Languages of Egypt Coptic, and form a separate branch among the family of Afro-Asiatic languages. The Egyptian language is among the first written languages, and is known from hieroglyphic inscriptions preserved on monuments and sheets of papyrus. The Coptic language, the only extant descendant of Egyptian, is today the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church. The "Koiné" dialect of the Greek language was important in Hellenistic Alexandria, and was used in the philosophy and science of that culture, and was also studied by later Arabic scholars. Languages of Egypt There are a number of languages spoken in Egypt, but Egyptian Arabic or
Languages of Egypt the Red Sea. Some 234,000 (2004) Dom speak the Domari language (an Indo-Aryan language related to Romany) and are concentrated north of Cairo and in Luxor. About 30,000 Egyptian Berbers living in the Siwa oasis and its surroundings speak Siwi Berber, which is a variety of the Berber language of North Africa. Siwi Berber is well mutually intelligible with Libyan Berber dialects. In ancient times, the population of western Egypt was probably made of Berber-speaking tribes. Immigrants and their descendants mainly speak Greek, Armenian, Italian, or also more recently African languages like Amharic and Tigrigna. Egypt was occupied by the