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Comment by thriftwy | Hacker News Reader

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Modern Egyptians are, as far as I'm aware, descended from Ancient Egyptians, and likely the majority of the population has been Coptic for millennia. Yes, the ruling class has shifted from Egyptian to Macedonian to Roman to Arab to various Turkic groups before shifting to Egyptian Arabic. But the modern culture is a fusion of the Coptic culture with the Arab cultures, in much the same way that modern English culture is a fusion of Anglo-Saxon with Norman culture.

It's not the same case as North Macedonia, where it's recognized that the Slavic Macedonians are a separate group that replaced the Hellenic Macedonians (of which Alexander was a part).

Please source your claim. My understanding is that there was no large-scale genetic replacement, and the Coptic language (descendant of the ancient Egyptian language) was widely spoken until the 18th century or so (it's a strictly liturgical language now). There has been plenty of ethnic and cultural mixing, of course, as in most places (Christianization, Arabization, etc.).

> came there much later.

Came there from where? Genetic tests show that modern day Egyptians (both Christians and Muslims) are still largely related to ancient Egyptians.

> Egypt has little claim to Ancient Egyptian heritage, essentially the same amount that North Macedonia has towards Alexander the Great. Different people of unrelated culture who came there much later

What with these kinds of claims popping up on HN all the time whenever an Ancient Egyptian related theme comes up.

Copts (Christian Egyptians who still use a form of Ancient Egyptian as their litigurical language) and Muslim Egyptians are genetically indistinguishable, and have been living side by side for generations.

Islam is a religion, and "Arab" is a linguistic identity that is still in the process of forming into a truly ethnic identity despite Khalil Gibran's (a Lebanese Christian American) efforts in the early 20th century.

This is how a Kurd can become the symbol of Arab nationalism (Saladin), a Central Asian Persian the symbol of Islamic science (Al-Khwazrimi), and a Iberian Jew one of the premier physicians and philosophers (Maimonides).

As a Copt, thank you for eloquently saying what I was about to say. Genetic tests explicitly show that Egyptians as a whole are still very closely related to Ancient Egyptians based on mummy DNA samples. I don't understand how people can confidently parrot this whole "modern day Egyptians are Arab colonizers" trope when the peoples of the Arabiab peninsula STILL EXIST and are genetically different from Egyptians.

No problem!

> I don't understand how people can confidently parrot this whole "modern day Egyptians are Arab colonizers" trope

At best ignorance. At worst Western ethnocentrism and racism.

" "Arab" is a linguistic identity that is still in the process of forming into a truly ethnic identity despite Khalil Gibran's (a Lebanese Christian American) efforts in the early 20th century"

Can you elaborate?

Ethnolinguistic identities only arose in the 19th century, due to rising literacy rates, proto-globalization, and post-Revolution France and America. Before that, identity was primarily based on religion or clan.

While the Revolutions of 1848 failed, it sparked the rise of the idea of "Popular Sovreignity" and "Nationalism", and played a direct role in sparking nationalist movements like in Germany (Bismarck), Italy (Garibaldi), etc.

It was in this milleu that Arab as an identity also started to arise, as opposition to the Ottoman Empire.

I recommend reading "Nationalism and the State" by John Breuilly [0] if you want to learn about the rise of nationalism as an ideology.

Also, Arab as a singular identity only started to arise when Khalil Gibran (a Lebanese Christian who immigrated to Boston as a child in the 1890s) began writing and developing contemporary Arab literature.

Like other early 20th century hyphenated American nationalists such as Valera (Ireland), Sun Yatsen (China), Syngman Rhee (Korea), etc he was influenced by the "great men" of the 19th century.

Wilson's 14 points also played a massive role.

[0] - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo361907...

Egypt is an amalgam. Those people stayed and became Egyptians and interbred. That’s like saying Western Europeans have no claim to Western Europe because it was settled by people from the Caucasus who bred with the natives. Or that the British have no claim to the UK because they were taken over by Romans.

> Or that the British have no claim to the UK because they were taken over by Romans.

Aren't the British mostly Saxons and Angles? Hence the name England, from 'Angelnen'.

Ultimately though, not sure it matters much now, a thousand years later.

That’s just like the Egyptian argument above. What are the Angles, aren’t they just part Roman?

English people are descended from various admixtures of Anglo-Saxons (various Germanic tribes from modern day Denmark and north Germany), the Britonnic Celts who lived there under the Roman Empire before the empire collapsed and the Anglo-Saxons came, Norsemen (who are hard to genetically distinguish from Anglo-Saxons since they come from very similar North Germanic populations separated by only a few centuries; at any rate they conquered a large chunk of northern England that became known as the “Danelaw”) and possibly Normans (who were also Norsemen with maybe some admixture from the other populations in they ruled over in Normandy, though I’m not sure how large of a population transfer came along with that particular conquest compared with the others).

The Britonnic Celts in the western highlands of the former Roman Britain were not easily or immediately conquered by the Anglo-Saxons. Hence, the Anglo-Saxon name for Britonnic Celts eventually became the modern English word “Welsh”. Though note that the Anglo-Saxon term “Wealh” would not have merely referred to the people of modern Wales in particular; any Britonnic Celt was a “Wealh”, hence the other Celtic homeland of Cornwall.

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