Bayoumi Andil (Arabic: بيومي قنديل) (31 July 1942 – 8 October 2009) was an Egyptian linguist and writer who authored many books on Egyptian culture and Modern Egyptian language. Andil asserted that the language spoken in modern Egypt is not a dialect of Arabic, but rather a linguistic evolution of the Coptic language and the ancient Egyptian language. His most well-known book, The Present State of Culture in Egypt, posits that Egyptians have resisted attempts to change their national identity, language and national religion. Although the country embraced Christianity in the 1st century AD and Islam after the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641 AD, Andil states that Egyptians Egyptianized both Christianity and Islam. He argues that the "true" Egyptian spirit survived only in the oral culture of i