[Editorial note: [...] indicates use of Coptic, Hebrew, Greek,
Aramaic, Akkadian, or Demotic Greek text. Original script is
available for viewing in the PDF format of this article.]
VOCABULARY OF SEMITIC ORIGIN, AUTO-CHTHONOUS COPTIC. Every
country has relations with its neighbors (commercial relations,
military relations, mainly when it is conquered, etc.), and in
the course of time its language adopts foreign words. Egypt is
no exception to this rule. At a relatively recent epoch of their
history, the autochthonous Egyptians adopted a great number of
Greek words (among them a certain number of Greco-Latin origin),
and, later on, some Arabic words (see VOCABULARY, COPTO GREEK
and VOCABULARY, COPTO-ARABIC). But even the Egyptian vocabulary
of the pharaonic period, which later became Coptic and is
considered autochthonous with regard to these Greek and Arabic
additions, is not entirely homogeneous, as attentive
etymological studies reveal. Several components may be
distinguished, such as an old Semitic layer t