Demographics of Egypt of Egypt. There are also sizable minorities of Beja and Dom. The country was host to many different communities during the colonial period, including Greeks, Italians, Lebanese, Syro-Lebanese, Jews, Armenians, Turks and Albanians, though most either left or were compelled to leave after political developments in the 1950s. The country still hosts some 90,000 refugees and asylum seekers, mostly Palestinians and Sudanese. Other sources give more detailed statistics, including the Beja (ca. 1 million), the Nubians (ca. 300,000 in 1996), Dom (ca. 230,000 in 1996), Berbers (Siwis) (ca. 5,000). Arabic is the official language of Egypt, with the vast majority
Coptic language Coptic language Coptic, or Coptic Egyptian (Bohairic: "ti.met.rem.ən.kēmi" and Sahidic: "t.mənt.rəm.ən.kēme"), is the latest stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century as an official language. Egyptian began to be written in the Coptic alphabet, an adaptation of the Greek alphabet with the addition of six or seven signs from Demotic to represent Egyptian sounds the Greek language did not have, in the 1st century AD. Several distinct Coptic dialects are identified, the most prominent of which are "Sahidic", originating in parts of Upper Egypt, and "Bohairic", originally from the