By way of introduction, the first lecture outlines the situation prior to the emergence of Coptic and the sociolinguistic context in which the latter would take its place. The lecture analyzes the relationship between Demotic (the only commonly used Egyptian language at the time) and Greek, from the time of the Greco-Macedonian conquest of 332 BC, which, apart from a few communities established in ancient times (Greeks of Naucratis or Hellenomphites), introduced Greek on a large scale to Egypt for the first time. By necessity, our analysis is based on written documentation, and therefore focuses primarily on the written use of languages.
Three parameters determine the use of Demotic:
- Ethnicity: demotic papyri are generally written by Egyptians, even if this notion is not always clear-cut, as shown by the examination of a few cases that testify to a cultural mix(UPZ I 148; Dryton archives; W.Chr. 50 or the inscriptions from the necropolis of Nag' el-Hassâya, near Edfou).
- The environment: the temples, less open to Hellenism, favored demotic script and remained until the end the conservatories of this script, which they taught and practiced. It was these temples that produced the last groups of texts in which demotic was still commonly used (notably in Fayoum, Tebtynis, Socnopaiou Nêsos and above all Narmouthis, at the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rdcenturies ). Over time, this link between clergy and demoticism became so organic that the last Theban demotic ostraca from the Roman period can be said to have been made by priests. When the time came to enter the administrative circuit, the Greek language took over, and documentation from the Lagid period clearly reflects this irresistible rise in the power of Greek: Egyptians were increasingly forced to abandon Demotic in their work and adopt Greek.
- The nature of the documents, and in particular their degree of involvement in the administrative apparatus: while the use of Demotic is taken for granted for a private letter between two Egyptians or a document addressed to priestly circles, it is outlawed for texts addressed to the supra-village and obviously central administration.
This picture is anything but static. After highlighting the great linguistic capillarity that characterized the early Lagid period, we can only be struck by the gradual erosion of Demotic until its disappearance in the 3rdcentury AD.
