Lord's Prayer in Coptic

What it means in English

That, our-father who-is-in the-heavens; let-it-be-hallowed (namely) your-name; let-it-come (namely) your-kingdom; that-which-is-your-will let-it-happen as in the-heaven and upon the-earth; our-bread of tomorrow give it to-us today; and forgive the-things-that-are-ours to-us away; as also we-forgive away to-those-who have (a-debt) toward-us; and do-not bring-us into the-temptation; but save-us away from the-evil-one.

Other wordings you may see

A few things worth knowing

• Coptic is written in the Coptic alphabet — the Greek letters plus a handful of extra letters (ϣ, ϥ, ϧ, ϩ, ϫ, ϭ, ϯ) borrowed from Demotic Egyptian for sounds Greek could not write. It is not written in Greek or Arabic letters.
• This is the Bohairic dialect, the liturgical standard of the Coptic Orthodox Church and what most people mean by 'the Lord's Prayer in Coptic.' The Sahidic dialect (the main literary dialect of the first millennium) phrases several words differently, e.g. Sahidic begins Ⲡⲉⲛⲉⲓⲱⲧ ⲉⲧ ϩⲛ ⲙⲡⲏⲩⲉ.
• The recited form opens with the particle Ϫⲉ (je), a genuine Coptic feature meaning roughly 'saying/that' that introduces the words being spoken. It has no equivalent in the Greek (Πάτερ ἡμῶν) or Latin (Pater noster) and is part of how the prayer is printed and said in the Coptic Orthodox rite.
• The Coptic word for 'daily bread,' ⲡⲉⲛⲱⲓⲕ ⲛ̀ⲧⲉ ⲣⲁⲥϯ, literally means 'our bread of tomorrow / of the coming day' — the Coptic translators read the difficult Greek word ἐπιούσιος as 'of the coming day,' which is why the literal gloss says 'bread of tomorrow' rather than simply 'daily.'
• The main text shown ends at 'deliver us from the evil one.' The doxology ('For thine is the kingdom...') is liturgically standard in the Coptic Orthodox rite and is shown separately in its own section and as a variant, because in the manuscript tradition it is a distinct closing unit.
• The small marks over certain letters (called the jinkim) (e.g. ⲛ̀, ⲙ̀, ⲉ̀) mark syllable structure and elided vowels; they are part of correct Bohairic orthography but are sometimes dropped in casual typesetting.
• Two pronunciations exist: the older 'Old Bohairic'/scholarly reconstruction and the Greco-Bohairic pronunciation reformed in the 19th century and used in most churches today. The guide above leans toward the liturgical reading; scholarly pronunciation differs on several vowels.

How the Coptic differs from the Greek and Latin

The Coptic is a translation from the Greek, so the bones of the prayer are the same — but Coptic grammar reshapes it. Verbs like 'hallowed be' and 'thy kingdom come' use the Coptic optative prefix ⲙⲁⲣⲉ- (mare-, 'let it…'), and the subject is reintroduced with the particle ⲛ̀ϫⲉ (nje), so a line reads literally 'let-it-be-hallowed, namely your name.' And where the Greek ἐπιούσιος puzzles translators, the Coptic simply commits to 'our bread of tomorrow.' Reading the Coptic alongside the Greek is one of the clearest windows into how the early Egyptian church heard this prayer.

Why Bohairic, and not Sahidic

Two main dialects of Coptic carry the Lord's Prayer. Sahidic was the great literary dialect of Upper Egypt in the first millennium and is what most scholars learn first. Bohairic, from the Nile Delta, became the language of the Coptic Orthodox liturgy and is still chanted in churches today. Because someone searching for 'the Lord's Prayer in Coptic' almost always wants the version they would hear in church, this page leads with Bohairic. See the Sahidic page for the older literary form.