Coptic is the main surviving descendant of the ancient Egyptian language.
Coptic developed from the later stages of Egyptian and was written mainly with a modified Greek alphabet supplemented by several letters from Demotic Egyptian. It became especially important in Christian Egypt, where it served as the language of Coptic religious literature and worship.
The language’s major dialects included Sahidic and Bohairic. Sahidic was prominent in Upper Egypt and medieval literary writing, while Bohairic became the principal liturgical dialect of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Coptic gradually lost ground as Arabic spread after the Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century.
Coptic is not the same as Arabic, although the two languages influenced one another after Arabic became dominant. Coptic survives primarily in church services, prayers, and religious study rather than as a community’s everyday vernacular. Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieratic, Demotic, and Coptic represent successive stages or writing traditions connected with the long history of Egyptian.