Coptic grammarian Bentley Layton has a new book, _Coptic in 20
Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic With Exercises &
Vocabularies_ (Peeters Leuven, 2007)

In this book on page 7, Layton diagrams Coptic John 1:1c literally as:

auw ne. u.noute pe p.Saje
And past tense marker- a-god is the-Word

He also provides the traditional English definite rendering "And the
Word was God." But the traditional English rendering is at variance
with the literal Coptic indefinite translation, which is clearly "And
the Word was a god." (Or, "the Word was divine/godlike" etc.)

On page 34 of his grammar, Layton observes that Coptic *ou.noute pe*
could signal adjectively "he is divine." But when referring to
entities, Layton writes, the translation would be "he is a god."

Layton has been called "the man" of Coptic studies. I purchased his
new book 2 weeks ago, and have a review of it at Amazon.com

Solomon