Wanting to learn Coptic is a phase many Copts go through. It's one of those things that many Copts feel would be a really good thing to learn, but you know how it is ...lack of resources, too many words to learn, too much grammar, loss of motivation all conspire to form the conclusion “maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.”
I was once in that position.

Then in 1997, our priest started teaching a group of 9 or 10 people the basics of Coptic Grammar. For some reason, I started to find it was really interesting and a lot of fun. I can't really explain why, after all, I never really found my subjects at school to be that interesting, but something about Coptic really clicked with me. I began to search over the internet for every resource I could possibly find, seeking grammar books, dictionaries and texts. Soon I started to think that if all these resources could all be processed and presented in a neat little book, then many more people would have the chance of learning it as well. Hence the reason for this book. I hope that someone who is keen and motivated will find the necessary grammatical tools in this book required for reading and understanding the Coptic used in the liturgy and in the hymns of the Church, as well as a significant proportion of the Coptic New Testament.

Some people wonder why anyone would want to learn Coptic at all. After all, it's a dead language, and almost everything used for the Church services has been translated into English anyway. I look at things differently. To me, Coptic is part of our culture, our heritage and identity. It was the language used by the evangelists who preached in Egypt, it was the language used by the scribes in composing the hymns of the Church, and it was the language in which hymns were chanted by the martyrs before they would receive their Heavenly reward. In effect, I feel that Coptic is part of ourselves, and to let it go would be to let part of ourselves die.

Many people dream of a time when Coptic will be revived once again to be a lanugage spoken by the Copts. I don't know if that day will come, but I hope that this book will be a step in the right direction.

Sameh Younan
Sydney, Australia