Proudly I am A Copt!

Before going any further in my subject I would like to remind you I am a Copt, with Greek, Egyptian Bloods, why I mentioned Greek first because until almost the age of 10 years old Greek was the only language I used to know and speak; My 1st ever primary school was a Greek private small school in the bottom of an old building is Ramses Street. An apartment of 6 spacious rooms, but only 5 were for the school as the headmistress occupied a room it was for her own residence. The Greek society in Egypt after the revolution of July 1952 shrank as people fled the country not feeling secure specially after the seizure and converting lots of private sector successful businesses to public sector and their owners become managers or got some monetary compensations. For a lot of them successful business owners would not accept to work as a manager in the business he created so he would prefer a monetary compensation and leave the country to start a new business in a safer environment. More people fled the country after the 1956 war in Egypt, not only Greeks, but Italians and French as well and British before that too.

 

That is why my primary school that used to occupy the whole bottom level of that building (2 apartments) shrank to just one! There my headmistress of the school one days gave as a lesson I never understood it’s purpose until later and now I just recall this lesson to emphasise my point to be discussed. 

 

The Lesson 

I was in the 6th grade few months from graduation and never see again that school or teachers in it; I reached as usual in the morning to find unusual moves and scenery… A chair on its side on the ground over a card board and on top of the chair some books and other stuff like if someone was trying to put weight on the chair to hold the card board underneath,but why?

 

I did not had to ask lots of my fellow pupils said without asking …Under this card board a mouse we are waiting on the house guardian to come and kill it and get rid of the body!! And soon the guy in traditional popular dress come did what was expected to do; he took the mouse or what was left of it and left so we could gradually go back to our class rooms to start an unusual day! We were all excited to tell stories and talk until the headmistress finally stepped in to the classroom to impose some order, one look from her over the viewing glasses was enough to freeze any one! Soon a pupils from the next classroom showed up telling the headmistress “An Arab Outside looking for you” he was as young as a 4th grade child but the headmistress did not spare him her scary look over her glasses –She needed the glasses for reading but would look over the glasses to people in general and used to keep the glasses in a low position close the the bottom of her nose to be able to bypass them looking at people.- The child that delivered the message scared to death from the looks of the headmistress run away back to his classroom and she ordered the older student in the class to see this “Arab” guy would be saying “If it is the guardian that took the mouse out tell thanks and him I’ll speak to him after the class” then looked at as and resumed “We do not have ARABS here this is Egypt, the people of Egypt are Egyptians; Arabs live away in Saudi Arabia and other desert countries not in Egypt, the guy outside is an EGYPTIAN”…

 

For me a 9-10 years old boy who lived with a Greek mother speaking to her in Greek, even his Egyptian father learnt over time few Greek words and would communicate with us inside the house in Greek language; I considered myself as a Greek person who until 12 years old had never seen Arabic or read a single letter of its alphabet! At the time I did not understand the lesson of this great headmistress –R.I.P- but all this come live into my memory when I decided to write this article explaining to people that for some reason are confused in the meaning of the word COPT, Egyptian, Christian Egyptian and Christian Copt!

 

The Meaning of Copt and it’s Origin!

First let me re-iterate what I found on Google while looking for the word COPT and it’s meaning! [Coptic means Egyptian; And origin of the word Egypt is the Coptic word who are(Aakeptus) in the old Coptic language which I never studied and have no idea how to pronounce this Aakeptus but I know Greek, and for sure over the years I noticed lots of similarities between Greek and Coptic languages and one thing is for sure that old old Lessons I emphasised earlier about who are Egyptians in the Greek language Egypt is Αίγυπτος and Egyptian out of the word Αίγυπτος is Αίγυπτιος here pure phonetics suggests Coptis with an E at the beginning as in Greek language the 2 letters joint Αί=E –in phonetics- and the rest of the word γυπτιος sounds exactly GUIPTIOS with differences of dialects and over the years Guiptios become Ciptos or Copt… 

 

I noticed as well that in most sites the meaning of the word Copt is explained according to the site, in English or French or even Arabic and any other language and they never refer to its Coptic Archaic origin which –phonetic wise is not convincing as no similarity between Copt and Egypt or Egypte (in French) and no one refer to the Greek origin of the word Egypt in Greek which for sure explains and demonstrates way better the exact meaning of Copt

 

Why Copts Tend to Ignore the Truth

Now if this is the true meaning of Copt = Egyptian why this deliberate ignorance insisting to call only Christian Egyptians as Copt and the rest of the REAL COPTS who under the strict Islamic Rulers like Moez Le Din Allah the cresiest Khilifa ever who ban foods and imposed oppressive taxes on merchants and Christians –who wanted to keep his religion had to pay additional taxes called Gezya- and wanted to steal the corps of Prophet Mohamed to make from Egypt the pilgrim holy land and was about to call him self God representative on earth! So Muslim Copts tend to forget their origin as Copts = Egyptians because they are exposed as Unfaithful to either religion they failed –under any excuse- to keep their faith to Christianity, and they did not become Muslims based on real faith so either way they tend to disappear within other Muslims who came from other countries and merged and mixed with Copts=Egyptians so it become almost impossible to tell which Muslim is a real Copt and which one is an outsider who become Egyptian but was never of Coptic origin…