What Is the Greek Word for Egyptian

Posted by

Is fearr an tSanscrait bhriste, ná Laidin cliste

5 years ago

Archived

Egypt is a Greek word meaning "Black." μαύρος

This thread is archived

New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast

level 1

Op · 5y Is fearr an tSanscrait bhriste, ná Laidin cliste

1. Egypt doesn't mean black, it comes from "Hikuptah", which means "the home of the soul of Ptah". If you want to get technical it's not really a Greek word, but a Anglicisation of a French version of a Latin transliteration of a Greek transliteration of an Egyptian word.

2. What catapulted this into bizarre territory for me was the little "μαύρος" at the end, like some kind of triumphant stamp of proof. In the Latin alphabet it's "Mavros", which is just the Greek word for 'black'. I, er, don't quite understand why they included that bit.

level 2

I think I can see how they could have gotten there in good faith. The word Egypt does come from Greek (sorta), and the Egyptian word for Egypt means black. They mixed the two facts, probably because the source was confusing or confused (possibly involving Coptic being written with the Greek alphabet), and probably with some degree of ideological excitement too, and came to their statement here. Then they looked up "black" in Greek and added that but they don't know the Greek alphabet so don't realise how nonsensical it is.

level 2

a Anglicisation of a French version of a Latin transliteration of a Greek transliteration of an Egyptian word.

I love this sort of linguistic Telephone game.

Older Aramaic יְהוֹשֻׁעַ "Yehoshua" becomes Hebrew ישוע "Yeshua" becomes Greek Ἰησοῦς "Iēsoûs" becomes Latin "Iesus" becomes English "Jesus"--meanwhile, other guys in the Bible also named "Yeshua" or "Yehoshua" get transliterated as "Joshua."

level 2

In the Latin alphabet it's "Mavros", which is just the Greek word for 'black'. I, er, don't quite understand why they included that bit.

Maybe it's supposed to sound like "Misr", the modern name for Egypt?

level 2

And how on Earth is "μαύρος" meant to sound like English "Egypt"?

level 2

I really like your flair.

level 2

Dude obviously this means that people living around Egypt had red skin. Who else has red skin ? American Indians. Where are they from ? They're one of the lost tribes of Israel, which is located just across a desert from Egypt. QED.

level 2

· 5y phighting the good phight

For a second I thought the word desert comes from Old Egyptian but sadly it's from Latin deserere :(

level 1

This weird obsession with Egypt among Afrocentrists baffles me. There were so many great empires in Africa, empires that were actually black like those of the Benin, Ethiopians, Mali but they choose to focus on the one non-black one.

level 2

· 5y كان هوميروس حمارٌ

Or Egypt's neighbor Nubia.

level 2

Aren't there other places that have pyramids as well? Weren't ancient Egyptians mixed raced? I read that cleopatra was Sub-Saharan, Greek and Asian? Lol all these questions.

level 1

You guys should troll Instagram more often for Afrocentric posts. They are a gold mine

level 2

I remember seeing one saying the original samurai were black, or something to that effect.

Black Samurai sounds like a pretty awesome 80s blacksploitation movie though

level 1

· 5y كان هوميروس حمارٌ

Why do people forget the Nubians existed?

level 1

egyptian people aren't even black, they're brown/middle eastern

What Is the Greek Word for Egyptian

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/badlinguistics/comments/4sa50e/egypt_is_a_greek_word_meaning_black_%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82/

Share this post