Monday, February 2, 2015

Coptic in California






This is St. Antonius Coptic Church, established by Egyptian immigrants in 1976, in Hayward, California. 
I went there one Sunday morning to observe their prayer service. 
The congregation starts in English, then switches to Arabic, their spoken language back home in Egypt. 
Then comes another switch — to Coptic, the language spoken by Egyptians until the 7th century. It evolved from Greek and Demotic, which goes back to 2000 BC, with roots in the hieroglyphic Egyptian language of the Pharaonic era.