_The Coptic Language_ (Vol. ii., pp. 376. 499.).--The reply of HERMAPION
to the questions put by J. E. is scarcely satisfactory. I will endeavour
to answer then more directly. The Coptic language is not an inflected
one; and it has very few affixes. There are many prefixes to its nouns
and verbs, which before the former are articles or demonstrative
pronouns. Between these prefixes and the noun or verb, pronominal
infixes are introduced, by which possession is denoted in the case of a
noun, and the subject in that of a verb. Thus, _ran_ is "a name;"
_pi-ran_, "the name;" _pe-v-ran_, "his name;" _i_, is the verbal root,
"come;" _a_, the prefix of the past tense; and _a-v-i_, "he came." Some
nouns take affixes, as _jo-v_, "his head." Pronominal affixes are also
joined to verbs to express their objects, and to prepositions. In the
old Egyptian language, from which the Coptic is derived, there were more
affixes. I am not aware that infixes have been met with in inscriptions
prior to the eighteenth dynasty; and those which are in use are the same
as the affixes which annexed to nouns denote possession, and to verbs
the subject. The old Egyptian affixes which denoted the object of the
verb, are in general different. _En-v-tu_ would be "he bringeth thee;"
and _en-ka-su_, "thou bringest him." In Coptic, the former would be
_e-o-en-k;_ the latter, _e-k-en-v_. Probably the Coptic prefixes were
originally auxiliary verbs, or prepositions. The old Egyptian affixes
greatly resemble the Hebrew ones, especially if _s_ be substituted for
the Hebrew _h_; and it is very remarkable that the Assyrio-Babylonian
affixes differ from the Hebrew principally in this same respect. In like
manner, the causative conjugation is formed from the simple one by
prefixing _h_ in Hebrew, but by prefixing _s_ in both Assyrio-Babylonian
and Egyptian. No doubt can then exist as to the old Egyptian language
being Semitic; but the opposition between the Semitic languages and the
Indo-European ones is by no means so great as was formerly supposed.
Relations between them are now clearly to be traced, which prove that
they had a common origin, and that at no distant period.