, I sometimes find the familiarity of the Bible comforting when the language isn't.

I wish I could be more help, billposer, but I learned Coptic _for_ its religious literature...

/K. thinks

There are some ordinary letters in the Medinet Madi finds (a village of Manichaeans at Kellis), but I don't remember them being gripping reading.

(That's charming about van der Vliet.)

-Kushana

I checked The Coptic Encyclopedia, which is probably too expensive for anyone here's personal library, though they have it at the public library and local universities. I am reminded that there are magical and medical documents. The former are linguistic outliers, being full of nonsense syllables. The latter, basically monastic first-aid handbooks, have some interesting bits like dog-poop compresses for skin diseases.

Overall, the situation seems to be summed up by this quotation referring to the Alexander Romance (s.v. Romances, an article also covering the Cambyses Romance):

The style of these Coptic versions of the Alexander Romance duplicates the literature of edification written by the monks. The narratives extend the stories of the martyrs and also of the apocalypses. Those who treat some Coptic literature as being "profane" err; Coptic literature is Christian. As a tool of God, Alexander could be considered a prophet; as a martyr, he foreshadowed Christ.

The encyclopedia isn't entirely unbiased here. It's as much "Coptic" in the sense of Egyptian Christian, even when writing in Arabic, as Coptic-language. But it does seem pretty thorough in listing works, wherever they happen to have ended up published. So I'm inclined to believe that the situation is still as the 1911 Britannica said:

Of secular literature strangely little existed or at least has survived: only a few magical texts, fragments of a medical treatise, of the story of Alexander, and of a story of the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, are known, apart from numerous legal and business documents.

Aside from the Coptic language and texts, anyone interested in a good introduction to Coptic history, culture and language should check out Coptic Egypt The Christians of the Nile by Christian Cannuyer. It is one of those well-written and nicely illustrated small paperbacks which are part of the ABRAMS Discoveries series.

FYI

Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic With Exercises and Vocabularies
by Bentley Layton 210p (Peeters 2007).

ISBN-13: 978-90-429-1810-8
ISBN-10: 90-429-1810-1

Is a recently published resource for use in the classroom or for teaching oneself Coptic.

Thanks for the FYI - Coptic in 20 Lessons sounds promising, as introductions go. If only I had more time!