A new Coptic grammar by Johanna Brankaer
/I have been meaning to alert you to a new Coptic grammar that has just been published. It is written by
(Sahidic) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz)
. The book is structured in five parts: the first three are concerned with learning Coptic grammar. Part four is exercises that apply what has been learned in the grammatical chapters. Part five includes a selection of texts to translate. A great feature is that the exercises and the texts have cross-references to the grammatical chapters.
Her organization and pedagogy is simple: Part 1 contains all the elements of Coptic language (pronouns; nouns; numerals; prepositions; adverbs; verbs); Part 2 addresses Coptic sentence structures (nominal articulation; nominal sentences; durative sentences; etc); Part 3 covers complex sentences (main clauses; subordinate clauses; relative clauses; cleft sentences). I really like the way the grammar is laid out like this because it shows you, even in the table of contents, what the language looks like as a system. So it approaches Coptic from a holistic perspective rather than presenting it as a series of disassociated grammar and syntax points. I think it might be possible to teach the basics of Coptic in one semester using this grammar.
Brankaer uses the terminology established by Bentley Layton in his
Coptic Grammar
, although she has a glossary where equivalent terms found in other grammars are explained.