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Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

> 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).

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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...

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