Jean-Luc Fournet - The Rise of Coptic: Egyptian versus Greek in Late Antiquity

The chapters of this book correspond to the four lectures that I gave at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (New York University) in March and April 2017 as part of the Rostovtzeff Lectures series and of my teaching at the Collge de France. I am grateful to ISAW and its current director, Alexander Jones, for having invited me to deliver them, and to its former director, Roger Bagnall, who was so kind as to honor me by scheduling me as his last invited speaker in the Rostovtzeff Lectures. I would like these four lectures to be considered a modest testimony to my immense admiration for Rogers work and an homage to his relentless activity in both papyrology and ancient history, which has not only driven them forward but also irreversibly changed their composition in terms of organization, methodology, and ways of operating.

To this end, I wanted to choose a subject dear to Roger, namely that of the relations between Egyptian and Greek, which were the constant focus of his attention over the past twenty or so years, as of his Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman World (Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 2011) notably attests. Interest in this subject also encounters a direction in current research, because multilingualism has in recent years acquired an unprecedented importance in the field of linguistic studies (with the development of a branch of sociolinguistics devoted to languages in contact): the cloistered study of ancient societies long practiced by researchers specializing in only one area has given way in recent times to a more open approach that is alert to cultural interactions. Moreover, contemporary Western societies have increasingly had to face the problem of multilingualisms and of the coexistence of multicultural practices for which they are often ill prepared, because the monocultural national models in which they have developed have not prepared them to understand and manage these types of combinations. The theme of these lectures is thus at the intersection of historical investigation, methodological necessity, and societal preoccupation.

I should like to express my gratitude to the entire ISAW team, which welcomed me during my months stay with unforgettable care and kindness. I am also indebted to the audiences at the lectures for their suggestions and comments, from which the present book has profited greatly, and to the two anonymous peer reviewers. In the preparation of the lectures I also benefited from the help of Dominique Benazeth, Betsy Bolman, Anne Boudhors, Florence Calament, Marie-Pierre Chaufray, Willy Clarysse, Muriel Debi, Alain Delattre, Alain Desreumaux, Stephen Emmel, Jean-Marc Mandosio, Roberta Mazza, Leila Nehm, and Jean-Baptiste Yon. My warmest thanks to all. I am particularly indebted to Antonio Ricciardetto and Lorele Vanderheyden for their work compiling the data that allowed me to generate graph 1 and for reading the manuscript of this book, and to Valrie Schram for compiling the index of ancient sources. I am also grateful to Princeton University Press for agreeing to publish this book and for their excellent cooperation in the publication process. I should like, finally, to express my gratitude to Roger Bagnall, who, in addition to everything else, read through the entire manuscript, thus helping me to make it less imperfect, and to my wife, Caroline Magdelaine, without whose help and encouragment none of this would have seen the light of day. The translation is for the most part due to Elizabeth Libbrecht, with the help of Cline Surprenant (Collge de France).

The Rise of Coptic

Map of Egypt. (Courtesy of R. S. Bagnall and D. W. Rathbone.)

CHAPTER 1

An Egyptian Exception?

It is a particular aspect of the relations between Egyptian and Greek that I would like to examine here: the way in which the Egyptian language, in the new form that it took on during Late Antiquity in Christian milieus, namely that of Coptic, developed and attempted to undermine the monopoly that the Greek language had held for centuries as the official language. What I will analyze, then, is a very specific domain of written culture.

The written culture of Egypt and the interlinguistic relationships that it involves can be studied through two types of sources: (1) sources pertaining to writing that I will call enduring, in other words, the books and publications created to last and to be disseminated beyond the circle of the people commissioning their writing; and (2) sources pertaining to everyday writing, which we modern scholars have typically come to designate with the term documentsa conveniently broad term, yet one that is nonetheless very vague in that it covers, as generally used, a wide variety of artifacts. Without entering into an excessively nuanced typology, these can consist of (a) writings that an individual writes for him- or herself (reminders, lists, accounts); (b) writings exchanged between two individuals (private or business letters); (c) documents that testify to an exchange between two individuals, but within a legal framework (contracts, etc.); (d) documents addressed by an individual to the administration (petitions or various requests) or, conversely, (e) by the administration to an individual (tax receipts, administrative letters, various orders)both of which therefore pertain to the regulated context of public law; and lastly, (f) internal administrative documents. As opposed to the first category, sources pertaining to everyday writing are normally set in the urgency of the present and are not intended for intergenerational dissemination (except for some kinds of legal documents).