Abstract:

This is beyond doubt the finest Coptic grammar ever written, a splendid achievement, masterfully carrying out the formidable task of making the leap from Stern’s pre-scientific (if insightful) Koptische Grammatik of 1880, to bridge a century of Coptic and Egyptian linguistic study. By painstaking and elegant grammatical charting, the Sahidic dialect of Coptic now has a definitive, authoritative description, which I daresay will be superseded only if the corpus changes considerably. The work consolidates the findings of almost a century of research work on Coptic grammar, adding numerous new insights in statements that result from a correct and penetrating analysis of complicated data. It opens much new ground, while providing a clear, even-handed and lucid account of established comprehension, and puts much in a fresh perspective, often contradicting orthodoxy and deepening or clarifying the insights offered in many a study.