A Ṣa‘īdī (, Coptic: ⲣⲉⲙⲣⲏⲥ ''Remris'') is a person from

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ', shortened to , , locally: ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the Nile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus consists of the entire Nile River valley from Cairo south to Lake N ...

(, Coptic: ⲙⲁⲣⲏⲥ ''Maris'').

Etymology

The word literally means "from Ṣa‘īd" (i.e. Upper Egypt), and can also refer to a form of music originating there, or to the dialect spoken by Sa‘idis. The Arabic word ''Ṣa‘īd'', as a geographical term, means "highland, upland, plateau". The

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

''-i'' forms an adjective. The word ''Ṣa‘īdi'' is pronounced in the dialect itself as or and the plural is or , while pronounced in

Egyptian Arabic Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian, or simply as Masri, is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic variety in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and originated in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. The esti ...

(Northern Egyptian) as and the plural is . In the Sahidic (Upper Egyptian) dialect of Coptic, the name for a person from Upper Egypt is (pronounced rem/rīs) meaning "person of the South" or (pronounced rem/pma/rīs or rem/ma/rīs) "person of (the) place of the south (i.e. Upper Egypt)".

Socioeconomic status

Approximately 40% of Egyptians live in Upper Egypt, and 80% of Egypt's severe poverty is concentrated in Upper Egypt. The settling of family disputes and blood feuds by firearms (often antiquated, such as Mauser rifle) since at least the 1940s is a long cultural trend in the community, especially in the Hamradoum and

Nag Hammadi Nag Hammadi ( ; ) is a city and Markaz (administrative division), markaz in Upper Egypt. It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about north-west of Luxor. The city had a population of close to 61,737 . History ...

areas. Weapons smuggling from Libya and Sudan is also notable in the area.

Stereotypes and jokes

Ṣa‘īdis and their dialect are the subject of numerous Egyptian stereotypes and

ethnic jokes An ethnic joke is a remark aiming at humor relating to an ethnic, racial or cultural group, often referring to an ethnic stereotype of the group in question for its punchline. Perceptions of ethnic jokes are ambivalent. Christie Davies gives e ...

, mainly from the

upper-class Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status. Usually, these are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper cla ...

Egyptians who own

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...

es in Egypt's major cities and used to hire Upper Egyptian workers in construction fields. They are popularly assumed to be rural simpletons by other

Egyptians Egyptians (, ; , ; ) are an ethnic group native to the Nile, Nile Valley in Egypt. Egyptian identity is closely tied to Geography of Egypt, geography. The population is concentrated in the Nile Valley, a small strip of cultivable land stretchi ...

. An example of such

stereotyping In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...

is the popular 1998 film ''Ṣa‘īdi fil-Gama‘a al-Amrikiya'' ("A Ṣa‘īdi in the American University") starring

Mohamed Henedi Mohamed Henedi (, ) is an Egyptian actor born in Giza, Egypt, on 1 February 1965.American University in Cairo The American University in Cairo (AUC; ) is a private research university in New Cairo, Egypt. The university offers American-style learning programs at undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels, along with a continuing education program. ...

Religion in Upper Egypt

The Upper Egyptians follow

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

and Christianity as Upper Egypt has a significant Christian population and a rich Coptic Christian history. For instance, Sahidic was the leading Coptic dialect in the pre-Islamic period. In the last few decades the high proportion of Coptic Christians in Upper Egypt has enabled some Christians to hold prominent political posts there. For instance,

Qena Governorate Qena () is one of the governorates of Egypt. It is in Upper Egypt, the southern part of the country. It covers a stretch of the Nile valley. Its capital is the city of Qena. Overview The rate of poverty is more than 60% in this governorate but ...

had a Coptic Christian governor in 2011. Sahidic dialect of Coptic is used as a

liturgical language A sacred language, liturgical language or holy language is a language that is cultivated and used primarily for religious reasons (like church service) by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives. Some religions, or part ...

by the clergy and among Sa'idi

Coptic Christians Copts (; ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group native to Northeast Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt since antiquity. They are, like the broader Egyptian population, descended from the ancient Egyptians. Copts p ...

Relationship to other Egyptians

Egypt is a transcontinental country containing substantial ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity among its people. A paper in 2019 looking to characterize the genetic variation in Egyptians used 15 STR loci on 814 unrelated individuals from Northern Coast, Delta, Greater Cairo, Canal governorates, Northern Upper Egypt, Southern Upper Egypt, and Sinai. The most differentiated populations were found between Sinai and Southern Upper Egypt who plotted separately. In contrast, Northern Coast, Delta, Greater Cairo, Canal governorates and Northern Upper Egypt were all in a main Egyptian cluster. The lowest value for genetic distance was found between the Greater Cairo and Delta populations. A different study which focused on 265 unrelated individuals inhabiting five governorates in Upper Egypt using similar methodology, found that based on the frequency of similar molecular data, no differences were observed in comparison with the general population from Cairo in any of the 9 loci compared, or with Coptic Christians from Cairo. However, 1 out of 8 loci showed a difference in comparison with a population from El-Minya. At the molecular data level, there was also a weak difference when Upper Egyptians were compared with Egyptian Muslims from Tanta, albeit with a non significant value in an exact test of population differentiation. However, highly significant differences were observed in comparisons with Berbers from Siwa and with a population sample from Adaima. Mohamed, T et al. (2009) in their study on nomadic Bedouins featured a comparative study with a worldwide population database to infer genetic structure. Their analysis discovered that both Upper Egyptian populations (Muslim Egyptians and Coptic Christians), showed a distinct "North African" cluster at 63% and 65% respectively, when compared to other Arab populations in the Middle-East and Europeans.

References