Coptic or Coptic Egyptian (Bohairic: ????????`????ti.met.rem.?n.khemi, Sahidic: ???¯???¯?¯????t.m?nt.r?m.?n.keme, Greek: ?et ?eµ???µ?Met Rem(e)nkhemi) is the latest stage of theEgyptian language, a northern Afroasiaticlanguage spoken in Egypt until, at least, the 17th century.[2] Egyptian began to be written in the Coptic alphabet, an adaptation of theGreek script with some letters inherited fromDemotic, in the 1st century AD.[3] The new writing system became the Coptic script, an adapted Greek alphabet with the addition of six or seven signs from the demotic script to represent Egyptian sounds the Greek language did not have. Several distinct Coptic dialects are identified, the most prominent of which are Sahidic, originating in parts ofUpper Egypt, and Bohairic, originally from the western Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. Coptic and Demotic Egyptian are grammatically closely related to Late Egyptian, which was written in theHieroglyphic script. Coptic flourished as a literary language from the 2nd to 13th centuries, and its Bohairic dialect continues to be the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It was supplanted by Egyptian Arabic as a spoken language toward the early modern period, butrevitalization efforts have been underway since the 19th century.