28 Facts About Egyptian Arabic

Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian, or simply Masri ( Masry) (), is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic dialect in Egypt.

The grammatical structure of Egyptian Arabic is influenced by the Egyptian Coptic language which was the native language of the vast majority of Nile Valley Egyptians prior to the Muslim conquest.

Literary Arabic is a standardized language based on the language of the Qur'an, i e Classical Arabic.

The Egyptian vernacular is almost universally written in the Arabic alphabet for local consumption, although it is commonly transcribed into Latin letters or in the International Phonetic Alphabet in linguistics text and textbooks aimed at teaching non-native learners.

Term Egyptian Arabic is usually used synonymously with "Cairene Arabic", which is technically a dialect of Egyptian Arabic.

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Standard Egyptian Arabic, when used in documents, broadcast media, prepared speeches and sometimes in liturgical purpose, is heavily influenced by Cairene Arabic with loanwords of Modern Standard Arabic origin or code-switching between Cairene Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic.

Egyptian Arabic was spoken in parts of Egypt such as the Eastern Desert and Sinai before Islam.

Arabic had been already familiar to Valley Egyptians since Arabic had been spoken throughout the Eastern Desert and Sinai.

Egyptian Arabic was a minority language of some residents of the Nile Valley such as Qift in Upper Egypt through pre-Islamic trade with Nabateans in the Sinai Peninsula and the easternmost part of the Nile Delta.

Egyptian Arabic seems to have begun taking shape in Fustat, the first Islamic capital of Egypt, now part of Cairo.

One of the earliest linguistic sketches of Cairene Egyptian Arabic is a 16th-century document entitled by Yusuf al-Maghribi ().

The main purpose of the document was to show that while the Cairenes' vernacular contained many critical "errors" vis-a-vis Classical Egyptian Arabic, according to al-Maghribi, it was related to Egyptian Arabic in other respects.

Egyptian Arabic has no official status and is not officially recognized as a language.

Standard Egyptian Arabic is the official language of the state as per constitutional law.

Egyptian Arabic was identified as a mere dialect, one that was not spoken even in all of Egypt, as almost all of Upper Egypt speaks Sa'idi Arabic.

Conversely, Modern Standard Egyptian Arabic was the norm for state news outlets, including newspapers, magazines, television, and radio.

In sociolinguistics, Egyptian Arabic can be seen as one of many distinct varieties that, despite arguably being languages on grounds, are united by a common in Modern Standard Arabic.

Egyptian Arabic has a phonology that differs significantly from that of other varieties of Arabic, and has its own inventory of consonants and vowels.

In contrast to CA and MSA, Egyptian Arabic nouns are not inflected for case and lack nunation.

Verbs in Egyptian Arabic are based on a stem made up of three or four consonants.

In contrast with Classical Arabic, but much like the other varieties of Arabic, Egyptian Arabic prefers subject–verb–object word order; CA and to a lesser extent MSA prefer verb–subject–object (VSO).

Also in common with other Egyptian Arabic varieties is the loss of unique agreement in the dual form: while the dual remains productive to some degree in nouns, dual nouns are analyzed as plural for the purpose of agreement with verbs, demonstratives, and adjectives.

Unlike most other forms of Arabic, however, Egyptian prefers final placement of question words in interrogative sentences.

Egyptian Arabic appears to have retained a significant Coptic substratum in its lexicon, phonology, and syntax.

However, within Egyptian Arabic, there is a wide range of variation.

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El-Said Badawi identifies three distinct levels of Egyptian Arabic based chiefly on the quantity of non-Arabic lexical items in the vocabulary: ?Ammiyyat al-Musaqqafin, ?Ammiyyat al-Mutanawwirin (Enlightened or Literate Colloquial), and ?Ammiyyat al-'Ummiyin (Illiterate Colloquial).

Egyptian Arabic has been a subject of study by scholars and laypersons in the past and the present for many reasons, including personal interest, egyptomania, business, news reporting, and diplomatic and political interactions.

Egyptian Colloquial Arabic is a field of study in both graduate and undergraduate levels in many higher education institutions and universities in the world.