Coptic in relation to Indo-European Languages

[Ahmesis]

It just happens that I stumbled upon the following Coptic words that synchronize with common French words:
pirwmi            l'homme
masinek            machine
Éc               sa, son, ses
]nou            maintenant, English "now"         
ran               nom, name
mau               mère
cwni            sœur
rasi               "ravi"
vYouÉi            fée, féerique
]               donner, "don"
an               in, en
noun            nous
ten               nous
Éw               ô
nYb               noble
ouon               un
sa               jusqu'à
Éklinwmen         v. incliner
jamoul            chameau
[wm               champ
ja[Y               gauche
lac               langue
mei               aimer, aimant
Éanon            nous
an               non
mou               mort
ca               ce
Éwni               onyx
ic               voici
ourwou            rois
iarwou            rivière
ou               un/une
ce               si
caji               sage
coou               six
sasf            sept
mY]               milieu

[Ahmesis]

Note that language, in general, is a series of visual, tactile, or auditory symbols of communication. The Coptic words I referred to in the above section may, for some people, bear insufficient truth as to the origins of Indo-European modern-day languages. Indo-European languages comprise a family of inter-related languages of the Indian sub-continent, Europe, the Iranian plateau, and Central Asia. For more information, Click here.
Although most scientists nowadays claim its parentage with Afro-Asiatic languages.
A brief mention on the Coptic language and its relation with its African counterparts is furnished in this wondrous article on Cheikh Anta Diop (Senegalese historian and anthropologist).

[MikeS]

As Ahmesis pointed out, Coptic (or perhaps more properly, Egyptian) is an Afro-Asiatic language and is thus not related to Indo-European languages, though some Historical Linguists posit an even older parent tongue which encompasses many of these macro-families including I-E and A-A.

The ancient Egyptians did indeed borrow a few words from their IE speaking "neighbors" - Hittite, Greek, and Latin are/were all IE languages (amongst a few other minor IE languages in the area).

The only specific example that comes to mind is the word for "ox"  - I believe in AE it was something like 'akh' (where 'kh' is the 'ch' of German "Bach") - most likely an IE borrowing. The Proto Indo European word was something like "*uks-"  - the 'k' became an 'h' sound in many IE languages.

By IE borrowings I'm referring specifically to Ancient Egyptian; obviously with the Hellenization of Egypt, thousands of IE Greek words entered into the language.

There are many words in various langauges that not only sound alike but also convey very similar meanings - it does not necessarily mean the langauges are related in any way.

 

   

[Canis Majoris]

I find these "similarities" to be merely coincidence. French hadn't been in Egypt until the time of Napoleon. Latin definitely would have had a more profound influence, and even then, it wasn't ever as strong as Greek, for the administration, laws, and commerce of the Eastern Roman Empire, i.e. Byzantium, were always conducted in Greek. Arabic was the only strong contender with Greek's influence on Egyptian.

Here are examples of some of these words compared to the proper Latin version of the French words:

Ⲫⲏⲟⲩⲓ(Phēoui)- Fides, Fée
Ⲙⲁⲩ(Mau)- Mater, Mere
Ϭⲱⲙ(Tchōm)- Campus, Champ
Ⲙⲏϯ(Mēti)- Medio-in-loco, Millieu
Ϫⲁⲥⲏ(Djasē)-Sinistra (gauche is a borrowing from Old German)
Ⲗⲁⲥ(Las)- Lingua, Langue

[bashandy]

Coptic is classified as an Afro-Asiatic language. It is not a semitic language or an Indo-European language. Having said that it had influences from both. It was influenced by Semitic languages as  Hebrew (most influential), Syriac, Aramaic, Akkadian and Arabic. It was also influenced by Greek (most influencial) and Latin. The Greek influence in Coptic is the most pronounced as it extended to orthography and syntax in some instances. The Latin influence is probably due to the presence of The Romans in Egypt. Czerny lists a few words from Latin they are < 20 words.

The above mentioned list, though it can bear some phonetic resemblance but the meanings differ vastly. it's not safe to assume common etymology based on phonetic similarity.