Editing Afroasiatic languages (section)

===Egyptian===
[[File:Peribsen2.JPG|thumb|right|Seal impression from the tomb of [[Seth-Peribsen]] (c. 2690 BCE), containing the first complete sentence in Ancient Egyptian.{{sfn|Allen|2013|p=2}}]]
{{main|Ancient Egyptian language|Coptic language}}
The Egyptian branch consists of a single language, [[Egyptian language|Egyptian]] (often called "Ancient Egyptian"), which was historically spoken in the lower Nile Valley.{{sfn|Meyer|Wolff|2019|p=252}} Egyptian is first attested in writing around 3000 BCE and finally went extinct around 1300 CE, making it the language with the longest written history in the world.{{sfn|Gragg|2019|p=24}} Egyptian is usually divided into two major periods, Earlier Egyptian (c. 3000–1300 BCE), which is further subdivided into Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian, and Later Egyptian (1300 BCE-1300 CE), which is further subdivided into Late Egyptian, Demotic, and Coptic.{{sfn|Meyer|Wolff|2019|p=252}} Coptic is the only stage written [[Coptic alphabet|alphabetically]] to show vowels, whereas Egyptian was previously written in Egyptian [[hieroglyph]]s, which only represent consonants.{{sfn|Allen|2013|pp=4–5}} In the Coptic period, there is evidence for six major dialects, which presumably existed previously but are obscured by pre-Coptic writing; additionally, Middle Egyptian appears to be based on a different dialect than Old Egyptian, which in turn shows dialectal similarities to Late Egyptian.{{sfn|Allen|2013|p=4}} Egyptian was replaced by Arabic as the spoken language of Egypt,{{sfn|Güldemann|2018|p=322}} but Coptic continues to be the liturgical language of the [[Coptic Orthodox Church]].{{sfn|Frajzyngier|Shay|2012|p=6}}