It is generally believed that the early ancient Egyptian language was an Afro-Asiatic one, once called Hamito-Semitic. This language developed, as in most cultures, over the centuries into a middle and then late form, with the earlier form being used, as Latin was in Europe and Ancient Sumerian was in Mesopotamia, for religious and other formal purposes. A demotic form of Egyptian became known as Coptic and is used today only in the liturgies of the Christian-Coptic church, Arabic having displaced Egyptian as the language of the people.