Considering CL 1699, is there enough evidence to correct the attestation of copt, –ă (1887, DLR)?
Considering CL 1699, is there enough evidence to correct the attestation of copt, –ă (1887, DLR)?

Summary/Abstract: In 1699, translating from Greek a text by Maxim the Peloponnesian, Antim Ivireanul uses a word that, at first glance, coincides with a neologism attested in Romanian no sooner than the end of the 19th century, as a French loan: copt, –ă, ‘Locuitor [...] al Egiptului, descinzând din vechile secte creștine ale Euticheenilor’ [Inhabitant (...) of Egypt, descending from the ancient Chris- tian sects of the Euticheens]. In order to answer the question in the title, the author had to conduct a semantic analysis of the corresponding word in the Greek source-text, i.e. κóπται (and also its etymology), since, for the period when Maxim the Peloponnesian writes, the Greek lexicography indicates only the existence of the ancient form κóπτης (pl. κóπται), derivative of the verb κóπ(τω) –της ‘to cut, to strike’. The study leads towards an affirmative answer, and might also cast a new light on the language dynamics of the post-byzantine era.

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