Talk:Egyptians in the United Kingdom

Article name

I apologise for not discussing my changes. What do people in Britain with Egyptian ancestry call themselves? "British Egyptians"? "Egyptian British"? "Egyptian Britons"? or just "Egyptians"? Cop 663 (talk) 14:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Cop 663,

Thank you for ultimately choosing to raise this issue on the Talk page. As a technical matter, "British Egyptians" would refer to citizens of Egypt who are of British descent (in a similar way to "Nubian Egyptians", "Sudanese Egyptians", etc). The correct terms for British citizens of Egyptian descent are "Egyptian British" and "Egyptian Britons". The frequency of any such terms in the U.K. is limited, as Britain does not have the same tradition of classifying different racial and ethnic group as the U.S.A. for example, where terms such as African-American, Irish-American, and so on, are standard.

Moreover, changing the title of the page to "Egyptian migration to Britain" is invalid as the article is not about the history and nature of the movement of Egyptians to Britain, and even if it were, the correct term would be "Egyptian migration to the United Kingdom". The article is about citizens of the U.K. who are of Egyptian descent. If you wish to discuss the migratory history of any particular group, you might consider creating a new page for that specific purpose.

I note that you have made the same kind of good faith, but invalid, changes to a whole host of pages dealing with the various British ethnic minorities. I cordially encourage you to re-consider such changes in view of the facts as mentioned above.

If you would like to explore this matter further, I would be very happy to engage. It is clear that all your edits on these matters have been with the best of intentions.

Regards. Louse (talk) 14:37, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I'm making these changes after a lengthy discussion on the UK Wikiproject. My interest is not in what these groups should be called, but in what they are called; while it may be technically correct to say "*** British", in fact common British practice is often to say "British ***" (e.g. there is abundant evidence that British Arabs, British Turks, British Chinese etc. is the common term for those groups). I am concerned that the large number of pages using the "*** British" or "*** Britons" formula are created by a single user, User:Stevvvv4444 who is well-meaning but often resistant to using the "British ***" formula, and I notice it was he who moved this page to its present location (it was originally called 'British Egyptians' and was created by a British-Egyptian user, which I find significant).

I am very aware that British ethnic groups do not always use the American-style names and many do not have a settled group name. In such cases, the "***migration to the UK" formula has often been found acceptable, as does not impose a non-existent name and covers both the movement of people and the results of that migration: their British descendants. It can therefore cover both British citizens and those who only reside in the UK (as does this article, which discusses Muhammad Al-Fayed even though he is not a citizen). However the formulation "Egyptians in Britain" can also work, e.g. see Americans in Britain.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.Cop 663 (talk) 15:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Cop 663,

Thank you for your response. I found the issues raised therein, including on the UK Wikiproject, to be extremely interesting. Indeed, I suspect that we could easily spend a few hours discussing this topic. However, in the interests of brevity, I will try to be succinct in the exposition of my stance:

1) "British Egyptians" would be simultaneously incorrect, potentially misleading, and conflicting with other terms such as Black British, which you have already mentioned.

2) "Egyptian migration to the United Kingdom", whilst an attempt to avoid use of what some may term an uncommon neologism, would be invalid for this particular article, as the primary subject of the article is those citizens of the U.K. who are of Egyptian descent, not the history of how they or their antecedents arrived in the country.

3) "Egyptians in Britain" (or more accurately "... in the United Kingdom") would be significantly better than the previous two, however, it would still be somewhat inaccurate and even potentially offensive as it might be seen as minimizing the British aspect of an individual's identity. By way of analogy, consider referring to Irish-Americans as "Irish in America". Once someone is a British citizen, he/she is no longer merely an Egyptian (or Pakistani, Yemeni, etc) living in the U.K., rather he/she is legally as British as an indigenous English, Welsh, or Scottish British citizen. A British citizen of Egyptian descent, particularly one who was born as a British citizen (i.e. not a first generation immigrant) may well object to being described as merely being "in the United Kingdom", as I am sure you will appreciate. Moreover, I feel that concern for the inclusion of Mohamed Al-Fayed in the article should not be determinative of the article's title. Indeed, the current text of the article, which references him but states that he is a not a British citizen, appears to be more than adequate.

4) "British citizens of Egyptian descent" appears to be the best solution, as it states simply and specifically what the article is about. It neither affirms nor denies an individual's own sense of Egyptian or British identity, as this necessarily varies from person to the person.

I humble recommend that you consider the comparative merits of the "British citizens of **** descent" formula, not only for this article, but for those others concerning ethnic minority citizens of the United Kingdom. With direct regard to foreign nationals living in the United Kingdom, such as the aforementioned Mohamed Al-Fayed, should their numbers or the importance of their presence make reference to them required, in could be done in a specific section within the article. However, it is important to draw a definite distinction between members of an ethnic minority in the United Kingdom, and foreign nationals who share their ethnic or racial heritage - there is a big difference between a British man or woman of Pakistani descent, for example, who has lived all his/her life in the U.K., and a Pakistani man or woman who has recently arrived in the country and is not a citizen. Though this fact is obvious, I feel that it has been sadly overlooked in much of the discussion on the UK Wikiproject and in the manner in which the articles have been renamed.

Please let me know what you think. And once again, thank you for the most interesting message.

Regards. Louse (talk) 17:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank for your thoughtful comments. I have two points to make.

1) I disagree with you on "British Egyptians". If (hypothetically) it could be proved that Brits of Egyptian ancestry commonly call themselves "British Egyptians", then the article should use that title, as per WP:COMMONNAME. It would not "conflict" with Black British; remember that Arabs in Britain call themselves British Arabs, Asians call themselves "British Asians", Turks call themselves "British Turks", etc. etc, so that fact that black people don't call themselves 'British Blacks' is irrelevant. There are different ways of doing things. What we must avoid is giving people a name; if there isn't a commonly used name, calling them the American-style "Egyptian-British" would conflict with Wikipedia's policy of avoiding neologisms.

2) Regarding your other points, the basic problem is: should the article title determine the content, or should the content determine the title? If we called it 'British citizens of Egyptian descent', the article could not refer to non-citizen Egyptians (like al-Fayed). It seems to me that in an ideal world, the article would tell the full history of Egyptians in the UK: when they first arrived, why they came, how many are citizens and how many are not, etc. etc. If the article was like that the 'migration' title might be most appropriate (see [[1]] for a good example). But I suppose that until the article is like that, the title will look wrong.

Perhaps the conclusion I have reached is that an article like this one should be called 'British citizens of Egyptian descent' because that best suits its current state, but that it should aspire to be called 'Egyptian migration to the UK'! Thoughts? Cop 663 (talk) 19:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Cop 663,

Just as I suspected, the discussion is becoming more and more interesting (and constructive).

As my time is extremely limited for the rest of the day, I hope you forgive the brevity of my response. I will endeavor to provide a fuller response tomorrow. For now, I basically agree with your two final conclusions - that the best name for the article in its current form in "British citizens of Egyptian descent", and that aspirations for the prospective development of the article should include the wider concept of Egyptian migration to the United Kingdom and the history of the community in the country. The one proviso that I offer at this point is that there may be some challenges in collating sufficient information on the issue that would be worthy of inclusion in the article, given the size and degree of cohesion (or lack thereof) of the Egyptian community in the U.K.

I hope that my schedule will permit me to offer a fuller response tomorrow. Until then, my best wishes.

Regards. Louse (talk) 19:33, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I thinks you will already know my view on the matter, I have alreadt said on the talk page of Cop 663 that I believe Egyptian British would be the best term to use. Some people may say British Egyptian to mean literally British Egyptians (as if they belong to Britain or the UK), but the truth is would someone say British Blacks? Some people in the UK may do so, but Wikipedia being a global/ international website needs to consider worldwide views, and not making the UK an exception by having the only different style of naming conventions. I have stated before that even the government uses the terms Egyptian British, Black British, Asian British etc, but I also see that the most commonly used term by British people should be considered also, but it this comes from just one person, it really isn't a fair judgement. Some people see the best way as performing a google search to see whether Egyptian British or British Egyptian produces the most results (in this case, the latter did), but how many of these are actually about people of Egyptian descent in the UK, not Eygptian-British political relations, holidays, real estate etc. Plus when a complex title is resorted to such as Egyptian migrants and assylum seekers to the United Kingdom and their descendants, which could soon be seen with all this pickyness, I believe this coulod cause even more confusion then having two names back to front or not. Stevvvv4444 (Stevvvv4444) 20:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, my view is that consistency should not be imposed where it doesn't exist. I don't think there is any risk of confusing international readers because if the first sentence says "British Chinese people are Chinese people who live in Britain" there's no confusion and you can use a disambiguation tag to send them to the alternative sites. Stevvvv, if you can actually cite a source for the UK government so you could begin the article "Egyptian British is a term used by the UK government to refer to..." that might be more acceptable.

Perhaps the best thing to say in conclusion is that it's important to do the research to find the best title. I tried doing the research for this article, but drew a complete blank; for others I have tried doing sensible google searches (taking account of the ambiguities) and have sometimes found clear-cut answers. It just depends. Cop 663 (talk) 02:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you on this page Cop 663, there doesn't seem a more commoner term, I personally believe that some British people say British Egyptians, British Chinese (with the British first), as if it was the other way round and was refering to more than one British people, the demonym for this would be Briton or Britons, which is rarely ever used, whilst most other nationalities would be easier the place and sound better after British, such as Germans, Filipinos, Spaniards, Turks and Egyptians. Stevvvv4444 (talk) 20:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Coptic

What percentage are Coptic? Badagnani (talk) 23:38, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

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