The Coptic Medical Society and the United Copts of Great Britain
Held a meeting on 18th Feb 2007
At Hilton Birmingham Metropole hotel NEC
Speaker was:
Bayoumi Kndil
Journalist, translator, researcher in Egyptology & linguistics
and short story writer & playwright & poet
On the 18th Feb, Copts United and the Coptic Medical Society held a meeting at the Hilton Metropole, Birmingham.
The speaker, Mr Bayoumi Kandil, is a Coptic scholar and an Egyptian thinker. He gave two valuable lectures. The first was on the concept that the colloquial Arabic is an independent and equal to the classic Arabic. It is
in no way inferior to the classic Arabic. Mr Kandil spoke eloquently in colloquial Arabic. The colloquial Arabic has various roots. The Coptic as well as the Turkish roots left there prints on it. For example, Arm in Arabic
is zeraa. The word is feminine. The colloquial Arabic is deraa which is masculine. To describe someone who is a thug, you say “Ayesh bel deraa”, if you try to translate this into classical Arabic, it will not make sense.” He
lives with his arm” is meaningless. The Coptic word for deraa is shops which is masculine. The expression is based on Coptic phrase.
Mr Kandil looked at the Iranian culture which includes Islam but not built on Islam. A disciple of Al Khomeini was quoted as saying” Islam is my wife and Iran is my mother. I could divorce my wife, but I cannot divorce my
mother”. While Iranians adopted Islam, they kept their language and culture. We should be looking at our common denominators with our Muslim brothers. There is a common fabric that all Egyptians can identify with. Islamic
extremism can weaken such fabric. A secular party like “Mother Egypt” party could be an umbrella to bring all Egyptians together.
We had live entertainment from Sophia and music from Emad Shaker. A much enjoyable afternoon. Thanks to Magda Youssef and Ibrahim Habib who made it happen.
“On the difference/differences between Modern Egyptian language, dubbed “Amiyya” and the Classical Arabic”.
“The Urgent Necessity of a Political Party expressing & defending Egyptian Identity: an attempt towards translating a cultural perspective into a political program.”
Egyptian live Music
Leave a Reply