As another ethnic Copt, I'm also very fascinated by the language and history, particularly the differences between the Bohairic and Sahidic dialects.

> Copts do also maintain a significant amount of syncretism with ancient Egyptian religion as well, both within language (typically, Egyptian Arabic words that are “odd” to middle eastern speakers are pulled from Coptic or earlier stages of Egyptian)

This is true and also many of the characters in the language are believed to be derived from hieroglyphs.