What conclusions can be drawn from the sources examined above regarding the sociology of the first users of Coptic (3rd-4thcenturies ) ? First and foremost, they were Egyptians of the Christian faith, or of a form of Christianity (the Manichaeans of Kellis), in other words, professing a religion at odds with the surrounding paganism. Egyptian paganism was based on texts written in hieroglyphic, hieratic or demotic script. Egyptian Christianity was to consummate its break with paganism by developing a new written medium of its own, turning its back on the old scriptural traditions dating back to Pharaonic Egypt, the thought they conveyed and the turn of mind that conditioned them. Admittedly, the idea of using the Greek alphabet, enriched with a few additional signs, to write down Egyptian was born in the circles of pagan priests, but the continuity between Old Coptic and Coptic is purely formal: Old Coptic was no more than a graphic expedient, rendering a written language petrified in its tradition, whereas Coptic aimed to become a lingua franca, a language of communication, understandable by all.
Coptic's early users were also characterized by their close ties with the Hellenic tradition. If Old Coptic is a product of Egyptian paganism, Coptic can legitimately be considered a product of Egyptian Hellenism, despite a certain view that makes it a competitor of the latter. This Hellenism is evident first and foremost in its script: not only does it borrow the graphic style typical of a certain type of Greek bookshop production (the so-called " capital " script), but, unlike Old Coptic, it integrates the few additional letters derived from Demotic into the Greek graphic system, giving them a form analogous to that of Greek letters of similar appearance. He also appropriated the diacritical marks of Greek writing. The study of some of these signs in the earliest Coptic texts (the umlaut, the apostrophe, the highlight conferring a syllabic value on certain consonants) has convinced us that Coptic is an invention of Hellenographers for individuals who, at least originally, were above all Hellenographers. Finally, after writing, it's the Coptic lexicon that is striking for its strongly Greek character (around 20 % Greek borrowings), testifying to a Hellenization that goes beyond everyday vocabulary or documentary practice, but touches the very backbone of the Coptic language and draws its sources from frequenting literature, to the point of giving the impression that these early users were driven by the desire to display their Greek culture in the language they were developing.
