Egyptian Arabic

Egyptian Arabic is a dialect of Arabic spoken in Egypt - and more specifically, the prestige dialect spoken in the northern Nile Delta region and its urban centers Cairo and Alexandria. (The Egyptian dialects south of the Delta, lumped together as Sa'idi, or Upper Egyptian, are distinct from Cairene Arabic in phonology and, as a result, carry little prestige nationally. They continue to be widely spoken even in the north by internal immigrants, however.) Egyptian Arabic is primarily a spoken dialect and is written only rarely - e.g. in cartoons and in transcriptions of popular songs in the dialect. In formal situations (speeches, TV news, etc.) Modern Standard Arabic is preferred.

Related Topics:
Dialect - Arabic - Egypt - Nile Delta - Cairo - Alexandria - Sa'idi - Modern Standard Arabic

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Egyptian Arabic is the variety of Arabic with the largest number of speakers 44,406,000 in Egypt and 46,321,000 total (1998 estimate, SIL). It is also one of the most widely comprehended dialects throughout the Arab World due to the fact Egyptian films and other media have been widely distributed in the Arab World since the beginning of the 20th century. In addition, Egypt is the most populous Arab nation, with more than 77 million inhabitants (2005). There are few educational publications written in Egyptian Arabic, compared to say, French, but Egyptian Arabic remains one of the most widely studied and comprehended colloquial Arabic dialects. For these reasons, Arabic programs commonly choose the dialect to give American and other Western students of modern Arabic exposure to a modern Arabic dialect.

Related Topics:
Arab World - 20th century - French - American

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Egyptian Arabic bears little relation to the Ancient Egyptian language (they are both Afro-Asiatic languages, but separated by more than five millennia). It is merely one dialect of Arabic among many others, imported into Egypt in the 7th century by Muslim Arabs in the first expansion of Islam. Indeed, Arabic has all but replaced the language of the ancient Egyptians (preserved in the guise of the Coptic language still used within the Coptic Orthodox church). However, Coptic has contributed a number of loanwords, and influenced some syntactic developments (notably the absence of inversion in interrogative sentences.)

Related Topics:
Ancient Egyptian language - Afro-Asiatic - Islam - Coptic language - Coptic Orthodox - Loanword

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