So Latin spread pretty well across Europe, being the basis of almost every language there, but how come it didn’t take as strong a hold in the Middle East? It’s not as if the Romans were never there, and they lingered there far longer than they did in Europe. Was it just a matter of a stronger preexisting culture, or did the Arabs have something to do with it? What happened here?
Exactly this. Most Egyptians could speak Greek by the time Romans ruled Egypt and continued to learn and speak Greek until Arab conquest when Greek eventually became irrelevant
*Most Egyptian elites? I’m not well-informed on this, but I find it hard to believe that your average Egyptian peasant could speak Greek.
There an Arab historian called Maqrizi who lived in the 15th century. He wrote about south Egyptians monasteries saying: "… and most Christians of these monasteries the knowladge of Southern Coptic dialect [ Egyptian language ] followed by Northern Coptic dialect and Christian women of the south and their children almost speak nothing but southern Egyptian and have complete knowledge of Roman language (he means Greek since Romans in Egypt spoke Greek).
In addition to that many christian prayers are almost entirely in Greek. Its possible that really simple people like farmers may have not spoken Greek but most Egyptians had to understand it since it was the legal language of the country