Egyptian Arabic

Arabic dialect spoken in Egypt

The modern Egyptian language (Ma مصري) is a group of dialects of the Arabic language, one of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family.

The modern Egyptian language
اللغه المصريه الحديثه
Pronunciation[elˈloɣæ l.mɑsˤˈɾejjɑ l.ħæˈdisæ]
Native toEgypt
Native speakers
58,412,000 (2014)[1]
Arabic alphabet Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3arz
Glottologegyp1253
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It came from the people living in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt around the capital Cairo. It originates from the spoken Arabic brought to Egypt during the AD 7th-century The Arab occupation of the Middle East and North Africa.

Egyptian Arabic was formed also of Copto-Egyptian language of pre-Islamic Egypt,[2][3][4] and other languages such as Italian and French. Egyptian Arabic is officially recognized as the national language of the Egyptian government. More than 76 million people in Egypt speak Egyptian Arabic. Also, many people in the Middle East can understand it.

References change

  1. The modern Egyptian language at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
  2. Nishio, Tetsuo. "Word order and word order change of wh-questions in Egyptian Arabic: The Coptic substratum reconsidered". Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of L'Association Internationale pour la Dialectologie Arabe. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. 1996, pp. 171-179
  3. Bishai, Wilson B. "Coptic grammatical influence on Egyptian Arabic". Journal of the American Oriental Society. No.82, pp. 285-289.
  4. Youssef (2003), below.