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The word Copt signifies the natives of Egypt as a nationality, and in popular common culture in Egypt it is used to specifically signify Christian Egyptians, although its use to mean Egyptian is not unwitnessed.
Etymology
The English word Copt is from New Latin Coptus, which is derived from Arabic Qupt قبط, an arabisation of the Coptic word Gyptias, which in turn is derived from the Greek word Aigyptios (Αιγύπτιος) meaning Egyptian, from Aigyptos (Αίγυπτος), the Greek name for Egypt; originally from an older Egyptian name for Egypt; probably Keme.
The significance
Before the Arab invasion of Egypt in the 7th century, the word Copt was used to refer to the natives of the Nile valley in Egypt regardless of their religions; from Christians, and followers of the earlier Hellenic religions, and what existed before these of native Egyptian religion. From it also derives the name of the Coptic language, which is the form the Egyptian language (or to be more accurate, the writing system) that it reached in that time.
After Christianity, the word gained a new meaning as it signified the Egyptian Church as opposed to other national churches of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Armenian church, and the Greek Orthodox Church. After the arrival of Islam in Egypt, however, the word acquired the significance of Christian, because in those days all Christians were native Egyptians, and at the same time all Muslims were exclusively Arabs.
It is unlikely, however, that Egyptians before the Arab invasion used this word or any derivative of it to signify the state of either being Egyptian or Christian. It appears that nowhere in the long history of written Egyptian language (hieroglyphic, hieratic, demotic, or Coptic) are there any reference describing the people as 'Copts'.
It was proposed that the Greek word Aigyptos is derived from the Egyptian name of Memphis HwtKaPtah (or HetKaPtah) meaning the Place of the spirit of Ptah, as it was a principal city for the worship of Ptah in the delta. However, a more probable origin of the Greek word might be the word 'Keme' which Egyptians used to refer to their land, meaning the Black Land, distinguishing it from the reddish-yellow desert surrounding it. Egyptians subsequently called themselves Niremnkhem, which means men of the Black Land.
The theory that the Arabic word 'Qupt', from which the English word is derived through New Latin (probably via French) was an arabisation of the Greek name of the town of Coptos Κοπτος is generally no longer accepted.
The Arabic name for Egypt Misr مصر, is derived from the Semitic root MṣR (and all other so-called "Semitic" languages), meaning 'country' or 'state'.
Egyptian nationalists have strived to have the word Coptic regain its original meaning as a signifier of Egyptian Nationality regardless of religion.
Related Words
- From the Greek name Aigyptos, the name for Egypt in many European languages was derived.
- From the name of the people and the country, the Arabs derived the word Qabati قباطي, a kind of textile that they used to import from Egypt, and which was used to cover the Kaaba, since before Islam.
- The English word Gipsy is derived from the Middle English egypcien which means Egyptian. Likewise, the Spanish word Gitano, also meaning Gipsy, derives from the same Latin source. This is due to a misconception in the middle ages that Gipsies were of Egyptian origin.
- In modern Egyptian Arabic, the word koftes (plural: kafatsa) which is used colloquially to refer to Christians in a way that may be perceived by some as being decretory, is likely an Egyptianised, rearabised form of the Latin Coptus, under phonetic and linguistic factors different from those which existed when Qupt was derived from Greek Aigyptios.
See also
External Links
In Search of the Lost Egyptian Identity (http://www.st-peter-st-paul-coptic-orthodox-church.org/copt.html)
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