Ḥnṭūr in Luxor
I have written before in an article, “Our Present Day Lingual Follies”, and again in, “The Delirious Copt: A Short Story”, about the almost syndromic condition of the Copts trying to find absurd connection between some words that exist in modern Egyptian Arabic and the Coptic language – attempts that border on the ridiculous, such as trying to find a Coptic origin for words like ‘القاهرة al-Qahira (Cairo)’, ‘نيروز nairouz’, ‘شم النسيم sham al-naseem’ and ‘فلافل falafil’. Today I will focus on the word ‘حَنْطُوُر ḥnṭūr’.
The word ḥnṭūr is used in Egypt to describe the two-wheeled carriage, or wagon, which is pulled by a horse; and which one can see all over Egypt, particularly in tourist areas, such as Alexandria, Luxor and Aswan. In our folly, some Copts have come up with a funny etymology of the word, returning it to Coptic origin. “7antoor,” one writes, is “derived from ‘han’ a word referring to plural objects, and ‘hatoor’ meaning horses.”[1] He means that the Egyptian Arabic word ‘ḥnṭūr’ comes from the following Coptic word (which means, ‘some horses’):
The Copts, and Egyptians in general, are quite quick in copying and pasting, and soon the absurd explanation spread in the social media.[2] It is a symptom of the lack of scientific methods and critical thinking which Egypt has sank in since the departure of the British and the Arabisation of education.
Trying to return the word ḥnṭūr to a Coptic origin is absurd not least because the word itself is only about 200 years old. Islamic Egypt knew no wheeled wagons, pulled by horses or else. The wheeled wagons were introduced into Egypt in the 19th century during the reign of the Muhammad Ali’s Dynasty; and it is unimaginable that anyone would use Coptic, which had ceased for centuries to be spoken by then, to give the wheeled wagon pulled by a horse its name (particularly with the proposed Coptic word of origin means ‘some horses’, not indicating any attached vehicle [which is pulled by one horse, not many]). These wagons was imported from France, England, Austria and Italy; and it seems that the Italians in Alexandria – for that were where it first appeared in Egypt – had a monopoly of their business. There, and in Cairo, they were used by rich people while the poor folks mounted donkeys. In any event, it is hard to imagine how a Coptic word like ‘han’ihtoar’ would become ‘ḥnṭūr’.
But the myth of its Coptic origin can be dispelled once we know that a carriage, wagon, or other wheeled vehicle is called in English, amongst other words, ‘voiture’, which is same in French. It is pronounced, ‘vwah-toor’ [in French: vwa-tyr].[3] With a bit of the famous Egyptian tongue’s twisting of European words, it becomes ‘ḥnṭūr’.
CORRECTION:
A correspondent has corrected my proposed etymology of the Egyptian Arabic word ḥnṭūr: it looks like it’s Turkish in origin, and probably derived from Hungarian. See below from Hinds:
And see also below from Willmore’s Grammar of Egyptian Arabic:
My sincerest thanks to him!
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[1] See: Copticworld.com
[2] See, for example, here and here.
[3] See: Dictionary.com. The words pronunciation is given.