Origin of 埃及 Āijí (Egypt)

[atitarev]

Does anyone know the origin of the word Origin of 埃及 Āijí (Egypt) in Chinese?

In Arabic it's مصر [Miṣr], so it's not from the original name.

Maybe it was borrowed from English via Cantonese, it's pronounced as [oi1 kap6] in Cantonese (using Yale romanisation).

[skylee]

Aigyptos?

[atitarev]

Aigyptos?

Thanks, Skylee. Which accent is imitated?

I was just going to find another international word starting with "E" or "Ye" and come across 埃里温 [Āilǐwēn] - Yerevan (Armenian capital). In 厄瓜多尔 Èguāduō'ěr - Ecuador, the choice of vowels seems better.

The choice of sounds seems strange, that's all, there are better or closer phonetical substitutes.

[Jose]

Actually the character 埃 is common for rendering an initial 'e' in Western names, like Spanish and Italian Elena, commonly rendered as 埃列娜 (see this list). And there is also 埃塞俄比亚 (Ethiopia).

I don't know why "ai" would be used to represent an initial "e". My guess is that it probably comes from the pronunciation in old Mandarin or in some other dialect like Wu, just like the cases of "jia" being used for "ca", "ka" (Canada, Alaska) or "xi" being used for "hi" (Hitler, Gijón).