Talk:Egypt

They mention that there are Europeans in Egypt such as Greek, Italian and Armenian. Armenian? Last time I check Armenia was in Middle East, east of Turkey to be precise. Which means that if you are from Middle East, you are European, which in turns means that everyone in Egypt is European. Well, one may say that Armenians speak an Indo European language. Iranians, Kurds, Pakistani, Hindu, Pashtuns, and other non Europeans speak Indo European languages. Are they all Europeans too? I don't know why people even such nonsense.

Hey, I really think this article is written badly. "Every green plant is watered by the nile" sounds really stupid. And that one picture of people with the caption "egyptians are one of the most diverse peoples in the middle east" sounds stupid. Its probably some guy who wanted to post a picture of his friends in wikipedia.

Please feel free to improve the article. This is a wiki, after all. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 21:53, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I nuked the "diverse people" picture and replaced it with the Sphinx. --Isewell 02:57, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Widely spoken languages

How is Coptic a widely spoken language when its wikipedia page lists it as dead?--Abdousi 23:39, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Widely spoken? No. Dead? Pretty much. Probably less than 5% of the population sees/hears it. It's religious usage has sort of helped define the Coptic community, but Egyptian Arabic is what people use.

Vector4F 06:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Ayman Nour

Err.. I don't know how active this page is, but I made a stubby article on Ayman Nour. It would be cool if more knowledgable parties than myself took a look and filled it out a bit? Graft 16:59, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Full name lost in recent rounds of vandalism

In recent bank-and-forth vandalism and reverts, we appear to have lost al-ˁArabiyah from the sidebar and the adjective "Arab" from "Arab Republic of Egypt". I'm assuming that was vandal-doings (think I'd have seen something in the papers if Egypt had changed its name) so I'm putting it back. Perhaps someone who watches this article a bit more closely than I do could check it for other inconsistencies over the past month or so? Thanks, –Hajor 23:12, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

audio link

It certainly is spam, have a look at the sheer bulk of the anon's contribs. It might be a useful link despite that, but it should at least go in the external links. However, I don't think it's an appropriate link. It's an interview with an author who wrote about egypt. That's about as tangential as it gets. The external links are supposed to provide additional information about egypt that are relevant yet not contained in this article, which I don't think the interview counts as. The fact that it's audio instead of text doesn't help either in my opinion. see also --W(t) 07:26, 2005 Jun 7 (UTC)

It's an interesting interview on an interesting work, about interesting discoveries. But point taken. El_C 18:48, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Traveling to egypt

I'm traveling to egypt soon and i wonder if anyone had any recomdations of what to do, see and stay away from. Going on a 2 week tour (down to luxor and going to Aswan, Red Sea and cario. Making our way up to Cario by a cruise) any suggestions are welcome. tks

Loughlin 16:45, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

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Don't drink out of the glasses. They aren't cleaned well. I drank with a glass ond became very sick.

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Wikify

Anyone volunteering to wikify the table would be greatly appreciated. I've written a tool to translate the Infobox template to one in Afrikaans, as I'm busy populating the list of countries in the Afrikaans wikipedia. Unfortunately the Egypt article doesn't use the standard template yet, making my translation tool break. I could do it, but I'll rather move on to Equitorial Guineau - the Afrikaans wikipedia needs all the help it can get :) Greenman 21:09, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Article ripped off

From what I can tell the entire CIA World Factbook article has been lifted word-for-word and put here. I think that's all considered public domain, but it'd be nice to at least cite them as a source.

Done (though I personally wouldn't have said it was "ripped off"). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 18:20, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

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So, basically, this article was plagerized. Oh, my.

Demographics: contradiction

The second paragraph of the "Demographics" section says "the Egyptians are a fairly homogenous people" and then a few sentences later says that "The bulk of Modern Egyptian society are heterogeneous." Which is it? The entire paragraph really should be cleaned up; I'm led to think that someone out there is fixated on race and/or ethnicity (this may not be the case at all, but that's the impression I'm given). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 18:02, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I found nearly the same paragraph at Demographics of Egypt, but without the contradictions, grammatical mistakes, etc. I have pasted in this paragraph plus one other. I also removed the {{Contradict}} tag. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 04:37, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Precisely, Gyrofrog. I've made some changes in that regard, because I've always heard about the Fellahin and how the population of Egypt's countryside differs dramatically from that of the Arabized cities. I did a little research and added what I found. So far, though User: Zerida seems intent on obliterating the info -- even though it aligns perfectly with the information you point out was already there. My additions, I think, bring the article a little more in line w/reality. Egypt watchers long have known about the Fellahin as a marginalized population in Egypt that has been looked down upon for centuries. Deeceevoice 21:53, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The Fellahin, race, color and class in Egyptian society

My edits have been reverted, but subsequent information I intend to introduce will point out that Egypt is not homogeneous. In fact, the information in the article is contradictory. The Fellahin are the faultline in the Egyptian society. The propaganda about one, big, happy, family is simply not true. Just as in ancient times, there is an obvious divide between Upper and Lower Egypt, and today that faultline is between the poorer, blacker, indigenous peoples of the land and the Arabized north. Egyptian society is no different from many elsewhere in the world; it is sharply stratified along class and color lines. And Egyptian society, like other societies where Arabs hold sway -- though Arabs are certainly not the only peoples so afflicted -- is deeply racist. This racism is a deeply entrenched part of Arab culture and is manifested in the ongoing slave trade, the atrocities in Dharfur, and the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities' ongoing campaign to whitewash/Arabize dynastic Egypt -- witness the ridiculously whitewashed King Tut reconstruction. Hell, the Egyptian government was so outraged when Columbia Pictures chose African-American actor Louis Gossett, Jr., to portray the late Anwar Sadat (who was clearly a black man and half-Sudanese) in a TV miniseries, that they banned the production in Egypt. When Egypt did its own production, they chose a portly, round-faced, very Arab-looking guy to do the job. He looked nothing like Sadat.

The fact is "fellahin" is considered by many in Egypt to be a pejorative term; it is used as a slur -- not only because of its class implications, but because of its racial implications. In Egypt, as in far too many places elsewhere, dark skin is considered undesirable. Again, the Fellahin comprise a huge portion of Egyptian society, though they remain marginalized. In this respect, Egypt is even less "homogeneous" than many other nations which logically and accurately are considered diverse/divided.

Wikipedia is not the place for simply lifting text/propaganda from other sources and reprinting it here with a word or two changed to skirt concerns of plagiarism. That kind of pap can be gotten anywhere. Time to do some respectable scholarship here, people, and cut the pap. :pDeeceevoice 10:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Deeceevoice. I am Egyptian, and I can say the Egyptians are not homogenous at all. May be they share a lot of social habits, but the looks are different, as well as the skin color,..etc They are a mixed population. Haisook 19:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Just one comment I'm not going to argue racism in Egypt however Fellahin are not dark skinned it is probably Saaida that you meant. And Ahmed Zaki the portrayor of Anwar Sadat is black. Zakaria mohyeldin 03:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

COPTIC IS A DEAD LANGUAGE

For the person who keeps on posting Coptic as an "other widely spoken language", I got news: Coptic is a dead language as indicated on the coptic page. As for Armenian, the number of Armenians barely exceeds 100,000 out of 78,000,000 people, and hence it DOES NOT qualify as a widely spoken language.

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Uh, I believe Coptic isn't dead. Maybe it does qualify.

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"the number of Armenians barely exceeds 100,000" !!! This is a very big number of a minority in Egypt!

Please give me your source .. it will be the very interesting info for me! Thank you 84.36.6.153 19:50, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Coptic is only used in churches and such it is not the spoken second language nor first langauge among anybody however much of Egyptian Arabic is comprised of coptic so modify it to read such, armenian, greek, nubian and berber speakers are still present however decreasing fast yet I think it still benefits to be added. Zakaria mohyeldin 03:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Rosetta Problems

Oh, boy. The British just now ran into a problem. It turns out the Rosetta Stone was not saying something about Eygpt. Supposidly, some guy said it read, "We know powers beyond imagination". The guy was arrested. Add this in; it happened in 1998.

Page Moved

• to prevent confusion with the page on Ancient Egypt, I have moved this article. Pure inuyasha

• I neglected to mention two other reasons. Firstly, I think it's important to point out that egypt is an arab nation. secondly, I think plain "egypt" is incorrect, sice the modern A.R.E. Extends far beyond the borders of historical egypt. Pure inuyasha 00:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

not a copmplete success? is that another way of saying defeat? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.235.102.2 (talk • contribs) 17:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Demographics Picture

What's with the "burgeoning youth population" picture? I think it's out of place and not to mention useless. Delete? Stoa 04:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Uh, no, it's not OK to delete! Some of us don't think it's "useless"; it was part of the original article. Perhpas editing the caption might help (if that's your primary objection). - Zerida 06:27, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see what being part of the "original article" has to do with the picture's relevance to the information in the demographic section, or for that fact, the whole article. The only mention of "youth" in the article, is in the caption (and my problem was originally with the picture, not the caption, so changing the caption will not help anything). I will try to upload a picture and replace it with something more related to the information in the article.Stoa 01:11, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Even though it's totally mystifying to me as to how you think a picture of young Egyptians is unrelated to Egyptian demographics, I'll look forward to the picture you intend to upload. - Zerida 08:08, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why somebody removed my notes as to how the Egyptians look. Stating that "The Egyptians are fairly homogenous people" as it is, is not totally right. They actually are socially, but they differ a lot in skin color and looks. At least this mentioned homogeneity should be coupled with a 'social life' note. I am a full-blooded Egyptian and I know what I'm talking about. Haisook 12:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

There is really no objective way to describe a people's "looks", especially when the evidence presented is a statement starting with "as an Egyptian" or the like (appeal to authority). The best approach is to turn to evidence grounded in science, like that provided by bio-physical anthropology which attempts to answer such questions. This is what the statements in the article rely on, and it is especially important to rely on verifiable facts because this topic has often been riddled with controversy in the West. But once again, the fact that Egyptians are homogeneous (from an anthropological viewpoint) does not actually mean that they are so in terms of "looks". The Egyptians are not "homogeneous" in the sense that the Japanese are perhaps, but they are certainly so in terms of origins (and of course culture). In mainstream scholarship, their appears to be a consensus on at least that part. Egyptologist Frank Yurco also wrote:

Certainly there was some

foreign admixture [in Egypt], but basically a homogeneous African population had lived in the Nile Valley from ancient to modern times. (It simply happened that North Nilotic African peoples showed a wide variety of skin complexions, hair types, and craniofacial structures; see Trigger 1978; Keita 1990.) [...] The resulting Badarian people, who developed the earliest Predynastic Egyptian culture, already exhibited the mix of North African and Sub-Saharan physical traits that have typified Egyptians ever since (Hassan 1985; Yurco 1989; Trigger 1978; Keita 1990;

Brace et al., this volume).(University of Chicago Ancient Near East Digest)

In any event, because of the ambiguity of the phrase, I think it doesn't hurt to take that statement out while retaining the integrity of the passage. — Zerida 01:59, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Rosetta Stone

Where is the information on the Rosetta Stone?

Edit warring

Zerida, please don't simply blanket revert my additions. They are, IMO, perfectly sound and jive with info already presented in the article. (See "Demographics: contradiction" above.) I assume you're aware of the 3RR. I don't presume to be an expert on Egypt, so if you disagree with what I've written, then discuss your objections rationally. Name-calling and intemperate language are not constructive and don't faze me in the least. Deeceevoice 21:59, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

You mean like you calling me a "Muslim" in the manner of a slur? Not that I mind being associated with Muslims, but you clearly used it in a way to disparage me. Unlike you, I have not made any comments about your person. You are, however, determined to vandalize every page about Egypt or Egyptians with racial politics even though in your own words your knowledge of Egypt is limited. Given your track-record on Wikipedia, I'm cautious when it comes to your contributions to Egypt related articles. If you spend half the time you spend on inserting your race POVs to contributing anything else of substance (like to articles about the West African cultures you bring up for example, something you practically never do at all!!), perhaps others wouldn't be as annoyed by this disruptive behavior — Zerida 23:35, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

You don't know what the you're talking about. Don't bring your religious paranoia in here and try to slap that tag on me. I don't know what religion you are and I couldn't care less. My sister is Muslim. And you might be surprised to know that there is a long, long Islamic tradition in the African-American community. If you knew anything about the black nationalist/African-American struggle in this nation, you wouldn't jump to such preposterous an unfounded conclusions. If you read something remotely approaching anti-Muslim bias into my comments about your constant edit warring and your seeming Afrophobia, then that speaks more to what's going on inside your head than anything else. If you weren't so hell-bent on expunging all blackness from Egypt, perhaps you'd have an easier time of it. Like it or not, accept it or not, Egypt is an AFRICAN nation. Always was, and always will be. And I intend to keep on making that plain. :p Deeceevoice 01:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Egyptians Homogenous

I'm not getting involved in that but thats lol funny. —the preceding comment is by Dualldual - 02:55, 15 March 2006: Please sign your posts!

The paragraph about demographics originally came word-for-word from a US State Department report. The Egyptians are homogeneous culturally and ethnically relative to neighboring populations. This is however not a reference to their so-called "racial" background as the race-obsessed folks whose contributions don't go beyond the "Negroid" and "Caucasoid" debates would be prone to interpret. — Zerida 05:40, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

And then there are those other "race-obsessed folks" who can't stand to see a photo of a clearly black/Africoid Fellahin girl and are so put off by it, that they act immediately to get rid of it -- completely without justification. :p Deeceevoice 01:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

MILITARY

Why does this article need such a huge section on "military"? It is one of the few countries to do so, I recommend it is reduced, but I know if I were to do so people like those arguing about troop sizes would object...—the preceding comment is by 85.18.136.106 - 1 April 2006: Please sign your posts!

I'm glad someone else noticed this. This section is giving the article an unnecessarily militaristic bend. There is already a separate article on the topic, so please feel free to truncate. — Zerida 19:04, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Failed GA

The article is not referenced enough, especially the History section.

The article takes an Egyptian POV on controvercial subjects:

• the population is presented as descendants of ancient Egyptians without proper justification or mention of opposing views;
• 1973 war is treated as a political and military success, with no mention of opposing views;
• human rights questions are not addressed appropriately (for example, article mentions increased freedom in criticizing the president, but fails to describe any past or present problems with freedom of speech);
• Expulsion of Jewish population is glanced over, etc.

Some of the examples above also illustrate that the article is not broad enough.

However, it is well written and illustrated, and shows promise. 12.15.136.26 22:30, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with number 3. There have been previous attempts at revision, but I think the History and Politics sections need more work as they are still reading like pro-government propaganda. Number 4; earlier today I wikified the part about Egyptian Jews to link to History of the Jews in Egypt, where the situation is described there. I don't think the article needs too much detail about that topic if there is a separate article about it. Finally, number 1—again! The "controversy" is detailed in Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians, and already it's a poorly written article. Meanwhile, I'm going to add references to what's already mentioned about the population. Whatever information or sources added about that particular topic need to be part of peer-reviewed academic scholarship, not representing fringe opinions — Zerida 00:21, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Napoleon

I think something needs to be added about Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt from 1798-1799. He did a lot of things for science and the arts while in Egypt and the history section makes no mention of his name or anything he or the savants accomplished on their expedition. The history skips the years from about 1600 to mid-1800's.

Muslim/Christian population figures

The CIA Factbook was recently updated [1] to reflect the most recent estimate of Muslim and Christian population figures in Egypt, giving 90% and 10% respectively. I am therefore changing back accordingly. — Zerida 19:11, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Egypt is universally placed in the Middle East

What's with the exclusion of Egypt as a Middle Eastern state? Nearly every media outlet, Egyptian leaders and people themselves, and publications place Egypt in the region. Kind of important to mention it at the beginning and yet some anon keeps deleting it. Tombseye 00:29, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Persecution of Bahaais

If you want to include that, link it at the bottom of the page, but don't take up a relatively big part of the main page with an article that is not integral to the topic of Egypt ITSELF. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Johndoe0307 (talk • contribs) .

I've included a much shortened version. It is important to note the rights of religious minorites in Egypt in the section on religion. -- Jeff3000 02:58, 6 May 2006 (UTC)