Coptic or Coptic Egyptian (Bohairic: met.rem.ən.khēmi, Sahidic: mənt.rəm.ən.kēme, Greek: Met Rem(e)nkhēmi) is the latest stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afroasiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written in the Coptic alphabet – an adaptation of the Greek script with some letters inherited from Demotic – in the 1st century AD. The new writing system became the Coptic script, an adapted Greek alphabet with the addition of six or seven signs from the demotic script to represent Egyptian sounds the Greek language did not have. Several distinct Coptic dialects are identified, the most prominent of which are Sahidic, originating in parts of Upper Egypt, and Bohairic, originally from the western Nile Delta in Lower Egypt.