Hi all,

I know that many people may get confused between Egyptian and Modern Standard Arabic. Well, Egyptian Arabic is a dialect but not a language. Egyptians only speak it but when they write, they write in Standard Arabic.

Egyptian Arabic is basically Arabic and the rules are derived from Arabic grammar but it changed for many reasons. As you may know, Egypt has a rich history and were occupied by a lot of nations all over its history till the Egyptian revolution in 1952. Thus, you can find Turkish words such, English words or even French words in Egyptian Arabic. However, Egyptians tend to pronounce some words in its French pronunciation like television تِلِيفزْيُون.

I hope it was beneficial for everyone!

I didn’t know that!

You learn a new thing everyday… and that was mine for the day.

Thanks Hamdy. :)

Very interesting, thanks for that. Does this mean that other countries which speak Arabic have also been influenced by occupying countries? Is there any similarity in the dialects between countries which have been occupied by the same nations? (eg Algeria and Morocco which have had a strong French occupation)

Thank you Hamdy! That is very interesting especially about the French pronunciation.

Very informative Hamdy…I never knew this. Thanks for sharing!

Hi Dr. Hamdy!

any nation in the universe has linguistically been influenced by the invaders, even the English language. as for Egyptian Arabic.. Read this plz:

The official language of Egypt is Arabic, though with an Egyptian dialect. Today, Arabic ranks as the sixth most common language with an estimated 186 million native speakers. Furthermore, as the language of the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, it is also widely understood throughout the Muslim world, even in countries where Arabic is not the native language. The Egyptian colloquial Arabic is spoken by some 50 million people, mostly in Egypt.

One need not learn an extensive amount of Arabic to function in Egypt outside of the confines of the tourist industry. Understanding some useful words and phrases will go a long way. However, some background information on the language is useful in this regard.

Arabic is originally the language of the nomadic tribes of the northern and central regions of the Arabian Peninsula. It was only during the Muslim conquest and expansion of the seventh and eighth centuries that Arabic spread into the areas where it is now spoken. In the process, it largely supplanted the indigenous languages of the conquered regions, including Aramaic in the Levantine, Coptic in Egypt, Berber in North Africa, and Greek in the former Byzantine Empire.

In written form, some early inscriptions exist. Arabic of the pre-Classical period is found in inscriptions of central and northwestern Arabia, with Classical Arabic itself appearing in inscriptions dating from at least the fourth century. Pre-Islamic poetry, the Qur’an from the first half of the seventh century, and the language of contemporary Bedouin provided the basis for the codification of the language during the eighth and ninth centuries.

Arabic is a Semitic language of the Arabo-Canaanite subgroup (Ruhlen 1987). It belongs to the Afro-Asiatic family of languages—the bulk of which are spoken in Africa—which has several major branches: Semitic (including languages such as Arabic); Berber; Chadic (including languages such as Hausa); Cushitic (including languages such as Somali); and Ancient Egyptian, whose modern descendent, Coptic, is preserved as a liturgical language.

Hi Elaine,

I did not say that Egypt was influenced by invaders only. You may not know that every city in Egypt has its own dialect but they are not so much different. Although, Upper Egypt example, has a very difficult dialect compared to Northern Egypt.

I can guess that these differences in dialects are according to some other facts such as the surrounding environment, the job that most people in the area do and even many other facts. For instance, people who live near the coast of the sea speak a dialect which differs from the rural people’s dialect.

Hey Fikry, you are doing a great job all the time. You are really an encyclopedia or Fikropedia ;) although I have some comments on what you have said.

At first, Egyptians are not only 50 millions anymore, we have become at least 70 millions and not only Egyptians can speak Egyptian Arabic. If you go anywhere in the Arab world, you will find many people can communicate with you, at least they may understand you.

Secondly, Arabs were basically originated from Yemen a long time ago before Islam. Then, they started to spread everywhere in the North. Some went to Iraq, some stayed in Saudi Arabia, Mecca in particular, and some went to the West in Jordan and Syria and that happened in the era of the prophet Abraham (Ibrahim).

Finally, Egyptian Arabic is so easy and if you are going in Egypt for a tour, you may not need any Egyptian at all but you may need to learn English because many Egyptians can communicate in English ;). But I don’t think that memorizing some phrases would help a lot because Egyptian Arabic is basically Arabic and you need to have a basic knowledge about Arabic first to understand it completely.

Again, thank you very much Fikry for your interesting information! Fikropedia!!

thanks Hamdy and Fikropedia (I think this is true:) , it is fascinating to learn this and I shall now take some time to digest all this information.

Hamdy – very interesting, thanks for sharing! I think it’s interesting how languages evolve through history.

Hi elaine !

ohhhhhhhh! quite fantastic, I’m Fikry, Hamdy ,just creats a name to show up ( as he believes ) my ability to discuss .

Thank you very very much for the explanation! I’m an Arab and a lot of Arabic students at my university were speaking Egyptian, and then I found out that the professors were not teaching Standard Arabic when conversing with students. Even though I told some of the students we ALL don’t speak Egyptian (I’m not Egyptian) and that Standard Arabic is to be learned first before dialect, they gave me a look and ignored my message because “I’m not Egyptian.”

Thank you again (;w;)

No worries Naruru! You are welcome anytime to ask any question about Arabic. Cheers, Hamdy

Interesting!

I always wondered whether, for example, an Egyptian and a Moroccan chatting together in Arabic understood one another perfectly, or could only resort to basic communication.

Actually Philippe, the Moroccan may understand the Egyptian than the opposite. The Egyptian dialect is very popular in all Arab countries. However, Morrocan dialect is very interesting too. It is only because that the Egyptian songs are very popular in the Arab world.

Hi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQQsQTGcWLE

An example of Arabic, Egyptian dialect, with English subtitles.

Ana hub Nancy

Yes, exactly…. Egyptian Arabic is understood throughout the entire Arab world because of the Media. Since Egypt is the Greatest Media center in the Arab world. However, that doesn’t mean that Egyptians can’t understand other Arabic dialects, they all have the same roots, which is Standard Arabic and also the grammar is the same for all Arabic speaking countries. That was a very interesting topic Dr. Hamdy :)

Salam Fadi,

I have an idea, hopefully I don’t slaughter the spelling so, pardon if I do this phonetically.

Egyptian Dialect, Boos => look
The Arabic I use, Shouf => look

There are more differences but it doesn’t seem to be a huge gap, though I am not an expert of the subject. I am sure there are people who can elaborate on this.

I agree very interesting topic Dr.Hamdy, Shukran.

Let’s just not forget that Egyptians use “Shouf” as well to mean look!! which means difference is not that huge. Take this example about English….
In Britain they say “Bunnet”, but in America they say “Hood” to indicate the motor cover in a car…. but both are still English.
Thanks Alysia!

Hi all !

‘Boos’ is mainly used to mean ( I want to say something serious or draw your attention to something ; on the other hand , ‘shouf’ means have a look at something or the same as ‘Boos’ , sometimes.

Yea. And I must say that the British occupation to Yemen that has lasted for more than 100 years has had a very huge influence on the way people speak. When I talk to my grandmother she keeps bringing English words to every single conversation she makes, and once for example, there’s been an accident once, and she started yelling to us and saying in her own words “Go Shoufoo Accident!!! Sa3idoohum law Yehtagoi”…. Go and Accident…. and she can’t read nor write!!! that was like…. WOW!!

WOW! I don’t know what to say, is this a good thing? What is the television programs in Yemen, is it a mix of,Queens English or American English? I have found, I have to be very careful when I write due to Arabic, and how it implies to be for example, so I guess there are downfalls it just depends on what language one is thinking in.

In India the situation seems to be the same. I’ve had one person whom, after coming back from visiting his family in India, told me to quit studying Hindi because everybody speaks Hindi mixed with English today.

Righto Fadi !

I taught English to alot of Yemeni who lives in Gazan( south of Saudi Arabia ) they start several words with the letter M , imsayara = car . and never forget the " marsa" ( sweet food ) and " haned " ……….They call the " motorbike " ( dabab )

Thanks Fikry!
The people you have taught have not been influenced magnificently by the British occupation, they use what we call(أم التعريف) instead of (أل التعريف) they are mostly from Zabeed I believe :). However, the English occupied the south of Yemen, Aden to be precise so you find more English in the Southern Yemeni dialect.

And Alysia! Official television programs are in modern standard Arabic. However, when it comes to TV shows and series, like for example “Keeni Meeni” people speak with different “YEMENI” accents. and if you can understand what they say, I recommend that comedy to everyone of you :)