Two Coptic Homographs and the Missing Link in the Etymology of et-Tôd
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Frederic Krueger
Summary
The commonly accepted etymology of the Arabic toponym et-Tôd as being directly descended from Ḏrtj is diagnosed as incomplete and complemented by a missing intermediate stage: (p') T(w)t(we) = ⲡⲧⲟⲩⲱⲧ, a pseudetymology “the Chapel/Temple” is first attested in a Demotic inscription of the Ptolemaic period and again in two Coptic ostraca of the 6th century CE, probably referring to the temple of et-Tôd and born of a desire to make new sense of the better attested variant ⲧⲟⲟⲩⲧ in which the original etymology was no longer recognizable. Ongoing coexistence of both forms might also explain Arabic variations. The etymology of et-Tôd furthermore shows that two distinct Demotic words for “image” and for “chapel/temple” survive but are obscured by their identical spelling in Coptic as ⲧⲟⲩⲱⲧ, which dictionaries have identified only with the former.
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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- Two Coptic Homographs and the Missing Link in the Etymology of et-Tôd
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Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- The Lists of Necropolis Workmen in Theban Graffiti and Ostraca of the 21st Dynasty.
- Summe seiner Teile?
- Die Berliner Lederhandschrift
- Das Uschebti H 219 im Badischen Landesmuseum und die Chronologie der memphitischen Bürgermeister der 19. Dynastie
- Not a Babe, Certainly not a Mouth
- Two Coptic Homographs and the Missing Link in the Etymology of et-Tôd
- Ay, Neferti, Nakhtmin and Ameny
- The Ritual of “Encircling the Tomb” in the Funerary Monument of Djehuty (TT 11)
