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The first European to make sense of Coptic was a German [[Jesuit]] and [[polymath]], [[Athanasius Kircher]], in the mid-seventeenth century.{{sfn|Iversen|1993|p=93}} Basing his work on Arabic grammars and dictionaries of Coptic acquired in Egypt by an Italian traveller, [[Pietro Della Valle]], Kircher produced flawed but pioneering translations and grammars of the language in the 1630s and 1640s. He guessed that Coptic was derived from the language of the ancient Egyptians, and his work on the subject was preparation for his ultimate goal, decipherment of the hieroglyphic script.{{sfn|Hamilton|2006|pp=201, 205–210}}
According to the standard biographical dictionary of [[Egyptology]], "Kircher has become, perhaps unfairly, the symbol of all that is absurd and fantastic in the story of the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs".{{sfn|Bierbrier|2012|p=296}} Kircher thought the Egyptians had believed in an [[prisca theologia|ancient theological tradition]] that preceded and foreshadowed Christianity, and he hoped to understand this tradition through hieroglyphs.{{sfn|Hamilton|2006|pp=226–227}} Like his Renaissance predecessors, he believed hieroglyphs represented an abstract form of communication rather than a language. To translate such a system of communication in a self-consistent way was impossible.{{sfn|Stolzenberg|2013|pp=198–199, 224–225}} Therefore, in his works on hieroglyphs, such as ''[[Oedipus Aegyptiacus]]'' (1652–1655), Kircher proceeded by guesswork based on his understanding of [[Ancient Egyptian religion|ancient Egyptian beliefs]], derived from the Coptic texts he had read and from ancient texts that he thought contained traditions derived from Egypt.{{sfn|Iversen|1993|pp=95–96, 98}} His translations turned short texts containing only a few hieroglyphic characters into lengthy sentences of esoteric ideas.{{sfn|Stolzenberg|2013|p=203}} Unlike earlier European scholars, Kircher did realise that hieroglyphs could function phonetically,{{sfn|El-Daly|2005|p=58}} though he considered this function a late development.{{sfn|Stolzenberg|2013|p=203}} He also recognised one hieroglyph, 𓈗, as representing water and thus standing phonetically for the Coptic word for water, ''mu'', as well as the ''m'' sound. He became the first European to correctly identify a phonetic value for a hieroglyph.{{sfn|Iversen|1993|pp=96–97}}
Although Kircher's basic assumptions were shared by his contemporaries, most scholars rejected or even ridiculed his translations.{{sfn|Stolzenberg|2013|pp=227–230}} Nevertheless, his argument that Coptic was derived from the ancient Egyptian language was widely accepted.{{sfn|Iversen|1993|pp=98–99}}
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