Talk:Egyptians/Archive 2

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Misrepresentation of Keita

Actually Zehedra, your revert was unwarranted since to the contrary, leaving that entry as is is a misrepresentation of the study, have you read it? What it says in the article and what Keita says are totally different..

Claim made in the article: Quote: "He [Prof. Keita] adds that by the First Dynasty, i.e., at the beginning of Egyptian civilization proper, Egyptians overall were closer to the Northern Egyptian pattern."

^He says no such thing and there is no reason (who ever wrote this) to put words in his mouth.. From the 1992 study..

Further Studies of Crania From Ancient Northern Africa: An Analysis of Crania From First Dynasty Egyptian Tombs, Using Multiple Discriminant Functions, S.O.Y. Keita, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 87: 245-254 (1992)

Abstract:

An analysis of First Dynasty crania from Abydos was under-

taken using multiple discriminant functions. The results demonstrate greater affinity with Upper Nile Valley patterns, but also suggest change from earlier craniometric trends, Gene flow and movement of northern officials to the important southern city may explain the findings.

^"Greater affinity with upper Nile valley patterns", with "upper" meaning "south".. Like I was trying to allude to in my revert, he says that southern Egyptians began to converge onto Northern patterns, but by first Dynasty times they still showed more souther affinities.

Some Quotes:

This "northern modal pattern", which can be "called coastal northern African", is noted in general terms to be intermediate, by the centroid scores of Function I, to equatorial African and northern European phenotypes.

As noted earlier, Howells’ work (1973) also demonstrates this, and Howells notes the difference with the Nakada predynastic group. The [1rst Dynasty] Abydos crania as a series do have continuity with the southern pattern, but change occurs."

Southern elites and or their descendants eventually came to be buried in the north (Hoffman, 1988). Hence early Second Dynasty kings and Djoser (Dynasty 111) (Hayes, 1953) and his descendants are not buried in Abydos. Petrie (1939) states that the Third Dynasty, buried in the north, was of Sudanese origin, but southern Egypt is equally likely. This perhaps explains Harris and Weeks’ (1973) suggested findings of southern morphologies in some Old Kingdom Giza remains, also verified in portraiture (Drake, 1987).

Further study would be required to ascertain trends in the general population of both regions

Previous concepts about the origin of the First Dynasty Egyptians as being somehow external to the Nile Valley or less “native” are not supported by archeology. In summary, the Abydos First Dynasty royal tomb contents reveal a notable craniometric heterogeneity. Southerners predominate. The suggestion of previous work, namely that crania with southern and coastal northern patterns might be present in these tombs, has been demonstrated and explained by historical and archaeological data. http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/further_study_keita.pdf

^In the face of our review of this literature I feel that it should be safe to say that I'm not trying to misrepresent anything and only trying to keep misrepresentation at a minimum.. Obviously I'm right, that at face value and correct interpretation would suggest that the previous statement misrepresents what Keita says.Taharqa 02:25, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you please revert your misrepresentation of the study and quote from me where Keita says this?

"but "lower Egyptian, Maghrebian, and European patterns are observed."

You're passing them off as if they're all different specimens, these are phenotypes used to describe the same "Northern Egyptian pattern"(how he coined it) and not separate specimens of European, Maghrebian, and Lower Egyptian patterns(respectively), this is ruthless misinterpretation.. The irony! Now can you go back and review the quotes I provided and/or the study its self, this doesn't make sense.. Work with me here, geez..Taharqa 05:27, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I did some research. Here is the source for the statement from the web site by taharqa himself www.homestead.com/wysinger/further_study_keita.pdf, p.251: "The predominant craniometric pattern in the Abydos royal tombs is “southern” (tropical African variant), and this is consistent with what would be expected based on the literature and other results (Keita, 1990). This pattern is seen in both group and unknown analyses. However, lower Egyptian, Maghrebian, and European patterns are observed also, thus making for great diversity." And another one p.252: "It is clear however from the unknown analyses that the Abydene centroid value is explained primarily by the relatively greater number of crania with northern-Egyptian-Maghreb and European patterns in the series."

What kind of deception is Taharqa trying to force on the article here? Any change to the quotation is vandalism, plain and simple. Egyegy 22:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

^What are you talking about? Obviously you must not be paying attention because I quoted that already.. I pointed out that this was misrepresented in the first place and Zerdia complied and changed the wording to reflect the source, she succeeded but misquoted Keita..

I will demonstrate once more as I've been trying to yet you keep brushing it off and refuse to discuss, being non-communicative and assuming bad faith/getting personal when this is so simple.

Quote from the front page and its claim:

"The southern pattern continues to predominate by the First Dynasty, but "lower Egyptian, Maghrebian, and European patterns are observed."

^This is wrong and misquotes Keita..

these are phenotypes used to describe the same "Northern African coastal pattern"(how he coined it) and not separate specimens of European, Maghrebian, and Lower Egyptian types(respectively)..

From Keita..

“The centroid values of the various upper Egyptian series viewed collectively are seen to vary over time. The general trend from Badari to Nakada times, and then from the Nakadan to the First Dynasty epochs demonstrate change toward the northern-Egyptian centroid value on Function I with similar values on Function 11. This might represent an average change from an Africoid (Keita, 1990) to a northern-Egyptian- Maghreb modal pattern. It is clear however from the unknown analyses that the Abydene centroid value is explained primarily by the relatively greater number of crania with northern-Egyptian-Maghreb and European patterns in the series.

From Keita:

This **northern modal pattern**, which can be called **coastal northern African**, is noted in general terms to be intermediate, by the centroid scores of Function I, to equatorial African and northern European phenotypes.

From Keita(This tops off exactly what he said about the Abydos tombs and his conclusion):

Previous concepts about the origin of the First Dynasty Egyptians as being somehow external to the Nile Valley or less “native” are not supported by archeology. In summary, the Abydos First Dynasty royal tomb contents reveal a notable craniometric heterogeneity. Southerners predominate. The suggestion of previous work, namely that crania with southern and coastal northern patterns might be present in these tombs, has been demonstrated and explained by historical and archaeological data.

No one is being deceptive, simply read the study, the quote in the front is mis-leading, I'm glad Zerida caught it, but she misquoted him.. I reiterate, these are phenotypes used to describe the same "Northern African coastal pattern"(how he coined it) and not separate specimens of European, Maghrebian, and Lower Egyptian patterns(respectively). He was selectively quoted out of context most likely unintentionally.. In other words, he uses dashes for a reason, Northern coastal-Maghreb and European patterns are interchangeable and the terminology who uses to group these phenotypes are "Coastal North African", again, from Keita..

This **northern modal pattern**, which can be called **coastal northern African**, is noted in general terms to be intermediate, by the centroid scores of Function I, to equatorial African and northern European phenotypes. www.homestead.com/wysinger/further_study_keita.pdfTaharqa 22:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Nice try but dancing around this won't help you, sorry. You've been edit-warring to delibrately falsify the quote here [1], here [2] and here [3]. This can only be seen as deception as you kept vandalizing the QUOTE itself over and over again. Egyegy 22:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

^This is petty and is in no way a rebuttal of what Keita says himself more than it is a personal attack of bad faith on me, giving you an excuse to disregard whatever I contest. You are removing tags and being very disruptive with out even giving an argumwnt, while I've typed an entire essay of valid facts concerning the source.Taharqa 23:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

An essay? lol Don't you mean your lame attempt to save face after you've been caught falsifying the quote? Links don't lie, people do. Nice try. Again. Egyegy 23:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Your snide comments have nothing at all to do with quotes, I provided in context quotes, along with the conclusion and all you can do is laugh and revert and throw out personal attacks. I didn't get caught doing anything but trying to keep misrepresentation at a minimum, I'm not interested in having an ego battle with you.Taharqa 23:22, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I admit that I was wrong about the second part of my complaints as I simply did not see those quotes/or remember reading them and I'm slightly embarrassed. I wasn't trying to save face, I was simply being selective in my interpretation of what he said since he described the modal patterns in more than one way, as you can see above. I was basically only justified in my complaints about the very first entry, which I quoted at the top and was corrected long ago.. I guess the reason I insisted on pushing my interpretation is 1., because I honestly thought it was the only one as quoted by Keita, and 2., because I was being brushed off and ignored, which only leads to frustration and conflict.. Sorry, I won't be bothering this article anymore..Taharqa 22:07, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Egyptian Man?

Roman-era portrait of an "Egyptian man" from the Fayum tomb collection

^Can whoever posted this verify that this particular man was an Egyptian? It seems to contradict the widely held view that Fayum mummy portraits represented greek inhabitants of Egypt, and not the Egyptians themselves.

Fayum portraits represent mostly Greek inhabitants of Egypt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits Taharqa 04:34, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Already discussed. The Fayum mummies were all studied by Berry & Berry and Irish and found to be of Egyptians. — Zerida 04:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

^I don't accept that and believe it to be false since these Fayum portraits are generally seen as being Greeks with these paintings coming from a greek heritage from the Greco period of Egypt.

I have sources to the contrary and your claims are unverified and highly suspect since this isn't an established fact and a wild claim.. Can you provide a source which states that this man is Egyptian along with the other Greek Fayum paintings that are obviously Greek?

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-59912/Egyptian-art-and-architecture/ Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Egyptian art and architecture - Greco-Roman Egypt.. These are known to the mainstream as being greeks, where is your proof for the claim that this is an Egyptian with so much historical and authoritative data to the contrary?Taharqa 04:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Is this article about race, inhabitants, or those who are considered Egyptians? Greek/Roman inhabitants had a huge influence on Egypt. And it's only natural to assume that many intermixed, but doesn't make them any less Egyptian. I don't understand the problem? This image seems to fairly represent an Egyptian to me, perhaps not representative of all Egyptians, but an Egyptian. - Jeeny ^Talk 04:54, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The Graeco-Roman influence on Egypt is undeniable but I should mention that the articles on the Fayum portraits were actually recently changed by a single-purpose account [4], and some of the sources have been misrepresented to give the impression that the region was merely a Greek colony (I will correct this when I have the time). — Zerida 05:03, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Zerida, I sent you a message and need a reply..

^People are not listening!! Sources agree that Fayum paintings were of Greeks inhabitants and not natives! Again..

Quote: "The mummy, or Fayum, portraits are Egyptian only in that they are associated with essentially Egyptian burial customs. Painted in an encaustic technique, they represent mostly Greek inhabitants of Egypt."http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-59912/Egyptian-art-and-architecture/

^Now provide sources to the contrary or please put the tag back up... This is bias and I will call for dispute resolution, third opinions, or come back everyday, but you're not about to brush me off with POV and sourceless opinions/observations about what you guys personally may think, I addressed an issue and it isn't being handled properly.. People are misrepresenting studies and falsifying historical data and are trying to downplay it as inane while mercilessly reverting everything I do and giving me dry snide comments....Taharqa 05:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

She already told you what the sources are, please stop acting like a disrutpive troll. Don't forget that this can get you blocked. Ask for a third opinion if that's what you want. Egyegy 05:10, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

^There are no sources, which is the point.. I can easily say that Roberts and Phillips said this and that, but these claims are not verifiable and are deceptive since according to mainstream sources that is literally not true. I'm the only one posting sources and getting nothing but dry feed back.. There were no anthropological studies on Fayum remains that I know of, and if there were how did they ascertain the differences between who was Greek and who was "Egyptian" and who was "other" and where can I get my hands on this source which identifies them as "Egyptians"? No where I'd guess since this is a fairy tale as any Egyptologist will tell you that they were Greeks and Irish never made such claims.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-59912/Egyptian-art-and-architecture/

^Are mainstream sources and consensus not reliable but talk page opinions and absurd claims are?Taharqa 05:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect as usual, I'm afraid. Irish (2006) studied the Hawara mummies of the Fayum region, as did Berry, Berry and Ucko (which is cited in the article). This is where the portraits come from. — Zerida 05:32, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Taharqa, but even the source you posted says "mostly" Greek. Not all Greek. So, it does not mean that the image is not that of an Egyptian man, even with your source. Plus the link that Zerida posted about the new user account inserting that information in the article, has me suspicious also. - Jeeny ^Talk 05:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Zerdia, it doesn't matter, every encyclopedia tells us that by Greek times, Greeks inhabited Egypt and these particular portraits are of Greeks, not Egyptians.. Irish did not study the Fayum during this period nor did he or Berry claim that these Fayum portraits represent Egyptians, but all sources suggest that they do not.. Simple.. The burden of proof is on you to prove that this man is Egyptian because I'm 99% sure that he is not according to historians and Egyptologists who say in that particular time period, the portraits represented Greek inhabitants, you have no source to refute that, so please cut the Original Research.. The man is obviously not Egyptian so why label him as such especially with no source?

Jeeny, your speculation has no bearing on wikipedia policy, sources say that these portraits represent Greeks and says that nothing is Egyptian about this besides the Burial sites.. I asked for sources for a claim made on the article, if there are none and I have some to the contrary it is only fair that people stop being stubborn and imposing their own OR into the article.Taharqa 19:08, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Zerdia, your Original Research is relentless, I bring this to your attention and then you try and doctor up the wiki Fayum article to coincide with your POV and this article? Wow.. That's really playing dirty imo..Taharqa 20:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Please stop being disruptive, be civil and assume good faith. Egyegy 20:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

^I'm in no way being uncivil, you are by harassing me, I simply want people to stop weaseling away from the issue at hand and address what I'm saying as there are no arguments against it, so it would be totally unreasonable and personal to disregard me and the facts presented in favor of your own unguided and baseless opinions.. Honestly, trying to work with people who refuse to work with you is frustrating..Taharqa 20:50, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Will removing the words "Egyptian man" from the image caption, while leaving the rest of the caption as it is, satisfy your concerns? I have no problem with that, yet I can't speak for the others though. - Jeeny ^Talk 21:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

^Yes! This is all that I was concerned about in this case Jeeny, please give me that compromise as I feel that no one is trying to hear me and aren't even addressing the issue, when this is my only concern as you can tell from my edits in the article's 'history'....Taharqa 22:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Jeeny, there is another Fayum portrait in the main collage (in the infobox). I don't think it should be removed because he is uncomfortable with how the person looks based on some preconceived notion of what an Egyptian is "supposed" to look like! The Britannica claim is not sufficient here; there is a hierarchy in terms of reliability of sources. I included one by an Egyptologist in the Fayum mummy portraits article, which offers much more detail regarding the city's demographics. Also, these particular mummies were compared with earlier Egyptian populations and were found to be closest to them. See this excerpt from one of the studies I mentioned:

The final sample [51] was recovered at Hawara (HAW) in an early Roman period burial ground for elite members of the Fayum Oasis populace (Grajetzki and Quirke, 2001b)... Badari (0.028), Thebes (0.039), and Hawara (0.041) show a general affinity to all samples. Badari, Thebes, and Hawara are at the heart of this cluster....the Roman-period specimens are much more closely akin to the seven dynastic samples. Kharga and especially Hawara are most similar..." (Irish 2006)

— Zerida 22:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand, but why not remove this one instance in this particular caption, as a compromise? It will comply with either source, and the collage stay the same, as it will not compromise the article, IMO. - Jeeny ^Talk 23:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Please avoid personal accusations Zerida that make you seem hostile and spiteful, accusing me of having some pre-conceived notion of what Greek Egyptians look like. This is a personal attack that doesn't address my dispute..

The Irish study is Original Research since it doesn't answer the question to whether the people represented in the actual portraits were Greek or Egyptian(where you're trying to apply it), which is what I'm asking and is answered in the encyclopedic source I presented. Your claim that Hawara remains are "most similar" is vague, most similar to what compared to who? That was not a quote from him. No one disputes that Egyptians were predominant numerically in the Fayum oasis anyways, this is a Straw Man.. It has nothing to do with this Nor am I concerned with demographics as I'm quite sure that Native Egyptians were predominant numerically, while Greco-Romans were predominant in caste. My only concern is those select individuals in the portraits and the only source that has answered that question is the good ole encyclopedia.. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-59912/Egyptian-art-and-architecture/

Quote: "The mummy, or Fayum, portraits are Egyptian only in that they are associated with essentially Egyptian burial customs. Painted in an encaustic technique, they represent mostly Greek inhabitants of Egypt."

^Now please stop using your Original Research to search for references to Fayum remains and try to apply it to your own reasoning and/or other arguments in order to reinforce your POV. For you to claim this man is "Egyptian" when the encyclopedia says most portraits represented greeks, requires special proof, otherwise It will help us all if we can simply stick to what Jeeny suggested and move on..Taharqa 23:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Taharqa, your tone is not friendly, and it makes others defensive. You too are engaging in personal accusations yourself. Let the info box images stay, but only the words "Egyptian man" from that one image caption be removed. No pictures removed from the collage, OK? What say you, Zerida? How's that? - Jeeny ^Talk 23:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry but it is your original research Taharqa that has no place in the article. What you are doing here is showing contempt for the reliable sources policy. You've been told before that you must use reliable sources for these claims, but somehow you still think that we should use the Britannica over the Egyptologist and the scientist. Let's not keep repeating ourselves. Egyegy 23:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Just removed the words "Egyptian man" as that does not compromise the sources. I look at the image and see an Eqyptian, so I do not need to have it in the caption to know that. If it helps everyone all the way around, that's a small compromise. - Jeeny ^Talk 23:30, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, under normal circumstances, I might have agreed that this was a compromise and would not have contested it. Here, it doesn't really seem like a compromise, but conceding to what he wants if he is disruptive enough. A compromise suggests meeting half way, so perhaps adding a more specific description; like for example, a "Roman Egyptian mummy" would be a compromise. I am not, however, willing to support a solution that would encourage his type of behavior. He needs to respect Wikietiquette as it applies to the rest of us. — Zerida 18:09, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

^Jeeny, you claiming that when you look at the picture you see an Egyptian isn't tenable since you've never seen an Egyptian from the "Roman period", but I do appreciate your compromise as you are correct, It reflects both sources and doesn't conflict the information that we have out there. You are indeed a reasonable person and I do appreciate that, not trying to fight with anyone. Zerida is simply out to be spiteful towards me I feel as she exudes arrogance and imposes her pseudo-knowledge of ancient Egypt on to me doing things like trying to cite Joel Irish where he doesn't even apply, which is of course OR. I already corrected her on her misrepresentation of Keita and now she's saving face by not responding to the messages I sent her and my concerns above. Whatever.. Zerida! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith Taharqa 17:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Taharqa, please stop throwing accusations around. You say you do not want to fight, but your language suggests otherwise. You are complaining that Zerida is "simply out to be spiteful...". And you've used such words as "harassing" to another editor. It seems you think people are against YOU and are only doing things to annoy you. I do not believe that is the case here at all. These editors are here to improve the article, as I believe as are you. But, again, the language and tone you use here on the talk page puts others on the defensive, therefore, your arguments can and will be dismissed,. Thus, reinforcing your belief they are "just out to harass" or out to be "spiteful" etc. Don't you see that? Your tone on this page, comes off as unreasonable so any of your proposals can be construed as the same. Do not name call, or use such strong accusations as "harassing" and "spiteful". Please take it easy. Present your argument, concisely, and without judgment of the person but the content and provide more than one source. You may get better results. Just a suggestion. Also, the one source is not a justification for your agruement as there are many to support the others. And your one source says "mostly Greek" and that to me says, that it is very possible that that portrait was of an "Egyptian man", not just my speculation, even though that's how I presented here earlier. Try to find more reliable sources to fit your position. Peace. - Jeeny ^Talk 18:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Jeeny, I should fill you in on some background information. The editors on this and other Egypt articles have had problems with many different sockpuppets by one person vandalizing them and forcing these types of racial POVs [5]. They all have the same exact editing pattern and tone as "Taharqa". One of these sockpuppets even tried to get the whole page deleted [6], which was treated as an act of vandalism and disruption. "Taharqa" made reverts today on other articles using the same IP range as that vandal. I just wanted to fill you in on this background information so you can see the whole picture of what's happening. Egyegy 18:38, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Yikes. I don't know what to say or do, now. Thanks for filling me in. I hate this type of stuff. Sheesh. - Jeeny ^Talk 19:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello Jeeny..

Honestly your reasoning in that this is an Egyptian man is invalid, you concede to the fact that the well established source indicates that most of portraits represented "greek inhabitants", therefore it wouldn't be right to assume that the one man is Egyptian since in all probability he isn't given the fact that most weren't. The burden of proof is not on me to provide 100 sources since a reliable one is provided and no other sources presented contradict it(See Occam's razor). The Irish study simply examines remains in an effort to assess biological continuity between dental traits in various AE populations, but he does not asses the nature of the Fayyum mummy representatives, therefore it does not apply to this particular dispute, the source I provided addressed it specifically as a matter of historical fact. This same point can be applied to demographic studies. Also I am not making accusations, it is simply apparent that you seem to be the only one at this point willing to even discuss the matter at hand with out giving snide comments, brushing me off, and reverting. There's people on this page going around vandalizing other articles directly proceeding disputes on here, which is in extremely bad taste. I'm not here to get personal though, only wanted to address an issue, we can all be civil. Egyegy is using Ad hominems , personal bias, and selective investigations to weasel away from the issues at hand that have nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the discussion.Taharqa 20:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh sure, hit me with philosophy. lol. But, I am not adding to the article with my "invalid" reasoning. It is valid for me, and that's the truf. I may not have the reliable source to back up my reason on hand to contribute to the article, though. <in jest> Oh, and don't give me anymore links, I click on them and feel compelled to edit and then I'm all over the place.</in jest> but true You just used a weasel word by using the word weasel. :p- Jeeny ^Talk 21:44, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Philosophy/logic and humor aside, I was only pointing out the error in your broad assumption and I'd rather not waist time and discuss people's personal opinions(which is irrelevant to the facts and/or mainstream view), only was trying to address the content in question as it pertains to historical sources.Taharqa 22:21, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I know. But, the man could have been Jewish. Why should this particular man not be considered Egyptian, from your source? Surely there were Egyptians buried in this manner and with the portrait paintings. Do you deny that? Look at his hair! What is the real message you're trying to give here? - Jeeny ^Talk 23:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

^I'd like to refrain from giving my personal opinion and POV and simply stick to the reliability of the sources presented and asses what they say, which is that most of the people represented were "Greek inhabitants"..Taharqa 23:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This isn't an issue anymore, I was being petty.. Apologies to all(except those who insulted me and wasn't patient with me)..Taharqa 22:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Third opinion

I appreciate the attempt to resolve a dispute by posting a plea on Wikipedia:Third opinion but the third opinion mechanism is intended for disputes involving only two editors. I see four editors here. All of them are attempting to make good-faith improvements to the article, so I encourage you to assume good faith at all times, and refrain from personal attacks. If you can't come to an agreement about the point, I suggest going the RFC or mediation route. -Amatulic 17:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

^This is a rather late response that I know you won't receive, but I was wrong about certain things, which I have reconciled.Taharqa 22:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Related ethnic groups

We need some references suggesting why are Semites and Nubians ethnically related to the Egyptians. Amazighs (Berbers) are clearly realted to Egyptians, so I'm not disputing that. But Nubians and Semites? Then how about Greeks who settled in substantial numbers in Egypt between the 4th century BC and the 6th century AD? Thanks. --Lanternix 16:47, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess it depends on your definition of 'ethnic'. Typically, these are the criteria used in establishing a link between different groups:

• Culture: Egyptian culture is closest to Nubian and other Nile Valley cultures (like Sudanese), with ties to Berber, Semitic and other Mediterranean cultures.

• Language: Egyptian is closest to Berber and Semitic. Egyptians today also speak a Semitic language.

• Origins (but note that ethnic definitions go beyond biological relationships): Berbers for the most part. Upper Egyptians are close to Nubians. Semitic peoples, such as Arabs and Jews, to a lesser extent.

This is covered under the Origins section. With regard to Greeks, there are superficial ties based on a shared, wider Mediterranean culture. However, it stops there. Greeks are an Indo-European people who, in terms of genetics and languages, are actually not close to Egyptians regardless of the historical contact between the two peoples in antiquity (or in modern times for that matter, since there was a huge Greek diaspora in Egypt until Nasser). As would be expected, Egyptians based on all of these criteria are closest to Afro-Asiatic speaking and Nile Valley populations. — Zerida 18:32, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

• • Thanks a lot Zerida for your response. But are we talking about the historical definition of Egyptians or the modern definition, or both? Plus, if we take language as a factor, why wouldn't we also include other African groups, since the Egyptian language is an Afro-Asiatic (previously Hamito-Semetic) language? As far as I know (and I know your linguistic background is so much better than mine, so please correct me if I'm wrong here) the Egyptian/Coptic language is closest to Berber. But it has a 2nd degree closeness to Semitic languages (vocabulary-wise) and African languages (grammar-wise). And if we talk about origins, why aren't Greeks included as major contributors to the ancestry of modern Egyptians, since they settled in masses in Egypt for centuries? Thanks again :) --Lanternix 19:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I would use both definitions. Also, Afro-Asiatic refers to specific groups of African languages in addition to Semitic, not just any African languages. Egyptian is most widely classified as part of the northern subgroup of Afro-Asiatic, which also includes Berber and Semitic. It's hard to say whether Egyptian is closest to any one of those languages. In some respects, it's closer to Berber, and in others to Semitic. For example, both Berber and Egyptian share the genitive particle n (as in Coptic rem-n-kimi), and both Egyptian and Semitic share the feminine suffix -t (circumfixed in Berber). In yet other respects, Egyptian is actually closest to Beja than to either Berber or Semitic. Notice that depending on whether Beja is an independent branch, Egyptian is the only language in the Afro-Asiatic family that would constitute a branch by itself, so similarities with neighboring branches tend to vary.

To answer the question about Greeks, it is because Greeks have not in fact contributed substantially to the ancestry of modern Egyptians. Records of settlements by themselves are not an indication of intermingling (this is why I mentioned the modern Greek diaspora). If you read the Graeco-Roman section in the article, you will see why this would be the case, which is confirmed by modern DNA studies on Egyptians. The reason, however, I didn't think Greeks should be included is because then we might as well include Turks, Italians, and other Mediterranean groups, but I think it should remain concise. If you feel like including Greeks, it would make sense, I am not going to challenge it since there are definite cultural ties; but let's not delete any of the ones listed now. — Zerida 21:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Ethnic group?

How Are modern day Egyptians an ethnic group? Today, "Egyptian" refers to a nationality, not an ethnicity, and there are several ethnicities within Egypt that are still nationally Egyptian. Nationality is not the same as ethnicity, this article shouldn't exist. Funkynusayri 16:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

People of ethnicities other than the Egyptian ethnicity were absorbed into the large number of Egyptians who were already living in the country throughout the millenia. So, although modern day Egyptians may be a little different ethnically from their ancient Egyptian predecessors, they all remain very close. It's not like Egyptians ceased to exist at some point in history and were totally replaced by foreigners. I'm sure Zerida can help more with this. --Lanternix 17:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

First, in reply to Lanternix, the are ethnic minorities in Egypt who are nationally Egyptian, like Nubians and Berbers, but are not ethnically Egyptian. However, like many major countries, e.g. Turkey or Greece, Egypt has an ethnic majority that shares most of the traits which define an ethnic group. As discussed before, ancestry is only one factor, and while most Egyptians share a common ancestry as most other ethnic groups do, they also share other traits like a common identity, culture and language etc. Second, when someone starts so completely off the mark: this article shouldn't exist, I don't take it seriously. Please do not disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. — Zerida 17:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not talking about whether modern Egyptians are related to ancient Egyptians or not, but the fact that Egyptian doesn't refer to any living ethnic group, but a nationality. Different Egyptian groups identify as Arabs, Copts, Berbers, Nubians, so on, but they are all Egyptians by nationality, which is the only thing the term can be applied to, when it comes to modern, living populations. Otherwise you could say that the Swiss, Belgians, Americans, so on, are all ethnicities, which would be absurd. You don't make an article called "Vikings" and write about modern day Scandinavian either.Funkynusayri 17:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Could you please respond to me directly? I made some points. Refute them before reverting. Egyptians aren't an ethnic group, the page "Egyptians" should exist, just not in the current form.Funkynusayri 17:39, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for a good counter-argument from any of you three (or "most people", as Laternix said.), who seem to own this article. Funkynusayri 21:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, the problem is that you have not made any good arguments to start off. First, you claimed that the article shouldn't exist (but apparently you have no problem with Palestinian people existing [7]), then perhaps after realizing the flimsiness of such a claim, you suggested that it be merged. As I have already mentioned, most every country on Wikipedia has a page each for the country, its demography and the majority ethnic group. As regards the latter, of course Egyptians are an ethnic group as I've described to Lanternix, and are typically classified as such [8]. It would be odd to come to any another conclusion after reading the article itself and its copious references, unless you are arguing from an Arab nationalist perspective, which has no bearing here. That's why it's difficult for me to take your argument seriously (not to mention comments like these [9]), so again, if you are here simply to make a point, please stop. — Zerida 22:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I proposed that the articles should be merged right from the beginning, when saying this article "shouldn't exist" I obviously meant in its current form. As for the article about the Palestinian people, I agree that they should not be treated as an ethnic group, but others are already arguing this, so I don't see why I should start a new discussion about it. But they should of course have a Wikipedia page.

Egyptians could of course also have their own Wikipedia page, but it is extremely misleading when they are treated as a modern day ethnic group, when the term only covers a nationality in it's current sense. Can you find me a source that states modern Egyptians compose an ethnic group? That government website makes an odd mistake by putting Egyptian next to Arab as two different ethnic groups in Egypt. Egyptians see themselves as Arabs, but of course Egyptians too, as that is their nationality. On the other hand, the same government website states this: "Major ethnic groups: Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1% (note: many Christian Lebanese do not identify themselves as Arab but rather as descendents of the ancient Canaanites and prefer to be called Phoenicians)." They're all Arabs, but they're not all Arabs? It's unreliable.Funkynusayri 03:46, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

That government website makes an odd mistake by putting Egyptian next to Arab as two different ethnic groups in Egypt. What you're basically asking is for us to disregard actual verifiable, published sources and instead take you as a more reliable source. This is not how Wikipedia works. I'm not sure why you are quoting the World Factbook entry on Lebanon -- it is not relevant to this article. Also, Egyptians do consider themselves ethnically distinct from the Bedouin Arabs, as do the Bedouin [10]. Actually, the fact that Egyptians are an ethnic group is not open to much debate, since the concept of "ethnic group" itself is largely socially determined and takes self-identification primarily into account. What is open to debate is whether it is accurate to describe Egyptians as "Arab", a topic that is treated separately at Egypt#Identity. Finally, as long as countries like Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Serbia and others all have separate articles for the country, its demography and major ethnic group, there is no good reason for Egyptians not have one describing their history and culture as an ethnic group. I don't really have much to add beyond that. — Zerida 06:19, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

You're misinterpreting what I'm saying. I'm not saying that the Egyptian people, who are of course a nationality, shouldn't have an entry. I'm saying that they shouldn't be described as a modern ethnic group, because that is simply not what Egyptian refers to today. Egyptians see themselves as Arabs, Berbers, Copts, so on (ethnic groups), but they are all Egyptian by nationality. I'd like to see some more outside opinions on this. Iraqis aren't an ethnic group either, for example.Funkynusayri 02:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Egyptians ARE an ethnic group because the number of invaders (Greeks, Romans, Arabs and others) who settled in the country was very small in comparison with the number of Egyptians who were already living in Egypt. So modern Egyptians may have a touch of each one of these, but they are still Egyptians. Those who consider themselves Arabs are influenced by Nasser's pan-Arabist ideology. 70 years ago, almost no Egyptian would have called her/himself an Arab. Even Muslims back then (Taha Hussein, Ahmed Lotfi el-Sayed and many others), and many Muslims today (Osama Anwar Okasha, Abdel Moti Hegazy and many others) call themselves "Coptic Muslims", because "Copt" simply means "Egyptian". The Egyptian nationality is something very different. For example, Nubians are Egyptian citizens, but are NOT ethnic Egyptians. In conclusion, I agree with Zerida's perception. --Lanternix 04:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
• It is irrelevant that residents of modern Egypt can be descendants of the ancient Egyptians, because that itself does not make modern Egyptians an ethnic group. Today "Egyptian" simply refers to a nationality. It's as simple as that. Otherwise all nationalities could be "ethnic groups". Funkynusayri 17:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It is hilarious how people will follow you from article to article screaming absurdities like "afrocentrism" this and that, yet you have a bunch of biased Egyptians totally dominating this page and not allowing any room whatsoever for disagreement to the point where disconnecting the modern Arabs of Egypt from ancient Africa is somehow seen as an insult. Wow..Taharqa 07:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It is hilarious how people like you are still allowed on Wikipedia. And for those of you Egyptian who feel Arabs, go back to your great Arabian peninsula and leave us alone. There is no place in Egypt for ingrateful invaders who eat our food and drink our water only to come back and disgrace our country and proclaim allegiance to other countries! --Lanternix 11:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• ^ So you are a nationalist, which you denied. Funkynusayri 17:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Is not Arab short for Abram?

I thought Arabs were the sons of Abram / Ibrahim from the Arabian peninsula? Egypt was an major empire before the time Ibrahim even entered into the lands known as Canaan. Surely the majority of Egyptians are not of this anchestory? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.227.166 (talk) 18:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• When did biblical mythology suddenly become fact? Funkynusayri 18:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Did not Mohammed say he decended from Ibrahim via Ishmael? Mohammed was an Arab was he not? The Arabian language which was the language of the Arabs was around long before Mohammed and Mohammed used his native tongue to write in. It was through the conquests of Islam that the Arabian language spread further a field.

Did not Egypt have it own language to that spoken by it Arabian neighbours? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.227.166 (talk) 18:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Legend isn't fact, but this is beside the point anyway, as Egyptians aren't Arabs due to being descended from Arabs, but due to them being linguistically and culturally Arabized. Just like most other Arabs in the world (Fertile Crescent, North Africa). Many do have Arab ancestry though. Funkynusayri 19:01, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Ra Hotep

Professor Manu Ampim has indicated that there is evidence to support that the statue of Ra Hotep with is wife is a fraud. Here is the page link. Nuwaubian Hotep 09:25, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

What are manu ampins credentials as far as artwork and egyptology. From my knowledge of him he is only a junior college "professor" with no background in art or art forgery and no background in egyptology, archeology or any other scientific fields.

Junior college professor with some web pages and a chip on his shoulder.Cornytheclown 15:44, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Modern Egyptians vs. Ancient Egyptians

Although I understand it must be tempting, I have some doubts about the relation between these two groups. I mean, the Ancient Egyptians spoke Egyptian, not Arabic, worshiped a different mythology, not Islam or other Abrahamic religions. It seems to me that modern Egyptians are closer to (or are) Arabs than their ancient predecessors. I also think it is strange that the Egyptian population of Egypt is said to be 97-98%, while Arabs are included with a rest group of 2% ... yet Arabic is the most spoken language (by far) in Egypt. Are the editors of this article sure that this isn't an article on a 'nation' (not ethnic group) gone wrong? Rex 14:39, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• The main editors on this article have Coptic backgrounds, Christian Egyptians who reject the Arabic identity in favour of a solely Egyptian one, as they used the Coptic language until recently. These people would like all Egyptians to reject the Arab identity, so the articles they edit reflect this, not necessarily reality. Funkynusayri 14:44, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Setting aside Funky's latest round of personal attacks, the "relation" between the "two groups" is matter of origins in addition to cultural environment. The Greeks of today do not worship the ancient Greek gods, and the Irish of today overwhelmingly speak English. Many Nubian groups have undergone similar processes. But they and the Egyptians are a nation and an ethnic group (a distinction that is not really objectively clear) due to many factors which have been discussed in the past. I suggest looking into the archives. — Zerida 18:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• The problem is that modern day Muslim Egyptians overwhelmingly identify as Arabs, if Copts refuse to do so, ok, but there's no reason to impose your own views on others.

Another problem is that this article completely ignores the many Egyptians who do not only identify as Arabised Arabs, but as ethnic Arabs from Arabia itself.

You get me wrong again and again, I know very well that most modern Egyptians are descendants of the ancient Egyptians, but still, they can identify as Arabs while knowing that they are descendants of these ancient Egyptians, which they do. There's no need for making misleading articles, no one is fooled, it only hurts the credibility of Egyptians who work for acknowledgment of their past. Funkynusayri 18:35, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

What I see as the real problem here is the fact that, as usual, you present no sources whatsoever to back up any of your claims, and also the fact that you are not responding to anything in the article. This article doesn't discuss Egyptian identity nor how the Arabic component defines that identity. It simply chronicles the history of the people, going through the different stages of development that make up that history, in addition to some information about the culture, demography etc. which are covered in more detail in other articles. The other problem is your insistence on using this talk page as your own personal soapbox, when this is explicitly discouraged by policy. — Zerida 18:50, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• I've specifically addressed the main problem with the article, which is that you completely ignore any Arab presence in modern Egypt. Arabs are certainly not among the 2% non-Egyptians, and that's the problem here. The basis of the article is the idea that all Egyptians identify as "ethnic Egyptians", though no sources back this up, apart from that iffy CIA link.

As for "soap-boxing", again, I don't give a damn about Egyptians, but about facts.

And please refrain from crying "personal attack" and "soap-boxing", when I can back up my arguments.Funkynusayri 19:30, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Funky says: "I don't give a damn about Egyptians"

This is a very clear example of hostility toward Egyptians. Now you know why others have questions about what motivates you here.Egyegy 21:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Read it again. It simply means that my relation to Egyptians is entirely neutral, and that I don't care about what how they view themselves, but I do care about whether this article reflects how they in fact view themselves, instead of how some editors would like them to view themselves. There's a difference. How exactly can indifference be interpreted as hate? Ridiculous. Funkynusayri 00:05, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Funky comes here to troll every once in a while to make some claims about Egyptians identifying as Arabs. A while ago Funky waged an edit war on the Negroid page that went on for months because he tried to include a questionable (racist?) photo in the article[11]. He kept referring to this source:

The total population of Africa at the present day is probably something like 151,000,000, and apportioned racially would consist of 120,000,000 Negroes and Negroids, 6,000,000 pure-blooded Europeans (absolute White men of Northern or Mediterranean stock), and 25,-000,000 of handsome, physically well developed, but mentally rather backward, dark-skinned Caucasians—Berbers, Arabs, Egyptians, Galas, and Abyssinians.

Funky uses this information when it suits his tactics. The disingenuousness behind the constant disruption should not escape the minds of the more discerning. Egyegy 01:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Irrelevant. Funkynusayri 01:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Translation: I was caught red-handed, so my only choice is to dismiss the undeniable evidence even though my disingenuous motivations became blatantly obvious. Egyegy 01:52, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• It's ironic, your "dear friend" Jeeny went on a rampage against me in that one, you two should really join forces against me, seems like my mere presence is enough to make the blood of you two boil. If both Afrocentrists and Egyptian nationalists hate me equally, it must mean that I am truly neutral. Anywhow, your mud-slinging is irrelevant to this article. Funkynusayri 01:54, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

lol Funky you are always good for a laugh, like ANYTHING you've ever said on this page has the slightest relevance to the article. I'm 100% sure you've never even read most of it to avoid having your militant Arab nationalist bubble pricked. Egyegy 02:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• I would in fact prefer Levantines and other arabised Arabs to disassociate themselves from South Arabians and create states similar to the SSNP idea of a Greater Syria, but as the situation in the world is now, a fractured Middle East is a bad idea. That's where "Arabness" comes in, it might be the only unifying factor in the region, but well, what do the people who made peace with Israel care about that? Anyhow, I understand your motivations, but you must admit that denouncing any Arab presence in modern Egypt is absurd. Funkynusayri 02:09, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

How do you define Egyptians as an ethnicity, the vast majority of Egyptians are Arabs and then there are the Copts though they are slightly culturally Arabs today, maybe just linguistically or slightly culturally...How do you define modern egyptian ethnicity? Is it by stating a common descent from the ancient Egyptians, the borders for defining what was Egyptian then and what is Egyptian now aren't easily defined today? This is confusing even for me??? The Coptics and the Nubians do have acknowledged ties to the ancient Egyptians but can we overencompass the arab definition with that of acknowledging ancestral non-Egyptians, through acknowledging arab-ness where does one acknowledge ancient Egyptian ethnicity?DomDomsta333 (talk) 02:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Egyptians are an ethnicity and a nation. Hamada2 (talk) 02:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC) ethnicity ?? please read history first

• Yet again, the largest problem here is that it is just assumed that all Egyptians identify as "ethnic Egyptians", and the fact that many don't is completely ignored. The entire page is based on the fact that the CIA lists Egyptians as an ethnic group in their factbook. And I see the Arab world tag was removed, ridiculous, it's in again, for obvious reasons. The fact that the country is officially "Arab Republic of Egypt" is rationale enough. Funkynusayri (talk) 03:45, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

well i am glad this page was a speedy keep it is informative and is evene keeled and has kept its integrity by not being taken over by afrocentric fantasy and myth--Mikmik2953 (talk) 18:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• This is not about afrocentrism, where the heck did you get that idea? read any of the previous discussions? Funkynusayri (talk) 19:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

no really thats the point smarty pants its based on fact and not been hijacked by afrocentrism myth and fantasy in other words a compliment to keeping it real and neutral you understand now so many articles that have anything to do with egypt have been hijacked--Mikmik2953 (talk) 20:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• "Smarty pants"? The ongoing discussion here is whether 100% of Egyptians identify as "ethnic Egyptians" rather than as Arabs as this article, or its nationalistic editors, claim, not whether the ancient Egyptians were black or some such nonsense. No one is denying that the modern Egyptians are the direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians, but do they identify as "ethnic" Egyptians? Hardly. Funkynusayri (talk) 20:39, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

scope

the question of "Coptic" vs. "Arabic" identity is certainly relevant to this article, but the detailed rehash of the History of Ancient Egypt is silly, and bordering on WP:POINT (we get it already, the author of the article doesn't like Arabs). This should be seriously trimmed for relevance. dab (𒁳) 08:31, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

the question of "Coptic" vs. "Arabic" identity is certainly relevant to this article Yet no such topic is broached in the article, so that's a non sequitur to boot. — Zerida ☥ 08:35, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

really? Then what, in your opinion, is the scope of this article? This isn't the article on Ancient Egyptians. It also isn't the Copts article. This is the article on modern Egyptian nationals, the vast majority of which are Arabic speaking. There can be a brief reference to Ancient Egypt in an "Origins" section, and there can be a special WP:SS "Copts" section treating these as an ethnic minority within modern Egypt. You are implying this is somehow about Ancient Egypt by making half this article about ancient history, and by giving Ancient Egyptian and Coptic terms for "Egyptian". If this isn't about Copts at all, but just about Arabic speaking Egyptians, why do we discuss Ancient Egypt and the Coptic language here, at all? dab (𒁳) 08:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

u really need to take a look at the french language, and List of dialects of the English language articles because, i did not count them but, it's a big number of countries in which there citizens should be called english, or french according to ur perspective. the ancients egyptians were different in physical properties just like a modern society consisting of many ethnic groups, and about the paintings, and statues, these were standardized ways of describing a country, or people; for example, an egyptian army group, would have all the soldiers wearing the same way, have the same skin color, and the same faces, and by the way, a nubian archers division for example, would be the exact same like the rest of the egyptian army excepting for skin color. arabs did not migrate from arabia to settle down in egypt, so did not the romans, persians, and any other different ethnic group than the egyptian. so traditions, religion, and language can vary, but the race or the ethnic group would not change, and the minorities from other ethnic groups, would be absorbed, and merged inside the society, but wouldnot affect the majority, that in turns, keep the ethnic identity of the civilization. non-egyptians may wonder why egypt is officially arab, while egyptians try to drop off the arab identity; i tell u what, if our identity, our present, and maybe even a considerable part of our future were ripped up in previous generations, the present generation would try to at least keep its history, and retain its identity. One last pharaoh (talk) 13:16, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

In reality, there is no such thing as "Coptic ethnicity"; this is not widely recognized since Egyptians in general share the same culture and speak the same language. Any general article on Egyptians is bound to give a chronicle of their history. All Egyptians are essentially "Copts" if we take it to mean Egyptians (if that's what you have in mind). The point however is that the article is referenced by reliable sources. See this reference for example. — Zerida ☥ 08:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Most Egyptians are proud of their connections to Ancient Egypt. Also the love-hate relationship between Arab culture and African/Mediterranean culture is predominent within the society. Excising Ancient Egypt from this article would be a disservice to the identity of Nationalist Egyptians as would excising Arabic from the article. ScienceApologist (talk) 08:49, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The point is that the articles should follow the format of other similar articles in terms of the kind of information presented: Greeks, Irish, Nubians, etc. — Zerida ☥ 08:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Um, yes, Nubians is a stub, but it is fine. There is half a million of them, and nobody is trying to coatrack about ancient Nubia. Likewise, I do not see Ancient Greek listed in the infobox at Greeks. "Dodekatheic minorities" is silly of course (WP:OTHERCRAP is not an argument). What are you trying to say? If you help me clean up this article towards the status of Greeks, we'll at least get somewhere. dab (𒁳) 09:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I just looked at the Greeks article. It's obvious that this article is better written. It's time to stop this silliness. Tammoor (talk) 09:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I think we need to have a little sit-down and a discussion about the scope of this article. I see the comparison with Greeks made above, and let me say that while this article is better written in parts, it does not necessarily mean that the material in it is presented with the correct weighting, or is not misleading in its effect. (Full disclosure: I hate the Greeks article as well, which is written to imply that anyone who questions the strongest form of ethnic Hellenic continuity is either a Nazi or, worse, Turkish. Note: when written this applied to this version; this has since been beautifully rewritten by an Unknown Scholar.) However, that article does at least nod (or spit disparagingly) in the direction of non-continuity. So here's what we need to do:

• Can we reduce the sections dealing with ancient Egyptians to a reasonable proportion of the article? If necessary, this can be done by creating the appropriate daughter article if it does not already exist. If it is indeed duplicated, then we can reduce the material with a clear conscience.
• Can we have a section discussing theories of continuity? What have historians, social scientists and geneticists said?
• What is the influence of continuity and the past on Egyptian national identity? If this article is attacked by pan-Arabists regularly, can we not have a section that points out the tension between the assumption of an Egyptian identity and pan-Arabist policies? Start with this. --Relata refero (disp.) 10:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

this can be done by creating the appropriate daughter article Actually, no, because again this meets the definition of WP:FORK. We have no other articles like that for ethnicites. We do however have articles on the ancient cultures, like Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. As I said, however, the history section overall was going to be trimmed down anyway once culture was expanded.

Can we have a section discussing theories of continuity? What have historians, social scientists and geneticists said? The Origins and History sections (those dealing with the transition from the ancient to the Graeco-Roman to the Islamic to the modern periods) all address these topics. Besides that, what else should be mentioned? Perhaps cultural connections like these (I've been thinking about it)? Zerida ☥ 10:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

See the rewritten Greece section above. Relata refero (disp.)

If this article is attacked by pan-Arabists regularly, can we not have a section that points out the tension between the assumption of an Egyptian identity and pan-Arabist policies? This is addressed here. I wanted to make this article as NPOV as humanly possible on this issue, so initially I contended myself with this quote from an academic historian (under the Republic section) "Their [the Egyptians'] Arabism constitutes for them a cultural dimension of their identity, not a necessary attribute of or prop for their national political being." That didn't stop Arab nationalist/pan-Arabist attacks. So the identity section in the Egypt article finally had to be created. — Zerida ☥ 10:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Some of the material relevant to identity battles should be in this article; it won't cease being attacked as NPOV until its here. Relata refero (disp.)

See that last quote says exactly what I've been saying all along, Arab and Egyptian are not mutually exclusive terms, you may have ancient Egyptian ancestry, but still identify as an Arab. But I doubt that's the way you interpret it.

It doesn't explain how modern Egyptians constitute an ethnic group either.

And please, quit the baseless accusations, I'm not a "pan-Arabist", and I don't see who else you could be referring to. Funkynusayri (talk) 10:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I made the assumption, without checking the history. I shouldn't assume anything about the political sympathies of people who disagree with the page as it currently stands, though may I say I don't think being a pan-Arabist is something that one is "accused" of. Seems harsh on the ideology. Relata refero (disp.) 10:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, it was directed at Zerida, as it looks like you simply used it in a response to her, but yeah, I'd say that accusations of being an Arab-nationalist on pages like these are quite damning if untrue, since it puts one's motivations into question. Funkynusayri (talk) 10:53, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

If you like Abdel Nasser so much and Arab nationalism is all you can talk about, well, if it walks like a duck. Tammoor (talk) 11:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Please quit the baseless accusations. Funkynusayri (talk) 11:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

"ethnic identity battles" can be referenced for what they are, with proper references on ethnic identity battles. But they shouldn't take place on-wiki, or be suggested implicitly without any reference. We can and should discuss "Egyptian Arabism" vs. "Egyptian nativism" in this article, but we need to do it up front. Any detailed history of Ancient Egypt is simply offtopic, period. dab (𒁳) 10:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

ok, I seem to understand that this is in fact about Pharaonism, itself a substub. We seem to be looking at an ideological struggle between "Pharaonism" and Pan-Arabism, with Zerida "defending" his "Pharaonist" article against "Pan-Arabist" trolling. Nothing new under the sun, I suppose, that's the exact same dispute we've seen under other "-isms" at dozens of other ethnicity articles. dab (𒁳) 11:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Go take a cold shower or a chill pill or something. You were given the reference herereference? Do you think you know better than historians? Enough disruption. Tammoor (talk) 11:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Note: any and all comments on contributors rather than on specific comment will be summarily removed from the page as irrelevant to the purpose of this talkpage. Lets keep this focused on the article, people. We can hate each other afterwards. :) --Relata refero (disp.) 11:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

well... relata, u did not need to delete my last edits here,i am the one who wrote them , and i am responsible of each word in it. so here it is so that my dear brothers from arabia can see it. One last pharaoh (talk) 13:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

cleanup tags, and even citation requests were simply removed, on no other grounds than WP:ILIKEIT. I admit there can be debate on the points raised, hence I do not insist on my precise revisions, but I do insist that cleanup templates placed in good faith and backed up with a rationale on talk are not removed until the issue is properly resolved. I am not saying it is wrong to hint at continuity. I am saying it is wrong (viz., WP:POINT) to emphasize the notion of continuity by simply duplicating most of the content at Ancient Egypt. This needs to be resolved, hence the cleanup tag. It will also not do to play down the fact that Egypt is de facto a predominantly Arabized, Islamic nation today. There are pre-Islamic remnants, but they need to be treated as remnants per WP:DUE. dab (𒁳) 17:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Your "concerns" have not been addressed because you have raised no valid concerns. Your personal attacks, however, have been addressed elsewhere. I'm going to make this more thorough so I don't have to repeat myself. The claim that material in this article is duplicated is spurious for several reasons:

This article set a standard for other main Egypt-related articles to follow. The structure of the history section in this article was copied almost exactly in Ancient Egypt long after this article was written, and since then History of ancient Egypt was also vastly improved. Your logic would dictate that we should remove whole sections from Ancient Egypt because material there is duplicated in the History of Egypt series--that's not going to happen, since a well-written article on AE must contain a detailed history section. Even so, this article is about the Egyptians, *not* Egypt, hence the history section here discusses the history of the *native population*, unlike the history sections in the other articles where the history of the empires that ruled Egypt are also discussed (including the Intermediate Periods and those after Alexander's conquest). The latter are only superficially covered here, and only in relation to the local population.

The pre-Ptolemaic and post-1922 periods are the *most* relevant for the obvious reason that Egyptians were under occupation at all other times. Even Nasser, a staunch Arab-nationalist, is known to have proclaimed upon taking office that he was the first Egyptian to rule Egypt since Nectanebo II. This is why Watterson (1997) for example dedicates the fist 200 pages to the Dynastic period and the last 100 or so to the last two thousand years, and indeed alludes to this fact: "Egypt [in 1952] had, for the first time since 343 BC, been ruled not by a Macedonian Greek, nor a Roman, nor an Arab, nor a Turk, but by an Egyptian." The sources used in the article, mostly written by academics, published by academic presses and/or articles from academic journals, are the most reliable per the criteria set in WP:SOURCES. Needless to say your opinions don't trump policy;

Finally, if or when the history section is truncated further, it will depend on how much more information is going into other sections. When Egypt was undergoing its first GA review two years ago, it was failed on the grounds that it did not provide enough coverage of the Dynastic (pharaonic) period. That deficiency was remedied, but that article also has to cover so many other aspects of the country (e.g., Economy, which is well outside my comfort zone) that are not covered here because again they are not relevant. All the main Egyptian articles, from Egypt to Ancient Egypt to Egyptians to Culture of Egypt and others, build on and complement one another. Their structure reflects this fact. — Zerida ☥ 00:53, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way, the different religions or sects practiced by Egyptians are sourced in the body of the article. It's also kind of hard to deny 2000 yeas of Jewish presence in the country, or the existence of the Baha'i community given how much coverage they've received in the press. — Zerida ☥ 01:00, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

so, in short, you refuse to collaborate within Wikipedia policy and are trying to WP:OWN this article. You'll have no joy this way, and the problem will not go away by revert warring. If you are interested in developing this article, your only option is collaboration in good faith. Yes, "my logic" dictates that after a detailed article on the History of Egypt has been developed, the coverage of the same topic in this article needs to be reduced to a summary per WP:SS. Appalling, isn't it. dab (𒁳) 08:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Can Zerida please explain what the precise objection is to having the history section in summary style? I don't see an actual reason anywhere on this page, other than a insufficiently precise statement about complementarity. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

what the precise objection is to having the history section in summary style? I needn't answer presuppositions, nor arguments that beg the question. The history sections are in summary style, which would be obvious to one with more than a passing familiarity with the subject. — Zerida ☥ 23:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Then what is the precise objection to summarising it further? --Relata refero (disp.) 08:01, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Zerida, if you have objections to the changes, point them out within Wikipedia policy. Even if you do that, do not remove cleanup tags and citation requests. Your present approach of simple obstinacy is not going to work, and will simply disfigure the article for extended periods of time. dab (𒁳) 16:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

revert-warring in the absence of discussion, and talkpage edits such as this one indicate that we have a bad case of WP:OWN and of nationalist antiquity frenzy here. Supervision is clearly needed here, by as many eyes as possible, and if necessary semi-protection. dab (𒁳) 18:15, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

pruning

I pruned the "ancient history" section, reducing article length from an insane 95k to 78k. The "History" section is still a full WP:CFORK of history of Egypt weighing 41k. It needs to be further dramatically reduced in length, it will not do to keep a full replica of the History of Egypt article here. dab (𒁳) 18:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry you cannot decide for yourself to cut the article into pieces without any agreement. Like other said this is very relevant to the article. Thanx Bayoumi (talk) 21:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

this is the article on the Egyptians. You know, the 72 million people living in Egypt. Very few of these 72 million will have more than an, ahem, passing familiarity with the ancient Egyptian language. It is for you to explain what 40 kilobytes (!) of WP:CFORK on History of Ancient Egypt are doing here. The Copts, of course, should be discussed, but they need to be discussed as the clear minority they are, per WP:DUE. They are discussed in detail at Copts. I honestly fail to see what you want. I am convinced my position is correct both wrt WP:MOS and WP:NPOV, and I will not back down unless my concerns are addressed within Wikipedia guidelines. Please don't bother edit-warring about it. dab (𒁳) 21:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Reverted of course, per discussion and answers ad nauseam. — Zerida ☥ 22:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

If I may interject after observing the activity over the last day or so... After reading the discussion, I agree that the concerns raised by Dbachmann have not been addressed; specifically the objection to further summarizing other articles that already exist. I see Dbachmann's edits as constructive improvements, and those reverting to the more verbose version seem to have an improper sense of ownership.

I would say to Bayoumi and Zerida, Dbachmann doesn't need to justify summarizing content that already exists elsewhere; you two need to justify the undue weight inclusion of excess material and content forking in an article about Egyptians. I am reverting back to Dbachmann's version. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid that wholesale deletion of the ancient history section hardly constitutes improvement, it borders on vandalism. Contrary to what you said, any editor most certainly does need to justify such unilateral, non-consensus based deletion after objections have been raised and extensive discussion has taken place regarding its relevance and importance to the article. "Content-forking" is a spurious argument at best, since no such "forking" has ever taken place from other articles. As I have pointed out repeatedly, the content of the history section in this article is not covered in any other article, because this is the only article about the Egyptian as a people, as opposed to Egypt as a country. But as I also mentioned before, I think the history section can be trimmed down (not deleted) when the need arises; e.g. to add material to other sections. Most well-written articles, including many FAs, are on average about the size of this article, so size is certainly not the issue. In terms of prose size, this article is about the same as that of Ancient Egypt, even though this article provides coverage of topics not at all covered in the latter. — Zerida ☥ 01:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

nothing to do with "deletion", nothing to do with "vandalism". If you continue to refuse the merit of the concerns raised, we'll get nowhere. You fail to explain why the content of history of Ancient Egypt should be duplicated here. "content forking" means that you are addressing the scope of an existing article at a second, separate article. We can't have that, or we'll end up with a dozen articles discussing the history of Ancient Egypt. The scope of this article is not Ancient Egypt. It is the modern, Arabic-speaking ethnic group. If you think we need an article about the Ancient Egyptians, as opposed to Ancient Egypt (where this title currently redirects), kindly create an article there. Now this would simply be bad editing, if it wasn't for the obvious political agenda. You are clearly disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, the point in question being showing your preference for indigenist over Arabic nationalism. A Pan-Arabist trying the same tactics would inundate the article with 50 kilobytes of Arabic history and the arrival of Arabic culture and Islam to Egypt (viz., they would create a giant bloated WP:CFORK of Muslim conquest of Egypt and History of Arab Egypt). An editor whishing to emphasize Egypt's Christian heritage would dump a full CFORK of History of Roman Egypt and Copts. You can see this will not do. What we do want here is a neutral sketch of this discourse in 20th century Egyptian society. If you are willing to help building this, you are welcome to help. If you're just here to push your nationalist agenda and call efforts towards cleanup "vandalism", you'd better walk away. dab (𒁳) 09:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Some editors need to read WP:civil and WP:Bold. What Dbachmann did was in no way vandalism. This article, as two editors above agree, is not about Ancient Egypt. I agree with Dbachmann and Amatulic.--Doug Weller (talk) 11:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

And some editors need to read WP:consensus, WP:no original research, and take a careful look at WP:bold about reckless editing and being reverted. This version makes the article like it was written like a disorganized mess with a lot of original research being put in after the reliable referenced material was taken out!! Let's take a look at one example

Many Egyptians feel ... while others are part of either the Pan-Arabist or the indigenist camps. HUH?! and this a nationalism that focusses on Ancient Egypt (known as Pharaonism) on the other

Where on earth did you get this from, DBachmann Propaganda R Us? He just completely made this up!!! Most Egyptians don't even know what "pharaonism" is, which is about a theme that some writers in the 20 and 30's had in their novels and writings. THe Noble Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz first couple of novels were about Ancient Egypt. That's what this is about. How do you go from having a sketch of the history of Egyptians in the article to this unencyclopedic littering that looks like bad high school research. Read WP:no original research again and stop disrupting the article to force your own political agenda. Egyegy (talk) 15:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

And you have reverted putting back all that ancient history without consensus. And cut out:

Main article: Origin of Egyptians Further information: Predynastic Egypt, Proto-Afro-Asiatic, and Origin of the Nilotic peoples What's the purpose of all the duplication?--Doug Weller (talk) 16:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You probably don't see how consensus works. YOU the people wanting to enforce changes in the article need consensus for these changes, something you don't have. Honestly you have to come up with something better than this "duplication" stuff. It was said a million times that this history here is about the PEOPLE not the country, there is not duplication. Actually the history part in Ancient Egypt and History of ancient Egypt are really like copies of each other. But this happens with a lot of articles about countries. Egyegy (talk) 16:32, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

sorry, but that's nonsense. What part of this is "about the PEOPLE"?

By the end of the Early Dynastic period, a strong centralized government was firmly established with Memphis as its capital city. The Old Kingdom (c. 2700−2200 BC), is particularly famous for its magnificent superstructures, many of which served as royal tombs for the pharaohs. They were state-sponsored projects built by native Egyptians in the 3rd and 4th dynasties. Building typically commenced during the Nile's Inundation when agricultural lands were submerged in water and people could not farm. King Djoser's step pyramid at Saqqara, engineered by the architect Imhotep, and the Giza pyramids are a testament to the Egyptians' competence in astronomy and mathematics very early in their history. It is believed that many parts of famous medical papyri that appear in later periods, particularly the Edwin Smith papyrus, were written during this period by Imhotep and other Egyptian physicians.[46] Egyptian religion and writing took definitive shape in the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods. The local pantheon, which had been in the predynastic period confined to sacred animal deities, expanded to include cosmic gods representing the sun, moon, sky and wind. This constituted an effort toward greater philosophical and intellectual development.[47] Solar worship embodied in the cults of Ra and Atum—subsequently Atum-Ra—came to particular prominence in the Old Kingdom. The oldest known mummy dates to the 5th dynasty in Saqqara.[48] Lasting for an estimated 500 years, the Old Kingdom was the quintessential Egyptian civilization. Insular and unchallenged from abroad, the Egyptians enjoyed a time of continuous stability unmatched by any other period, leading one historian to describe it as the "Peaceable Kingdom of historical memory."[49]

(and so on and so on, that's just the "Old Kingdom" section). This is about dynasties, pyramids, architecture, astronomy, literature, religion, and what have you, not about populations or "the PEOPLE". Give us a break. I do not need to come up with "something better" simply because you choose to apply WP:IDONTLIKEIT to the perfectly valid reason I give. This article is about the modern group. Ancient Egypt may be mentioned, for historical background, but it is not the topic of this article. Now I edited the article to address its problems, instead of a step-by-step process involving cleanup templates and debate, because the cleanup templates and citation requests I did place were removed in obviously disruptive manner by Zerida and others. If Zerida doesn-t want to play by the rules, he has no business playing at all. I am happy to invest time in debate with bona fide editors. I have no interest in wasting my time talking at pov warriors without respect for policy or proper wiki behaviour. dab (𒁳) 17:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

This looks like a reading comprehension problem too. Egyptians are all over the paragraph: state-sponsored projects built by native Egyptians .. King Djoser.. Egyptians' competence in astronomy and mathematics.. Imhotep and other Egyptian physicians.. worship by Egyptians, etc. etc. etc. You don't get to decide on your own what the topic of this article is. The topic of this article is clear, it's Egyptians. Ancient or modern, dead or alive, Muslim or Christian, urban or fellahin, in Egypt or immigrants. In short this is an article about the Egyptian people, so all of these things are going to be mentioned. "no business playing"? I'm sorry that you see Wikipedia as your little playground for cowboy games, I can assure that's not respectful of policies or proper wiki behaviour. Egyegy (talk) 17:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

stop revert warring and explain how the scope of your "History of Ancient Egyptians" is different from "History of Ancient Egypt". Are you suggesting we need "History of Ancient Romans", "History of Ancient Greeks" etc., all of course completely different from the respective history of their states? I am sorry, but I cannot believe you are serious. This is just political pov pushing. dab (𒁳) 19:21, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Dbachmann, while scanning the recent discussion, this caught my attention the point in question being showing your preference for indigenist over Arabic nationalism. Where does one draw the line between presenting a factual account of the indigenous culture and history of the people, or your neologism "indigenist camp" (your WP:OR of the day)? I write on things I know best, which in the context of this article happens to be Egyptology. All the references cited in this article are by academic Egyptologists and historians--are they all "indigenists"? Does this apply to specialists in the indigenous languages and cultures of the Americas or others? If you are implying that I have a preference for indigenous Egyptian (and otherwise) history, language and culture; then I'm 100% guilty as charged. I have never denied the fact that this is what I do prefer, what I do study and what I do write about on Wikipedia. I have never however done this outside the bounds of core policies like WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. If we applied your logic to this article, we would get something along the lines of "Egyptians more or less ceased to exist after Alexander's conquest, and this article is about the new people". You are obviously free to believe that if it provides you with any comfort, that's your prerogative, but it would make the article completely unbalanced and inaccurate. An article such as has to focus on what makes Egyptians interesting and unique as a culture throughout their history. Much of this happens to be what you call "indigenist" and "pharaonist" (read: Egyptian), but it's not all or even most. Each section provides a mere glimpse of what in reality was many centuries of a much broader and richer history. You mentioned the Old Kingdom section; it covers 500 years in two paragraphs, as opposed to the late Roman/Byzantine section which lasted for about as long but gives greater coverage because of the relevance of Coptic Christianity to Egyptians today. That's the kind of balancing act that the article needs to have. — Zerida ☥ 21:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Zerida --- the "indigenist" ("nativist", "pharaonist", I didn't come up with these terms) vs. "Arabist" discussion is a modern (19th to 20th century) discourse. You are not addressing it by dumping a discussion of ancient history. You are perfectly welcome to discuss ancient history, at History of Ancient Egypt. This is content that simply doesn't belong here. Now, I have restored your coatracking essay on Ancient Egypt, with a {{Duplication}} tag. If you can forgo disruptively removing cleanup tags, we can well keep the text around for the duration of this discussion, there is no deadline. There is, however, no justification for your edit-warring over cleanup tags. I do not "believe" anything except that you should discuss your interest at the proper articles dedicated to them. Yes, the Egyptians have a great history. Yes, this should be mentioned on this page; no, it shouldn't be replicated in full on this article. Egyptians are also human. Does that justify me to dump the entire human evolution article here? Egyptians didn't "cease to be human" in the Bronze Age. Nevertheless, it would be completely offtopic to discuss the history of human evolution on this article. Now please try to be reasonable and react to the very straightforward point of focus and stop second-guessing my intentions. My intention is a clean and readable article on the Egyptian people of today, including a short summary on their history, just like for every other ethnic group article on Wikipedia. We don't merge Celts and Germanic peoples into British people. We don't merge Gauls and Franks into French people. Look at "English people": There is a page or so on "Romano-Britons and Anglo-Saxons", without any attempt to replicate Anglo-Saxons. Or look at Greeks -- we have many Greek editors justly proud of their history, and yet they are capable of coming up with a decent article on the ethnic group where each stage in their history is given a short WP:SS summary. This is what we are looking for. You are free to believe that the Anglo-Saxons are what makes the English "unique and interesting", but they are nevertheless treated at their own Anglo-Saxons article. We are looking for the same reasonable article structure here. Your fallacy seems to be that you take for granted that modern Egyptians are not "interesting" or "unique". That's pathetic. If you are not interested in modern Egyptians, what are you even doing here? I grant you Ancient Egypt is very interesting indeed. It also has its own article. It is outrageous to imply that the notability of the 72 million Egyptians alive today depends on the notability of ancient Egypt. This is the article dedicated to them. You are trying to bury an ethnic group under a ton of Bronze Age history that is fully treated elsewhere. In this sense, the implication that Egyptians ceased to be interesting with the conquest of Alexander is entirely yours. dab (𒁳) 07:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Identity

here's a source I googled on what this article should be discussing

• Gershoni, I., The Evolution of National Culture in Modern Egypt: Intellectual Formation and Social Diffusion, 1892-1945, Poetics Today, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), pp. 325-350

Zerida, your "preference for indigenous Egyptian (and otherwise) history" is most welcome, at any article in the Ancient Egypt category. You are wasting your and my time and nerves by insisting on doing the right thing at the wrong place. dab (𒁳) 07:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if you are trying to be slow on purpose or this is just the way you are. Native or indigenous Egyptian does NOT mean only ancient Egyptian, that's the point that keeps going over your head. Anyone with an ability to read and without an obvious agenda hiding behind "cleanup" nonsense can see that more than half of this article is not about ancient Egyptians. But what else does someone who treats wikipedia like their playground care about anyway. Obviously not objectivity or accuracy. That's what;s really pathetic. And stop dumping that stuff you made up to the lead again. You revert caused vandalism to go back to another section. Egyegy (talk) 15:52, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, what? I am not being "slow", I rather happen to see through the agendas pursued here due to my long experience with ethnic nationalist pov pushing on Wikipedia. This is just another typical case of antiquity frenzy. Please try to keep apart the WP:SS point about pruning the (in itself perfectly valid) discussion of ancient Egypt, and the actual on topic discussion of modern Egyptian national identity. Your statement "You revert caused vandalism to go back to another section" isn't even grammatical. May I ask you to use grammatical English if you want to interact with me, I am in no mood to second-guess how exactly you are trying to weasle your way out of this. --dab (𒁳) 11:14, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I've created a new section on "Identity". I take for granted that the "History" section should be pruned, and we can now address content that is actually on topic. You seem to want to discuss the "Arabist" vs. "Pharaonist" question. You seem to claim that this is something I have "made up". I have not. I have rather imported this from elsewhere on Wikipedia (Egypt, Pharaonism). I admit that you are perfectly entitled to question this. If you had any interest in bona fide debate, you would do this by using {{fact}} and similar, or presenting suggestions for rephrasing. I could respect a dispute that went forward along these lines. I cannot respect stubborn revert warring, and I will not honour such uncollaborative behaviour with further prose. You want to be involved in this? Then sit down and try to collaborate in fixing the issues involved. You will note that my discussion of Egyptian national identity is directly based on the 1992 article I cited. If you disagree, you are perfectly free to come up with a different source and juxtapose it to what I have been discussing. Egyptian national identity is a very complex and intersting topic, and it deserves better than to be buried beneath a ton of coatracking about Ancient Egypt as has been the case in this article. Please do contribute in a balanced discussion of Egyptian national identity, but do so honestly and based on scholarly sources, not by revert-warring and disruption. dab (𒁳) 11:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

terminology: Gershoni calls the two opposing nationalist movements "Westernized Egyptianist" and "Islamic-Arab". We should perhaps follow suit and use "Egyptianism", since "Pharaonism" is used as the term for the historical Pharaonic state. dab (𒁳) 11:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

"I rather happen to see through the agendas pursued here due to my long experience with ethnic nationalist pov pushing on Wikipedia." Oh please you mean the "fringe" stuff that makes you feel good about yourself? I guess you know better than the historian, archaelogists, and egyptologists. No thank you, just because you are extremely obsessed with nationalist stuff doesn't mean the article has to suffer because of it. You're trying to make it about the only things you know how to deal with so you can justify disrupting it. This isn't your nationalist sandbox. It's just straight facts, history, culture, you know the things that actually matter (not to you obviously). Egyegy (talk) 16:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

ahem, if you continue to refuse playing by the rules, blanking referenced content and maintenance tags, I will look for admin action. I have been willing to compromise and leave the offtopic material standing, waiting for you to present any sort of justification on your part. This article suffers because you refuse to observe WP:DR and WP:OWN. Unlike you, I am not defending a fixed revision, I am looking for ways to fix it without insisting on a pre-conceived version I want to defend no matter what. You, otoh, are just stubbornly refusing to recognize there even are issues. This is not a symmetrical "dispute". I will see to it proper behaviour is enforced here by admin action if you continue to refuse collaboration. If I, as an admin, saw behaviour such as yours on any article witout being myself involved, I would warn and block you for disruption immediately, and I am confident others will see the case similarly. dab (𒁳) 16:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

You can't even contribute to the article without making it look like a complete mess. You STILL put back the vandalism I told you about and your edits are all sloppy. We're not here to keep cleaning up after you. The identity sections is mentioned. That's it. And please spare me the "I'm an admin" stuff, it's not intimidating me. You have no authority on article content. You threatening you to abuse your adminship like you did any times before is really what needs to be dealt with. Egyegy (talk) 17:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll be happy to clean up the article if you stop reverting my edits. At present, the cleanup tags are there to respect your opposition to the pruning of the offtopic material. If you cannot accept even that I cannot help you. If you have a problem with the references, use {{fact}}. If you have a problem with scope use {{split}}. Just stop the disruptive reverts to the untagged " la la la, I can't hear you" version. So "all my edits are sloppy"? THen how about this] mediculously referenced discussion of the core topic of this article (as opposed to the irrelevant History of Ancient Egypt material). Sloppy? Offtopic? I have no authority on article content. I am not objecting to being in a dispute. I am objecting to your misconduct in failing to respect there is a dispute. You are guilty of WP:ICANTHEARYOU. Content disputes are one thing. Disruptive removal of tags and disruptive blanking of referenced, on-topic content is another. That's disruption quite apart of any valid objections you may have in terms of content, even if you consistently fail to state them. dab (𒁳) 17:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The article doesn't need "cleaning up", that's clear as day. Find something constructive to do with your time on wikipedia. Egyegy (talk) 17:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

it does. Your refusal to even read what I am saying nonwithstanding. Your only option is to recognize there is a dispute, and respect WP:DR. If you are unwilling to do that, you can either walk away, or keep trolling until you are blocked. You cannot sit this out. You can count on me pursuing this for a year, or three years, until a satisfactory solution is found. There is no deadline. This is constructive work in my book, I am here to clean up national mysticist bias from ethnic group articles. This one is a bad case, and it will stay on my watchlist. You are welcome to be part of the solution of the problem, but you cannot prevent the problem from being solved. As a minimal (minimal!) courtesy, keep your edits regarding the "identity" section separate from those regarding the pruning of the "History" section. dab (𒁳) 17:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

You need to recognize that if you want any of your changes to stick, you need to discuss them first and get consensus. This "I'm an admin, I can do whatever I want without respecting any rules" attitude will get you nowhere. I've see you do this on the race of ancient Egypt article too which got you in trouble. And for the record you can pursue this for as long as you want, I can guarantee that I can pursue it for as long . Egyegy (talk) 17:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Dbachmann, as Egyegy pointed out the only reasonable approach to any content dispute is to discuss changes on the talk page in order to reach consensus. You said, So "all my edits are sloppy"? THen how about this] mediculously referenced discussion of the core topic of this article. Two points here: 1. I would agree with the characterization of your latest edit as somewhat "sloppy" because a. it introduced a previously reverted vandalism to another section, b. it contains many typological errors, and c. much of that information is discussed in the modern history section if you had bothered to read it. 2. You consistently miss the point that this type of fluff is not the "topic of the article". It's one thing to give some brief information about it under the identity section, and also in the framework of the 19th-20th century anti-colonial movement (which is discussed in the modern history section where it's relevant), and another entirely to make the article about it. You say If you had any interest in bona fide debate; that's the point, I do not. I am not interested in having a "debate" (a WP:FORUM discussion) about this topic. Remember that this article never even broached this topic until you insisted on including an identity section here. Fine, but I have no desire to "debate" or rehash it. You are welcome to ask me questions about it on my talk page if you're genuinely interested in learning more about this subject, but the article contrary to what you said is not the place to discuss it in the main at all. A reasonably sized section about it is acceptable, *making the article about it* is not. The same applies to the article on Egypt. The only chance that this article has for any neutrality and quality is if it remains thoroughly inundated in academic scholarship on history and culture, not identity politics. You are asking that the article be turned into yet another one of the many articles on Wikipedia that are a frequent battleground for this. How ironic when you claim that your interest is to "clean up" the article from it. Let's keep brief information on that topic for neutrality purposes, but we can't have the article just be about that. — Zerida ☥ 19:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

(unindent)Dab's not a vandal and as he says, this isn't a symmetrical "dispute". I'm not an admin or I would probably take action now. Egygy, your language is not acceptable.--Doug Weller (talk) 17:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Neither is yours and your violating wikipedia's policy on canvassing to edit war for your friend. Egyegy (talk) 17:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Dougweller is right. Assume good faith, people. Unwarranted language, accusations, and assumption of bad faith are unacceptable in the extreme. I see nobody canvassing here; all I see are a couple of editors who seem (to me) to have a sense of ownership fighting tooth and nail to avoid constructive changes they disagree with. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

No, you are wrong. Again. Read WP:canvassing. It says: "messages that are written to influence the outcome rather than to improve the quality of a discussion compromise the consensus building process and are generally considered disruptive."[12] This has been nothing but disruptive, which could have very easily been avoided if someone had even a little foresight or tact to have a civil discussion on the talk page before making radical changes. In the meantime why don't you tell us what is that you even understand about this discussion? Egyegy (talk) 21:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

First, Egyegy has accused me of canvassing. I'd love to see the evidence for that. He hasn't shown me sending any messages. Secondly, one message isn't canvassing as I understand the guideline (the discussion page by the way is very interesting). Thirdly, Egyegy has just insulted Amatulic, this is not a constructive way to have a discussion.--Doug Weller (talk) 06:26, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence was given in the link that I gave in my last post. What I'd love for you to do is show how I "insulted" anyone because I asked what their understanding of the discussion is, since they haven't actually said anything about it. Egyegy (talk) 18:29, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

stop doing summary reverts. If you have something to say, do it point by point. Use the appropriate tags, such as {{fact}}, {{NPOV}} etc. Otherwise, no progress is possible, and your behaviour at present clearly falls under WP:DISRUPT. dab (𒁳) 06:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

"summary" revert? Why don't you take your own advice and stop revert warring. Egyegy (talk) 21:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It takes more than one to revert-war, and you are doing the same. You are the only one here who I see violating WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF as well. To Dbachman I would suggest posting proposed text on the talk page first. If it's contentious, that's where it should be discussed. This article is getting very close to being blocked from editing if you guys can't come to an agreement. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:05, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You show bias when you say that I'm violating WP:civil without mentioning Bach's continuous violations of this policy. This is something he was sanctioned for[13]. All he's done is bring chaos and hostility to the article. If he really wanted to improve rather than antagonize, he should've taken this to the discussion page from the beginning without constantly attacking the editors on it. I'm not the one who is not assuming good faith. Egyegy (talk) 23:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The hostility is all yours. The sooner you recognize there is a dispute, and make an attempt to explain and justify your position (if you have any beyond WP:OWN), the sooner there can be progress. Until you show that minimal amount of good faith, the cleanup tags stay in place. No, it does not "take more than one" to revert war. I am not pushing a particular revision. I have explained the problem patiently, and have been prepared to pursue WP:DR while the issues under debate are marked with standard cleanup tags. This is good Wikipedia practice. It only takes one to ignore all procedure and policy, and stubbornly revert-war to their WP:OWN version without debate. This isn't a symmetrical dispute, it is good faith Wikipedia process vs. disruptive to vandalistic temper-tantrums. I am under no obligation to lower my expectations of talkpage interaction to Egyegy's approach, and until there is some genuine reaction to the issues raised, I don't see there is anything to discuss here. Unless Egyegy and tag-team resort to respecting Wikipedia rules now, this isn't a case of a "dispute", but a simple case of disruption to be tackled by admin action. dab (𒁳) 10:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You've done nothing but push that one revision you made up even though you clearly show no understanding or knowledge of the article, just motivated by obvious anti-Egyptian hostility. Just because you feel you need to crap all over an article doesn't mean we're obligated to accept your crap. Your behavior on this article is just further proof that all the things that have been brought against you were true. You don't have any respect for wikipedia consesus or process, so we'll just have to treat yo similarly. You might think you're being a good old German cowboy here, but I can assure you that this trolling won't get any further than it has in all of your past interactions. Egyegy (talk) 17:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Egyptians Picture

When I saw the picture featuring 10 famous Egyptians, I realized that lots of more people could be added. I started a new picture and in it I added Mohamed el-Baradei and am thinking about adding Imhotep, but I don't know if I should add el-Sadat, since his mother was Sudanese. Anyways, I will make two copies, one featuring el-Sadat, and another featuring Nasser. Can you please suggest if I could put both, or if there are any other people worth putting. For the kind of people we are looking for, please take a look at this: [French people] Hobapotter (talk) 16:19, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

List of people we can add:

• Zahi Hawass
• Ahmed Zewail
• Boutros Boutros Ghali

Please read [[WP:IMAGES}} and WP:IUP and don't forget the copyright issues (I doubt that you have, but just in case...).--Doug Weller (talk) 16:49, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me. Actually, it is my first time to upload an image on Wikipedia. I sent a message to the original author of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Egyptians.jpg Egyptians.jpg to ask him for permission to use his picture and am waiting for response. Hobapotter (talk) 18:49, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Arab identity

Why is it tht the Egyptians have their own article, while other Arab nations don't? The Egyptians are Arabic-speaking Muslims who mostly consider themselves Arabs. Yes, I agree, they where never Arabs before and I hope that they stop seeing themselves as Arabs, but that doesn't mean they aren't almost always seen as Arabs now. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 00:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to delete this article, I just want it to at least mention the commonly held belief that Egyptians are Arabs. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 00:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The identity section does mention the fact that there are Egyptians who hold that belief, as well as mentioning that it is not taken for granted. There is no evidence that they "mostly" hold that belief so the article must remain neutral on the subject. — Zerida ☥ 01:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Samdusan, their being Muslim has nothing to do with their being Egyptian[14]--Yolgnu (talk) 01:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

An Arab is a native speaker of Arabic, culturally part of the Arab world. A Muslim is an adherent of Islam, regardless of native language or culture. Egypt is a borderline case wrt the "Arab world". This is a real-life dispute, and needs to be presented as such. --dab (𒁳) 11:00, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Egyptians are in fact Arabic-speaking Muslims in a large majority (90%), and should be presented as such per WP:DUE, but of course the existence of an Arabic-speaking Christian minority (10%) should be noted. I don't know if they "mostly consider themselves Arabs" -- that's precisely the topic under dispute, and we'll need to see references for either position. As I understand it (and present in a referenced discussion (Gershoni 1992)) that keeps getting blanked by the trolls[15][16]), the "Egyptians are Arabs" ideology was pushed during the Nasser period, but has become the view of a (sizeable, 25% or so) minority since, with the majority opting for a "Westernized, Egyptianist", non-Arab national identity. This is open to discussion, provided WP:RS are cited. Discussion is to take place in a civilized manner, without revert warring, hostility and trolling. I understand that the trolling we see here is motivated by the "Egyptianist" desire to deny the existence of the minority view even as a minority view -- clearly against core policy (WP:NPOV) of course. --dab (𒁳) 10:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

It should be mentioned that Egyptians, contrary to popular belief, are not a subgroup of Arabs; but rather many Egyptians are also Arabs, while others are not (since ethnicity is voluntary).--Yolgnu (talk) 12:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be good to show in the opening section that "many consider the Egyptians to be Arabs, or a subgroup of Arabs". For example the Egyptian government (Arab Republic of Egypt), the US Census and the Arab League. On the other hand, the CIA World Factbook classifies them as Egyptians. So, I think that both viewpoints should be shown in the opening section of the article. By the way, I agree more with the Egyptianist approach - it makes no sense to refer to Arabic-speakers as ethnically Arab since I speak English as my first language but no-one would be crazy enough to suggest that I'm mostly of English ancestry. I just think that the most common view (at least in the Anglophone world) is that they're Arabs. Oh, and the reason I mentioned Islam was because the Maltese are Arabic-speakers, but are never seen as Arabs. Why? Because they're Roman Catholics. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 00:50, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The official name of Egypt, which came about as a result of the brief "unification" with Syria in the 60s, has no bearing on how Egyptians identify themselves. The subject is not so notable as to make an issue of it in the lead, it should only be mentioned where it's relevant, i.e. in the identity section. Also this is a question of self-perception, not how others view Egyptians. "Many consider Egyptians..." and "I think the most common view..." are weasel words, and in the absence of reliable sources that address those questions, they are original research. For example, the fact that the US census classifies Egyptians, Berbers and Kurds all as Arabs (defined I believe as anyone from an "Arab country") does not translate into "the most common view"; it's the view of the census agency. We can mention it in the identity section, but with the caveat that these groups or many of their members would object to such classification. BTW, I am not sure what you mean by being classified "as Egyptians"--Egyptians are *always* classified as Egyptians. It's a question of whether they are *also* classified as Arab or a "subgroup" of Arabs as you say. The Maltese are not seen as Arabs, not because they are Roman Catholics, but because the Maltese do not regard their language as Arabic, none have adopted Arab nationalism as a mode of self-expression, or are part of a pan-Arab body, so non-Maltese speakers (including "Arabic"-speakers) generally have no idea that Maltese is "Arabic". The Maltese language is not classified as Arabic because it is an independent standard language, the official language of Malta, and does not coexist with Classical Arabic in a situation of diglossia (though it is descended from Arabic, but Maltese speakers generally deny that as well). — Zerida ☥ 02:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no point saying "most Anglophones consider Egyptians a subgroup of Arabs"; that's like saying "most Anglophones consider this to be a dialect of Italian" on the Maltese page. Rather, we should explain why Egyptians are often also considered to be Arabs - primarily because they speak Arabic (Standard as well as Egyptian - we shouldn't deny the diglossia, which is one of the main reasons why Egyptians are sometimes not considered a legitimate ethnic group). The formal name of the country they mostly live in, and its membership in the Arab League, is largely irrelevant - ethnic groups don't have governing bodies.--Yolgnu (talk) 04:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

they speak Arabic (Standard as well as Egyptian - we shouldn't deny the diglossia, which is one of the main reasons why Egyptians are sometimes not considered a legitimate ethnic group) Just to clarify, Egyptians don't "speak" Standard Arabic; that's a written not a spoken language. In reality, the "language" that Egyptians speak is as distinct from Standard as well as the spoken Arabic varieties as is Maltese. Furthermore, what's a "legitimate" ethnic group? Ethnicity is a social construct which, more than anything, takes subjective criteria into account. Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks are today viewed as "legitimate" ethnic groups because that's how they define themselves. At any rate, language is only one factor that goes into determining group membership. If we took language to be the only or primary criterion, then the Irish, who are overwhelmingly English-speaking, would not be a "legitimate" ethnic group. — Zerida ☥ 04:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Understand and write, sorry, not speak. As to their legitimacy, I agree with it, but the examples you've given are bad ones: Serbs and Croats don't claim continuity with a group who spoke a different language from them, and the difference between Egyptians and Irish is that some people still speak Irish, while Egyptian (Coptic) has been extinct for centuries. On the other hand, Egyptian and Coptic are fully attested, with much literature, unlike, say, Gaulish, which is why French people are not considered to have continuity with the Gauls.--Yolgnu (talk) 07:32, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Not all Egyptians actually have a good understanding of Classical/Standard Arabic due to a high illiteracy rate. I pointed out the former Yugoslavs only to show that the concept of "ethnic group" is a fluid one, not to compare or contrast them to Egyptians. As regards the indigenous Egyptian language, it has ceased to be spoken but is not extinct in the sense that Akkadian or Phoenician are extinct. It's also undergoing revitalization and as a result a few families now speak it on a first-language basis. On another side note, many African peoples today speak French as a mother tongue and have no knowledge of any African languages (indeed many indigenous languages of Africa have died out due to a combination of European colonialism and globalization in the last century). Of course, they are still African ethnic groups, not "French" ones. — Zerida ☥ 18:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Not a great comparison either - Egypt wasn't colonised by the Arabs, was it? Anyway, "legitimate" wasn't what I meant; what I meant was that Egyptians are an unusual ethnic group because of the linguistic situation (just like Palestine is a country, but an unusual one because it doesn't have full autonomy).--Yolgnu (talk) 05:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, Egypt was invaded and occupied by the Arabs, just like the Greeks, Turks, Persians, British and others until the country once again became independent. But *today* there is still what can be said to be a type of Arab neo-colonialism that affects not only Egypt but many other countries in the region. It's an ideology; a type of ethno-chauvinism that is embodied in many Arab-nationalist policies. That is at any rate how many Egyptians and other indigenous ethnic groups in the region like Berbers, Nubians and others see it. Consider this from Egyptian academic Leila Ahmed (1999) who calls this phenomenon "linguistic and cultural imperialism":

The year was 1952, the year of [Nasser's coup d'état] ... I remember how I hated the incessant rhetoric. Al-qawmiyya al-Arabiyya! Al-Uruba! Nahnu al-Arab! Arab nationalism! Arabness! We the Arabs! Even now just remembering those words, I feel again a surge of mingled irritation and resentment. Propaganda is unpleasant... Imagine what it would be like if say, the British or the French were incessantly told, with nobody allowed to contest, question, or protest, that they were now European, and only European... But for us [Egyptians] it was actually worse and certainly more complicated... Egyptians, who in that era [before Nasser] were preoccupied with getting rid of the British, were either uninterested in or positively hostile to this strange Syrian idea of an Arab identity ... Well into the first decades of this century, neither the self-defined new Arabs nor the Egyptians themselves thought that this new identity had anything to do with Egyptians...

...the steady spread and imposition of this culture of [Classical Arabic] literacy throughout the Arab world seems to represent a kind linguistic and cultural imperialism—a linguistic, cultural, and also a class imperialism that is being conducted in the name of education and of Arab unity and of the oneness of the Arab nation. Steadily throughout the Arab world, as this Arab culture of literacy marches inexorably onward, local cultures continue to be erased and their linguistic and cultural creativity condemned to permanent, unwritten silence. And we are supposed to applaud this, not protest it as we would if it were any other form of imperialism or political domination. This variety of domination goes by the name of "nationalism," and we are supposed to support it.

— Zerida ☥ 06:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

"because the Maltese do not regard their language as Arabic, none have adopted Arab nationalism a mode of expression, or are part of a pan-Arab body, so non-Maltese speakers (including "Arabic"-speakers) generally have no idea that Maltese is "Arabic"" and why do you think that is? Again, because they are Catholics, which causes closer ties with Europe, which makes it so that Arabization is impossible.

It doesn't need to be my exact words, I just think that the "Arabist" view to be shown in the opening paragraph, because whether or not it is the most common view, it is still a very common view, and deserves representation in the opening paragraph. Or perhaps we should remove the mentions of "Arab" in the opening paragraphs of Palestinian people, Emirati people and Lebanese people articles? Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 08:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Maltese are not Arabs, not because other people don't consider them Arabs, but because they themselves don't consider themselves Arabs. As to your second point, most Palestinians consider themselves Arabs, while most Egyptians don't; and the Emirati people article shouldn't exist, while the Lebanese people article was created by you.--Yolgnu (talk) 08:47, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm just saying that it should be in the opening section. Is that too much to ask? The Lebanese people article was created by me due to the existence of the Palestinian people and Emirati people articles. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 09:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Well congratulations then, you just sprang an ethnic group into existence.--Yolgnu (talk) 11:44, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

To Saimdusan, I think that's a rather bad idea, the creation of more of such articles shouldn't be encouraged, unless they are about actual ethnic groups. Funkynusayri (talk) 05:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• That Maltese don't consider themselves Arabs has nothing to do with them being Catholics, otherwise it would apply to Greek Catholic Arabs and similar too, which it doesn't. And as for Egyptians, if we have a source which specifically states that 25% of them identify as Arabs for sure, it should obviously be included in the article. Funkynusayri (talk) 17:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I'm fine with the Lebanese people article being deleted, I'm just wondering why the Palestinians have their own article as well. Regarding the Maltese thing - my point was that they have no ties to the Middle East because they are Roman Catholics, and because they have no ties to the Middle East they where not Arabized. Its pretty simple. I guess another factor is that they're an island, so are subject to more isolation, and due to their closer proximity to Italy than to the Middle East. But anyway, we're getting off-topic here. My main point is that the "Arabist" view should be at least be mentioned in the opening paragraph to avoid confusion.Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 06:59, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• Articles about specific populations are fine enough, just not when these populations are wrongfully referred to as "ethnic groups", and should preferably redirect to articles about demographics. As for Maltese, it seems that they're culturally European, and as such, probably wouldn't identify as Arab, due to different aspects of their history. And yeah, the "Arabist" view should be represented, as it is most likely the majority view. Funkynusayri (talk) 07:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, redirect the "Lebanese people" article if you want. But why is there a Palestinians article? By the way, I agree with Zerida, I just think that the alternative view needs to be represented in the opening paragraph to avoid confusion. After all, its not completely uncontroversial that Egyptians are a "nation and North African ethnic group" as the article says. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 22:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It won't be in the opening paragraph because the opening doesn't say something like "Egyptians are not Arabs", so there is not need to keep pushing the Arabist pov at any cost. There is nothing controversial about simple facts. Bayoumi (talk) 00:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, Saim, its not really the existence of these pages I'm arguing against, its how the groups are being described in the article, The Palestinian article, and the ones you created, do not state that thee groups are ethnic groups, which is good, but out of lack of a better template, the "ethnic group infobox" is used, which is misleading. A "nationality infobox" would be better, but I doubt such will be created. Anyway, this article claims that modern Egyptians constitute an ethnic group, which is pretty much hogwash. It is one POV among some Egytian nationalists, and shouldn't be presented a s a fact in this article, as it is even in the intro, but only as an idea which today only exists as a reaction to pan-Arabism. Both views are equally valid as POVs, but not as facts. This article is a mess. Funkynusayri (talk) 08:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Why do you think they don't constitute an ethnic group?--Yolgnu (talk) 14:16, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That's like asking a racist why he's racist. The article gets trolled by militant Arab nationalists every now and then because it threatens their pathetic worldview. Anti-Egyptian racism is rampant in the Arab world, so if Egyptians are forced to be Arabs or accept Arabism, then we get rid of this "little problem". Egyegy (talk) 17:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

To Yolgnu, it's all about self-identification, if most Egyptians don't view themselves as a distinct ethnic group, and if they aren't classified as such by others, they simply shouldn't be described as such as if it was a fact here. However, it should be mentioned that some Egyptians feel that they constitute a distinct ethnic group. As I've mentioned before, today "Egyptian" just refers to a multi-ethnic nationality, like "Brazilian" or similar. And Egy, please spare us from your nationalist venom. Funkynusayri (talk) 17:19, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, did I prick you little Arabist bubble again? The truth hurts, I know. Egyegy (talk) 17:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If only you had been addressing me and not some fictional Arabist militant, that comment might have had resonance. Funkynusayri (talk) 17:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If the shoe fits... :) Egyegy (talk) 17:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Funkynusayri, please find sources for your views.--Yolgnu (talk) 01:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

What exact views? Funkynusayri (talk) 10:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

That most Egyptians don't describe themselves as a distinct ethnic group.--Yolgnu (talk) 06:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yolgnu... that would be proving a negative. Where's your evidence that they do? The Arabist opinion should definitely be in the opening section, since it is definitely a very common opinion. For those who always saw Egypt as part of the Arab world or those who don't know about Arabization or Phoenicianism, Arameanism, Assyrianism, etc. they'll just walk off confused (as I originally did when stumbling onto this article) or walking off seeing Egyptians as an ethnic group being uncontested fact. While I agree that Egyptians should see themselves as Egyptians rather than Arabs, that is not fact and should not be presented as such.Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 06:36, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Should we have to find sources to state that most French people consider themselves a distinct ethnic group? How is this any different? Please don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a WP:POINT[17]--Yolgnu (talk) 13:34, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

And I completely agree with your last sentence - your POV opinions on how Egyptians should see themselves are indeed not fact and should not be presented as such. We work on sources here, not personal opinions.--Yolgnu (talk) 15:18, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

My POV opinion is being represented as fact in the article. My opinion is that Egyptians are not Arabs. Thing is, thats POV, and not fact. So, even though its my opinion, I think the largest opinion should be in the opening sentence. Yes, we should find sources that the French are seen as an ethnic group. There are plenty. On the Egyptians, not as many. There are tonnes of sources saying that Egypt is an Arab nation - Egypt is part of the Arab League, it is Arabic speaking, it had Nasser, etc. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 00:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

What sort of source is there that says "Most French people consider themselves a distinct ethnic group"? It's so obviously the case that no one would bother saying it, and until you find a source showing otherwise, it's equally obvious in the case of Egyptians. As to Egypt being an Arab country, I completely agree - it's official name is the Arab Republic of Egypt, it's in the Arab League, etc. But the definition of Egyptians is "a North African ethnic group with roots in the civilisation of Ancient Egypt", not "citizens of the Arab Republic of Egypt" - not all Egyptians are citizens of Egypt, and not all citizens of Egypt are Egyptians, and above all, ethnic groups don't have representing bodies: indeed there have been many occasions throughout history where an ethnic group has not had its own state (if the Normans had renamed England "the French and Not English Kingdom of New France", would English people officially not have existed?), and many other cases where an ethnic group has been the dominant one in multiple warring states, each claiming to be its true representative and protector (eg. ancient Greece and China). The article says "Egyptian identity is deeply rooted in the region of Egypt", not "Egyptian identity is deeply rooted in the Arab Republic of Egypt" (which has only existed for 54 years). Ultimately, the Egyptians themselves get to decide who they are, not the government.--Yolgnu (talk) 02:49, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Y'know Yolgnu, the government is part of the "Egyptians themselves". Making a false dichotomy between the Egyptian people and the Arab Republic government is silly, because the Arab Republic government is run by Egyptians. So here's some sources: 1, 2, 3. Of course, there are also many for Egyptians not being Arabs. So both views should be represented in the opening paragraph. While there was no migration of Arabs to Egypt there was cultural assimilation. I'm totally fine with you reviving the old ethnic group, but Wikipedia is not here one does this. Wikipedia is for verifiable facts. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 22:13, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

We're getting off topic with this government talk; we can say that "Egypt, the country where the vast majority of Egyptians live, is a member of the Arab League, and its official name is the Arab Republic of Egypt", although you'll need to find sources if you want to claim that this has made more Egyptians see themselves as Arabs as a result. Thanks for those sources you've provided, but I already knew that Egyptians are often considered Arab; what you need to provide sources for is your claim that most Egyptians themselves consider themselves Arab and not a distinct ethnic group. Claiming that Egyptians were "Arabized" is POV, since Arabization involves the imposition of an Arab identity, and so far I haven't seen any sources that most Egyptians consider themselves Arabs. But what you don't seem to understand is that ethnicity is subjective - there is no straight, verifiable answer to questions like "Do Egyptians constitute a distinct ethnic group?" or "Can Egyptians claim continuity with the Ancient Egyptians?". We should of course state that Egyptians are often seen as Arabs, but mainly the article should discuss the reasons for both views, and what aspects of Egyptian culture are inherited from the Ancient Egyptians, and which are inherited from the Arabs.--Yolgnu (talk) 09:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The only major things Egyptians inherited from Arabs are Islam and Arabic but even these things became Egyptian. The most popular kind of Islam in Egypt is the Egyptian sufi version. Even the article quotes Naguib Mahfouz who is stating "Egypt gave Islam a new voice. It didn't change the basic tenets of Islam, but its cultural weight gave Islam a new voice, one it didn't have back in Arabia. Egypt embraced an Islam that was moderate, tolerant and non-extremist. Egyptians are very pious, but they know how to mix piety with joy, just as their ancestors did centuries ago." The Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni is renouncing all the extra gifts that the Arabs are trying to export into Egypt like Wahabi Islam and the extremist womens veil. We have an agricultural settled culture which is completely different from the bedouin desert culture of the Arabs. Egyptians were not "arabized" because they don't have a bedouin culture like the Arabians to this day. As for Arabic, you may be surprised by this, because some people believe that modern Egyptians speak Arabic. In fact, this is wrong. Nobody speaks only one kind of Arabic. Different peoples speak different forms of Arabic, which actually bear very little resemblance to one another. The overwhelming majority of Egyptians speak a language that is composed of a mix of Arabic and Egyptian language. The culture : Modern Egyptian culture inherits a lot of traditions from Ancient Egyptian culture. This is most obvious when it comes to funerary traditions : the dead are buried in tombs that are actually small rooms (the City of the Dead (Cairo) is the most striking example). Relatives regularly visit these rooms/tombs and leave food, exactly like their ancestors did during the times of the Pharaohs (this tradition is typically Pharaonic and is found nowhere else in the Muslim world). But it's not only limited to that : Egypt's national festival Sham El Nessim is a pharaonic rite that has been celebrated without interruption for thousands of years, despite the numerous conquests. Culinary traditions are also inherited from Pharaonic times. And these are just a few examples.

THEREOFRE, modern Egyptians are a direct continuation of ancient Egyptians. Egypt also never disappeared from the map like a lot of other ancient nations. The only thing that changed during the centuries was Egypt's political status (from an independent nation, it became a Roman province, then a Byzantine province, then an Arab province, then a Turkish province, etc...). But the borders, the people and a lot of the culture remained the same. Bayoumi (talk) 20:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact, Islam is not considered to be an aspect of Arab culture, since the vast majority of Muslims aren't Arab, and tens of millions of Arabs aren't Muslim.--Yolgnu (talk) 08:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Bayoumi, you may want to check WP:V: Your opinions are all very well, as long as you can present them based on academic sources. I am sure you know a lot about this, but you will understand that Wikipedia cannot just take your word for things. You may also check WP:TALK: Article talkpages are for discussion of how to best present the sources we have, not for free exchange of opinions or sermons. I have shown the way to go by coming up with Gershoni (1992) as a quotable source. Of course there is no reason to leave it at that. You are perfectly free to come up with other sources, possibly taking opposing views. It's just that as long as you do not present any source, there really isn't anything for us to discuss here. Zerida is doing well by citing Leila Ahmed. Now if he would insert a discussion of the views of Leila Ahmed instead of just reverting to a version that ignores this whole issue, we might be getting somewhere. I would certainly endorse a citation of Ahmed illustrating the anti-Nasser, anti-Arabist position. dab (𒁳) 07:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Bayoumi, I agree with you. I just think that the other opinion should be represented in the opening section. (Although southern Egyptians are Nubians and many would be of partly Arab descent)Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 23:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Identity

here's a source I googled on what this article should be discussing

• Gershoni, I., The Evolution of National Culture in Modern Egypt: Intellectual Formation and Social Diffusion, 1892-1945, Poetics Today, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), pp. 325-350

Zerida, your "preference for indigenous Egyptian (and otherwise) history" is most welcome, at any article in the Ancient Egypt category. You are wasting your and my time and nerves by insisting on doing the right thing at the wrong place. dab (𒁳) 07:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if you are trying to be slow on purpose or this is just the way you are. Native or indigenous Egyptian does NOT mean only ancient Egyptian, that's the point that keeps going over your head. Anyone with an ability to read and without an obvious agenda hiding behind "cleanup" nonsense can see that more than half of this article is not about ancient Egyptians. But what else does someone who treats wikipedia like their playground care about anyway. Obviously not objectivity or accuracy. That's what;s really pathetic. And stop dumping that stuff you made up to the lead again. You revert caused vandalism to go back to another section. Egyegy (talk) 15:52, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, what? I am not being "slow", I rather happen to see through the agendas pursued here due to my long experience with ethnic nationalist pov pushing on Wikipedia. This is just another typical case of antiquity frenzy. Please try to keep apart the WP:SS point about pruning the (in itself perfectly valid) discussion of ancient Egypt, and the actual on topic discussion of modern Egyptian national identity. Your statement "You revert caused vandalism to go back to another section" isn't even grammatical. May I ask you to use grammatical English if you want to interact with me, I am in no mood to second-guess how exactly you are trying to weasle your way out of this. --dab (𒁳) 11:14, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I've created a new section on "Identity". I take for granted that the "History" section should be pruned, and we can now address content that is actually on topic. You seem to want to discuss the "Arabist" vs. "Pharaonist" question. You seem to claim that this is something I have "made up". I have not. I have rather imported this from elsewhere on Wikipedia (Egypt, Pharaonism). I admit that you are perfectly entitled to question this. If you had any interest in bona fide debate, you would do this by using {{fact}} and similar, or presenting suggestions for rephrasing. I could respect a dispute that went forward along these lines. I cannot respect stubborn revert warring, and I will not honour such uncollaborative behaviour with further prose. You want to be involved in this? Then sit down and try to collaborate in fixing the issues involved. You will note that my discussion of Egyptian national identity is directly based on the 1992 article I cited. If you disagree, you are perfectly free to come up with a different source and juxtapose it to what I have been discussing. Egyptian national identity is a very complex and intersting topic, and it deserves better than to be buried beneath a ton of coatracking about Ancient Egypt as has been the case in this article. Please do contribute in a balanced discussion of Egyptian national identity, but do so honestly and based on scholarly sources, not by revert-warring and disruption. dab (𒁳) 11:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

terminology: Gershoni calls the two opposing nationalist movements "Westernized Egyptianist" and "Islamic-Arab". We should perhaps follow suit and use "Egyptianism", since "Pharaonism" is used as the term for the historical Pharaonic state. dab (𒁳) 11:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

"I rather happen to see through the agendas pursued here due to my long experience with ethnic nationalist pov pushing on Wikipedia." Oh please you mean the "fringe" stuff that makes you feel good about yourself? I guess you know better than the historian, archaelogists, and egyptologists. No thank you, just because you are extremely obsessed with nationalist stuff doesn't mean the article has to suffer because of it. You're trying to make it about the only things you know how to deal with so you can justify disrupting it. This isn't your nationalist sandbox. It's just straight facts, history, culture, you know the things that actually matter (not to you obviously). Egyegy (talk) 16:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

ahem, if you continue to refuse playing by the rules, blanking referenced content and maintenance tags, I will look for admin action. I have been willing to compromise and leave the offtopic material standing, waiting for you to present any sort of justification on your part. This article suffers because you refuse to observe WP:DR and WP:OWN. Unlike you, I am not defending a fixed revision, I am looking for ways to fix it without insisting on a pre-conceived version I want to defend no matter what. You, otoh, are just stubbornly refusing to recognize there even are issues. This is not a symmetrical "dispute". I will see to it proper behaviour is enforced here by admin action if you continue to refuse collaboration. If I, as an admin, saw behaviour such as yours on any article witout being myself involved, I would warn and block you for disruption immediately, and I am confident others will see the case similarly. dab (𒁳) 16:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

You can't even contribute to the article without making it look like a complete mess. You STILL put back the vandalism I told you about and your edits are all sloppy. We're not here to keep cleaning up after you. The identity sections is mentioned. That's it. And please spare me the "I'm an admin" stuff, it's not intimidating me. You have no authority on article content. You threatening you to abuse your adminship like you did any times before is really what needs to be dealt with. Egyegy (talk) 17:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll be happy to clean up the article if you stop reverting my edits. At present, the cleanup tags are there to respect your opposition to the pruning of the offtopic material. If you cannot accept even that I cannot help you. If you have a problem with the references, use {{fact}}. If you have a problem with scope use {{split}}. Just stop the disruptive reverts to the untagged " la la la, I can't hear you" version. So "all my edits are sloppy"? THen how about this] mediculously referenced discussion of the core topic of this article (as opposed to the irrelevant History of Ancient Egypt material). Sloppy? Offtopic? I have no authority on article content. I am not objecting to being in a dispute. I am objecting to your misconduct in failing to respect there is a dispute. You are guilty of WP:ICANTHEARYOU. Content disputes are one thing. Disruptive removal of tags and disruptive blanking of referenced, on-topic content is another. That's disruption quite apart of any valid objections you may have in terms of content, even if you consistently fail to state them. dab (𒁳) 17:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The article doesn't need "cleaning up", that's clear as day. Find something constructive to do with your time on wikipedia. Egyegy (talk) 17:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

it does. Your refusal to even read what I am saying nonwithstanding. Your only option is to recognize there is a dispute, and respect WP:DR. If you are unwilling to do that, you can either walk away, or keep trolling until you are blocked. You cannot sit this out. You can count on me pursuing this for a year, or three years, until a satisfactory solution is found. There is no deadline. This is constructive work in my book, I am here to clean up national mysticist bias from ethnic group articles. This one is a bad case, and it will stay on my watchlist. You are welcome to be part of the solution of the problem, but you cannot prevent the problem from being solved. As a minimal (minimal!) courtesy, keep your edits regarding the "identity" section separate from those regarding the pruning of the "History" section. dab (𒁳) 17:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

You need to recognize that if you want any of your changes to stick, you need to discuss them first and get consensus. This "I'm an admin, I can do whatever I want without respecting any rules" attitude will get you nowhere. I've see you do this on the race of ancient Egypt article too which got you in trouble. And for the record you can pursue this for as long as you want, I can guarantee that I can pursue it for as long . Egyegy (talk) 17:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Dbachmann, as Egyegy pointed out the only reasonable approach to any content dispute is to discuss changes on the talk page in order to reach consensus. You said, So "all my edits are sloppy"? THen how about this] mediculously referenced discussion of the core topic of this article. Two points here: 1. I would agree with the characterization of your latest edit as somewhat "sloppy" because a. it introduced a previously reverted vandalism to another section, b. it contains many typological errors, and c. much of that information is discussed in the modern history section if you had bothered to read it. 2. You consistently miss the point that this type of fluff is not the "topic of the article". It's one thing to give some brief information about it under the identity section, and also in the framework of the 19th-20th century anti-colonial movement (which is discussed in the modern history section where it's relevant), and another entirely to make the article about it. You say If you had any interest in bona fide debate; that's the point, I do not. I am not interested in having a "debate" (a WP:FORUM discussion) about this topic. Remember that this article never even broached this topic until you insisted on including an identity section here. Fine, but I have no desire to "debate" or rehash it. You are welcome to ask me questions about it on my talk page if you're genuinely interested in learning more about this subject, but the article contrary to what you said is not the place to discuss it in the main at all. A reasonably sized section about it is acceptable, *making the article about it* is not. The same applies to the article on Egypt. The only chance that this article has for any neutrality and quality is if it remains thoroughly inundated in academic scholarship on history and culture, not identity politics. You are asking that the article be turned into yet another one of the many articles on Wikipedia that are a frequent battleground for this. How ironic when you claim that your interest is to "clean up" the article from it. Let's keep brief information on that topic for neutrality purposes, but we can't have the article just be about that. — Zerida ☥ 19:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

(unindent)Dab's not a vandal and as he says, this isn't a symmetrical "dispute". I'm not an admin or I would probably take action now. Egygy, your language is not acceptable.--Doug Weller (talk) 17:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Neither is yours and your violating wikipedia's policy on canvassing to edit war for your friend. Egyegy (talk) 17:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Dougweller is right. Assume good faith, people. Unwarranted language, accusations, and assumption of bad faith are unacceptable in the extreme. I see nobody canvassing here; all I see are a couple of editors who seem (to me) to have a sense of ownership fighting tooth and nail to avoid constructive changes they disagree with. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

No, you are wrong. Again. Read WP:canvassing. It says: "messages that are written to influence the outcome rather than to improve the quality of a discussion compromise the consensus building process and are generally considered disruptive."[18] This has been nothing but disruptive, which could have very easily been avoided if someone had even a little foresight or tact to have a civil discussion on the talk page before making radical changes. In the meantime why don't you tell us what is that you even understand about this discussion? Egyegy (talk) 21:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

First, Egyegy has accused me of canvassing. I'd love to see the evidence for that. He hasn't shown me sending any messages. Secondly, one message isn't canvassing as I understand the guideline (the discussion page by the way is very interesting). Thirdly, Egyegy has just insulted Amatulic, this is not a constructive way to have a discussion.--Doug Weller (talk) 06:26, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence was given in the link that I gave in my last post. What I'd love for you to do is show how I "insulted" anyone because I asked what their understanding of the discussion is, since they haven't actually said anything about it. Egyegy (talk) 18:29, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

stop doing summary reverts. If you have something to say, do it point by point. Use the appropriate tags, such as {{fact}}, {{NPOV}} etc. Otherwise, no progress is possible, and your behaviour at present clearly falls under WP:DISRUPT. dab (𒁳) 06:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

"summary" revert? Why don't you take your own advice and stop revert warring. Egyegy (talk) 21:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It takes more than one to revert-war, and you are doing the same. You are the only one here who I see violating WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF as well. To Dbachman I would suggest posting proposed text on the talk page first. If it's contentious, that's where it should be discussed. This article is getting very close to being blocked from editing if you guys can't come to an agreement. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:05, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You show bias when you say that I'm violating WP:civil without mentioning Bach's continuous violations of this policy. This is something he was sanctioned for[19]. All he's done is bring chaos and hostility to the article. If he really wanted to improve rather than antagonize, he should've taken this to the discussion page from the beginning without constantly attacking the editors on it. I'm not the one who is not assuming good faith. Egyegy (talk) 23:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The hostility is all yours. The sooner you recognize there is a dispute, and make an attempt to explain and justify your position (if you have any beyond WP:OWN), the sooner there can be progress. Until you show that minimal amount of good faith, the cleanup tags stay in place. No, it does not "take more than one" to revert war. I am not pushing a particular revision. I have explained the problem patiently, and have been prepared to pursue WP:DR while the issues under debate are marked with standard cleanup tags. This is good Wikipedia practice. It only takes one to ignore all procedure and policy, and stubbornly revert-war to their WP:OWN version without debate. This isn't a symmetrical dispute, it is good faith Wikipedia process vs. disruptive to vandalistic temper-tantrums. I am under no obligation to lower my expectations of talkpage interaction to Egyegy's approach, and until there is some genuine reaction to the issues raised, I don't see there is anything to discuss here. Unless Egyegy and tag-team resort to respecting Wikipedia rules now, this isn't a case of a "dispute", but a simple case of disruption to be tackled by admin action. dab (𒁳) 10:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You've done nothing but push that one revision you made up even though you clearly show no understanding or knowledge of the article, just motivated by obvious anti-Egyptian hostility. Just because you feel you need to crap all over an article doesn't mean we're obligated to accept your crap. Your behavior on this article is just further proof that all the things that have been brought against you were true. You don't have any respect for wikipedia consesus or process, so we'll just have to treat yo similarly. You might think you're being a good old German cowboy here, but I can assure you that this trolling won't get any further than it has in all of your past interactions. Egyegy (talk) 17:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)