ϭⲟⲓⲥ is not attested

[remnqymi]

I can see the form ϭⲟⲓⲥ under C7376. Where is this coming from?

⳪ and ⲟ̅ⲥ̅ are the only Bohairic forms attested in Crum. The traditional spelling should be ϭⲱⲓⲥ given the Sahidic ϫⲟⲉⲓⲥ. ϭⲱⲓⲥ can also be seen e.g. here.

Modern ecclesiastical books use ϭⲟⲓⲥ, because people were unsure how ⳪ should be spelled out, but this an error.

[amir-zeldes]

Thanks for raising this issue. From a technical perspective, the form comes from Coptic Scriptorium Bohairic data in which that spelling is used as the normalized form of the word in a text. Looking at the sources by text, it looks like all of them come from either the Old Testament or New Testament corpus, which was sourced from the Marcion project, and I believe goes back to a digitization effort by Hany Takla of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite society.

As for the correctness of the form, I actually have no idea - Crum lists neither omicron nor omega as an attested Bohairic form, so that does not give us information. Etymologically it is a deverbal noun from ϫⲓⲥⲉ, so I'm not sure why it should have a long vowel - I assume the text in the image from Lagarde is also just his own normalization, not diplomatic, right?

If the form ϭⲟⲓⲥ is actually in use but is etymologically incorrect, there may still be value in listing it, since people might look for it or find it in various texts. We could try to list both, but I would like to understand better where the reconstruction with omega comes from if it is always abbreviated in historical Bohairic MSS and not attested with omega in any dialect. I also noticed Crum lists a nomen sacrum form ϭ︤ⲟ︥ⲥ with chima and omicron, which seem interesting, but admittedly not for Bohairic. Adding @dwerning in case he has an opinion from the TLA perspective and @ctschroeder regarding the Marcion/Takla edition provenance perspective. Is there an older print version that the digitized material is based on? I checked and it has omicron in the oldest original digital data we received from Milan, never omega.