Translation
Egyptian (person)
Word origin
From Latin Aegyptius, from Greek Aigyptos, the Greek name for the country. The Greek name is usually traced to the Egyptian Hut-ka-Ptah, the temple precinct of Ptah at Memphis, which Greek sailors took for the name of the whole land. The same word, worn down through Arabic, gives Copt.
- Origin
- Greek, via Latin
- Root
- Aigyptos
- English cognates
- Egypt, Coptic
Examples
.
The Egyptian showed us the old tomb.
.
Many Egyptians work in the big city by the river.
.
She is Egyptian and speaks Arabic.
is the person, not the place. Esperanto's rule here is the opposite of English's: the bare root names the people, and the country is built from it with -i- or --, so an lives in Egiptio (or o, the older form Zamenhof used). English does it the other way round, deriving Egyptian from Egypt, and that reversal catches nearly everyone once. The full pattern, with the -i- versus -- versus -land- argument that Esperantists have been having since 1905, is set out in countries and peoples.
The word is a common noun and takes no capital: the way you write [](//words/) and [](//words/). Only the country name Egiptio gets a capital letter. For the adjective, add -a: egipta , an Egyptian museum. And because the root is the person rather than the nation, o is available for an Egyptian woman without any further machinery.
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egipto: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "egipto" (Egyptian (person)): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 38.