In addition, there are immigrant Egyptian communities in the Middle East, Europe, North America, Latin America, Australia and Southeast Asia.Īmong the spoken varieties of Arabic, Standard Egyptian Arabic (based on the dialect of the Egyptian capital) is the only one to have become a lingua franca in other parts of the Arabic-speaking world primarily for two reasons: the proliferation and popularity of Egyptian films and other media in the region since the early 20th century as well as the great number of Egyptian teachers and professors who were instrumental in setting up the education systems of various countries in the Arabian Peninsula and also taught there and in other countries such as Algeria and Libya. The total number of Egyptian Arabic users in all countries is over 51 million, 49 million of whom are native speakers in Egypt, including several regional dialects. As is the case with Parisian French, Cairene Arabic is by far the most prevalent dialect in the country. The country's native name, Maṣr, is often used locally to refer to Cairo itself. The term Egyptian Arabic is usually used synonymously with " Cairene Arabic", which is technically a dialect of Egyptian Arabic.
Sometimes it is also called Modern Egyptian language ( اللغه المصريه الحديثه, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: ).
These factors help to make it the most widely spoken and by far the most widely studied variety of Arabic. Furthermore, Egyptian media including cinema has had a big influence in the MENA region for more than a century, along with the music industry. It is also understood across most of the Arabic-speaking countries due to broad Egyptian influence on the region. The 100 million Egyptians speak a continuum of dialects, among which Cairene is the most prominent. Egyptian Arabic is influenced by the Egyptian Coptic language in its grammar structure which was the native language of the vast majority of Nile Valley Egyptians prior to the Islamic conquest and later it had influences by European and foreign languages such as French, Italian, Greek, Turkish and English. Egyptian Arabic evolved from the Quranic Arabic which was brought to Egypt during the seventh-century AD Muslim conquest that aimed to spread the Islamic faith among the Egyptians. It originated in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. Įgyptian is a dialect of the Arabic language, which is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.Įgyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( Arabic: العامية المصرية, ), or simply Masri ( مَصرى), is the spoken vernacular Arabic dialect of Egypt. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. This article contains IPA phonetic symbols.