One of the ancient Egyptian names of the country, km.t, or "black land", is derived from the fertile black soils deposited by the Nile floods, distinct from the 'red land' (dSr.t) of the desert. The name is realized as kī mi and kī mə in the Coptic stage of the Egyptian language, and appeared in early Greek as Χ η μ ί α (Kymeía).

Miṣ r, the Arabic and modern official name of Egypt (Egyptian Arabic: Maṣ r), is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מ ִ צ ְ ר ַ י ִ ם (Mitzráyim), literally meaning "the two straits" (a reference to the dynastic separation of upper and lower Egypt).^[6] The word originally connoted "metropolis" or "civilization" and also means "country", or "frontier-land".

The English name "Egypt" came via the Latin word Aegyptus derived from the ancient Greek word Α ί γ υ π τ ο ς (Aigyptos). The term was adopted into Coptic as gyptios, and from there into Arabic as qubt (whence again English Copt). It has been suggested that the word is a corruption of the ancient Egyptian phrase ḥ wt-k3-ptḥ meaning "home of the Ka (Soul) of Ptah", the name of a temple of the god Ptah at Memphis. According to Strabo, Α ί γ υ π τ ο ς (Aigyptos), in ancient Greek meant "below the Aegean" (Aἰ γ α ί ο υ ὑ π τ ί ω ς , Aegaeon uptiō s").

Info created by AbdelRahman on Jun 24, 2007 @ 20:41