Egyptian Arabic

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"Masri" redirects here. For other uses, see Masri (disambiguation).
Egyptian Arabic
مصري Maṣrī 
Pronunciation: IPA: [mʌsˁɾɨ]
Spoken in: Egypt and a few other countries
Total speakers: 78,000,000 +
Language family: Afro-Asiatic
 Semitic
  West Semitic
   Central Semitic
    South-Central Semitic
     Arabic
      Egyptian Arabic 
Writing system: Arabic alphabet 
Official status
Official language of: none
Regulated by: none
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: arz
ISO/FDIS 639-3: arz
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Egyptian Arabic (Maṣrī, مصري) is part of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, descended mainly from a medieval dialect of Arabic. It originated in the Nile Delta region (Lower Egypt) around its urban centers, Cairo and Alexandria. Today, it is the national language of Egypt and the mother tongue of more than 78 million people.

While Egyptian Arabic is mainly spoken, it is written occasionally in novels, plays, poems (vernacular literature) as well as in comics, advertising, some newspapers, and transcriptions of popular songs. In most other written media and in TV news reporting, Standard Arabic is used. Like other varieties of Arabic, the Egyptian dialect is written in the Arabic alphabet.

Contents

[edit] History

The Egyptians slowly adopted the Arabic language following the Arab-Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 7th century AD. Up till then, they were speaking Egyptian in its Coptic form. For more than three centuries, there existed a period of Coptic-Arabic bilingualism in Lower Egypt. This trend would last for many more centuries in the south. Arabic may have been already familiar to Egyptians through pre-Islamic trade with Bedouin Arab tribes in the Sinai and the easternmost part of the Nile Delta. Egyptian Arabic seems to have begun taking shape in Fustat, the first Islamic capital of Egypt, and now part of modern-day Cairo. The variety of Arabic spoken by the Muslim military troops stationed in Fustat was already different from Classical Arabic, which in part accounts for some of the unique characteristics of the Egyptian dialect.

One of the earliest linguistic sketches of Egyptian Arabic is a 16th century document entitled Dafʻ al-ʼiṣr ʻan kalām ʼahl Miṣr ('The Removal of the Burden from the Language of the People of Egypt') by Yūsuf al-Maġribi. It contains key information on early Egyptian Arabic and the language situation in medieval Egypt. The main purpose of the document was to show that while the Egyptians' vernacular contained many critical "errors" vis-à-vis Classical Arabic, according to Maġribi, it was also related to Arabic in other respects. With the ongoing Islamization and Arabization of the country, Egyptian Arabic slowly supplanted spoken Egyptian. Local chroniclers mention the continued use of Coptic Egyptian as a spoken language until the 17th century AD by peasant women in Upper Egypt. Coptic is still the liturgical language of the Egyptian Coptic Church.

[edit] Official status

In the 20th century, Egyptian Arabic was regarded as the national language of Egypt, though to date it is not officially recognized. Standard Arabic, a modernized form of Classical Arabic, is the official language of Egypt (see diglossia.) Interest in the local vernacular began in the 19th century as the Egyptian national movement for independence was taking shape. Questions about the reform and modernization of Arabic came to fore, and for many decades to follow they were hotly debated in Egyptian intellectual circles. Proposals ranged from developing neologisms to replace archaic terminology in Standard Arabic; to the simplification of syntactical and morphological rules and the introduction of colloquialisms; to complete 'Egyptianization' (tamṣīr) by abandoning Arabic in favor of Masri or Egyptian Arabic.

Proponents of language reform in Egypt included Qasim Amin, who also wrote the first Egyptian feminist treatise, former president of the Egyptian University, Ahmad Lutfy el-Sayyed, and noted intellectual Salama Moussa. They adopted a modernist, secular approach and disagreed with the Islamic assumption that Arabic was an immutable language because of its association with the Qur'an. For a while, Egyptian Arabic enjoyed a period of rich literary output until the movement was halted with the continuing rise of Islamism and Arab nationalism in Egypt and the Middle East, particularly with Nasser's assumption of power in 1954. The first modern Egyptian novel to be written in the vernacular was Muhammad Husayn Haykal's Zaynab in 1913. Other notable novelists such as Ihsan Abdel Quddous and Yusuf Idris, and poets such as Abnudi and Ahmed Fu'ad Negm (Fagumi), helped solidify vernacular literature as a distinct literary genre.

Nasser undertook an Arabization campaign in Egypt's education system and government administration, which stoutly relegated Egyptian Arabic. In the last fifty years, educated Egyptian as a result became heavily influenced by Standard Arabic. Following Nasser's death, interest in the Egyptian dialect was rekindled by vernacular authors, and calls for making Egyptian Arabic an official language and the language of education reappeared. In the 21st century, the Liberal Egyptian Party was founded by a group of secular activists promoting political reform in Egypt, and calling for the official recognition of both Egyptian Arabic and indigenous Egyptian ('the languages of Egypt'). Some of its views continue to be a source of controversy among Egyptians, particularly with religious establishments such as Al-Azhar and the currently outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

[edit] "Language" vs. "dialect"

As the status of Egyptian Arabic vis-à-vis the Classical language (the language of the Qur'an) has political and religious implications in Egypt, many Egyptians consider Egyptian Arabic only a dialect. But even though Egyptian Arabic is descended from the Arabic language, some students of Arabic and linguists may find Egyptian Arabic sufficiently different as to be an independent language (see Dialect#"Dialect" or "language"). Some native speakers of Egyptian Arabic, however, point out that the richness of Arabic vocabulary may lead to confusion regarding the etymology of some of its words, which may simply be variations of the same word in vernacular Arabic. To be sure, Standard Arabic tends to be more conservative while Egyptian Arabic has been more influenced by other languages, including Egyptian/Coptic, Greek, Turkish, Persian, Italian and French. There are, however, words peculiar to the Egyptian dialect, as opposed to other varieties of Arabic, that are still ultimately derived from Arabic.

Examples for loan words:

  • Coptic:
    • بسة bissa "cat"
  • Italian:
    • جمبري gambari "shrimps"
  • Greek:
    • برتقان burtuʔaan "orange"
  • Turkish:
    • أوضة ʔooḍɑ "room"
  • French:
    • چیبة jiiba "skirt"
  • English:
    • يفاول - فاول faawil - yifaawil "to foul (football)"

[edit] Geographic distribution

Egyptian Arabic is spoken by more than 76 million Egyptians in Egypt as well as by immigrant Egyptian communities in the Middle East, Europe and North America. Among the spoken varieties of Arabic, Egyptian is the only one to have become a lingua franca in the Arabic-speaking world. It is usually regarded as one of the most widely understood vernaculars throughout the Middle East for two main reasons: the proliferation and popularity of Egyptian films and other media in the region since the early 20th century; and the great number of Egyptian teachers and professors who were instrumental in setting up the education systems of various Arabian countries, and who also taught there.

In Yemen, for example, non-Yemenite Arabic speakers are often automatically seen as "Egyptians" and many Yemenites have adapted their everyday speech to Egyptian Arabic by borrowing Egyptian words (such as kida 'like this'; kuwayyis 'well, good') and occasionally Egyptian morphology. The same is true to varying degrees in Sudan, the Levant (particularly Palestine) and in Libya. This trend may now be shifting with the recent ascendancy of Lebanese media in the region, though many Lebanese artists sing in Egyptian Arabic.

[edit] Dialects

The Egyptian variants spoken in central and southern Egypt, referred to collectively as Sa'idi (Upper Egyptian), are mainly descended from the northern Egyptian dialect but are distinct from the Cairene sociolect in their phonology due to early contacts with Bedouin Arab dialects. They carry little prestige nationally though continue to be widely spoken, including in the north by rural migrants who have adapted partially to Lower Egyptian dialect. For example, the Sa'idi genitive exponent is usually replaced with Lower Egyptian bitāʕ, but the realization of /q/ as /g/ is retained. Second and third-generation southern Egyptian migrants are monolingual in Cairene Arabic, but maintain cultural and familial ties to the south.

The traditional division between Lower and Upper Egypt and their respective dialectal differences go back to ancient times. Egyptians today commonly refer to the people of the north as baḥarwa and to those of the south as ṣaʻayda. The dialectal differences throughout Egypt, however, are more wide ranging and do not neatly correspond to this simple division. There is a linguistic shift from the eastern to the western parts of the delta, and the dialects spoken from Gizah to el Minya are further grouped into a Middle Egyptian cluster. Despite these differences, there are features distinguishing all Egyptian Arabic dialects from any other Arabic language, including the postposition of demonstratives and interrogatives, the modal meaning of the imperfect, and the integration of the participle.

[edit] Sounds

Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for a pronunciation key.

The Egyptian dialect's distinctive phonology appears in part from its peculiar realization of certain Classical Arabic consonants:

  • The letter jīm ج (CA: /dʒ/) represents /g/ in most Lower Egyptian dialects, including the dominant Cairene, but not in those of Upper Egypt (the Sa'id); e.g. /gabal/ for /dʒabal/ (mountain), /gamiːl/ for /dʒamiːl/ (beautiful), and so forth. This pronunciation is considered "typically" Egyptian Arabic, but it occurs in certain varieties of Yemeni Arabic, namely the Yafi'i and Adeni dialects. It is also attested in ancient Egyptian and may have been the original Semitic pronunciation of the sound - corresponding to the letter gimel in Hebrew and Aramaic. The sound therefore may be a direct retention from ancient Egyptian, or Semitic, or it may be a secondary development from a palatal or palatalized g ([ɟ] or [gʲ]).
  • The letter qāf ق (CA /q/ represents a glottal stop /ʔ/ in Cairo and the eastern delta, /q/ in the western delta, and /g/ in Upper Egypt (the Sa'id).
  • The letter θāʔ ث (CA /θ/) represents either /t/ in ordinary words (e.g. tāni "second") or /s/ in classicisms (e.g. sanawiyya "secondary (school)")
  • The letter ðāl ذ (CA /ð/}} represents /d/ in ordinary words (e.g. danab "tail") or /z/ in classicisms (e.g. ʔizāʕa "broadcasting")
  • The letter ð̣āʔ ظ (CA emphatic /ð̣/), represents /dˤ/ in ordinary words (e.g. ḍuhr "noon" ) or /zˤ/ in classicisms (e.g. ẓāhira "phenomenon")
  • Egyptian Arabic maintains in all positions the early post-Classical distinctions between short /i/ and /u/ which become ktāb, jmāl, and xtār in several other dialects.:
    • kitāb "book"
    • gumāl "beautiful" (pl.) versus gimāl "camels"
    • ʔixtār "he chose", which is actually a contextual realisation and the i may be phonomicly no part of the word

Stress is repositioned in Egyptian Arabic. The distinction between short and long vowels is still phonemic, but only stressed vowels can remain long. Unstressed long vowels are shortened, and stressed short vowels lengthened.

  • Example:

- Classical laymûn (lemon) -> lamûn ("a" is shortended "ê", which is monophthongized "ay"), not lêmûn.

[edit] Substratum

Egyptian Arabic has retained a significant Coptic substratum in its lexicon, phonology, and syntax. Some features that Egyptian Arabic shares with ancient Egyptian include certain prefix and suffix verbal conjugations, certain emphatic and glottalized consonants, as well as a large number of biliteral and triliteral lexical correspondences.

Two syntactic features that are particular to Egyptian Arabic (inherited from Coptic) are postposed demonstratives (i.e. "this" and "that" are placed after the noun) and in-situ wh words (i.e. "who", "when", "why" remain in their "logical" positions in a sentence rather than being preposed, or moved to the front of the sentence, as in Standard Arabic and English). Examples of the former: ʔir-rɑɑgil da "this man" (Standard Arabic haaðaa-r-rajul) and ʔil-binti di "this girl" (Standard Arabic haaðihi-l-bint).

Examples of in-situ wh words:

  • rɑɑħ mɑṣri ʔimta ? (راح مصر إمتى؟) "When (ʔimta) did he go to Egypt/Cairo?" (lit. "He went to Egypt/Cairo when?")
  • rɑɑħ mɑṣri leeh ? (راح مصر ليه؟) "Why (leeh) did he go to Egypt/Cairo? (lit. "He went to Egypt/Cairo why?")
  • miin [ʔilli] rɑɑħ mɑṣr ? (مين [اللي] راح مصر؟) "Who (miin) went to Egypt/Cairo? (literally - same order)

The same sentences in Standard Arabic (with all wh words in the beginning of the sentence) would be:

  • mata ðahaba ʔila miṣr ?
  • limaaða ðahaba ʔila miṣr ?
  • man ðahaba ʔila miṣr ?

[edit] Text example

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Egyptian (Arabic script):

الإعلان العالمي لحقوق الإنسان، المادة الأولانية

البني أدمين كلهم مولودين حرين ومتساويين في الكرامة والحقوق. إتوهبلهم العقل والضمير، والمفروض يعاملوا بعض بروح الأخوية.

Egyptian (phonetic transcription):

ʔil-madda ʔil-ʔawwalaniyya

ʔil-baniʔadmiin kulluhum mawluudiin ħurriin wi mitsawwyiin fil-kɑrɑɑmɑ wil-ħuʔuuʔ. ʔitwahab-luhum ʔil-ʕɑʔl wiḍ-ḍɑmiir wil-mɑfruuḍ yiʕamlu bɑʕḍ bi-ruuħ ʔil-ʔuxuwiyya.

English:

Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in the spirit of brotherhood.

[edit] Characteristic Egyptian words and sentences

  • إزيك - ʔizzayyak? ("How are you [m.]")
  • إزيك - ʔizzayyik? ("How are you [f.]")
  • إزيكو - ʔizzayyuku? ("How are you [pl.]")
  • إيه ده - ʔeeh da? ("What's all this?", "What's the point", "What's this?" - expression of annoyance)
    • Ex.: (ʔinta) bitʔulluhum ʕalayya kida leeh, ʔeeh da? "Why are you telling them such things about me, what's all this?"
  • خلاص - xɑlɑɑṣ: several meanings, often adverbial
    • "Stop it!" Ex.: zihiʔt, xɑlɑɑṣ! "I'm annoyed, stop it!"
    • "It's over!", "finally, eventually" Ex.: ʔummi kaanit ʕayyaana wi-maatit, xɑlɑɑṣ. "My mother was ill and died finally." [or "...and it's over now."]
    • "Ok, then!" Ex.: "خلاص، أشوفك بكرة" "xɑlɑɑṣ, ʔaʃuufak bukrɑ" meaning "I'll see you tomorrow then"
  • خالص - xɑɑliṣ "at all"
    • maʕandinaʃ ħaaga nakulha xɑɑliṣ "We have nothing at all to eat."
  • كفاية - kifaaya! ("It's enough!" or "That's enough")
  • يعني - yaʕni ("that's to say" or "meaning" or "y'know")
    • As answer to إنت عامل إيه؟ ʔinta ʕaamil ʔeeh? ("How do you do [m.]?") (as an answer: "I am so so" or "half half" = "not perfect"): يعني إيه؟ yaʕni ʔeeh? ("What does that mean?")
      إمتى هتخلص يعني؟** ʔimta hatxɑllɑṣ yaʕni? ("When are you finishing exactly, then?)
  • بقى - baʔa (particle of enforcement --> "just" in imperative clauses and "well,...then?" in questions)
    • .هاته بقى haatu baʔa! "Just give it to me!"
      عمل إيه بقى؟ ʕamal ʔeeh baʔa? "Well, what did he do then?"

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Abdel-Massih, Ernest T., A. Fathy Bahig (1978). Comprehensive Study of Egyptian Arabic: Conversation Texts, Folk Literature, Cultural Ethnological and Socio Linguistic Notes. Ann Arbor: Univ of Michigan. ISBN 0-932098-11-8.
  • Haeri, Niloofar (2003). Sacred Language, Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-23897-5.
  • Hinds, Martin, El-Said Badawi (1987). A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic. French & European Pubns. ISBN 0-8288-0434-6.
  • Presse, Karl G., Katrine Blanford, Elisabeth A. Moestrup, Iman El-Shoubary (2000). 5 Egyptian-Arabic One Act Plays: A First Reader, Bilingual edition, Museum Tusculanum. ISBN 87-7289-612-4.
  • Youssef, Ahmad Abdel-Hamid (2003). From Pharaoh's Lips: Ancient Egyptian Language in the Arabic of Today. American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 977-424-708-6.

[edit] External links

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