Copts are Egyptians who were early converts to Christianity during the time when Greek philosophers and monks went to Egypt and began converting Egyptians to the new religion. Coptic is a legacy of the ancient Egyptian language written with Greek letters. Many of the Copts have Greek blood and some are indistinguishable from Greek orthodox priests. In the early years of Egyptian exploration, the word Copt became a synonym for Egyptian, somewhat close to meaning non-muslim indigenous Egyptian. But all non-muslim indigenous Egyptians are not Christians, where as Coptics really are a branch of Christianity.

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The Coptic script was adopted from the Greek alphabet approximately around the 2nd century CE. The Copts adopted the Greek alphabet completely even though many of the Greek letters represent sounds that didn't exist in Egyptian. Instead they kept the extraneous letters for their numeric values. In addition, the Copts added 5 letters, taken from the Demotic script, that represent sounds that don't exist in Greek. The final count of signs was 32, and neatly represented the Egyptian language at the beginning of the first millenium CE.

From: [www.ancientscripts.com]

Historically the Coptic Church is said to have been the oldest of all Christian Churches, as these people were descended from some of the first people converted to Christianity by the apostles.

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The Copts are one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East. Although integrated in the larger Egyptian nation, the Copts have survived as a distinct religious community forming today between 10 and 15 percent of the native population. They pride themselves on the apostolicity of the Egyptian Church whose founder was the first in an unbroken chain of patriarchs. According to ancient tradition, Christianity was introduced to the Egyptians by Saint Mark in Alexandria shortly after the ascension of Christ. The legacy that Saint Mark left in Egypt was a considerable Christian community in Alexandria. From Alexandria, Christianization of the rest of Egypt progressed slowly. However, by the beginning of the 3rd century A.D., Christians constituted the majority of Egypt’s population, and the Church of Alexandria was recognized as one of Christendom's four Apostolic Sees, second in honor only to the Church of Rome[22]. The Church of Alexandria is therefore the oldest church in Africa.

The Copts contributed immensely to the formation of the worldwide Christian mind. To name a few examples, the Catechetical School of Alexandria was the oldest catechetical school in the world (founded around 190 A.D.), and monasticism was created and organized by Copts. In the first three Ecumenical Councils, namely the First Council of Nicaea, the Council of Constantinople, and the Council of Ephesus, the Egyptians played the most prominent role in defending Orthodoxy. The Patriarchs of Alexandria were given such important tasks like the determination of the yearly date of Easter.

From: [www.answers.com]

However, some believe that this legend only reflects that Greek thought by the time of the Roman period, had so thoroughly and fully become incorporated with ancient Egyptian thought, that the "new" religion was nothing but a development of Greek theologians and philosophers using ancient Egyptian and Greek patterns of thought under the direction of Roman authorities. Of course, this is exactly why you had so many ecumenical councils at the time and also why so many heresies were around at the time. This is also why the oldest books of the new testament were found in Egypt.

Many of these early Greek fathers of the Coptic church were known for vandalizing ancient Egyptian tombs and temples by carving over them, burning them and otherwise damaging them.