The term _Coptic_ is applied to the Egyptian language as spoken and written by Christian people and in Christian times. It is derived from the earliest Arabic conquerors of Egypt, who speak of their native Christian subjects as Copts. No instance of this appellation is found in native Coptic writers, with one very late and doubtful exception (Zoega, Catal., p. 648). Whence they obtained this designation, has been a subject of much discussion. Several theories which have been broached to explain the word will be found in J. S. Assemani, Della Nazione dei Copti, &c., p. 172 (printed in Mai, Script. Vet. Coll., V. P. 2), and in Quatremère, Recherches Critiques et Historiques sur la Langue et la Littérature de l’Égypte, Paris, 1808, p. 30 sq. A very obvious and commonly adopted derivation is that which connects it with the town Coptos in Upper Egypt; but as this place was not at that time prominent or representative, and did not lie directly across the path of the Arab invaders, no sufficient reason appears why it should have been singled out as a designation of the whole country. In earlier ages, however, it seems to have been a much more important place, both strategically and commercially (_see_ Brugsch, Die Geographie des alten Ägyptens, i. p. 200; Egypt under the Pharaohs, i. p. 212 sq., Eng. trans.). Even as late as the Roman epoch Strabo (xvii. p. 815) describes it as “a city with a mixed population of Egyptians and Arabians” (πόλιν κοινὲν Αἰγυπτίων τε καὶ Ἀράβων), and elsewhere (xvi. p. 781) he mentions it as a station of Egyptian traffic with Arabia and India. Possibly therefore this Arabic name for the Egyptians is a survival of those early times. On the whole, however, it seems more probable that the Arabic word is a modification of the Greek Αἰγύπτιος (Schwartze, Das alte Aegypten, i. p. 956). [And this derivation seems now to be generally accepted, the Greek word αἰγύπτιος being represented in Coptic by ⲄⲨⲠⲦⲒⲞⲤ, or ⲔⲨⲠⲦⲀⲒⲞⲤ, whence came _Qibt_ (the common form) and our _Coptic_. (Stern, Koptische Grammatik, p. 1.)]