Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Tonio Sebastian Richter
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 213098685

The project Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC) aims at a systematic and comprehensive lexicographic compilation and description of Greek words in Coptic, possibly the most massive, borrowed vocabulary attested in (late) antiquity. Its outcome shall be presented in two formats: an electronic database, and a defining dictionary. The compilation and description of the Greek borrowed vocabulary in the Egyptian language of the 1st millennium C.E. is a century’s desideratum in Coptology, and it is of significance for disciplines beyond Coptology, such as historical linguistics of Egyptian and Greek, contact linguistics and loanword tyopology, papyrology, patristics, and ancient history. Running from 2010 through 2023, the inventory of Greek loanwords of the bulk of edited Coptic texts has been completely gathered in a relational database. As per 2023, the database contains ca. 270,000 loanword occurrences, attesting for roughly 5,000 Greek lexical types. The data are representative for the entire corpus of Coptic texts by documenting the whole range of text types, literary dialects, non-literary varieties, and diachronic phases from the 4th to the 14th century C.E. The labors of the recent years of the project were devoted to the overall lexicographic structuring of the digital data. In the coming last year of the fourth funding period and in the additional one-year period of completion funding applied for in this application, the dictionary entries shall be worked out from digital templates based on structured data, and systematic test and correction procedures shall be conducted. The volume manuscript of a three-volume Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic shall be completed. The digital infrastructure providing for a long-term provision of research data in accordance with the FAIR principles shall be finalized and put into operation, especially the openly accessible Database of Greek Loanwords in Coptic "DIOSKOROS".

• DFG Programme: Research Grants