Sa'idi people

The word literally means "from Ṣa'īd" (i.e. Upper Egypt), and can also refer to a form of music originating there, or to the dialect spoken by Sa'idis. The Arabic word ''Ṣa'īd, as a geographical term, means "highland, upland, plateau". The suffix -i forms an adjective. The word Ṣa'īdi'' is pronounced in the dialect itself as or and the plural is or , while pronounced in Egyptian Arabic (Northern Egyptian) as and the plural is . In the Sahidic (Upper Egyptian) dialect of Coptic, the name for a person from Upper Egypt is (pronounced rem.rīs) meaning "person of the South" or (pronounced rem.pma.rīs or rem.ma.rīs) "person of (the) place of the south (i.e. Upper Egypt)". == Socioeconomic status ==

Approximately 30% of Egyptians live in Upper Egypt, and 80% of Egypt's severe poverty is concentrated in Upper Egypt. Most Sa'idi people are fellahin, and they live in closely knit villages along the Nile Valley in Egypt. Stereotypes and jokes Ṣa'īdis and their dialect are the subject of numerous Egyptian stereotypes and ethnic jokes, mainly from the upper-class Egyptians who own businesses in Egypt's major cities and used to hire Upper Egyptian workers in construction fields. They are popularly assumed to be rural simpletons by other Egyptians. An example of such stereotyping is the popular 1998 film ''Ṣa'īdi fil-Gama'a al-Amrikiya'' ("A Ṣa'īdi in the American University") starring Mohamed Henedi, whose main character is portrayed as less fashionable than the other Egyptian students of the American University in Cairo. == Religion in Upper Egypt ==

The Upper Egyptians follow Islam and Christianity as the majority of Christians in Egypt live in Upper Egypt, and a large proportion of Upper Egypt's population are Christians and Upper Egypt has a rich Coptic Christian history. For instance, Sahidic was the leading Coptic dialect in the pre-Islamic period. In the last few decades the high proportion of Coptic Christians in Upper Egypt has enabled some Christians to hold prominent political posts there. For instance, Qena Governorate had a Coptic Christian governor in 2011. Sahidic dialect of Coptic is used as a liturgical language by the clergy and among Sa'idi Coptic Christians. == Relationship to other Egyptians ==

Egypt is a transcontinental country containing substantial ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity among its people. A paper in 2019 looking to characterize the genetic variation in Egyptians used 15 STR loci on 814 unrelated individuals from Northern Coast, Delta, Greater Cairo, Canal governorates, Northern Upper Egypt, Southern Upper Egypt, and Sinai. The most differentiated populations were found between Sinai and Southern Upper Egypt who plotted separately. In contrast, Northern Coast, Delta, Greater Cairo, Canal governorates and Northern Upper Egypt were all in a main Egyptian cluster. The lowest value for genetic distance was found between the Greater Cairo and Delta populations. A different study which focused on 265 unrelated individuals inhabiting five governorates in Upper Egypt using similar methodology, found that based on the frequency of similar molecular data, no differences were observed in comparison with the general population from Cairo in any of the 9 loci compared, or with Coptic Christians from Cairo. However, 1 out of 8 loci showed a difference in comparison with a population from El-Minya. At the molecular data level, there was also a weak difference when Upper Egyptians were compared with Egyptian Muslims from Tanta, albeit with a non significant value in an exact test of population differentiation. However, highly significant differences were observed in comparisons with Berbers from Siwa and with a population sample from Adaima. Mohamed, T et al. (2009) in their study on nomadic Bedouins featured a comparative study with a worldwide population database to infer genetic structure. Their analysis discovered that both Upper Egyptian populations (Muslim Egyptians and Coptic Christians), showed a distinct "North African" cluster at 63% and 65% respectively, when compared to other Arab populations in the Middle-East and Europeans. A 2003 study by Lucotte and Mercier analysed Y-chromosome haplogroups among 274 unrelated males in Egypt. Included in the study were Upper Egyptian populations from Karnak and Luxor. The research focused on using the p49a,f/TaqI haplotype polymorphisms, which can be linked to modern phylogenetic classifications. Samples from these 66 Sa'idis revealed 80.3% E1b1b (E-M35), 7.5% J1/2, and 6.1% being other lineages. The 162 Lower Egyptians from Alexandria had 64.8% E1b1b (E-M35), 19.1% J1/2 and 10.5% other. While the 46 Egyptian Nubians from Abu Simbel had 86.9% E1b1b (E-M35) and 4.4% J1/2, and 8.7% other. An entry from 2004 discovered that 29 Egyptians from Luxor had 31.0% E1b1b, 31.0% J, 17.2% T, 10.3% F, 3.4% R1b, 3.4% R1a, while the 44 Egyptians from Mansoura had 51.3% E1b1b, 18.2% J, 9.9% R1b, 6.8% T, 4.5% F and 2.3% R1a. In another paper from 2015, 47 southern Egyptians scored 78.7% of E1b1b being E-V12, while the 49 northern Egyptians were found to have 42.9% E1b1b frequencies, being E-V22. ==See also==