My Web of Words — 6 — Egypt

Whereas most of the world knows this country by some derivative of the Greek word Aigyptos, Egyptians themselves call it something else entirely: Misr, often pronounced Masr.

The corresponding adjective is masri — a patronymic widely used in the Arab world. Slight variations of the toponym Misr exist in Persian, Urdu, Hindi, Turkish, Azeri, Swahili, Malay and Bahasa Indonesia. It is found also in the Hebrew word Mitsrayim, mentioned in Genesis and most likely the oldest Semitic name for that c...