The preservation of documents written in a variety of different languages leaves no doubt that early Islamic Egypt was a multilingual society. Nev¬ertheless, to establish what this “multilingualism” exactly means is a more difficult enterprise. Since we only have the documentary (written) record, we can only speculate about the linguistic situation in general. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the position of the written Greek language within the documentary Greek-Coptic-Arabic linguistic landscape in eighth century Egypt, based on a quantification and qual¬ification of the evidence, and to look for the problems and possibilities that will show up.

2.1 The Linguistic Landscape in Egypt before Islam

With the invasion by Alexander the Great, speakers of Greek came to live in Egypt. Greek became the administrative language in Egypt, which it would remain for a thousand years or so: this situation was maintained under Roman and Byzantine rule, while the majority of native Egyptians, especially those living in the countryside, continued to speak Egyptian. Some of them learned Greek, which became the language of the educated elite. In Ptolemaic and Roman times, only a small group, which scholars usually identify with the priestly class, was able to write Egyptian (in a script called demotic, that is attested in the period between the sev¬enth century B.C. and the fifth century A.D.). As a result, documents were mainly written in Greek. As a spoken language, however, Egyptian continued to be used and it reappeared in a new written form, Coptic. Initially, its use was restricted to religious texts, whereas Greek remained the usual language of administration. Therefore Greek documents consti-tuted a numerical majority. Hence, it is justified to characterise Greek as the dominant language in administration during Greek and Roman rule. How did the coming of the Arabs affect this situation?

2.2 Islam and the Decrease of Greek Documents in Egypt

It is generally agreed that immediately after the Arab conquest there was a considerable degree of continuity in administration and presum¬ably also in people's daily lives. The most radical change at this time was that the top layer of administration was now occupied by Arabs. However, whether a dramatic reorganization of Egypt's administration was planned by the Arab invaders, or was perceived by the inhabitants of Egypt, is doubtful. The documentary evidence we have from the first decades of Arab rule in Egypt does not validate such an assumption. It rather seems that only in time did the Arab presence become Arab rule in terms of state organization.